Jacob prepared gifts to send Esau: a flock of two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats; another of two hundred ewes and twenty rams; a drove of thirty milch-camels with their colts; a herd of forty cows and ten bulls; another of twenty she-asses with ten foals. He told his herdsmen to ford the Jabbok in turns, leaving intervals of a bowshot between flocks, herds, and droves; and to answer Esau, when questioned: ‘These beasts are a gift to my lord Esau from his slave Jacob, who follows humbly behind, desiring your favour.’
The herdsmen obeyed, and Esau treated them well; but Jacob delayed on the farther bank, while sending his whole household ahead, over the ford.353
(b) Left alone that evening, Jacob was attacked by an unseen presence, who wrestled with him all night and shrank the sinew of his thigh, so that he limped ever afterwards. At last the adversary cried: ‘Let go, for dawn is near!’ Jacob answered: ‘I will not let go unless you bless me!’ ‘What is your name?’ his adversary inquired and, when Jacob gave it, said: ‘Henceforth you shall be called “Israel”, because you have wrestled with God and with men, and remain undefeated.’ Jacob then asked: ‘And what is your name?’, but was answered: ‘Why inquire? Is it not enough that I give you my blessing?’ Jacob cried: ‘I have seen God’s countenance, and am still alive!’ So the place was called ‘Peniel’; and because of the injury done to Jacob’s thigh, no Israelite since eats the thigh sinew of any beast.354
(c) Some say that God assumed the shape of a shepherd, or a brigand chief, who led Jacob’s herds across the ford in return for help with his own; and that, when they went back to see whether any beast had been overlooked, He began to wrestle. Others say that Jacob’s adversary was not God but Samael, the celestial guardian of Edom, trying to destroy Jacob; and that the heavenly hosts made ready to fly down if summoned. Yet God said: ‘My servant Jacob needs no aid; his virtue protects him!’355
(d) Others, again, say that Jacob’s adversary was Michael and that, when he cried, ‘Let go, for dawn is near!’, Jacob exclaimed: ‘Are you then a thief, or a gambler, that you fear dawn?’ To which Michael replied: ‘No, but at dawn we angels must sing God’s praises.’ Observing Jacob’s lameness, God questioned Michael: ‘What have you done to My first-born son?’ Michael answered: ‘I shrank a sinew in Your honour.’ God said: ‘It is good. Henceforth, until the end of time, you shall have charge of Israel and his posterity! For the prince of angels should guard the prince of men; fire should guard fire, and head guard head!’356
(e) Still others say that Michael fought Jacob because he failed to pay the tithes vowed at Bethel twenty years earlier; and that, next morning, Jacob repentantly sacrificed victims by the hundred, also dedicating his son Levi as God’s priest and collector of tithes.357
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1. Mahanaim (‘Two Camps’), the name of which is here given two alternative explanations, stood on the banks of the Jabbok River, some six miles eastward from Jordan, and became one of Solomon’s twelve capital cities.
2. Each stage in Jacob’s wanderings is charged with mythic significance. He founds settlements at Bethel, Mizpeh, Mahanaim, Peniel, Succoth—all of which derive their names from one of his acts or sayings—though the chronicler has omitted to mention that the Jabbok was so called because there Jacob ‘strove’ (yeabheq) with God. Later commentators made him foresee the far-reaching effect of what he said or did. Thus, his order to the herdsmen ‘Put a space betwixt drove and drove!’ (Genesis XXII. 17), was read as advising his descendants always to keep a reserve for use in emergencies; and he is said to have prayed: ‘Lord, when disasters fall upon Your children, pray leave a space between them, as I have done!’
3. Jacob speaks in the first person singular when referring to his kinship group (Genesis XXXII. 12; XXXIV. 30–31), and after the new name is accepted (XLIII. 6, 11; XLV. 28), his identification with the Israelite people becomes more and more pronounced (XLVI. 1–4). God tells him: ‘Fear not to go down to Egypt, for there I shall make of thee a great nation… and I shall also surely bring thee up again!’ And in Genesis XLVIII. 20, Jacob himself uses ‘Israel’ instead of ‘Children of Israel’.
4. The widely differing midrashic views of this wrestling match between Jacob and the ‘man’ whom he afterwards identifies with God, are all prompted by pious embarrassment. God, the transcendental God of later Judaism, could never have demeaned himself by wrestling with a mortal and then begging him to release his hold. In any case, if He loved Jacob so well, and was so perfectly loved in return, why should they have struggled? And if the adversary was only an angel, should he be identified with Gabriel or Michael, or rather with the fallen angel Samael? Nevertheless, the notion that a pious man can struggle against God in prayer, and force Him to grant a blessing, was theologically admissible; Rachel had used the wrestling metaphor when she won her adoptive son ‘Naphtali’ from Him.
5. To make historic sense of this myth, one must ask such questions as these: on what occasion does a tribal hero wrestle? On what occasion does he change his name? What was the nature of Jacob’s thigh injury? What was its magical effect? How is it related to the taboo on eating the flesh around thigh sinews? Why is this anecdote interpolated in the myth of Jacob’s reunion with Esau? And since it seems historically agreed that ‘Israel’ at first contained only the Rachel tribes, what part does Rachel play here?
6. The answers are perhaps as follows. A tribal hero changes his name either when he commits manslaughter, flees from his country and is adopted by another tribe—but this does not apply to Jacob—or when he ascends a throne, or occupies a new country. The latter seems to have been the reason for Abraham’s change of name (see 31. 3). Jacob’s crossing of the Jabbok signified an important change in his position: hitherto he had been a hired servant of Laban, his father-in-law; now he was an independent chieftain, ready to enter and occupy his own tribal lands, secure in a parental blessing and a divine promise.
7. Arabic lexicographers explain that the nature of the lameness produced by injury to the sinew of the thigh-socket causes a person so afflicted to walk on the tips of his toes. Such a dislocation of the hip is common among wrestlers and was first described by Harpocrates. Displacement of the femur-head lengthens the leg, tightens the thigh tendons, and puts the muscles into spasm—which makes for a rolling, swaggering walk, with the heel permanently raised, like that attributed by Homer to the God Hephaestus. A belief that contact with the jinn results in a loose-mannered gait as though disjointed, is found among the Arabs: perhaps a memory of the limping dance performed by devotees who believed themselves divinely possessed, like the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings XVIII. 26). Beth Hoglah, near Jericho may have been so called for this reason, because hajala in Arabic means to hobble or hop, and both Jerome and Eusebius call Beth Hoglah ‘the place of the ring-dance’. The Tyrians performed such limping dances in honour of Hercules Melkarth. It is possible therefore that the Peniel myth originally accounts for a limping ceremony which commemorated Jacob’s triumphal entry into Canaan after wrestling with a rival.
8. The explanation of the name Israel in Genesis XXXII. 29 is popular etymology. In theophorous titles, the element containing the deity’s name is the subject, not the object. Israel therefore means ‘El strives’, rather than ‘He strove with El’; just as the original form of Jacob, Ya‘qobel, means ‘El protects’ (see 38. 6), and just as the original meaning of Jerubbaal was not ‘He fights against Baal’ (Judges VI. 32), but ‘Baal fights’. The intention of names such as these was to enlist divine help for those who bore them. Israel thus meant ‘El strives against my enemies’.
9. The prime enemy to be faced by Jacob upon crossing the Jabbok was his twin Esau, from whose just anger he had fled twenty years before. In fact, one midrash presents Esau as Jacob’s unknown adversary at Peniel, an identification based on his likening Esau’s countenance to God’s (Genesis XXXIII. 10). The midrashic statement that Rachel was afraid of being married to Esau (see 45. a) hints at an added motive for the twins’ struggle: the riv
alry for a beautiful woman, which already had occasioned, according to one version, the first fratricidal combat between Cain and Abel (see 16. d). But more than the love of a mortal woman may have been at stake. If Rachel stands for the Rachel tribes that were to be, then the fight between the twins is a mythical struggle for supremacy over tribal territories. Jacob won and sealed his victory by rich expiatory gifts to Esau, who thereupon vacated the land and withdrew to Seir (Genesis XXXVI. 6–8).
10. The Exodus account of Moses, the only other Israelite hero with whom God wrestled, curiously resembles Jacob’s. Moses flees from Egypt in disgrace, serves Jethro the Midianite as a herdsman for the hand of his daughter Zipporah, whom he has treated courteously at a well and, returning home accompanied by his wife and sons, after a fiery vision of God—is suddenly attacked on the way by a supernatural being. Zipporah thereupon circumcises him—circumcision being, as the context shows, part of the marriage ceremony—and he later rules a Midianite-Israelite federation.
11. Nevertheless, struggles in nightmares caused by an unquiet conscience provide a common enough metaphor for struggles with God who, according to Hosea XIII. 7, became to the sinful people ‘as a lion, as a leopard which watches on the way’. Nor could God’s hand be readily distinguished from Satan’s. Thus the plague punishing David’s sin was sent by God in one version (2 Samuel XXIV. 1), but by Satan in another (1 Chronicles XXI. 1); which justifies the midrash’s identification of Jacob’s adversary with Samael. The adversary’s refusal to give his name does not necessarily make him God, although God later refuses to disclose His to Moses (Exodus III. 14), or to Manoah, Samuel’s father (Judges XIII. 17–18); because all deities were chary of revealing their names lest these might be used for improper purposes—which is the original sense of ‘blasphemy’. Witches and sorcerers, throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, used long lists of divine names to strengthen their spells. The Romans had a habit of discovering the secret names of enemy gods by bribery or torture, and then enticing them to desert their cities: a technique known as elicio. Jesus, when expelling a devil from the madman at Gerasa, first demands his name (Mark V. 9).
12. Thigh-bones were sacred to the gods in Greece as well as Palestine and constituted the royal portion among the Hebrews (1 Samuel IX. 24). The practice of the Central African Bagiushu tribe—as reported by Mgr. Terhoorst, a Roman Catholic missionary—supports the anthropological rule ‘No taboo without its particular relaxation.’ The Bagiushu, though otherwise not cannibalistic, eat the flesh-covered thigh-bones of their dead chieftain, or of an enemy chieftain killed in battle, to inherit his courage; and leave all other parts of the body untouched. It cannot be proved that this practice prevailed in Biblical Canaan, but Samuel’s dismemberment of the sacred King Agag ‘before the Lord’ is read by some scholars as a eucharistic human sacrifice akin to the Arabic naqi‘a.
48
RECONCILIATION OF JACOB AND ESAU
(a) Jacob saw Esau approach with four hundred men. He divided his household into two camps: Bilhah, Zilpah and their children were in the advance camp; Rachel, Leah and their children in the other. But Jacob found courage to go ahead of them all and prostrate himself seven times as he neared Esau.
Esau ran towards his brother, embraced and kissed him; both of them weeping for joy. Then he inquired: ‘Whose are yonder children?’ Jacob answered: ‘God in His mercy has given them to your slave; and these, my lord, are their mothers.’ They all came forward in turn and bowed low before Esau, who asked: ‘And yonder herds and droves, Brother, were they truly your gift to me?’ Jacob replied: ‘I trust that they will please my lord.’ Esau thanked him kindly, but said: ‘No, Brother, already I have more than enough livestock for my needs. Keep what is yours!’ Jacob insisted: ‘In token of your favour, my lord, pray deign to accept these poor gifts. I have seen my lord’s countenance shine like God’s. Indulge me this once, and take all, with your slave’s blessing; for God in His mercy has greatly enriched me.’
To set Jacob’s mind at ease, Esau accepted them, and said: ‘Come, ride with me to my city in Seir!’ Jacob answered: ‘My lord knows that I cannot travel so fast as he. Let him go ahead of his slave, who rides at a pace to suit the lambs, kids, calves, foals and little children. It will be weeks before we can reach my lord’s city.’
Esau said: ‘May I at least leave men to escort you?’
‘Pray do not trouble, my lord!’ Jacob cried.
So Esau rode home, while Jacob proceeded to Succoth and there built himself a house, and shelters for his flocks and herds.358
(b) Some say that Jacob’s message to Esau was: ‘Thus speaks your slave Jacob: let my lord not think that the stolen blessing has stood me in good stead! Laban, during the twenty years of my service to him, deceived me time after time, grudging my wages, although I laboured faithfully. Yet God in His mercy at last bestowed oxen, asses, flocks, slaves, and bondmaids on your servant. I am now come to Canaan, hoping for my lord’s pardon when he hears this humble and truthful account.’
Esau is said to have answered the messengers contemptuously: ‘Laban’s sons have told me of your master Jacob’s ingratitude: that he stole flocks and herds by sorcery, then fled without notice, abducting my cousins Leah and Rachel as though they were prisoners of war. The report does not astonish me: for this was how your master treated me too, long ago. I suffered in silence then; but now I shall ride out with an armed company and punish him as he deserves.’359
(c) Some say that when the brothers met they were moved by true affection; that Esau forgave Jacob as they kissed and embraced; and that equal loving-kindness was shown between the many cousins, their children. Others, however, say that when Esau fell upon Jacob’s neck, he tried to bite through his jugular vein, but the neck became hard as ivory, blunting Esau’s teeth, which he therefore gnashed in futile rage.360
(d) God reproved Jacob for calling Esau ‘my lord’, and himself ‘your slave’. He also said: ‘By likening Esau’s countenance to Mine, you have profaned what is holy!’ Jacob answered: ‘Lord of the Universe, pardon the fault! For the sake of peace I flattered the Wicked One, so that he should not kill me and my people.’ God cried: ‘Then, by your life, I will confirm what you have said: henceforth, Israel shall be Edom’s slave in this world, though his master in the next. And, because you called Esau “my lord” eight times, I shall cause eight kings to reign in Edom before any rise to rule over Israel!’ And so it came about. The eight kings of Edom were Bela, son of Beor; Jobab, son of Zerah; Husham; Hadad, son of Bedad; Samlah; Saul; Baal-Hanan, son of Achbor; and Hadar.361
(e) Jacob gave Esau pearls and precious stones, as well as flocks and herds, knowing that no virtue lies in treasure got abroad, and that these gifts would return to his descendants. What was left over, he sold; and, heaping the gold together, asked Esau: ‘Will you sell me your share of Machpelah for this heap of gold?’ Esau agreed, and Jacob set himself to acquire more wealth in the blessed Land of Israel.362
(f) Jacob also prophesied: ‘Edom shall oppress Israel for centuries; but at last all the nations of the world will rise, taking from him land after land, city after city until, thrown back upon Beth Gubrin, he finds the Messiah of Israel lying in wait. Fleeing thence to Bozrah, Edom will cry: “Have You not set Bozrah aside, O Lord, as a city of refuge?” God shall seize Edom by his locks and answer: “The avenger of blood must destroy this murderer!”, whereupon Elijah will slaughter him, spattering God’s garment with Edom’s blood.’363
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1. The Genesis account consistently favours Esau at Jacob’s expense: not only by modem ethical standards, but by those of ancient Palestine. Esau refrains from vengeance and fratricide, remains dutiful to his parents, worships Isaac’s God and, no longer a wild and improvident hunter, succeeds so well as a pastoralist that he can afford to refuse a large gift of livestock in compensation for the theft of his blessing. Moreover, instead of repudiating the sale of the birthright, forced on him while he was starving, he peaceably evacuates the Canaa
nite pastures to which the agreement entitled Jacob, calls the cowardly wretch ‘brother’, weeps with pleasure at his return and, though Jacob’s guilty conscience prompts him to shameful obsequiousness, forgives wholeheartedly. Then he rides back to prepare a royal welcome on Mount Seir—an invitation studiously neglected by Jacob.
It was a Jewish commonplace that the worst day in Israel’s history had not been when Sennacherib led the Northern tribes into captivity, nor when Solomon’s temple was destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar; but when seventy scholars translated the Scriptures into Greek at the command of Ptolemy II (285–246 B.C.). These Scriptures, which contained records of evil deeds done by their ancestors and reminders of God’s punishment for continual backsliding, should never, it was thought, have been divulged to Israel’s enemies. The Jacob-Esau myth must have embarrassed Jews of the Dispersal more than any other, since Jacob was Israel incarnate and they were heirs to his faults as well as his merits. Nor could midrashic glosses on the Genesis account—denigrating Esau and excusing Jacob—alter the scholarly text of the ‘Septuagint’.
2. Again the puzzling question arises: how did the Israelites come to libel their eponymous ancestor in favour of their national enemy? The sole acceptable answer can be that the myth originated in Edom, and was brought to Jerusalem by Calebite and Kenazite clansmen early incorporated into Judah (see 42. 4). Judah was a son of Leah, traditionally opposed both to Benjamin—the Rachel tribe whose royal dynasty he overthrew, and whose territory he swallowed—and to the other four Rachel tribes, Ephraim, Manasseh, Gad, and Naphtali, which formed the hard core of the Northern Kingdom. Leah’s hatred of Rachel is admitted in Genesis; and the tradition of ‘Israel’ as originally consisting of Rachel tribes, with whom the Leah tribes made an uncomfortable alliance, will have encouraged the Edomite aristocracy of Judah—Caleb held Hebron and the ancestral shrine of Machpelah—to glorify their ancestor Esau at Israel’s expense. Moreover, by the time that Genesis was committed to writing, the Southern Kingdom of Judaea had temporarily lost its martial pride; and Jacob’s art of patient survival by bending yet never breaking, by using subterfuge instead of force, and by never accepting any but the Mosaic Law, passed as the height of wisdom.