After Sarah's' death, Abraham takes another wife, Keturah who bared him six more kids. "And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah." (Chapter 25: 2) When he and Sarah were bared with Isaac, he was supposedly old and found having a son at that age as a joke. So, what made him change his mind? Was it the "be fruitful and multiply" cause again? I'm beginning to think it was. His sons then reproduced and had more kids who had more kids and so forth. It seemed as if keeping the seed of the family alive was extremely significant during that time, as if they were pressured and eager to reproduce. But the time had arrived, "... Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, and old man, and full [of years]; and was gathered to his people." (Chapter 25: 8)
Isaac was left with his father's blessing, and now it was his turn to rock the Bible. So Isaac and Rebekah have two sons, Jacob and Esau. After tricking his father, Jacob is the one who gets the blessing before Isaac dies. However, all along, Isaac had a strong preference for Esau while Rebekah liked Jacob. So this was the story: Before Isaac's death, Rebekah sent Jacob instead of Esau to receive his father's blessing. Isaac could no longer recognize for he was blind, so Rebekah decided to get some animal hair to simulate Esau's hands which were hairy. With this, they expected Isaac to believe he was blessing the other son. "And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands: so he blessed him." (Chapter 27: 23)
Considering that Esau was the firstborn, I completely disagree and despise the fact that Jacob received the blessing instead of him. Rebekah was a good wife at the beginning, but now I realize that she was in a way unfaithful to her husband, she abused him under his conditions in order to accomplish her son's ambition.
"And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob". (Chapter 28: 41) So Jacob is obligated to leave town and reaches the land of Rebekah's brother. He falls in love with his cousin and desires to marry her. However, he is made to serve her and her family for seven years and is forced by Laban to marry his first daughter Leah. He then had to work seven more years in order to earn Rachel. I find this to be ridiculous! How is it possible to force your nephew and husband to work for you? They treated him as a slave but after all he deserved it. Surprisingly, Rachel could not conceive children and gives Jacob her servant to lay with him. She then takes the maids children as of her own. This is really familiar to that of Abraham and Hagar who also had to take their servant's son, Ishamel as theirs. Why is the same thing happening in different generations? I'm starting to believe that this will form a pattern that will continue much further. They say that mutations within family members brings complications, but is this the case?
Rachel and Leah then had a fight for being the favorite. They used their handmaids to have children, both with Jacob. What did Jacob feel about this? Having two wives wasn't common during those times and much less to have children with them at the same time. Jacob ended up having 12 sons and 4 wives. Maybe he was the one who brought the tradition to the muslims of having 4 mates. "Now the sons of Jacob were twelve: The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun: The sons of Rachel; Joseph, and Benjamin: And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid; Dan, and Naphtali: And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid; Gad, and Asher: these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padan-aram." (Chapter 35: 22-26)
The religious followers of Judaism tend to have numerous children. I've been relating this with the hole Bible up to what we've read and I realized that in our religion it is also very important to increase family genes, and not only that, but for us it is also significant to increase the amount of followers, for we are not many in the world today. This tendency might have come from the "be fruitful and multiply" saying that the Lord once told the first humans on Earth.
"And God said unto him, Thy name [is] Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel." (Chapter 35: 10) God now changes Jacob's name into one of the most sacred names in the Jewish religion. I have never felt so connected.
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