HOWDY MY NAME IS JACOB

Now I know you have heard some bad things about me, some, even most are true but I’m not all bad.

Basically my problems were of a family nature. My brother and I were twins and struggled within the womb of our mother. When being birthed my brother prevailed and was born first. Although I grabbed on to his heel, and was born a minute later it didn’t count, he was the first born with all the rights that went with it.

I felt that I should have been born first and there was an inherent innate enmity between us.

As you have probably heard I tricked him into giving me the birthright, and that put me in line for the physical rights. There was another thing I desired, and that was the father’s blessing that was passed on from father to son which dealt with the things pertaining to the spiritual.

With the help of my mother I deceived my dad, and he bestowed the blessing upon me, and it was irreversible, once given, it was a done deal. When my brother found out what I had done he was upset, for I had taken all that was his legal rights.

He was mad enough to plan to kill me and he said so. Upon hearing this, my father sent me away to the land from whence we came to visit my uncle and seek a wife.

I know that I don’t please everybody but I had larger issues to deal with. On the way to Haran I decided to sack out for awhile, and as I slept I dreamed and GOD spoke to me and gave me a promise like the one he gave to Abraham.

Well as you might expect I got all excited and made a vow saying if you do what you promised then you will be my GOD and I will start to tithe.

I met some people from Haran and they told me that they knew uncle Laban.

About that time this young girl was bringing her sheep to water them at the well, and come to find out she was a cousin and the daughter of Laban. I told her who I was and planted a big kiss on her. I found out her name was Rachel and she brought me to her father. Uncle Laban sure knew how to throw a party for me and I hung around for a month and started to do some chores for him.

Laban had two daughters; one was Leah who was pretty plain while the Rachel was beautiful. I told Laban I would work for seven years for Rachel and he said okay.

Now I was pretty sneaky, but this Laban made me look like an amateur when it came to deceit. I worked the full seven years and was looking forward to claiming my bride for after all she was getting older and I didn’t want to marry an older woman.

Everything was all set and I was surely ready for the wedding. There was plenty of wine and song and I wanted my wife. I had drunk more than I should have, but at long last Laban brought me my wife and we consummated the marriage.

Next morning I woke up and looked at her, and, well, I can’t describe the feeling that went through me. The woman lying next to me, the one I had sex with, was not Rachel but Leah.

I almost passed out!! When I recovered enough to move around I headed for Laban’s tent and lit into him calling him several names. After I had ran out of steam he explained that the custom was the older sister had to marry first and the only way to get to a younger sister was to first get the older one married.

I said; why didn’t you explain that beforehand to which he replied; that is something you should have known.

Then he said; I’ll tell you what I will do, you go ahead and do your duty for her week and then you can marry Rachel if you work seven more years for me, to which I agreed.

So here I am, seven years in debt, two wives and their maids to support and Leah was pregnant, actually she kept getting pregnant because she wasn’t that ugly. But then after Judah was born she could have no more children at least for awhile.

Because Rachel couldn’t get pregnant she brought me her maid and said have sex with her and see what happens. What happened was she had two boys. Well then Leah decided she would give me her maid, Zilpah to wife and she had two sons for me. After this Leah had prayed, and she had her fifth child and then had her sixth boy. And then she had a girl and called her Dinah.

Finally Rachel conceived and produced a boy named Joseph and then she later died in childbirth, with a son named Benjamin.

I manage to out smart Laban after my debt was paid for the wives and I became very prosperous while Laban was getting poorer. This caused some hard feelings, and I decided it was time to leave.

The end of the story is that when I came there, I had little, but when I left I was rich with four wives, a dozen kids and flocks and herds. All the details are written in the record and I encourage you to read it.