Today we begin Genesis Chapter 32. For the Complete Jewish Bible, click here. If you prefer the King James version, click here. “And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God’s host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim. […]
31-5: Jacob and Laban enter into a peace treaty with each other
After Laban finishes searching every tent in Jacob’s party and fails to find his god idols, Jacob’s long pent-up anger explodes. “These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried their young, and I have not eaten the rams of your flock. That which was torn by beasts I did not […]
31-4: Ideas of ritual impurity were prevalent 500 years before Moses
Now Rachel had taken the household idols, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. And Laban searched all about the tent but did not find them. And she said to her father, “Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is with me.” And he searched […]
31-3: God can and does speak to unbelievers
Then God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and said to him, “Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.” -Genesis 31:24 Realizing that the keys to the family kingdom, his family gods, had been stolen, Laban and his men mount up a posse and go in hot […]
31-2: The importance of the family gods in Mesopotamian tradition
Rachel and Leah answered him, “We no longer have any inheritance from our father’s possessions; and he considers us foreigners, since he has sold us; moreover, he has consumed everything he received in exchange for us. Nevertheless, the wealth which God has taken away from our father has become ours and our children’s anyway; so whatever […]