Remember we are looking at a very brief snapshot of the storyline of Genesis up to the time of Joseph so we have more of the context. Yesterday we looked at chapters 1-11 and today we are looking at 12-36.
- Next in the story we come to Abraham. In chapter 12 God chooses Abraham (at this time Abram) and calls him to leave his current country and promises to make him into a great nation, one in which all the people of the earth will blessed through him. In the plot of the book of Genesis he becomes the hope for the fulfillment of the Genesis 3:15 first pronouncement of the gospel. Yet, Abraham himself is seriously flawed. On two occasions he claims Sarah, his wife, is actually his sister so the ruler of the land he is in doesn't kill him and take Sarah as his own wife. After receiving the promise from God and being childless he takes matters into his own hands and sleeps with their servant girl Hagar to have a surrogate child. From this moment on we see character after character in the line of Abraham fall into similar patterns leaving the reader constantly hoping that this next character will be the promised one, but always being disappointed. Yet through all of these flawed characters God remains faithful to his covenant promise to them.
- Eventually, Sarah, who was formerly thought to be barren, has a son in her old age. This son is Isaac and he becomes the child to carry on God's promise to make Abraham into a great nation. For the sake of brevity we will only note that Isaac is the child of Abraham to carry on the covenant from God and that he has two sons, Jacob and Esau.
- Jacob becomes Joseph's father so we are getting closer to our focus character. Jacob is technically the younger brother and therefore didn't naturally carry the birthright or the same blessing from his father that Esau would. As the eldest son Esau was entitled to more of his father's estate and his honor. In Gen. 25:29-34 Esau "despises" (devalues, treats with contempt) his birthright and sells it to his brother for some food because Esau was starving. Here Jacob merely took advantage of the situation and Esau didn't value what was truly valuable. Later however, Jacob dresses up like Esau and deceives his father Isaac to give him the blessing belonging to his brother Esau. For this offense, Esau seeks to kill Jacob so Jacob flees to his uncle Laban. Here Jacob works 7 years to earn the right to marry Rachel, Laban's younger daughter. After 7 years is up, Laban deceptively substitutes Leah for Rachel to marry her off first. How the tables have turned on Jacob. The deceiver is deceived and he doesn't like it too much. So Jacob agrees to work another 7 years to marry Rachel. This time Laban doesn't pull any more tricks and Rachel and Jacob are married. Eventually, Jacob leaves Laban's house a relatively wealthy man with two wives and a bunch of kids.
Tomorrow we will dig a little deeper into the family dynamics.