BibleProject - Wrestling God for a Blessing – Genesis E6

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Throughout the story of the Bible, God singles out different people, like Jacob, to be the conduit of his blessing to all humanity. But from birth, Jacob consistently acts more like the snake from the garden of Eden than a righteous chosen one of God. He lies his way into blessings that God had intended for him all along. So what will God do? In this episode, Tim and Jon discuss the theme of blessing and curse in the life of Jacob.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (00:00-17:30)Part two (17:30-28:20)Part three (28:20-45:30)Part four (45:30-1:05:57)Referenced ResourcesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience the literary themes and movements we’re tracing on the podcast in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“The Great Escape” by Blue WednesdayShow produced by Cooper Peltz. Edited by Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

In the Bible, blessing is life, multiplying life. It's the access to abundance. And this is the type of world God created, one that can reproduce itself. Life creating more and more life. And then God chooses humans out of all the animals to represent Him and to partner with Him to take care of this blessing. This is our calling. We are stewards of God's blessing. And we've proven to be pretty bad at it. Adam and Eve fail, Noah has his own failure, and they God chooses Abraham. He blesses Abraham and appoints his family to be the vehicle blessing for the entire world. But even Abraham struggles. And it kind of

makes you wonder, what's God thinking trying to partner with humans? Is he just choosing the wrong people? Maybe he needs a better hiring process. And then we're introduced to Abraham's grandson. And if you thought Abraham struggled. The Abraham story showed you somebody who occasionally acts like the snake in the garden. But we get a couple generations down the line, and what if? What if the grandson of Abraham doesn't just occasionally act like a snake? What if he's like born a treacherous lying snake?

What if lying is his language from the womb? Jacob is so horrendous, his name means trickster. And in story after story, he schemes. He lies, he deceives. The man who's meant to extend God's blessing is a chaos monster. The whole story is about him trying to grab and seize and scheme his own way to get the blessing that God was from before birth trying to give him as a gift all along. The stories of Jacob are painful,

but they're an honest examination of how stubbornly, selfish and near-sighted humans could be. And as you read them, you might think, why hasn't God given up on us? What is God to do with a guy who won't believe that God just wants him to receive? So what God has to do is wound him and he has to incapacitate them.

You might be familiar with the story, it's where Jacob wrestles with a mysterious man who turns out to be God himself. And God punches Jacob in the groin, so hard it knocks his hip out of a socket. Out of all the places God could have hit him, he hits him in the groin. In the part of the body where he can generate his own blessing, a very powerful image of God having to both wound and heal, to strike and to bless, to get humans to receive the thing that he just wishes to receive.

I'm John Collins and this is Bible Project Podcast. Today, we're in the third movement of the Genesis scroll, looking at the theme of blessing, and the links God will go to to save us from ourselves. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. All right, Tim, hello. Hello, John. Hello, hello, and bless you for being here today on the podcast. That's right. I'm blessed. I'm blessed to have you.

Hashtag blessed. That's right. We're talking about blessing occurs in the story of the Genesis girl today. Aren't we, John? We are. Yes. And we had a whole really great conversation setting the stage for what blessing is in the Bible Mm-hmm, and it's

Antenim or kind of contrast word a curse Mm-hmm, and let me try to do the real quick Like explainer recap. Okay. All right Blessing it's one of those words that may mean many different things to you because we use it a lot Bless this meal God bless you when you sneeze. I feel blessed when life's going good. So it's kind of easy to import a bunch of ideas into what a blessing is. But if we look at how the Bible defines blessing,

we don't have to go much farther than the first page, just as chapter one. God begins to order all of creation, and He creates three domains and on the domain of the sky and the sea He creates creatures the birds and the fish and this is the first time we Get the word blessed Which in Hebrew is

Burek oh a Burech. Yeah, Burech Hebrew is Borech. Oh, a Borech. Yeah. Borech. God blesses these creatures, and the blessing is very specific. It says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So the blessing is about the abundance of life for the birds and the fish.

Yeah, up to that point, God has been the one creating the potential and then summoning the potential out of creation, like in the plants, that make fruit and multiply themselves. But now you have living creatures, and God shares that life not producing but reproducing ability with a creature. It's like God donates the productivity that just emanates out of the divine love and creativity and then gives that potential to another, to reproduce and make more. And that is what's called the blessing. Yeah. It's beautiful. That is the blessing. Yeah. So kind of implicit in this idea of being able to be fruitful and

multiply and fill is that there must be an abundance of resources. And there must be kind of harmony, so there's not, you know, fighting and destruction, fighting against this, that it's a way to kind of think about maybe another biblical concept, which is Shalom of wholeness and completeness. But the center of gravity of it is the ability to reproduce life. Yeah, be fruitful and multiply. Be fruitful, yeah. And multiply is the ability to reproduce life. Yeah, be fruitful and multiply. Be fruitful, multiply is the blessing.

And that's not often what we mean when we say bless you. Well, I like if you sneeze and I hope you're not getting sick and I say bless you, I think what I mean is, man, I hope that's not a sign of sickness and death. Which is something that actively fights against. Yes, be sure to multiply. That's right. And so then God creates humans, same story,

and he appoints humans to be his image, male and female, and to rule. And then he gives them the same blessing as he gives to the fish, and to the birds, which is to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But then he gives them a fourth, the bonus blessing as he gives to the fish and to the birds, which is to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But then he gives them a fourth, the bonus blessing, which is to rule over, which means that up until now, God is the one ruling. He's the one in charge of all of this blessing being unleashed, and he's inviting humans into a partnership of sorts to say, work with me to establish and rule over and create and stewar this blessing, which is remarkable.

It is. Yeah, so not only does God donate as it were the potential of reproduction, to borrow from God's infinite potential and generate life down the chain. But now God's appointed one particular creature to oversee how other creatures experience that blessing of multiplication. So it's a creature that itself experiences reproductive powers because of the gift of God's blessing, but also is called to oversee and steward the blessing of other creatures, humans.

And then God blesses the seventh day. The seventh day. Yeah. The day where God does not work, everything is now in its full completeness and rest and thriving, and that day is blessed. That day is flourishing and multiplying because it never ends. It's the day that never ends. Yeah, that's right.

The culmination of all of this is towards a cosmos that is overflowing with abundance in a way that will not end. Yep, that's right. Yeah, the seventh day just within the first narrative in Genesis is a preview of God's ideal plan for all of creation. And it's a plan that is not realized as you start reading the second narrative that follows the Eden story, but it stands there as a testament to God's plan and ultimate desire for all creation. It is the eternal reproduction and abundance of the seventh day.

So we get to this second story and we see this blessing performed with new images where God takes a wilderness and he brings water out of it, which then creates a garden. And out of the water he creates human, plants the human in the garden and says, all of this, all of this food, all this beautiful trees, this is yours,

take and eat everything including the tree of life, God's own life available to give the human more than mortal life, something beyond that. Except there is one tree. You're not to eat from. That's right. That tree that they're not supposed to eat from, however, looks like all the other good trees that are a blessing. Yeah. The word blessing doesn't appear, but the imagery connected to blessing does of fruit, trees, multiplying, many beautiful abundance. It's a land of blessing. And so if it looks like a blessing, yeah, it smells's a land of blessing.

And so if it looks like a blessing, and smells like a blessing, and tastes like a blessing, isn't it a blessing? And God says, no. This tree is not a blessing. It will kill you. It is the opposite of a blessing, which is a curse. Humans don't trust God. They take this false blessing and the curse comes. God curses the serpent, the creature that deceived them in the first place to think that this thing was worthwhile eating in spite of God's command not to eat it. And then God curses the ground, which is the environment from which all of the abundance of food comes from.

And right in the center, the word curse isn't used, but God kind of says, look, the relationship of humanity, of the multiplication of life is going to be rough. Fraught with conflict, now that you've chosen to take what God defines as death and chosen to make that into your blessing. And so humans end up striving after what they think is a blessing, but end up hurting each other, abusing each other. And specifically in the language right there in Genesis 3, 15 and 16, of men abusing other

women creating painful environments in which children are conceived. So now even the blessing of being fruitful and multiplies now fraught with grief because of humans who don't trust each other or keep hurting each other in their efforts to get their own version of blessing. We have now what a blessing is, abundance, multiplication, flourishing, it's a gift from God, and it's something humans are meant to steward. And then we have the curse, which is the opposite. It's when life folds in on itself.

You gave this great image of, I put all this effort into this field, and I don't get back out of it. Yeah. What I would expect. A proportionate return. Yeah, that's right. That's the curse. Yeah, the

blessing is every October we go up the Columbia River Gorge that forms the like the border between Oregon and Washington and on the kind of northeast flank of Mount Hood, which is a big volcano. That's not far from Portland. I think I told you this. I read article to say it's the most seismically active volcano in the whole Pacific Northwest is terrifying. God bless us. Anyway, so my family and I go spend time on the northeastern flank of that thing every October and pick apples. And somebody else has been cultivating the orchards, and we just waltz in there, and just...

Take a knee. We pick the blessing right off the trees. Now, someone else had to work for that, so that's the analogy breaks down, but that's, you know, that's the blessing. It's just there for us. And the curse would be, we own the plot of land, and no matter how much effort we put in, the harvest keeps getting. Rodnaples. Rodton, smaller, less and less every year, less and less every year, the environment.

So it's the opposite. It's scarcity, instability, relational conflict, danger, and death itself being the ultimate curse. And then the other theme that really fits in with that is the idea of exile. Yeah, that's right. Of being separate from the place where true abundance then is taking place, which is the garden. Yeah. And that's where humanity finds itself. So, we got the story of God creating blessing, giving blessing to us,

anointing us to then carry that blessing forward, us not being able to distinguish between what is really good and what is bad, not trusting God's word, and then taking the fake blessing and finding that we are now in curse, in an environment of curse, and then creation kind of devolves folds in on itself. God allows humans the dignity of making significant choices and so if humans choose to embrace and unleash curse in the land, He lets them. But only to a point when the curse unleashed by humans reaches like a point of no return, there are these moments when God will hand creation over to

the powers of chaos once again and allow. And that's the story of Noah. Yeah, that's right. And at the conclusion of the flood story when Noah gets off the boat, God refers to the flood waters, the de-creation of Genesis 1 undoing itself. God refers to it as a curse, striking the land with a curse, is the striking of all life on the land through the collapse of the cosmos. So actually the ultimate curse is not just death, the ultimate curse is for the cosmos to implode. Do you? Because no more abundance, no more like death. Cosmic death.

Yeah, cosmic death. But what's happening in that story is that God handed creation over to the curse and accelerated it as it were to de-create so as to wipe the slate clean to give creation a new start. And through that de-creation and recreation, God preserves a righteous remnant out the other side. And that's the Noah story. And Noah gets off the boat and he surrenders everything to God by offering a sacrifice, which is the key biblical image for surrendering everything over to God.

And what God looks at is this righteous remnant and says, I can work with a humanity that will surrender everything to me. And God blesses and said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the land. And that was the cycle that we taught. Reboot. And of course Noah's going to go, the next he's going to do is go plant a garden and eat of the fruit of the garden and become naked, all just like Adam and Eve and unleash a curse on one of his sons.

And it just all goes downhill again. But it's basically just the same cycle that we saw replay in Genesis 1 through 9. But if we get those core definitions and meanings of curse and blessing in the first narrative cycle, then we're going to be set up well for what we're going to talk about in the rest of this conversation, which is after Noah, the story leads us to a guy named Abraham, and then the story of blessing and curse gets really focused in on this guy Abraham, and then specifically his grandson, Jacob, which is what we're gonna also start talking about a little bit later. Yeah, so this idea of God appointing a human to carry the blessing, happen with Adam and Eve, happen with Noah and his family, and now it's gonna happen with Abraham, his wife. Yeah, by the time you get to Abraham,

you have a portrait of humanity as a collection of divided siblings. From Noah, a whole bunch of unfortunate stuff that we don't have time to talk about, but there is division among the nations so that humanity has divided and filled the land, all right, but they are not living in harmony and they're not living in right relationship with the creator God. And so what's an Elohim to do with the humanity that lives and exists by God's blessing? No humans would exist if it were not for God's

continual sustained blessing, but the humans keep taking these blessing gifts and distorting them or co-opting them for false blessing purposes, spreading curse instead of blessing. So what's Nauhine to do? He starts a conversation with this, another new righteous remnant, as it were, or he's not righteous yet. Actually, he's going gonna have to become righteous. Past the test of Abraham. We've been here many times, but God's first words to Abraham that we're told about in

Genesis 12, focus in the blessing story and curse story here. So God says Abraham, get yourself going from your land, from your birth family, from your father's house, to the land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you. So notice the connection there with those two lines. To be a great, oh yeah, the word great in English can mean just like awesome. Yeah, awesome. And the Bible, great means great in size or scope. So great. I'm going to make you a lot of people. Yeah, a nation that consists of a lot of people.

Yeah. I will also multiply. Yep, that's right. I will also make your name great, and you will become a blessing. So you're going to multiply and be fruitful, and that is God's blessing. But then God going to multiply and be fruitful and that is God's blessing. But then God's going to take your reputation, your name and lift up your name and reputation so that who you are becomes a blessing to others. We're back to the image of God that God chooses one and makes them a steward or a vehicle of God's blessing now for others. Except this time it's not humans and animals, it's Abraham and the nations. And then we get another twist here. God says, hey, listen, I'm going to bless anyone who blesses you.

If people seek your safety, security, good fortune, well-being? Guess what? I'm gonna make you like the, hmm, I'm trying to think of a good metaphor here. It's sort of like whenever anybody blesses you, I'm just gonna make more of the blessing that is gonna go right back out to them. I don't know. Anyone blesses you, meaning to bless someone,

yeah. And we talked about this. Yeah. Means to what? This has nothing to do with anything. For some reason, the image that came into my mind was Chiapet. Growing up. Do you remember Chiapets? Uh-huh. Yeah, you got a little like, uh, what was it? A little animal shape? Yeah.

Yes. A little random shape for something, I don't know, but then there were all kinds of different geosgrow chia seeds on the back of it. Yeah, but basically you just, you spread this mud, the little seed mud on the back of it, you water it, and then just outcomes life, like this huge plant, you know, budding, spreading plant. It's not actually a good metaphor at all

for high blesses, it bless you actually a good metaphor at all, for I bless those of bless you, because there's only one chia pet, and so that's like the blessing in the life. But imagine a chia pet that gets the mud, you know, the little seed mud spread all over it, and then it can just go around touching things, and wherever it leaves a little smudge of seed mud, then plants begin to grow there,

like making up my own little parable here. Yeah, you got a little contagious, chia pet. Contagious chia pet. Situations go on. But the image is, God's gonna pack the family of Abraham with chia seeds. So what's the lesson?

chia seeds, right? Just with, it's just gonna be coming out of you. And then here's the thing, when people come and attach themselves to you and do good to you, man, they're gonna get more gonna come back at them than they ever imagined. That's the... We know these people, right? Like, it's the person that's like, I'm around this person. Oh, man. There's an abundance of life. Like, there's just more joy and more optimism. And there's actually more, like, just good that happens.

Like goodness just kind of happens. Yeah. Those are pretty special people. You know, I'm thinking of a friend we both know. I won't embarrass him, but yeah. A friend who's been that person in my life for a long time. And they work in agriculture. And so they are constantly just bringing over fresh produce, you know?

And so you get a box of corn or squash or something. And but here's the thing is that like there's always more than we need and so then we give it to our neighbors. And then when that friend comes over then he starts talking to my neighbors. And now he's like friends with my neighbors. Then he gets corn to the neighbor. And it's like that. There are people who just are so generous. That they, it becomes contagious. And then when God says, and I will bless those who bless you

to take that image further, like what would it mean to bless your friend? Correct. Who is the blessing? That's right, that's right. And you bless them back. And it Who is the blessing? That's right, that's right. And you bless them back and it creates this economy of generosity where all of a sudden it's like, there's enough.

I can share with you and you can share with me and there will be times when you don't have enough. And guess what, I gotcha. And there might be times when I don't have enough. And guess what, you got me. I'll bless those who bless you, you will be a blessing. Yeah, as close ties to our generosity, theme, video and conversations here. So here's the twist. I'll bless those who bless you, you will be a blessing. Yeah, as close ties to our generosity, theme, video, and conversations here. So here's the twist.

I'll bless those who bless you. So the family of Abraham is going to become this vehicle of divine blessing that will just exponentially explode. But also the inverse will be true. Because God is investing the Eden creation blessing in this one family, God also is signing God's self up to protect this family because they're the vehicle of the rescue of the universe. And so they are the chip. I'm so sorry for that. Why that came out of my mind. So God flips it over and says, so the one who treats you as

if you're cursed, I will curse. That one too. In you, all the families of the land will discover blessing. So if people bless you, they'll get blessed and back at them. If people treat you like you're cursed, which could look like a lot of things, treat you like you're a curse. Treat you like you are a curse. Yeah. So that could either be mistreating someone, abusing them.

It could mean just to dishonor them, but it could also mean to steal from, kill, to oppress all these kinds of things. So I've got your back. Those who try to decreate you, yes, I will decreate. Yep. So with this promise, then, this family becomes or is anointed as the conduit of divine Eden blessing for all the world. God chooses one so that the blessing of Eden can go to the many through the one.

That's the image here. Which means, let just like the humans in Genesis 1, this is both amazing potential and a huge liability. this is one. This is both amazing potential and a huge liability because God's putting enormous power. Okay, here's a better parable. Basically, the rest of the Genesis scroll is like God putting a very precious gem into the hands of a toddler. And you're watching this like toddler, you know, carry this like big fat diamond around. And they're constantly walking by sewer drains and then tripping and almost dropping it down

or they'll drop it in the mud and pick it up and then pick their nose and then put their hands all over it. You know, that's that kind of thing. But then sometimes, like, clean it off with their shirt and show it to their friends and then have a tea party or something. Yeah.

Some reason when you're talking about these stones, I'm picturing the Infinity Stones from Infinity War. Oh, from the Avengers stories? The Marvel Avengers. The Thanos when you get to the movie. Okay, yeah, there you go, yeah. Because the diamonds just the diamond. Okay, yeah, they got it. But like a stone that can like...

Blue or... Have some true power. Yeah, yeah. You got a, but like a stone that can like blue or have some true power. Yeah, I'll, infinity stones then. But the idea is God's putting these precious gems into the hands of, wait, who? Yeah. So the drama of the story of Abraham,

Isaac, Jacob, Jacob, sons is gonna be that's interesting. The basically the story of a family who doesn't deserve the blessing. Yeah. And they actually end up spreading about as much curse as they do blessing. And you can't believe that God would put these people in charge of something so precious. That's... Yeah, we were reflecting on that in terms of just Adam and Eve being given the image.

Yeah, yeah. And for whatever reason, when you get to this story of Abraham being given the blessing, you're kind of like, this guy's legit. You're getting the blessing. But when you pair that with what God did with Adam and Eve, it's just kind of like the image of handing the toddler, the diamond, all of a sudden becomes a little bit more clear.

Like, oh, were you sure? Yeah. Yeah. This is the idea. Like, how's this guy going to be able to tell you? And actually, the next story after this blessing is Abram goes into the land, and God promised to him, there's a food shortage in the land, and what he does is go down to Egypt, and lie to the king of Egypt, and then up bringing sickness and plague and curse.

He brings a curse upon Egypt by lying and deceiving the king by saying that his wife isn't really his wife. And so the first story is actually about how Abraham, through lying and treachery, spreads curse to the nations instead of blessing. So from the first story about Abram is saying like, oh man, humans, and not just humans, but like this guy, like what? It's gonna happen. And sometimes, you know, Abram does better than that, but he fails just about as often as he gets things right.

And so we could spend a lot more time in the Abraham story, but that's the drama with Abraham. It's okay, so here's the setup, is so two more generations go by after Abraham. And the Abraham story showed you somebody who, a guy who occasionally acts like the snake in the garden. So if Pharaoh is seeing a beautiful woman and she's good in his eyes and he takes her, that's the portrait. And then Abraham is the one lying about, right? His wife is saying, you know, yeah, yeah, she's not my wife. Then he plays the role of the snake in that story.

But then other times, he gets things right, and we explored that in our podcast series about Abraham. But we get a couple generations down the line, and what if the grandson of Abraham doesn't just occasionally act like a snake? What if he's like born a treacherous lying snake? What if lying is his Like language from the womb. What would God have to do that? And that's exactly what the Jacob stories are all about. Okay? Keep rockin'? Keep rockin'. Okay, so Jacob, or in Hebrew, is named Yakov, and his name actually is generated out of

the story of his birth, and his birth story really kind of tells the whole story about him. So the third literary movement of Genesis begins in chapter 25 verse 19. It's not very intuitive. And it begins by introducing us to saying these are the birth generations of Isaac, or Yitzhak, as I say his name in Hebrew. And the story begins with Abraham's son, Isaac, and his wife, Rebecca. And the first thing that you're told is that Isaac's wife, Rebecca, is infertile. She's not able to have children.

And so this also happened to Abraham and Sarah. This happened to Isaac's mom and dad. And so what was Abraham and Sarah's response? When they were not able to have children? Well, that was one of his great failures with Hegar, the Hegar debacle. And so the story of Isaac begins with the son in the same situation as his dad facing infertility. But Isaac does the opposite of what his dad did. The story begins by saying, and he prayed to Yahweh on behalf of his wife. And it kind of creates his back reflection,

where he'll go back and you're like, oh man, why didn't Abraham and Sarah just do that? Why did you do that? That's how simple it is, really? And in this story, it is. It says Yahweh received his petition and Rivka, his his wife became pregnant. Like wow, that's beautiful. But no sooner is she pregnant that we're told that there are twins

inside of her. She doesn't know this. All she knows is that she feels a wrestling match happening inside of her womb. Literally she feels the sun striking each other inside of her. So it's vivid image. And so she goes to inquire. She goes to pray, just like Isaac did. And we're not told how when or where did she have a dream or a vision, or did she go into some shrine and hear a voice or something. And we're not told. What we are told is that when Rebecca prayed, what God uttered was a four-line Hebrew poem. And the poem is about the wrestling match that she can feel, the sibling rivalry that she can feel before she can even put language to it.

And what God tells her is, two nations are in your womb and two peoples will be separated from your innards. One people will be stronger than the other people, and the great one will become the servant of the little one. It's like a riddle. Yeah, the great one shall serve the little one. The first will be last. Yeah, Jesus is not innovating when he talks about

God's kingdom, creating an upside down economy where the last refers to where the master is the servant. The servant is the one in charge. And the great one here, meaning the older one. Presumably the first born. The first born. Yep, the older one. Yep. You have two siblings, but what they are are nations. Yeah, fast forward enough and every person becomes your own nation. That's right. Yeah, just give it some time. And they're both going to be strong, but one's going to be stronger than the other,

and sibling rivalry, the exaltation of the late born over the first born. So there's a couple things here. One is we're activating a deep pattern, because way back in the Genesis scroll. Another there's a couple things here. One is we're activating a deep pattern, goes way back in the Genesis scroll. Another theme we haven't done yet. And we will. I really look forward to doing this theme one day. So yeah, God creates animals first on day six, human second, but then calls the second comer,

humans to rule over the first comers of day six. Then God favors the second born able sacrifice over the first born canes. And that doesn't end well. Sorry, and to go back to not only is our humans made after the animals in a way, the second born, they're made as the second rulers on the block too. That's right. God appoints the Elohim, the host of heaven, to rule over the sky and day and night, and then humans to rule over the land. Yeah, they're the second born in that sense.

That's right, yep. And we learn by the book of Daniel, however God's ultimate purpose is to exalt humans to rule over the skies and the land. Yeah, so moving forward from, yeah, Adam and Eve, we have Cain and Abel and the introduction of hostility between the brothers when the favored or blessed ones are viewed suspiciously by the non-chosen

and it, what do you call, it raises the iron of... No, I don't know that, raises the iron. Yeah, yeah, raised somebody's iron. It's not, it's not, what's an ire? ire is like, I think it comes from the same root as irritation. Anchor. Yeah, I think. So, it's a theme that's going to get repeated

with Noah's three sons, where Shem, who's not the first born, is chosen for the blessing. And the older Yafat or Japheth, is going to dwell in the Tents of Shem. It gets repeated with a guy named Terach, who's from the Tents generation from Noah. He has three sons, and one of the younger sons is Abraham, who's chosen for the blessing. Then you're going to have with Isaac and Ishmael, Abraham's two sons, but the younger secondborn Isaac.

And now here we are here. So we're many rounds in to the sibling rivalry. So what we're told, and this is key for the blessing, is that it's the second born, the God has destined to be the stronger one or the greater one. So it doesn't say here that explicitly that that's the one destined for blessing, but that has in every generation

that has been what comes along with being the exalted secondborn is they receive the blessing. So what's also being activated here is a cultural practice that's just assumed about how in ancient Near Eastern culture and cultures around Israel and even Israel itself, it was common practice as the father ages, the patriarch ages in the household, that the first born son would become like the father's replacement, an image of the father, and inherit a majority of the land, or the assets, and the first born is given those privileges.

And so God is in the habit of upsetting that pattern in every generation of the story of Genesis. And that's going to be a big tension at work in this story. Is Rebecca here finds out that God's going to reverse the order and elevate the second born, and other members of the family are going to actively be hostile to that program in different ways. And that sets up the drama of the story. So Jacob is named Jacob because he's born second, but we're told that he comes out grabbing the heel of his brother Issa.

And the word heel is the word Ekiv. And so he's named Jakov, because he comes out grabbing the Ekiv. Ekiv, Jakov. The heel, grabber. He'll grabber. Yeah, but it's like to grab the heel, it's a synonym for deceive, but it comes from

the literal image of tripping someone. Yeah, where my kids like to do is give me a flat tire. What? Have you had that? No, someone walks behind you and you step on the back of someone's shoe, so then your heel comes up out of it and then it kind of trips you up. It's a flat tire. Oh, I've heard of it referred to that way.

That's great. I'm more thinking of the classic like you just stick out your leg diagonally and while someone's walking, you know. Yeah. You try and nick there. It's a pretty vulnerable part of your body if it's up off the ground, it grabs someone's heel, you can really throw them to the ground. So that's significant that his name refers to this role

that he comes out trying to usurp, right? To get to one up his older brother. And from the get-go. From the get-go. But what's interesting is this is right after God's words that said, the greater one will become a servant to the little one. And so it's as if a member ruling is one of the aspects of blessing from Genesis 1,

being in authority over. So what God just said is, hey, I've destined that the younger will become the one with authority over the family. But then when the second born is born, he comes out literally embodying a lack of trust in that promise. He comes out grabbing his brother to try and accomplish the thing that God said he was going to do for him.

And there's no better way to describe the plot conflict of the Yakuob story. His name embodies that the whole story is about him trying to grab and seize and scheme his own way to get the blessing that God was from before birth trying to give him as a gift all along. And that becomes the drama of the Jacob story. It's a remarkable story. Yeah, it's like that scene of trying to give someone a gift, but for one reason or another, they're just so uncomfortable with it.

They just, like have you ever tried to like give someone gas money or something? Actually, oh my gosh, you did this to me the other day. I gave you gas money. You gave me some gas money and I spent about 30 seconds going, no dude, I'm I gotta I'm fine. Oh my gosh, I was pulling a Jacob. Interesting. I'm not really. It's not like God uttered a poem that like you know, Tim will take the gas money. So that's doesn't fit really. But it's like that. Ited a poem that like, you know, Tim will take the gas money. So that doesn't fit really. But it's like that. It's sort of like, for some reason in that moment, I didn't want to receive your generosity

to help cover gas. I don't know why, but I don't know why. I don't know why I'm sorry, John. I didn't mean to do that. My public apology. You're being really out on yourself here. But you know, like, there's sometimes you've ever been in the scenarios where you just want to give somebody a gift.

And for some reason it makes them uncomfortable. And they want to get out of receiving it. And they want to take it. Yeah. So in their own terms. Yeah. And I'm just saying that little feeling is what being exaggerated in the Jacob story. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. He comes out grabbing for the thing that God said he would give him and that pattern is just gonna continue. In fact, it continues in the next story. So this next story is gonna epitomize Jacob's ways of doing this in his life. And it's the famous story about how his brother Issa comes in, the boys have grown up, and Issa comes in, and he's a hunter.

Firstborn. Yeah, he's a firstborn, and he's a hunter, yeah? Manly. Yeah, came out all hairy like an animal at birth, and now he's a super hairy guy. And so Jacob is like cooking a nice stew back at the camp. And Isah comes back into camp after hunting all day, and what he says is, give me some of that red red. And he brews, the word red is edom, edom.

And so what he says is, give me some of that edom edom. Edom edom. Edom edom. And then the narrator steps in, this is Genesis 25 or 30, the narrator inserts and says, therefore his name was called edom. Oh, because later isaa's known as Adam. Adam. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

And the word for red is Adam, and the name Adam is Adam. And the word, both of those words, Adam and Adam, Adam and Red, are spelled with the same three letters as Adam, human, human. Yeah. And that's key to this portrait. This is a little Genesis 3 failure story. So in comes Edom saying, give me some of that, Adoma Dom, and Yaku, ever the Schiemherst says,

okay, yeah, deal. Here's the thing. Sell me your position as the firstborn, or it's often called the birthright in our English translations. But it's a wordplay because it's spelled with the four letters of the word blessing just with the two middle letters swapped.

Burek. Ah, the noun blessing is Berrcha. Berrcha. Berrcha. And then the word position of the first born is Bechora. Bechora. Bechora. Bechora.

Yep, totally. It just, tell me your the blessing of the first born. Yeah. First bornora. Bechora. Bechora. Bechora. Bechora. Yep, toi. It just... Tell me your... the blessing of the firstborn. Yeah. The firstborn, right? Yeah, toi. Yeah. Is that normal thing? Siblings can kind of like barter with that?

Apparently Jacob thinks he can. Yeah. He's... he's... he's gaming. And what he saw says is, Hey, look! I'm about to die. I am hungry here. So hungry, I'm about to die. Being little.

Exactly. You got a little dramatic little dramatic But so he says what is my bechora? What is it to me if I'm about to die? Then Yaku said um, it's as if he pulls out a little piece of paper with a pen Oh, you know I just happen to have a contract right here Well, you just you can just sign right here real quick. It's where swear a note to me is what he says Where no right now? So Esauce wore a note and he sold his Bechora to Yacov. And Yacov, man, he just got the heel, man.

He just tripped the heel. Yep, he just took the heel. And he gives Esau the stew. So the first born Adam or Adam, the human, trades in their right of the first born for the right to rule, the right to rule, and have authority for a bowl of food. He trades their authority to rule for food, and his name is Adam, spelled with the same letters as the name Adam. I mean, come on. That's a good one. That's a good one. So here instead of being fruit of a tree, it's a bowl of hot stew. That's right. Yeah, instead of forbidden fruit, hot stew.

I was going to say a steaming bowl of stew, but for some reason that sounds not as good as steaming bowl. Oh, I think that sounds good. Okay. So it's playing with the vocabulary and images of Genesis 3, but notice there's more creative dynamics here because it's actually the second born that God has, destined to become the authority, right? That's what God said to his mom at least. And so it says if Jacob is either unaware

of what God said about him, or he just can't believe it, but he spends his energies thinking of ways to scheme how to get the thing that God destined him for. And here it's called the Bechelorah. And then this is matched by a story on the other side in what we call Genesis 27, which is a story in which Jacob and his mom also make up a meal. This time not for Isah, but for their dad Isaac to steal not the bechora, but the bechah,

the blessing. And he successfully does it. We'll take a look at that story next. But when Isah realizes that Jacob also pulled that stunt, he makes a wordplay and he says, what? Isn't he rightly named Yakov? Because he Yakoved me. He uses his brother's name as a verb. He tripped my heel and he says, he stole in my bechorah and my bechorah. All comes together.

Yeah, those together. So what's cool here, remember in Genesis 1, the blessing was be fruitful and multiply for the birds and the fish. And then for the humans, it was be fruitful and multiply and rule. Here, it's as if we are taking those two aspects of abundance and multiplication and authority and rule, and they each get broken out into two different stories of Jacob stealing them from his brother. He steals the authority, the Bechora firstborn, and he steals the Berrachah, which is multiplication and abundance. And he does this even just completely ignorant, apparently, of the fact that God was

wanted to give these things to him free of charge. Yeah. It's not hard to see oneself in this portrait of Jacob. Having been given a gift and a elected for purpose and fighting against it to get it on your own terms. Yeah. We're not trusting that God will provide it in the way we're manner timing that I would prefer.

And so I will find a way to get it on my own. I'll scheme up a way to get it on my own terms. Yep, that's the Jacob way. Yeah, let's let that sit and then let's hop into the well-known story of Jacob disguising himself as his brother to steal his brother's blessing. There's some cool stuff about blessing interest, that's what we do. So what you can do from here is just you could go slow or we can go fast over the Jacob story, but basically you get what the Jacob story is all about now. It's about a guy who doesn't believe that God's going to give him the blessing. And so he goes

throughout his whole life hurting everybody around him, trying to scheme and steal the blessing and abundance for himself and instead of just trusting that God is going to give it to him as a gift. So the famous story about him dressing up like his brother and deceiving his old blind father, and he's successful. He gets the blessing after all. Yeah, that's getting the Bechora. The uh, the Berrachah. Sorry, I know. I know it's confusing, yeah.

So we got these two mirroring stories, the one we just read in detail, where he steals the birthright. And then there's another story that we won't go into the details of, but it's a very similar premise where Jacob and his mom come up with this elaborate scheme to convince Isaac, the dad, to give Jacob the family blessing. And it also has to do with the bulls-do.

And so this story also is set on analogy with Genesis 3. It's filled with vocabulary of Genesis 3 about seeing or not seeing. Seeing what is... It's Father Cancee. Yes, Father Cancee, which echoes back to what the snake says to the woman, which is that in the eyes that you eat of the forbidden tree, your eyes will be opened, implying that she's blind. Now you get a guy who actually is going blind

and that makes him very deceivable. So Jacob becomes like the snake, a disguised deceiver, trying to weasel a blessing out of his father, and he's successful, He's successful in that. And actually, what he says to his mom first, this is his mom's idea first, and what Jacob says is, listen, my dad is going to ask me to come up to him. He's going to hear my voice and think it's me, not my brother. And then he will field me, and I'll become like a deceiver in his eyes. And I'll bring upon myself a curse, not a blessing.

So what his mom says is... I'm gonna get got is what he's saying. Totally. And what his mom, Rebecca, says is, Son, may your curse come upon me. And what's interesting in this story is after this story, you never hear about Rebecca again. She's the only patriarch or matriarch in Genesis that you never even hear about when or how

she died. And after Jacob leaves his mom in another scene later, he never sees her again. So in a way, she kind of unknowingly does bring down a curse on herself that her son is going to be chased out of town and she'll never see him again, because of what she did, the plan that she set in motion. And yeah, what she thought would bring about blessing actually brought about her separation from her son. It's a good example of what she thought was good in her eyes ends up bringing not blessing but death.

So, as you go on in the Jacob story, after he successfully steals the blessing, the blessing is so rad that he gets from his dad. It's essentially his dad, others this poem where he says, Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that Yahweh has blessed. So he talks about God, may God give Jacob the dew of the skies, the fatness of the land, much grain, fresh wine. You're like, yeah, blessing. Blessing. What he says next is, may people serve you and may people groups bow down to you, the rule and authority. Those who curse you are cursed.

Those who bless you are blessed. He's like becoming the little family blessing. Yeah, yeah, totally. Abraham got it from God. Yep, it's little family blessing. Yeah, yeah, totally. Abraham got it from God. Yep, it's getting passed down. Yeah, that's right. But now it's coming through Jacob.

And so Isaac thinks he's giving this to Esau. So Isaac was willing to give away the blessing for a bowl of food, just like Adam and Eve were, right? But then what he actually is doing unwittingly is giving it to the son that God destined it for, but the Son that God destined it for is not getting it by receiving it as a gift. So literally everybody is doing the wrong thing in this story. But the right thing is happening.

The right thing is happening, but everybody has the wrong reasons for doing what they're doing. That's right. Yeah, this is a good example of what Joseph says at the end of Genesis, which is, y'all plans this for evil, but God was able to plan it for good. So from here, Jacob goes into a 20-year exile, halfway to Babylon, in the land of his uncle, Laban. And it's sort of like the deceiver meets his match. And basically, it's 20 years of them deceiving each other, tricking each other.

And they're both trying to just get as much blessing as they can out of each other, that is labor and productivity. And out of those 20 years of deceit and treachery, Jacob ends up with four wives who are all jockeying for the most favored position of the matriarch, and that rivalry among the nephew and uncle Jacob and Lavin gets mirrored and multiplied by these rival siblings and daughters who all become Jacob's wives, and it's out of that rivalry within a rivalry that the twelve sons of Jacob are produced. And so it's a blessing because fruitful and multiply is a blessing.

But the blessing is surrounded by an environment of curse, an environment of grief and toil, abuse and hardship. It's this contradiction that man is so true to the human experience, you know, even sometimes the gifts that come our way are wrapped in really difficult, painful circumstances. So the question is, what does God like Abraham occasionally blew at big time, but Jacob's like from the gigo. He is. He's a deceiver.

He's a deceiver. So what's God to do with the guy who just won't take the gift? And this culminates in the story of God picking a fight with Jacob in the middle of the night. The story's so great. This is in Genesis chapter 32. And long we could spend a lot of time here, so I'll force myself not to. But Jacob is sleeping by himself.

It's the night before he's about to meet his brother Esau again after 20 years. And there's this guy, a man. You're still a man, picks a fight with him by their stream in the middle of the night, right before sunrise. And what the man sees is Jacob is so scrappy that he actually is not going to be able to beat him. It's like, I can't win against this guy. So what the guy does is he strikes the hollow of his thigh. So hard that it dislocates his hip. His hip is jerked away from the socket of his thigh. Now you just, you got a ponder and say, how hard do you have to be hit and where? To have you to hit the hip.

Yeah, totally. I mean, this is a hollow of the thigh. Where is that a specific place? Yeah, it's the crotch. The crotch. This guy punches Jacob in the crotch. That's not how I learned the story. What?

But do you get the image here? He's punched so hard. That his hip socket goes out. Yeah, totally. And so you have to say, like, where would that be? Well, it's on the inside of the thigh, so close up that the impact has to be going the direction that it would push the hip out the other direction. Shrish. And this has to do with, remember the core image of blessing

is be fruitful and multiply. And on a man's reproductive anatomy. Right? Where is the central location, of the source of the man's contribution to the blessing? It's right there. That's the part of the body that the man strikes. Then what the man says to Jacob is, hey, listen, the sun's about to rise, let me go. And Jacob says, nah, I'm not letting you go until you

give me a blessing. What? Why does Jacob think this guy can bless him? And the guy says to Jacob, what's your name? And he said, a yakov. And the man said, no, no, no. Your name is no longer yakov. Remember, that means he'll grab her. Rather, your name will be struggles with God. Yes, Ra'el, wrestles with God. Because you have sa'rod, struggled with God and with humans. And here's the thing, I gotta give it to you.

You have prevailed. You have a way of scheming your way out of any situation and coming out on top. I gotta hand it to you. That's what God is saying right here. You've been struggling with me. He's kinda saying like I've met my match a little bit. Okay, so maybe a very helpful image

that was given to me my first Hebrew Bible professor, Ray Lubek, and he said, the plot conflict of the biblical story, one way you could frame it as this. It's the story of how an irresistible force meets an immovable object. The irresistible force is God's desire to bless. And the immovable force, at least in the biblical story,

is human stupidity, selfishness, folly, and self-atonomy. And so it's as if God has been trying to bless this guy, and this guy lives his whole life, scheming and manipulating everyone around him to get the thing that God has been trying to give him. And what God says here is, and listen, congrats, you've come out on top.

You have prevailed. And so what does God to do with a guy who won't believe that God just wants him to receive? So what God has to do is wound him. He has to incapacitate him in the part of the body where he can generate his own blessing and a very powerful image of God having to both wound and heal, to strike and to bless, to get humans to receive the thing that he just wishes they could receive. And so his name, one of his names now going on from the story, is struggles with God.

And he's the father of the people group that will have this name. In a way, this little story is a parable anticipating what the whole story of Exodus all the way through Kings. Second Kings is going to be about. It's just kind of developing what this little story is about here. There's lots of little puzzles in the story and it's here like a riddle that helps you understand the larger story of Jacob and the larger biblical story. God wounds his chosen one to finally get him to receive a blessing.

To receive the blessing, he's be wounded. Because after he wounds him and renames him, then it says, and then the man blessed him there. And then Jacob says, I have seen the face of God. So he names the place, face of God, peniel. And he limps on his thigh for the rest of his days. Now, is this, this is a different kind of wounding. There's the theme of the suffering righteous one, like Joe, or like the suffering servant in Isaiah of someone who suffers and because of their suffering, then, can, is qualified to bless others.

Yeah. Is this riffing off of that, or is this a different kind of wounding where it's like, you're not the righteous one. I need you to like get your head in the game and actually be the righteous one. And in order to do that that I'm wounding you. Yeah, I think that's it. He's brought this crisis on his own head, so to speak. He's created this crisis.

The crisis being like, because at this point in the story we didn't set the stage. He's like on the run, right? He's... Well, he's gonna come back to meet his brother, but he's pretty sure that his brother is gonna want to kill him. And so he's still scheming and cooking up a plan for how to manipulate his brother when he meets him tomorrow. And so the night before he goes back to his family land and manipulates his brother, you get this story. It's essentially God saying, no more, buddy. You got to stop the scheming business.

So what he does is he impairs Jacob's ability to produce anymore, punches them in the thigh. There's only one child born after the story to Jacob, it's Benjamin, and it may even be that Rachel is already pregnant, in which case this was the blow that ended his fertility. And what he learns is that the only blessing he's going to get comes as a gift from God, because his own scheming is just going to hurt himself and other people. And he will endure through it, all right? God gives him that credit, but it only leads to wounding.

So he's wounded for his own sins, as it were. But yet, he's still God's chosen one, and that's the portrait here. And you're right, the image of God suffering chosen one is going to continue to develop in the Hebrew Bible. The suffering servant of Isaiah suffers for the sins of Jacob. He takes the sins that are not his own servants, but he takes the sins of all of his ancestors upon himself, so that they can receive rights standing with God because of what he does on their behalf. So that's a little different than what's happening here, but we're in the same family of like the wounded servant. So those are the, that's the kind of the arc of the Jacob story.

The word blessing and curse appears in the Genesis scroll in a high density in Genesis one through three. And then it's kind of occasional, especially in the story of Abraham. And then if you have like a little, you know what you see those people at the beach with their little metal detectors. Oh yeah.

If you have like a little blessing curse detector and you're going over the Genesis scroll, you get lots of hits in Genesis 1 through 3. You get a couple in Genesis 12 that we started with this episode. And then you get to the Jacob story and it's just, it's just off the charts.

So we're exploring the themes of the whole book here through the story of Jacob. get to the Jacob story and it's just, do do do do do do dootchety old man. And it's a sad, he's a tragic character, I think, in the story. But he is God's tragic character, and God makes him a vehicle of the chosen seed, and that's what the story of his sons will go on to be about. So, you kind of set this up as like, Abraham was chosen by God to give the blessing, and Abraham's a mixed bag.

We got stories of him being a deceiver and a snake, but we got stories of him surrendering all, and sitting underneath the great trees of memory and hosting the angels. And those set of stories kind of make you go, huh, if God's gonna attach his mission to bless the world through this guy who's a mixed bag, you know, what's that look like for the nations and for him?

Then, two generations later, you get a story of Jacob, the deceiver, who right out of the gate. He is just a deceiver and he's trouble. But God has attached his plan to bless the world through him. And what if someone is just so far gone that from the jump, everything they do is cunning and selfish and deceptive and just creates chaos around them everywhere. Like, what's God going to do? And it culminates in a wrestling match. Yeah. Yeah. What God doesn't do is abandon him. He actually says, I will never leave you in Norfersakian. That's those famous words come from what God says

to Jacob when he has to leave his family. Yeah, so what he doesn't do is abandon him. What he does do is pick a fight with him. And wound him. And wound him. Severe mercy, right? Yeah. Keep going.

I was enjoying your summary. That was it. He wounds him, almost to like get him to stop hurting himself and other people, which he kind of does after this point. But yeah, he comes across as kind of a sad broken man from here on out. And he gives him a new name. Druggles his identity now is connected to like his incessant character of struggle

that God will come and meet. And does it in the narrative, does it, does it specify that he walks with a limp now? Yeah, it says, yeah, in this little story, he crossed the stream at Penoel and he limped on his thigh. And you get this thing of, therefore, the sons of Israel don't eat this certain part of the hip muscle, or hip sinew in the hollow of the thigh of animals too,

because of this memory right here. So the memory of what God did to Jacob Israel is both carried on by the name. The name represents this whole theme. This is the name of the people of Israel. Yeah. Is the meaning of the name is introduced in this story, which is like it doesn't bowed well for how the rest of the story is going to go.

But it's also memorialized like Passover with the eating habits of the people to remember. So as we go from the Jacob story, God is going to carry on the promise to bless the world and the nations through, not Jacob, but through the next generation, through the sons. The promise gets carried on to them. He has 12 sons. And the story of those 12 sons begins in chapter 37, and that begins the fourth literary movement of Genesis. And we could continue the blessing of curse theme, but the words really drop off, the metal detector.

Like, there's very few hits, and so what we are going to do is explore another big theme in that story. But for now, we can draw our reflections on blasting in curse in the Jacob story too close. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. We have finished the third movement of the Genesis scroll that leaves one more movement. It's the stories of Jacob's 12 son with an emphasis on a man named Joseph. And as we read the stories, we're going to look at the theme of exile.

So Joseph's descent to the pit is descent to Egypt as a slave, are all going to be accumulating as images of his exile going down. To go down is to go into exile, just like Adam and Eve, went down from the high Eden mountain garden into exile just like Cain, went out of Eden into exile. Today's show was produced by Cooper Peltz, edited by Dan Gummel, and Zach McKinley, and our show notes are by Lindsay Ponder.

Bible project is a crowdfunded nonprofit, and we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we make is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you, so thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Shay for Church and I'm from Farmington, New Mexico. I first heard about the Bible project when I was in college, majoring in biblical studies. My brother reached out to me and said, hey, you got to check out these Bible explainer videos on YouTube. And I remember I immediately checked him out and just thought this is the coolest thing going right now. And since then I've used the Bible project to help me learn about God's word, to just

help me continue to see the Bible in new ways and grow in my relationship with the Lord. My favorite thing about the Bible project is listening in on the awesome conversations that are on the podcast. I'm seriously so pumped and thankful that I get to listen in on those chats. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We're a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes, podcasts, classes, and more at thebibleproject.com.

Thanks. you