Patriarchal History: Action and Reaction (2007)

Jacob's hurried flight from his father-in-law Laban's home (Gen. 31) occasioned a double family crisis. Unknown Jacob, his wife Rachel, in her zeal rid her father of his idolatrous practices, steals the terafim, the miniature idols worshipped by him (31:19). Laban vents his spleen on Jacob on account of that, and also because Jacob had not told him in advance of his decision leave so that he could have sent his daughters and grandchildren off in a grand manner and kissed them goodbye (vv. 27-28). The Torah appears vindicate Laban's sense of outrage through its employment of the phrase 'Vayyignov Yaakov et lev Lavan [literally: And Jacob the of Laban].' That is, he deceived him by not telling him that he was about flee (31:20). This particular idiom to steal [the mind] is clearly employed in order create a dual link with Laban's second charge: Namely, 'Lamah ganavta et elohai [Why did you steal my gods]?' (v. 30). The same verb is used describe Rachel's action: Vatignov Rachel [And Rachel stole] rather than the equally suitable Vatikah Rachel [And Rachel took]. Thus, Jacob is cast in the role of a serial deceiver: Previously of his father and brother, and now a perpetrator of a double deception on his father-in-law. However, things are rarely black and white, and we have put Laban's anger into its proper context. First, Jacob had, a while earlier, already alerted Laban the fact that he was preparing leave his home and employ: And it came pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban: 'Send me away, that I may go my own place, and my country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I served thee, and let me go....' And he [Laban] said: 'Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it' (30:28). It was thus clearly understood between the two that the ensuing arrangement on the speckled and spotted sheep, the agreed settlement of account, meant that Jacob would then make good his departure. The fact that Jacob had flee suggests that Laban had clearly failed face up that fact, and had initiated a process of delaying tactics and obstruction. Furthermore, if we go back the early period of Jacob's arrival at Laban's home, we find that Laban was the one who stole the mind of Jacob, by bringing the heavily-veiled Leah the bed chamber instead of Rachel. So we have here a web of domestic deceit, with Laban, the deceiver, being in turn deceived by Jacob. Nevertheless, however much Laban may have deserved what Jacob did him, and however much, at an earlier time, Jacob may have been entitled the firstborn's blessing that he extracted, yet those acts of deception could still not be morally justified. Perhaps underscore this, as the story unfolds we find Jacob being punished by becoming the victim of an act of deception uncannily similar the one he had perpetrated on his father. At some future time this was crystallized into a proverb about fathers eating unripe grapes and the teeth of children being set on edge (Jer. 31:28; Ezek. 18:2). That pattern of fateful retaliation was described graphically by Hillel when he saw a skull floating on the water: Because you drowned others they have drowned you; but the end will be that those who have drowned you will themselves be drowned. (1) Hillel was certainly not commending that unstoppable spiral of violence. He was merely commenting on its inevitability in the light of the patterns of violence he had witnessed. That pattern was already discernible in the lives of the matriarchs and patriarchs. Jacob had behaved furtively, and, by means of subterfuge and deception, he had extracted from his father the firstborn's blessing. He did it by colluding with his mother, Rebekah, deceive her husband, Isaac. In a telling re-run of that situation, Jacob, like his father before him, becomes the victim of a deception by his wife Rachel, who behaves furtively and steals something from her father behind the back of Jacob, her husband. …