Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you will be divided; the one will be stronger than the other, the elder will serve the younger. (25:23)

    The brothers would struggle with each other, but the outcome was foreordained. The younger would win. The Jacob cycle finds affinity with the Abraham cycle in the rivalry of the favored sons Ishmael and Isaac, though the earlier rivalry was played out by the mothers. In the present case the cycle is driven by Jacob's determination not to let Esau inherit. First, Jacob bought the birthright (25:27-34) from Esau, who was willing to sell it for a pittance. The birthright is the right of the firstborn to inherit the family estate. Then Jacob deceived his father, Isaac, into giving him the blessing that was intended for Esau (27). The irony of the cycle is that Jacob did not know he had been foreordained to prevail. He schemed to get what God had already granted him at birth.
    There is also a transparently deeper level to the sibling conflict. The divine oracle to Rebekah reveals that these stories are about more than just brothers at war. "Two nations are in your womb"--they are stories of national conflict. These tales prefigure the later antagonism of Israel and Edom.

Israel and Edom. Jacob and Esau are respectively the eponymous ancestors of Israel and Edom. Throughout their history Israel and Edom were bitter rivals. The Edomites refused the Israelites passage during the wilderness sojourn (Numbers 20:14-21). David defeated the Edomites (2 Samuel 8:13-14) in the process of establishing his kingdom. On many occasions Israel's prophets condemned the Edomites. The Jacob-Esau conflict is, among other things, a story of the origin of Israelite-Edomite animosity.
    The birth account and the birthright episode relate Esau to Edom. Esau's red and hairy appearance provide opportunity to pun on the place names Edom (from the word red) and Seir (sounds like hairy). The land of Seir was the homeland of the Edomites. Jacob sounds like heel, and he had a hold on Esau's heel coming out of the womb. A more precise linguistic derivation of the name Jacob relates it to the word for "protect," so that Jacob (probably originally Jacob-el) means "May God protect." Later in the cycle God will change Jacob's name to Israel (32:28). For Edom and the Edomites in biblical tradition see Dicou (1994) and Edelman (1995).

    The blessings intended for the firstborn go to the younger. Whether intended or not, this reversal of tradition, as well as the unity of birthright and blessing, seem to be reinforced by clever word choice. Firstborn and birthright derive from the same root, and blessing has the same consonants, with the second and third reversed. Rebekah, who loves Jacob over Esau, has a name suspiciously close to these central terms.

Firstborn versus Chosen Son Both the Primeval and Ancestral stories deliberately bypass firstborn sons when deciding the lineage of promise.

    Throughout the Ancestral Story threats to the promise come both from inside, in the form of barrenness, and outside, in the form of enemies. Sandwiched between Jacob buying the birthright and stealing the blessing is the tale of Isaac and Rebekah's sojourn in Philistia where they found themselves in danger (26:1-11). Isaac deceived the local population into thinking Rebekah was his sister so that he would not be killed for her. This incident recalls similar situations with Abraham and Sarah (12:10-20 with Pharaoh in Egypt and 20:1-18 with an Abimelech in Gerar). Later, as Isaac's holdings increased, he came into conflict with the Philistines over water rights and wells. The conflict was settled amicably when both parties agreed to a non-aggression treaty.

Type-Scene. The Ancestral Story contains a number of episodes that have similar features and motifs. An example is the ancestor who says his wife is his sister (see above). It is possible that the writers drew upon conventional settings, situations, and action sequences to wrap their stories. Such scenarios have been called type-scenes (see Alter 1981: 47-62). Other biblical type-scenes include the birth of the heir to a previously barren mother (Isaac to Sarah, Esau and Jacob to Rebekah, Joseph to Rachel) and meeting one's future wife at a well (Rebekah, Genesis 24; Rachel, Genesis 29; Zipporah, Exodus 3).

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and walked toward Haran. ¹¹ When he reached the place, he spent the night there, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep in that place. ¹² He had a dream. There was a stairway set on the ground with its top reaching to heaven. Angels of Elohim were going up and down it. ¹³ YHWH stood above him/it and said, "I am YHWH, the Elohim of Abraham your father and the Elohim of Isaac. The land on which you sleep, to you I will give it and to your descendants. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth. You will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. By you and your descendants will all the families of the earth bless themselves/be blessed. ¹⁵ I am with you and will protect you wherever you go, and will return you to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you." ¹⁶ Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely YHWH is in this place, and I did not know it." ¹⁷ He was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of Elohim, and this is the gate of heaven." (28:10-17)

    In this dream God spoke to Jacob and personally confirmed the promises of descendants and land that had been transferred to him by his father Isaac. Many phrases echo earlier promise statements, including "all the families of the earth bless themselves/ be blessed" (12:3) and "dust of the earth" (13:16).

God's promises to the ancestors often incorporated an "international" component. See Table 2.C for a list of the "bless themselves" passages.

Source Analysis. This episode appears to have elements of both Yahwist and Elohist writing. The shell of the story is the dream setting in which angels of Elohim appear on a stairway (11b-12, 17-18, 20-22). This bears the marks of the Elohist, for whom theophanies typically occur in dreams. The Yahwist contributed the content of the divine oracle (13-16) and the location references (10-11a, 19). The Yahwist also contributed the Abraham promise statements in Genesis 12 and 13, which are similar to this passage.

    In his dream Jacob sees a stairway reaching to heaven (see Figure 2.14). This component of the incident may be intended to provide counterpoint to the notorious primeval tower project (Genesis 11:1-9; see Chapter 1.2). In that episode humanity tried to build a tower with its top in heaven. Babel was to be the gate to heaven. In this episode Jacob happens upon the authentic heavenly access point, Bethel. The similarity of the names Babel and Bethel may be more than just coincidence.

Ziggurat The stairway in Jacob's dream may be modeled after the stairway ramp of Mesopotamian ziggurats (see Chapter 1). The stairs ascended to the peak of the temple tower, which marked the contact point of heaven and earth. The word babel in Akkadian means "gate of God." And Bethel means "house of God."

¹⁸ Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. ¹⁹ He called the name of that place Bethel (previously the name of the city was Luz). ²⁰ Then Jacob vowed a vow, "If Elohim stays with me, and protects me on this path I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, ²¹ and I return to my father's house in shalom, then YHWH shall be my Elohim. ²² This stone that I have set up as a pillar shall be the house of Elohim. Of all that you give me I will give a tenth back to you." (28:18-22)