The Living Bible (11 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him and said to him, “Don’t marry one of these Canaanite girls.
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Instead, go at once to Paddan-aram, to the house of your grandfather
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Bethuel, and marry one of your cousins—your Uncle
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Laban’s daughters.
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God Almighty bless you and give you many children; may you become a great nation of many tribes!
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May God pass on to you and to your descendants the mighty blessings promised to Abraham. May you own this land where we now are foreigners, for God has given it to Abraham.”
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So Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Paddan-aram to visit his Uncle Laban, his mother’s brother—the son of Bethuel the Aramean.
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Esau realized that his father despised the local girls, and that his father and mother had sent Jacob to Paddan-aram, with his father’s blessing, to get a wife from there, and that they had strictly warned him against marrying a Canaanite girl, and that Jacob had agreed and had left for Paddan-aram.
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So Esau went to his Uncle Ishmael’s family and married another wife from there, besides the wives he already had. Her name was Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth, and daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son.
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So Jacob left Beer-sheba and journeyed toward Haran.
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That night, when he stopped to camp at sundown, he found a rock for a headrest and lay down to sleep,
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and dreamed that a staircase
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reached from earth to heaven, and he saw the angels of God going up and down upon it.
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At the top of the stairs stood the Lord. “I am Jehovah,” he said, “the God of Abraham, and of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on is yours! I will give it to you and to your descendants.
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For you will have descendants as many as dust! They will cover the land from east to west and from north to south; and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.
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What’s more, I am with you, and will protect you wherever you go, and will bring you back safely to this land; I will be with you constantly until I have finished giving you all I am promising.”
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Then Jacob woke up. “God lives here!” he exclaimed in terror. “I’ve stumbled into his home! This is the awesome entrance to heaven!”
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The next morning he got up very early and set his stone headrest upright as a memorial pillar, and poured olive oil over it.
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He named the place Bethel (“House of God”), though the previous name of the nearest village
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was Luz.
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And Jacob vowed this vow to God: “If God will help and protect me on this journey and give me food and clothes,
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and will bring me back safely to my father, then I will choose Jehovah as my God!
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And this memorial pillar shall become a place for worship; and I will give you back a tenth of everything you give me!”
Jacob traveled on, finally arriving in the land of the East.
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He saw in the distance three flocks of sheep lying beside a well in an open field, waiting to be watered. But a heavy stone covered the mouth of the well.
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(The custom was that the stone was not removed until all the flocks were there. After watering them, the stone was rolled back over the mouth of the well again.)
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Jacob went over to the shepherds and asked them where they lived.
“At Haran,” they said.
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“Do you know a fellow there named Laban, the son of Nahor?”
“We sure do.”
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“How is he?”
“He’s well and prosperous. Look, there comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep.”
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“Why don’t you water the flocks so they can get back to grazing?” Jacob asked. “They’ll be hungry if you stop so early in the day!”
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“We don’t roll away the stone and begin the watering until all the flocks and shepherds are here,” they replied.
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As this conversation was going on, Rachel arrived with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess.
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And because she was his cousin—the daughter of his mother’s brother—and because the sheep were his uncle’s, Jacob went over to the well and rolled away the stone and watered his uncle’s flock.
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Then Jacob kissed Rachel and started crying!
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He explained about being her cousin on her father’s side, and that he was her Aunt Rebekah’s son. She quickly ran and told her father, Laban, and as soon as he heard of Jacob’s arrival, he rushed out to meet him and greeted him warmly and brought him home. Then Jacob told him his story.
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“Just think, my very own flesh and blood,” Laban exclaimed.
After Jacob had been there about a month,
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Laban said to him one day, “Just because we are relatives is no reason for you to work for me without pay. How much do you want?”
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Now Laban had two daughters, Leah, the older, and her younger sister, Rachel.
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Leah had lovely eyes, but Rachel was shapely, and in every way a beauty.
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Well, Jacob was in love with Rachel. So he told her father, “I’ll work for you seven years if you’ll give me Rachel as my wife.”
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“Agreed!” Laban replied. “I’d rather give her to you than to someone outside the family.”
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So Jacob spent the next seven years working to pay for Rachel. But they seemed to him but a few days, he was so much in love.
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Finally the time came for him to marry her.
“I have fulfilled my contract,” Jacob said to Laban. “Now give me my wife, so that I can sleep with her.”
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So Laban invited all the men of the settlement to celebrate with Jacob at a big party.
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Afterwards, that night, when it was dark, Laban took Leah to Jacob, and he slept with her.
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(And Laban gave to Leah a servant girl, Zilpah, to be her maid.)
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But in the morning—it was Leah!
“What sort of trick is this?” Jacob raged at Laban. “I worked for seven years for Rachel. What do you mean by this trickery?”
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“It’s not our custom to marry off a younger daughter ahead of her sister,” Laban replied smoothly.
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“Wait until the bridal week is over and you can have Rachel too—if you promise to work for me another seven years!”
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So Jacob agreed to work seven more years. Then Laban gave him Rachel, too.
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And Laban gave to Rachel a servant girl, Bilhah, to be her maid.
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So Jacob slept with Rachel, too, and he loved her more than Leah, and stayed and worked the additional seven years.
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But because Jacob was slighting Leah, Jehovah let her have a child, while Rachel was barren.
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So Leah became pregnant and had a son, Reuben (meaning “God has noticed my trouble”), for she said, “Jehovah has noticed my trouble—now my husband will love me.”
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She soon became pregnant again and had another son and named him Simeon (meaning “Jehovah heard”), for she said, “Jehovah heard that I was unloved, and so he has given me another son.”
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Again she became pregnant and had a son, and named him Levi (meaning “Attachment”) for she said, “Surely now my husband will feel affection for me, since I have given him three sons!”
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Once again she was pregnant and had a son and named him Judah (meaning “Praise”), for she said, “Now I will praise Jehovah!” And then she stopped having children.
Rachel, realizing she was barren, became envious of her sister. “Give me children or I’ll die,” she exclaimed to Jacob.
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Jacob flew into a rage. “Am I God?” he flared. “He is the one who is responsible for your barrenness.”
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Then Rachel told him, “Sleep with my servant girl Bilhah, and her children will be mine.”
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So she gave him Bilhah to be his wife, and he slept with her,
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and she became pregnant and presented him with a son.
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Rachel named him Dan (meaning “Justice”),
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for she said, “God has given me justice, and heard my plea and given me a son.”
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Then Bilhah, Rachel’s servant girl, became pregnant again and gave Jacob a second son.
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Rachel named him Naphtali (meaning “Wrestling”), for she said, “I am in a fierce contest with my sister and I am winning!”
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Meanwhile, when Leah realized that she wasn’t getting pregnant anymore, she gave her servant girl Zilpah to Jacob, to be his wife,
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and soon Zilpah presented him with a son.
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Leah named him Gad (meaning “My luck has turned!”).
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Then Zilpah produced a second son,
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and Leah named him Asher (meaning “Happy”), for she said, “What joy is mine! The other women will think me blessed indeed!”
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One day during the wheat harvest, Reuben found some mandrakes
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growing in a field and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel begged Leah to give some of them to her.
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But Leah angrily replied, “Wasn’t it enough to steal my husband? And now will you steal my son’s mandrakes too?”
Rachel said sadly, “He will sleep with you tonight because of the mandrakes.”
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That evening as Jacob was coming home from the fields, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me tonight!” she said; “for I am hiring you with some mandrakes my son has found!” So he did.
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And God answered her prayers and she became pregnant again, and gave birth to her fifth son.
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She named him Issachar (meaning “Wages”), for she said, “God has repaid me for giving my slave girl to my husband.”
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Then once again she became pregnant, with a sixth son.
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She named him Zebulun (meaning “Gifts”), for she said, “God has given me good gifts for my husband. Now he will honor me, for I have given him six sons.”
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Afterwards she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah.
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Then God remembered about Rachel’s plight, and answered her prayers by giving her a child.
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For she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. “God has removed the dark slur against my name,” she said. And she named him Joseph (meaning “May I also have another!”), for she said, “May Jehovah give me another son.”
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Soon after the birth of Joseph to Rachel, Jacob said to Laban, “I want to go back home.
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Let me take my wives and children—for I earned them from you—and be gone, for you know how fully I have paid for them with my service to you.”
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“Please don’t leave me,” Laban replied, “for a fortune-teller that I consulted
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told me that the many blessings I’ve been enjoying are all because of your being here.
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How much of a raise do you need to get you to stay? Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”
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Jacob replied, “You know how faithfully I’ve served you through these many years, and how your flocks and herds have grown.
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For it was little indeed you had before I came, and your wealth has increased enormously; Jehovah has blessed you from everything I do! But now, what about me? When should I provide for my own family?”
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“What wages do you want?” Laban asked again.
Jacob replied, “If you will do one thing, I’ll go back to work for you. Let me go out among your flocks today and remove all the goats that are speckled or spotted, and all the black sheep. Give them to me as my wages.
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Then if you ever find any white goats or sheep in my flock, you will know that I have stolen them from you!”
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“All right!” Laban replied. “It shall be as you have said!”
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So that very day Laban went out and formed a flock for Jacob of all the male goats that were ringed and spotted, and the females that were speckled and spotted with any white patches, and all of the black sheep. He gave them to Jacob’s sons to take them three days’ distance, and Jacob stayed and cared for Laban’s flock.
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Then Jacob took fresh shoots from poplar, almond, and sycamore trees, and peeled white streaks in them,
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and placed these rods beside the watering troughs so that Laban’s flocks would see them when they came to drink; for that is when they mated.
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So the flocks mated before the white-streaked rods, and their offspring were streaked and spotted, and Jacob added them to his flock. Then he divided out the ewes from Laban’s flock and segregated them from the rams, and let them mate only with Jacob’s black rams. Thus he built his flocks from Laban’s.
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Moreover, he watched for the stronger animals to mate, and placed the peeled branches before them,
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but didn’t with the feebler ones. So the less healthy lambs were Laban’s and the stronger ones were Jacob’s!
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As a result, Jacob’s flocks increased rapidly and he became very wealthy, with many servants, camels, and donkeys.