Genesis Chapters 30-50
Jacob in Mesopotamia
Jacob and Laban
Jacob's time in Mesopotamia is fruitful. Upon arriving in Haran, Jacob agrees to work 7 years in order to marry Rachel. He is tricked by his uncle Laban into marrying Rachel's older, ugly sister Leah. Jacob then agrees to work another 7 years in order to marry Rachel.
Jacob and Laban: The Tables Turned (Gen: 30:1-31:55)
The years passed and Jacob was the father of many children. Jacob got Laban to agree to let him have any animal that was not white, Jacob used a combo of folk medicine and shrewd observation to cause more of the animals to be born spotted, speckled, or black. While Laban was away, Jacob gathered his family and flocks and left the territory.
When he found out what had happened, Laban followed in angry pursuit. God appeared to Laban in a dream and told him not to harm Jacob (30:40-31:24). Laban did accuse Jacob of stealing his household idols (31:30). Rachel, however, not Jacob, had taken the idols. When Laban came searching for them in her tent, she was seated on a camel's saddle in which the idols were hidden.
She kept him from finding them by saying she could not rise because she was having her period. Jacob and Laban made a covenant that they would not cheat each other again (Genesis 13:51-55). At this point, Jacob has a number of goats, sheep, and cattle, and also has twelve sons and a daughter named Dinah.
Jacob’s Second Theophany
This time, the theophany occurs at Peniel (Penuel). Traveling back to Canaan to meet his estranged brother Esau, Jacob has a second nocturnal theophany, this time by the river Jabbok, Alone in the dark and terrified of the next day's reunion with Esau, whose vengeance he has good reason to fear, Jacob suddenly finds himself attacked by an unknown entity. Wrestling all night, the two opponents are so evenly matched that neither can defeat the other. Only in the predawn twilight does Jacob recognize his mysterious assailant's identity, suddenly realizing that "I have seen God face to face" When Jacob refuses to release him, the divine attacker bestows both blessing and a name change.
Henceforth Jacob is Israel, meaning the one who has "striven with God and with humans, and has prevailed." Instead of being Jacob (meaning "supplanter", the trickster who had stolen Esau's legal rights), he is now Israel, signaling a new identity as one who effectively struggles with both God and mortals and survives. This is the first account of how his name is changed. Jacob memorializes the encounter by renaming the site Peniel (Penuel), which means "The Face of God."
After his reconciliation with Esau, Jacob makes another pilgrimage to Bethel, where God again appears, and we have again the name change of Jacob to Israel. Jacob again sets up a stone pillar, again anoints it, and again changes the site's name to Bethel. After his death, he is buried near Abraham's grave in Canaan.
The Story of Joseph and His Brothers
This part of Genesis is the transition from God's relationship with individual ancestors, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to God's relationship with a whole people.
Joseph was the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons. More importantly, he was his father’s favorite. He is decked out in his father's gift of an elaborate garment. He antagonizes his brothers by telling them two dreams that foreshadow his future greatness. Only seventeen years old, Joseph foresees future glory for himself, but is woefully insensitive to the feelings of his older brothers.
These brothers plot to kill him. But, according to the E source, Reuben persuades the others not to kill Joseph, but merely to throw him into a dry well, where passing Midianites extricate him and take him to Egypt. In the J account, Judah intercedes for Joseph, suggesting that he not be harmed but be sold as a slave to a caravan of Ishmaelites, who then transport him to Egypt.
In both accounts he ends up being sold to the Egyptians. His Egyptian buyer and new master is Potiphar, an important official at Pharaoh's court. Potiphar's wife makes advances toward him which he refuses. Nevertheless, Potiphar's wife convinces Potiphar that Joseph has raped her and he is thrown into prison. While in prison, Joseph interprets dreams of the Kings butler and baker, who were both in prison also. When Pharaoh needs his dreams interpreted, Joseph is called upon to interpret them. Joseph correctly relates that Pharaoh's two dreams about seven starving cows eating seven fat ones are prophetic in that seven years of abundant crops will be followed by a severe, prolonged famine.
Joseph is then appointed Pharaoh's chief administrator. During the years of prosperity, Joseph governs Egypt shrewdly, filling its warehouses with surplus grain. When famine strikes, he controls the food supply, exchanging grain and seed for the people's money, livestock, and land, all of which then become Pharaoh's property. By the famine's end, the Egyptian population has been reduced to mere "slaves," landless tenants working for Pharaoh, who is now Egypt's sole landowner (Chs. 41; 47).
Jacob's ten sons migrate from Canaan to the Nile region, seeking grain. Jacob's twelfth son, Benjamin, stays home with his father. In Egypt, the brothers fall into Joseph's power, fulfilling Joseph's adolescent dream of being exalted above his older siblings.
He puts his brothers thru a series of humiliating manipulations, then he reveals his identity to them. Rather than blaming them for their mistreatment of him, he interpreted it as the providential work of God, who sent him to Egypt to preserve them all (45:7).
The Family in Egypt (Gen. 46-50)
The brothers returned to Palestine and brought their father to Egypt. Genesis ends with the blessing of Joseph's sons (Gen. 49), the story of Jacob's death and burial, and, finally, Joseph's death. Before Joseph dies, he requests not to be buried in Egypt (Gen. 50).