Oddbean new post about login | logout And the book of jasher keeps delivering more Laban, the father of Rachel and Leah, who tricks Jacob into a second 7 year of service by pretending to give Rachel but then giving Leah, because of custom, has a set of "images" - "and some make them in the figures of men, of gold and silver" and these images were imbued with the power of clairvoyance It does not say they were graven, and the thing I get from this is they were icons Rachel steals them from Laban so that Jacob can escape without Laban knowing to where... "images" is the words in the text, not idols.
I also am remiss to mention.. in the Bible and Genesis the "stealing of blessings" In jubilees and in genesis it says the mother tells to wear Jacob to wear scraps of leather to trick Isaac According to Jasher she only says to get goats to substitute for the venison, the story in it is very short. Kinda seems like maybe in these other versions simply the delusion of esau the red hairy hunter boy is what ended up in the text I might have to double check if I remembered that correctly, but I distinctly recall nothing about the fuzzy leather trick And also to refresh myself about who is the mother and her history
yes, Rebecca, the mother, says to go bring two goats and prepare them to make the offering (bbq) before Esau returns from the hunt Jacob just straight up lies and says "i am esau" when dad asks who it is and he eats and is happy and does the blessing just a small detail, still a deception, and interesting the difference
honestly, if dad can't hear the difference, i suspect the account is wrong i don't think any of the versions are correct precisely the consequences of this supposed "stealing of blessing" are enormous, the entire rest of these two, Jacob and Esau's lives, are changed by this event, and yet it is very clear that the critical details, the origin story, are incomplete
also, thematically it is virtually the identical story as cain and abel and their offerings to the lord, and the chip on his shoulder that cain gets out of it that leads him to murder his brother and interesting differences jacob is a herder, abel was a herder esau was a hunter, cain was a gardener something tells me that there's more to this than meets the eye, and the common factor of being an animal husband is central to it all of the animals that are "kosher" or "halal" are domesticated, i think that's part of it i can't help but notice as i am surrounded by people raising sheep, goats and cows, mostly in very small lots, the cows usually just one poor lil boi by himself all lonely, and they stare at you, like, they clearly want you to come up and say hello, the sheep do it, the goats do it, and the cows do it the chooks, funny enough, are the same, the number of times i've had them all scamper towards the corner of the enclosure if i decide to alight there and stay for a bit and say hello, they all think i'm good to be around, and usually they have never seen me before these animals, that are good for us to eat LIKE us