Julia M. OBrien

(This post covers some of the same ground as my session on Jacob in Reading the Bible as an Adult but talks more about how the themes of the story resonate with me.)

It’s common to read the Jacob narrative (Genesis 25-36) as tracing the main character’s transformation.  According to a lot of folks, Jacob begins his life as trickster but several key events help him to change.  One is his experience of being on the receiving end of deception, when his uncle Laban manipulates him into taking not just one but two cousins and hatches one scheme after another to keep Jacob down on the sheep farm. The other episode seen as pivotal shows up in chs. 32 and 33: on the night before he is to face the brother he has wronged, Jacob wrestles with and prevails over a man whom he later perceives as God.  Not only Jacob’s name but his very character is altered by the experience, enabling him to reconcile with Esau.

That's one way of looking at this story.  But paying close attention to particular literary features of this narrative makes Jacob’s story look different-- less about change than about how themes established at the beginning of a life continue to weave throughout it.