CHAPTER XXV.

JACOB'S RETURN TO THE FATHERLAND.

WHEN

GEN. XXXII. 3– XXXIII. 20, XXXV.

HEN Jacob had broken up his camp at Mahanaim, so the account goes on, he began to fear that a meeting with his brother Esau might lead to anything but pleasant consequences. They had so little in common ! So he sent an embassy to Mount Seir to inform his brother that he had grown rich with Laban, and now desired his friendship. The messengers soon returned with the news that Esau, at the head of four hundred men, was coming to meet his brother. Terrified by this information, Jacob separated his servants and flocks, with a heavy heart, into two caravans, anxiously thinking as he did so, "Even if Esau attacks and destroys one of them, yet the other may escape!"

When he had completed these precautionary arrangements he prayed, "O Yahweh, god of Abraham and of Isaac! thou who hast commanded me to turn again to the country of my birth, and hast promised that all shall be well with me! I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness thou hast shown thy servant, for I crossed this river Jordan with nothing but the staff I held in my hand, and now I have grown into two companies. O rescue me from the power of my brother Esau ! For I fear that with unsparing ferocity he will destroy everything, even the mother that hides her children with her body. O rescue me, for thou hast said to me, 'I will make all well with you, and will multiply your offspring as the sand on the sea-shore.'

Next morning he took still further precautions. He prepared a rich present of hundreds of sheep, goats, oxen, camels, and asses. Each kind of animal was given separately in charge to several shepherds; they were to be driven, a flock at a time, to meet Esau, and the shepherds were all instructed what to answer when Esau met them and asked whose dependants they were, where they were going, and for whom all these animals were intended. They were to reply, "We are servants of Jacob, who sends this present to Esau, and is following us himself." By this means he hoped to make a favorable impression upon his more powerful and warlike brother, and so to secure a gracious reception at his hands.

When it was night again he sent his wives and children and all his property across the ferry of the river Jabbok, while he himself remained behind alone, and no human eye, therefore, witnessed what now took place. A man came and wrestled with Jacob until break of day, and when he saw that he could not overcome the patriarch he grasped his hip, twisted-it out of joint as he wrestled with him, and said, "Let me go, for it is day already!" But Jacob answered, "No! not till you have blessed me!" Then his adversary asked him, "What is your name?" and on being told that it was Jacob he said, "Henceforward you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel (striver-of-god), for you have striven with god and man and given proof of your might." Still only half content, Jacob said to him, "Tell me what is your name; this, however, the unknown visitant refused to do, but he pronounced a solemn blessing upon him and disappeared. Then Jacob called the place Penuel, that is face-of-god, because he had seen God there face to face, and nevertheless remained alive. Then as he crossed the Jabbok the sun rose. The patriarch limped in consequence of the dislocation of his hip; and that is why the Israelites never eat the hip-sinew of any animal.

When Jacob had reached the further side of the Jabbok, the meeting he so much dreaded must soon take place. In the distance he sees Esau with four hundred warriors drawing near. There is just time to carry out one more measure. The two slave-wives and their children are placed in the front part of the caravan, then comes Leah with her children, and lastly, quite in the rear, the most precious treasure of all, Rachel with her son Joseph. Jacob himself takes the lead. Then Esau draws near, while his brother falls humbly seven times upon the ground before him. But see his fear was needless, for Esau hastens to meet him, falls upon his neck and kisses him. The two brothers burst into tears of joy. "Who are these?" asks Esau, glancing at Jacob's wives and their children. "These are the sons with which God has blessed your servant," is Jacob's humble answer. Bilhah and Zilpah draw near with their sons and bow down before the mighty Esau, then Leah with her six, and lastly the most dearly loved of all with her one son. "And for whom is all that army that met me on my way?" asks the Bedouin prince. "It is a present for you," answers Jacob, "that you may be gracious to me.” "I have abundance already," replies the lord of Seir, "keep what is your own." But Jacob, to whom his brother's favor is of such vast consequence, presses it upon

him, saying, "Ah no! do me the favor of accepting my present, for I am rejoiced to see your face, that is like the face of a god to me, and you receive me so kindly! Take what I offer you, for God has made me rich."

Esau soon proposed to Jacob that they should stay together; but the shepherd prince, much as he rejoiced to see his brother, did not think this a suitable arrangement, and objected that his caravan included little children, and sheep and cattle still suckling their young, that would die if driven too hard even a single day. He must accommodate himself to the state of his own affairs; which was more than could be expected of Esau. It would be better therefore for the latter to go on to Mount Seir in advance, and he would join him there. Esau's offer to leave part of his escort to protect his brother was also declined; and the two went on their several ways, Esau to Seir and Jacob to Succoth. Here he built a house and some cattlesheds, after which he called the place Succoth, that is sheds. From Succoth the journey led to Shechem, and Jacob was once more in Canaan! At Shechem he bought the piece of land on which he had encamped from the inhabitants, and raised an altar there and called it "the god of gods of Israel." 1

At Shechem he received commandment to go to Bethel, and to raise an altar there to the god who had appeared to him on his outward journey, when he was fleeing from Esau. In order to perform this duty in a becoming way, Jacob first ordered his followers to put away all the foreign gods they worshipped, and to purify themselves by changing their clothes and washing themselves. All these gods and the amulets that the members of his household carried in their ears were buried at the foot of the sacred tree, the "teacher's oak,"2 at Shechem. Great fear took hold of all the surrounding tribes, so that they let Jacob pass in safety; and when he came to Bethel he raised an altar there, and called it "the god of Bethel," because the deity had formerly appeared to him there.

Here Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died. They buried her to the south of Bethel, under an oak, which was called after this circumstance Allon-bachuth, "the oak of weeping." Hence they travelled southwards, to the region of Ephrath, but before they reached it Rachel had a second son, whose birth cost her her life. The dying mother called her son Ben-oni, "son of anguish," but Jacob called him Benjamin, son of the right hand," that is to say, "son of fortune," for when a 2 See 110.

1 After an amended version.

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wizard stood with his face to the east appearances in the south, which would be to his right, were considered fortunate. An anointed stone was raised at Rachel's grave, and was afterwards known as "the stone of Rachel's grave." Thence they passed on to Migdal-eder, "the tower of the flock," where Jacob pitched his tents.

Thus had the wanderer returned to the land of his birth.

1

This story does not come from the same hand as the pictures of Jacob deceiving his brother, father, and uncle; nor should we say, from reading it, that Esau had so many good reasons for hating Jacob. The latter is indeed afraid of his brother, looks forward with anxiety to the meeting, and even says that his present "must appease the countenance of Esau," but neither in his prayer for help nor in what he says to his brother is there a single word about any offence he has committed, nor does Esau appear to think of any for a moment. Now, we have no account from this writer of the occasion of Jacob's departure to Haran; for all he said on the subject seems to have been dropped when the legends were thrown together. We may, indeed, gather from one or two expressions that, even according to his representation, Jacob's fear was not without sufficient grounds, for when God reminded him of his having appeared to him at Luz he said that he had revealed himself to him "when he was fleeing from Esau ; but it by no means follows that Jacob had given him cause to feel bitterly towards him by practising deceits at his expense. The only word that seems to refer to anything of the kind is the one just quoted, namely, that Jacob desired to " appease Esau; and even this does not prove that Jacob was conscious of having done anything wrong; for the author of Proverbs xvi. 14, for instance, in saying that "the king's wrath is a message of death, and a wise man, therefore, seeks to appease him," does not mean to say that a king is never angry without sufficient reason. As it is uncertain, therefore, whether any account of Jacob's deception preceded this account of the meeting of the brothers, I have not ventured to represent Esau as the pattern of a forgiving disposition, which he would certainly have been, to a great extent, if he had had such good reasons for anger as those mentioned by the other writer. I have only represented Esau then as a powerful and rough, but liberal and generous, Bedouin chief, kindly disposed towards his weaker and more cultivated and prudent brother.

1 Genesis xxxii. 20.

2 Genesis xxxv. 1, 7.

to

The materials from which the portion of the legend of Jacob, of which we have now spoken, is formed, are of many kinds. The desire to explain names and usages was evidently a powerful incentive to the author. He gives us derivations of the names Mahanaim, Penuel, Jabbok (an allusion to which is contained in the Hebrew word that means wrestle"), Israel, Succoth, Allon-bachuth, and Benjamin; and the significance of the practice of refraining from eating the hip sinew, of the sacred oak, and the consecrated stone at Shechem, of the massebah at Bethel, and of Rachel's grave, is pointed out.

Here we have another account of the stone at Bethel. This writer had indeed mentioned that Jacob had a dream at Bethel, but the account of his raising a massebah1 was from the hand of the writer who uses the divine name Yahweh. The great interest felt by the Israelites in this stone, this "god of Bethel," as it is called in so many words 2 in this story, is shown by the fact that both these writers devote their attention to it. Moreover it is mentioned again in the "Book of Origins; " for though the author of that work treated the fortunes of the patriarchs so briefly, he devoted several verses to the remarkable stone at Bethel and to the origin of the name of the place. He tells us that God appeared to Jacob after his return from Padan Aram, blessed him, altered his name from Jacob to Israel, and foretold that there should be kings amongst his descendants, and that they should have possession of Canaan. After this appearance of God, Jacob gave the Canaanite city Luz the name of Bethel, "house-ofgod," and anointed a sacred stone there.

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A word must be said about the account of Rachel's grave. It is said, by way of fixing the spot, that she died after they had left Bethel and were still some distance from Ephrath, and that Jacob having buried her on the spot, went on and came to Migdal-eder. Now to the name Ephrath an explanatory note that is Bethlehem" is added, both here and in a later passage where Rachel's grave is mentioned.5 Rachel's grave accordingly may be found marked on the maps near Bethlehem. On our map, however, it has a note of interrogation placed after it there, because this addition, "Ephrath is Bethlehem" is perhaps a mistake. The district

1 See chapter xxiii.

8 Genesis xxxv. 6 (first part), 9-15.

4 Genesis xxxv. 16-21.

6

2 Genesis xxxv. 7.

5 Genesis xlviii. 7.

See map iv. Jerusalem and its neighborhood.