The Shape of Genesis – Part 4

Jacob’s story brings forth sons of Abraham as stars for the heavens.

As James B. Jordan observes, human beings were made of “world stuff,” so the social order images the cosmic order. At the center of the Genesis narrative is the human equivalent of the governing lights of Day 4. In the Tabernacle, these were represented by the lights of the Lampstand—the two great lights and five lesser lights that move across the sky (those visible to the naked eye). Of course, Jacob’s sons are not seven stars but twelve, which is the vertical three of heaven (above, beside, below) multiplied with, rather than added to, the horizontal corners of the land. Thus, seven is a cruciform marriage of heaven and earth (forming), but twelve is the offspring (filling).

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. (Revelation 12:1)

Likewise, the twelve tribes of Israel were later arranged around the Tabernacle as a cruciform “ziggurat”—fulfilling Jacob’s dream—reaching up to the constellations of the heavens.¹

The internal structure of the Jacob narrative at the center of Genesis is an expansion of the pattern of Genesis 1 and thus also a miniature of the pattern of the entire book. It works in a straightforward way through the Bible Matrix in a single heptamerous cycle, and this pattern is also the key to the arrangement of the events within each cycle.

Contrary to the opinion of many commentators, Jacob is not presented here as a liar who was transformed by God into a more honest man. Rather, he is described as “blameless” from the beginning (Genesis 25:27). The word is rendered as “quiet” in English translations, an example of the bias of translators misguiding readers with the result that our comprehension of the entire narrative becomes skewed.

Jacob is the “seed of the woman” and Esau is the “seed of the serpent,” so the scheme to steal Isaac’s blessing from his firstborn—based upon the warning given by God to Rebekah (Genesis 25:23) is actually an act of holy war against the devil. Esau is the epitome of the antediluvian world. Like Adam, he sells his birthright for food. Like Cain, he desires to kill his younger brother. Like the sons of Seth, he intermarries with pagans and despises the promises. Rebekah did not wait for God to act because she understood that she had been inspired to act. In a divine irony, while her eyes had been opened, it was her “Adam” who had been led astray, and it was she who would deceive the serpent. Jacob, as the faithful son, is not Isaac’s firstborn but he is God’s firstborn—Israel.

The main theme of the narrative is Jacob’s spiritual cunning as a better Adam, outsmarting snakes at every turn. The main antagonist is, of course, Laban, as the primary serpent at the center of the cycle. Jacob’s confrontation with his uncle is a battle of wits, not fists or swords—akin to the draconian showdown in the court of Pharaoh in Exodus 7.

Laban’s name is an anagram of Nabal (the unrighteous man in 1 Samuel 25), which means “fool.” The point is that God is more crafty than the devil. Jesus Himself, the actual Promised Seed, came like a thief to the house of the Herods (descendants of Esau) and is now conquering the world—by stealth—with the Gospel. Like all of his conceited toadies, Satan considered himself wise but became a fool (Romans 1:22). History is all about turning the Edenic tables on the devil, with the added drama of God risking everything to up the stakes with every new cycle, counting on the fact that the evil one in his arrogance will continue to double down.

ETHICS: KINGDOM
Day 4 – Jacob (Genesis 25:19-36:43) Governing Lights
(Testing – Purification)

Overview

Most importantly, since the book of Genesis is a fractal, the primary allusion of this sequence is to the Testing of Adam.

Initiation: Just as there was no man to steward the Garden, Isaac’s firstborn, having married Canaanites, was not the man to take possession of the land promised to Abraham.
Delegation: Adam was taken from the ground and given the breath of life. Jacob was set apart as the heir and prepared for marriage.
Presentation: Adam was placed in the Garden-Sanctuary, given a Law with a promise, and in a deep sleep was given a bride. Jacob sleeps at the foot of the true Tabernacle, marries Leah and Rachel, and has twelve sons.
Purification: Adam faced a false teacher and tyrant who desired to enslave him and steal his promised inheritance.
Transformation: Adam grasped equality with God, failed to wrestle with the angel, and would lose even that which he had.
Vindication: Instead of coming boldly before God after having protected his bride, Adam blasphemed God and condemned the woman in order to justify his actions. In contrast, it is Jacob’s daughter who is led astray, his sons who bring shame upon the name of God, while Jacob himself is blessed.
Representation: Having failed to become a light to all men in the Garden, Adam’s offspring would corrupt the Land and the World. Again in contrast, Jacob succeeds his forebears, but the “seed” of his older brother remains to trouble Jacob’s children right until the end of the Bible.

Although Jacob himself is not the Adamic character at every step, the narrative most certainly recapitulates the pattern at a corporate level. After all, this is a “Land” version of the “Garden” story, hence the focus on Jacob’s relationships with his parents (above), brother (beside), and offspring (below), working vertically through the Tabernacle. This threefold pattern is also seen in the three Ethics cycles, from head (Word – a stone pillow), to hand (Sacrament – a labor of love), to foot (Government – a “bruised heel” from wrestling or “getting dusty”²). As was intended for Adam, and fulfilled in Jesus and the Church in the first century, this process transformed Jacob into a household—from one to many—and established his dynasty.

TRANSCENDENCE
Creation: Isaac and his sons (Genesis 25:19-26:35)
(Genesis – Sabbath – Ark – Light)
–

HIERARCHY
Division: Jacob is blessed and sent into the wilderness (Genesis 27:1-28:9)
(Exodus – Passover – Veil – Firmament)
–

ETHICS: Priesthood
Ascension: Jacob’s dream, his wives, and his children (Genesis 28:10-30:24)

(Leviticus – Firstfruits – Bronze Altar & Table – Dry Land & Fruit Bearers)
–

ETHICS: Kingdom
Testing: Jacob’s conflict with Laban (Genesis 30:25-31:55)
(Numbers – Pentecost – Lampstand – Governing Lights)
–

ETHICS: Prophecy
Maturity: Jacob and Esau reconciled (Genesis 32:1-33:20)
(Deuteronomy – Trumpets – Incense Altar – Hosts)
–

OATH/SANCTIONS
Conquest: Dinah is defiled / Jacob is renamed (Genesis 34:1-35:15)
(Joshua – Atonement – Laver & Mediators – Animals & Man)
–

SUCCESSION
Glorification: Deaths of Rachel and Isaac / Esau’s descendants (Genesis 35:16-36:43)
(Judges – Booths – Shekinah – Rest & Rule)
–

Analysis

The Genesis cycle begins with Esau and Jacob as the Abrahamic equivalents of Cain and Abel. Just as humanity was divided by the circumcision into the offices of priest and king, so Isaac’s sons are kingly and priestly within that priestly national office. Their story informs us that although Israel was set apart for royal service as a mediatory body, God was still concerned with the heart circumcision of every individual. As mentioned, Esau is a one-man Adamic world, entirely governed by the desires of the flesh. Esau hunts (the carnal order: nature) but Jacob cooks (the supernatural order: culture). Esau is not inherenlty evil, he is simply “wild” like the Gentiles, unrefined and “unpruned” by the Spirit of God. The attributes of the two brothers are images of the fact that God desires to take us as “rough” rocks from the earth and chisel us to use as “smooth” living stones to integrate into His temple. The cycle ends with a recapitulation of Abraham’s wise dealing with Pharaoh, but this time the scenario includes wells—the womb and the waters both relate to the land and offspring promises to his father. Abimelech is a Philistine king, and the Philistines were sons of the Egyptians.
The Exodus cycle begins with the plundering of the blessing of the firstborn in a set up that, like the halved animals in Genesis 15³, is a replica of the future Tabernacle of Moses. Isaac is enthroned (the Ark) but blind (the Veil). Esau hunts for raw meat (the Bronze Altar outside the tent) but Jacob presents some stew (the Golden Table inside the tent). Jacob smells and feels like Esau, and his two arms, covered in goat skin, are the two goats on the Day of Atonement. He is the son who represents the people of God, the Bride (the Incense Altar). The Lampstand is the Tree of Knowledge and Rebekah’s serpentine deception. The “water and fire” of the blessing and curse are the Bronze Laver, and the Shekinah “Succession” is Rebekah’s warning to Jacob to flee.
In the Leviticus cycle, Jacob sleeps upon a stone like a “son of the herd” upon the altar. His “ascension offering” (Leviticus 1) is vision of the true Tabernacle and its “construction” out of human sons. Notice the mention of Jacob’s tithe to God (Genesis 28:22). Jacob is then tricked into polygamy by an idolater (or syncretist), much like the sons of Seth in Genesis 6, but in this case God would outsmart the serpent and use the former to do exactly what the antediluvian pagans intended with the practice—quickly establish a dynasty of sons as heirs to evade the curse upon the womb.⁴ The Hebrew uses a pun that means both “built up” and “sons,” alluding to the nature of the Woman as an image of the City of God. God blesses obedience, but the pagan way is to evade submission by obtaining those things via magic or sorcery. This is the reason for the use of the mandrakes (“man-dragons”) to obtain fertility instead of waiting upon God.⁵
The Numbers cycle is all about Jacob’s prosperity and Laban’s attempt to steal it from him. Laban removed all of the party-colored animals before Jacob could claim their offspring, so in a sense Jacob’s inheritance had to come from nowhere. Jacob trusted God, who gave him practical instructions in a dream (Genesis 31:10-12). In spring, when stronger young are born, he placed the young before the females at the drinking troughs presumably so the males would mate with them there from behind. Stronger animals have fewer recessive genes and would produce more varied offspring. Poplar and almond trees also have medicinal properties for both humans and livestock. This was Jacob’s experience combined with revelation from God concerning matters of genetics of which Jacob would most likely be unaware. All he had to do was obey.⁶ Although it look like sorcery to Laban, this was simple submission to God. This sequence ends with a division between the “old” household of Laban the idolater (that which God decreased) and the “new” household of Jacob (that which God increased) as a kind of “resurrection body,” like the new generation of Israel at the end of Numbers. Of course, here the census is more concerned with livestock than people.
Deuteronomy, as Day 5, is concerned with “hosts.” In terms of the narrative, these are the rival households of Jacob and Esau. In terms of obedience and disobedience, is the multiplied results of our response to the Law of God—plunder or plagues. As James B. Jordan observes, this was a test of Jacob’s maturity. Would he be like Adam and grasp what God intended for him as a gift, or would he be willing to see his riches diminished in order to make peace with his brother. Abraham faced a similar test with his promised son. Would he be willing to give him up simply because God required it? As a true Son of God, Jacob was a peacemaker. Cain murdered Abel because of what happened at (the equivalent of) the Bronze Altar. Here, the two brothers are reconciled because one was willing to bear the loss (1 Corinthians 6:7). This likely led to Esau’s personal conversion, but his descendants (with the notable exception of faithful Job, Genesis 36:33) continued with the hateful rivalry.
The Joshua step is filled with ironies. Jericho, as a city, was “circumcised” by God as a firstfruits of the conquest of Canaan. But here, it is the hateful sons of Jacob who act like heathen, and the Gentiles who are righteous. Simeon and Levi are the serpents who come to murder and steal. This is the “vindication” step of the pattern, and Dinah’s name means “vindicated” or “justified.” Internally, this passage also places her name at this step. As the Oath/Sanctions step of the Jacob narrative, the story takes place in Shechem, between the two mountains through which Israel would later pass into the Land—barren Ebal (from which the curses were pronounced), and fertile Gerizim (from which the blessings were pronounced). Despite the trouble caused by this barbarous act of “atonement,” God protects Jacob from the Gentiles who might seek vengeance by causing them to fear him, much like the people of Jericho.⁷
The Judges step concerns covenant succession. It consists of events that affect priestly Jacob, and then a long list of the wives and kings of firstborn Esau. Abraham was chosen from among all men to bear the Edenic curses upon the land and the womb in order that the Gentiles might multiply and fill the world. Here we see that the line of faithful Jacob will be the one to suffer the struggle to bear offspring, waiting in patience upon God for sons and a lasting kingdom. This is the context for events later on, especially the destruction of the glory of Esau, whose nickname, Edom (“red,” like blood on a hunter, and the soup for which he sold his birthright) is also a pun on the name Adam. Jacob’s sons would struggle with their brothers, wrestle with God, and limp through history, but in the long run there would be no rest for the sons of Esau. Like Adam, who desired kingdom before God’s time, they were natural sons who would despise the spiritual.