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To: normy; ansel12; TheWasteLand
How bad was Jacobs family in your eyes and Gods I wonder.

Well, on the positive side with Jacob...
...he made a vow for God to be his God (Gen. 28:20)
...it was not of his choosing to enter into polygamy. In one sense, he did the honorable thing to wake up & discover having slept with a surprise bride...(that culture wasn't the type where you could throw a non-virgin back into the general pool like a fish too small).
...he overcame the angel of the Lord in a wrestling match & demanded a blessing from him (Gen. 32).

Still, Jacob stole blessings belonging to his brother Esau by way of deception (Gen. 27). [And in God's world, sometimes what comes around goes around]. In fact, Jacob's very name means supplanter, which = usurper, wrongdoer, offender, claimjumper.

You'll note that Jacob's transformative experience with God doesn't happen until after Jacob's baby marathon (Gen. 32 after Gen. 30). And it's usually a name change that's indicative in Scripture of God coming in to transform a person from their old life to new life [Jacob to Israel in Gen. 32; Abram to Abraham in Gen. 17; Sarai to Sarah; Saul to Paul; Simon Peter to Peter the Rock, etc.]

As for Jacob's family...
...the concubine Bilhah slept with one of Jacob's sons, Reuben (Gen. 35:22).
Son Judah thought he was sleeping with a prostitute, but she turned out to be a daughter-in-law (Tamar).
Sons Simeon & Levi took revenge on an entire city over the rape of their sister (Dinah), killing every male in that city (Gen. 34:25), even though only one man was guilty.

Son Dan is Jacob's late-life "blessing" is referenced as a "serpent" and "viper" (Gen. 49:17)--not exactly a prophetic compliment...as it turns out the Danites fail to fully possess their allotted land (Judges 1:34-35)...failed to support Deborah (Judged 5:17)...and are wiped away as a tribe to the point where Dan isn't even mentioned among the tribes in Rev. 7:5-8.
The jealous sons all conspired to rid of the family the baby of the family, Joseph--pondering killing him before selling him off to another land, and like their dad did, deceived him into thinking Joseph was dead (more of what comes around, goes around).

So jealousy (Gen. 30:1; 37) raged in Jacob's household over a generation of time; and deception raged in his households from the time he was young until his empty-nest years.

85 posted on 05/18/2008 6:25:42 AM PDT by Colofornian
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To: Colofornian; ansel12

Ask me a question.


89 posted on 05/18/2008 6:28:58 AM PDT by ansel12 (post-apocalyptic drifter uttered three words, polygamous zombie vampires!)
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