Genesis 32:13-23
2009.Apr.10 17:00
Diplomacy, a la Bribe
Read Genesis 32:13-23 | Full Chapter
So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau, two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, "Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove."
(Genesis 32:13-16, ESV)
Jacob is up to something. When is he not? As I said last entry, he’s matured up over the years. Instead of cunning with intent to deceive, he’s now using his cleverness for the sake of diplomacy. How much of a difference that actually implies is debatable.
Before we find out what his plan is, the narrator gives us a chance to marvel in Jacob’s wealth. Well, the narrator gives the “ancient” Hebrew readers a chance. Interpretting this accurately is not going to be easy for the average 21st century suburbanite. Since this is a present, it’s likely this list comprises only a small percentage of Jacob’s livestock. Of course, I have zero expertise here, but all signs point to major earthly success.
But what is that at the cost of being hated by his brother?
So, let’s delve more into “the plan”.
(Incidentally, it might be worth looking into the particular divisions of animals, both by species and by sex. But I’m not going to.)
He instructed the first, "When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, 'To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?' then you shall say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.'" He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, "You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, and you shall say, 'Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.'" For he thought, "I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me."
(Genesis 32:17-20, ESV)
So, that’s his plan. Send Esau enough presents with enough time between them that, if he is raging, he might cool off and even come to accept Jacob before the two actually meet. Not a bad idea. It’s certainly worth letting go of a portion of Jacob’s wealth to prevent a violent confrontation, and possibly even to allow some reunification with his bother. Jacob cannot yet be expecting that possibility. Considering Esau’s justifiable rage, Jacob will do well to get through this alive. That he returns to Palestine knowing this reveals the growth in his faith in Yahweh.
It’s worth considering the justness of Esau’s rage in comparison to the justness of Yahweh’s rage against me. Only, Yahweh has no rage against me, although it would certainly be just, considering the number of times I’ve gone my own way, tried to assert my own claims to godhood, even after explicitly rejecting those claims in favor of Yahweh’s, even after acknowledging that I cannot possibly save even myself, but choose to have faith that Yahweh in his mercy will do so and indeed already has done so. Anyway, Melchizedek tends to get the most attention as a type of Christ in Genesis, but I think Esau is also in some ways.
So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp. The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had.
(Genesis 32:21-23, ESV)
His offering prepared, Jacob sends everyone else across the Jabbok river. I don’t know why. It’s going to set up the next event, though, in which Jacob is alone, and has a wrestling match. The motto of Genesis? “Who needs a straight-forward story line?”.
I guess that’s life, though.
