Genesis: rated R

So Abraham gets a promise from God to be the father of a great nation. So he and his wife (who is also his half-sister) wait around to get pregnant and get this thing started. Years go by. Abraham isn’t so studly anymore and Sarah, although cute for her age, has no hope of childbearing. 

So here they sit around the breakfast table wondering how to help God out. Sarah says Abraham should just go have a baby with Hagar, a servant woman. Abraham drums his fingers on the table, trying not to look too interested, but gets up shrugging his shoulders and says “If you say so, dear” and wastes no time getting Hagar pregnant. Which, to no one’s surprise, really bothers Sarah. She’s disgusted with herself, describing herself as “worn-out” (Gen 18:11) with a guffaw when angelic visitors tell her that when they visit her next year she’ll have son. “Yeah, right”.  But she does! Little Isaac. One boy to fulfill the promise of descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. 

Isaac and Rebeka (a cousin) marry. Rebeka is also a slow conceiver but finally got pregnant with twins who did not get along even from the womb. Esau and Jacob who is the last of the big 3 patriarchs. Esau gets consistently cheated out of his place in life by Jacob by some unethical trading and by fooling old Isaac in a classic crime against the elderly.  (Genesis 27)

Jacob (hang on, it’s complicated) falls in love with Rachel (yup, another cousin) but gets tricked into marrying Rachel’s older sister Leah first. Leah is described as having “tender eyes” (Gen 29:17) which is like saying she has a great personality, while Rachel was described as shapely and beautiful. Jacob manages to get Rachel all over a mere 14 year plan. So neither woman bears children at first but Leah tries harder and has 4 boys. Rachel is jealous, demands that Jacob give her a son (no pressure!). Jacob raises his arms like “what am I supposed to do here?” and Rachel, following an old family tradition, gives Jacob her servant. 

Jacob gets busy and the servant has a son on Rachel’s behalf, then another, and Rachel feels like she’s winning in competition with Leah. Leahthinks her childbearing days are over but is still in a race for validation against Rachel and gives Jacob her servant. I’m not sure where Jacob’s mind is by this time but he gets another 2 sons from Leah’s servant. In a weird trade over some mandrakes, Rebeca trades the fruit for a hall pass for Leah and Jacob and Leah popped out 2 more boys after all. And a daughter. Rachel managed to produce another son as well, and apparently, everyone said “game over” and that was the end of the Great Reproduction Race. I’m guessing Jacob was ok with it by now.

So, what’s the point here? For me, who has been grieving over the sorry state of mixed up families and relationships where “father” has been replaced by “babydaddy”, marriage is held in low esteem and kids don’t know what face they’re going to wake up to or whose house they’re going to live in, and Ancestry.com is going to have a terrible time figuring out family trees by the time we boomers die off, I see a little hope in Abraham’s jacked up family. God’s plan relies on God’s work, not man’s calculations. Messed up families can be redeemed. The miracle of God’s bringing about a nation is not that everybody followed the rules and it worked out, but that everybody did stupid things and it worked out. That’s not a license to be stupid and rebellious, but it is a license to seek forgiveness, direction, purpose, and relationship.