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| Here he is about to either kill or rape this angel. |
Jacob is part of a select pantheon of Biblical "heroes" who just do not give a fuck what anyone thinks, proving themselves to be as awesome as they are utterly insane. Along with such probable psychopaths as Joshua, Ehud and Samson, Jacob belongs to the club that takes the Old Testament to the level of crazy that kept Alex from A Clockwork Orange entertained in prison. He's a shit-distuber on such an epic level that throughout the course of his story he tells genetics they can fuck themselves and, oh yeah, wrestles God to the ground.
Booyah.
It all begins with the story of Jacob and his freakishly hairy twin brother, Esau. One day, Esau came in from the fields literally dying of hunger. Why he didn't pack a granola bar or something before leaving that morning, who knows, but one day he came in and begged:
"Feed me, I pray thee, with some of that red pottage; for I am faint." - Genesis 25:30.
Pottage is like a vegetable stew, so I'm told, and it so happened that Jacob was fucking awesome at making it. It should also be noted that Esau was literally about to die if he didn't get something to eat, like, right now. So what did Jacob do? He told Esau he could take his starvation and shove it, unless he gave Jacob his inheritance:
"And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright." - Genesis 25:31.
Yes, he refused to save his brother's life until Esau coughed up everything he would inherit upon the death of their father, Isaac. Jacob is that kind of person (you know - a hero!). Don't think that Esau is some kind of villain or anything, either. He's done nothing to warrant this kind of treatment whatsoever. His only fault is that he ended up with a raging dickwad for a brother. Esau, not seeing any other option here, begrudgingly sold his birthright to Jacob so that he could, you know, not die.
Believe it or not, that's not even the worst thing Jacob did to his poor brother. Genesis 27 tells the story of how Jacob also swindled Esau out of their father's blessing, which he was supposed to bestow on the elder twin from his deathbed. That may not seem like much, but to Biblical characters receiving a blessing is a big fucking deal, and it's not like they can just give blessings out like Halloween candy - there's a limited supply of these things and having it stolen is like having some jerk steal your inheritance or someth--oh, wait.
And yet, the fact that Jacob does steal his brother's blessing isn't nearly as terrible as how he does it. Remember that Esau was born a freakshow attraction on account of his being extremely fucking hairy.
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| Pictured: only known photograph of Esau. |
So Jacob, on the suggestion of his mother, Rebekah, covered himself in goat skins to mimic Esau's cuddly softness. Then he approached his blind, dying father, Isaac, served him soup and had him touch the goat skins to confirm that yes, this is my freakishly hairy child. Then he blessed him, just in time for Esau to walk in and freak the fuck out that Jacob had not only stolen his blessing, but had also deceived their father. (Did I mention he was fucking blind and dying?) Isaac, in turn, freaked the hell out that he had just inadvertently made his younger, likely psychopathic younger son lord and master over the sane elder one.
But those are just Jacob's early years, and people in the Bible live for freaking ever (like, centuries), so he had plenty of time to rack up more crazy points. When it came time for him to marry, Jacob set his sights on Rachel, the beautiful daughter of a chieftain-type dude named Laban. Laban decided that he would allow Jacob to marry Rachel after he had worked for him for seven years. And that Jacob did, slaving away seven years to finally marry the woman he loved. Awww, what a beautiful tale of undying love and devotion.
Oh, wait, no. We just haven't had our prescribed dose of batshit insanity yet. The marriage went ahead as planned and the wedding night passed, but in the morning Jacob rolled over (presumably very hung-over) and realized that it wasn't Rachel beside him at all.
"And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah." - Genesis 29:25.
It was her sister. Oh, shit.
You see, Leah was Rachel's elder, and it was a custom in Labanland (that is, it was his family's rule) that siblings marry in order of their ages. So after slaving away all this time, Rachel couldn't marry Jacob at all. Because Leah hadn't yet gotten hitched.
Kind of a fitting punishment for a trickster like Jacob, isn't it? It would probably be a little awkward to be Leah (okay, maybe horrifyingly awkward), but for the guy who destroyed his own brother's life to have worked all this time to marry the wrong woman? Priceless. Though it does raise a few questions. How did Jacob not notice he had married (and had sex with) someone who definitely was not Rachel? Did Laban think Jacob wouldn't notice, or was he just hoping that once he was married to her, Jacob would just go "eh, close enough!" and keep her around? What did Leah think about marrying a man who clearly wanted her little sister instead of her?
If you think any of these questions are going to be answered, clearly this is your first time here.
So instead of divorcing her, "accidentally" handing her off to Pharaoh ala Abraham, or, I dunno, demanding Laban to let him marry the woman he was damn-well working to marry, Jacob keeps Leah around and gets back to work. His mission: marry fucking Rachel. There are no more sisters in the way, so it should work this time around. Another seven years pass (that's fourteen freaking years of hard labour, for those of you who are really bad at math) and finally, finally, Jacob and Rachel marry.
This might be romantic. I mean, fourteen years is a really freaking long time to work to bone someone. That shows some massive dedication (or insanity, I suppose) on Jacob's part. Except that, you know, Jacob kept Leah as a second wife. Yay, polygamy, which is expressly forbidden in Leviticus just two books from now! Oh well, if there's one thing the religious right has taught me it's that we only listen to Leviticus when we want to anyway! Hooray!
So Jacob and Leah and Rachel get it on, presumably in the kinds of kinky threesomes that we ignore are forbidden, getting into a baby-making contest that eventually culminates in the birth of ...
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| He was born this way. |
But that's another story.
Before Joseph could prove himself to be Jacob's most fabulous son, Jacob had two more things to punch in the face: genetics and God. (And, I suppose, logic in general. So kind of three things.)
Laban, it seems, was a pretty rotten guy all around (in case pawning his older daughter off on Jacob wasn't a hint in that regard). Jacob's flocks, you see, had grown rather large at Laban's expense, and so Laban decided to go through and take all of Jacob's striped cattle. Jacob, for some reason, had major beef with plain-coloured cattle (pun totally intended). He wanted striped ones instead. So ...
"And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and piled white strakes in them, and made the white appear chich was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had piled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink." - Genesis 30:37-38.
He took a bunch of stripey sticks and stuck them in the ground where his cattle were fucking, thus birthing ... striped cattle. Now, one would expect this to fail miserably and for Jacob to learn some valuable lesson about how, I dunno, only God can decide what happens when animals fuck or something. After all, ancient people may not have known about the nitty-gritty of genetic engineering, but they must have figured out that showing a cow a striped stick while it mated wouldn't produce a striped calf any more than standing in front of a mating cow would produce a baby minotaur.
But no.
"And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled and spotted." - Genesis 30:39.
It totally worked. Instead of a lesson or something of value, we get misleading insanity. (I can't help but wonder how many people tried to do this after hearing this story and wondered what the hell was wrong with their stripey sticks and/or cows). Believe it or not, this isn't the only time this happens in the Bible. I know, it's shocking.
Last, but certainly not least, we have the story that really puts the cherry on top of all Jacob's earlier madness: his wrestling match against God, which I believe qualifies as "Match of the Entire History of Everything." It should probably be noted that the Bible doesn't come out and say that this is literally God Jacob is wrestling. It could just be an angel or some other celestial being just representing God, but Jacob hints immediately afterward that he's just seen God "face to face" (Genesis 32:30), which is evidence enough for me.
Technicalities aside, Jacob totally kicked this being's celestial butt over the course of an entire goddamn night, and he absolutely refused to let the poor thing go until it blessed him:
"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." - Genesis 32:24-26.
And he did. Thing-That's-Probably-God admitted that Jacob had gained power over the Lord himself, who it turns out is the endboss before you officially Win at Life. Probably-God changed Jacob's name to Israel, the name all his ancestors would use to refer to themselves from this point on, and finally everyone got down to this whole "making a nation" thing that had been promised a few generations back. That is, until Joseph had to go and move everyone down to Egypt where they all ended up enslaved.
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| Thanks, jerk. |
