A CRITICAL PERIOD IN BIBLICAL HISTORY
Genesis 31 > Exodus
WARNING: Female privy parts, that time of the month
CONTEXT: ~ 1800 BCE Junior patriarch Jacob/Israel is leading his family and sheep south from Syria to Palestine when a confrontation erupts over stolen personal idols.
The Paying Public is a Praying Public
Genesis 31 is an interesting exercise in the curation of Bible scripture for the consumption of the lay public. What I mean is this: there is a lot of material that doesn’t get recited from the pulpit by any pastor or lay reader because the congregation might think “eeeew” and cut back on donations. They may even begin to question the legitimacy of their faith and the book upon which it is loosely based.1
This entertaining passage continues the saga of the third-generation patriarch Jacob prior to his name change.2 If you recall in Gen. 29, Uncle Laban tricks Jacob into marrying his ugly but fertile daughter Leah. Jacob then has to work another seven years to get to Rachel, the cute but barren one. Laban also tries to cheat Jacob by shorting his wages. So the two men have a history of conflict and deception. But considering that Jacob (whose very name implies craftiness) deceived his brother Esau for the purpose of stealing his birthright and later hijacked their father Isaac’s blessing, his whining about Laban’s treachery is a bit lame.
As the book opens, Jacob is taking his wives, kids and flocks and sneaking off to Canaan. He has finally had enough of his no good father-in-law Laban and especially the issues with speckled sheep and wages.
However, unbeknownst to her husband, Rachel has stolen her father’s household gods. These are small statues generally located in niches around the house or tent, a form of worship that existed in a parallel time frame with the YHWH cult. Unaware of the theft, Jacob crosses the Euphrates and heads toward Gilead.
A God Stealer In Our Midst!
Laban and his henchmen catch up with Jacob, and, in spite of YHWH’s warnings to him, the father-in-law from hell begins complaining about Jacob’s abrupt departure. He claims his feelings are hurt because he would have wanted to throw a nice going away party. He bemoans the fact that Jacob spirited away the precious daughters that Laban sold him.3 Finally, Laban tells us the one thing he simply can’t get over is the theft of his gods.
Not knowing his favorite wife is the guilty party, Jacob promises whomever has stolen the idols “will not live.” All the tents are searched, but to no avail: lovely Rachel has hidden the little gods in her camel’s saddlebag. Sitting on her dromedary luggage with the idols safely inside, she demonstrates that she has learned a few things from her trickster dad and husband. She tells her father than she can’t rise in his presence because she is having her period.
“And she said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.” – Gen 31:35 [KJV]
As far as the narrative goes, that is the end of the matter. Obsessed as he is with the god theft, Laban nevertheless lets it go, accepting Rachel’s excuse at face value. We never find out what Rachel does with the statues, or more significantly, why she took them in the first place. There is no indication that she destroys them and there is no indication that she intends to worship them on the sly. Meanwhile, Jacob goes off on another tirade about how unfairly he has been treated.
Just How Monotheistic Were The Early Hebrews?
The nature of these little statues or teraphim is not explained in the story, a plausible indication that the ancient reader is familiar with them. In larger context, they are an interesting component in a wide strain of narrative contradictions that run throughout the Hebrew Bible. The basis of these apparent anomalies is the slow evolution of the Hebrew people from polytheistic El worshipers to YHWH-centric, my-way-or-the-highway monotheism.
Recall that Rebekah sends Jacob back to her homeland because she doesn’t want him to marry an idol worshipping Hittite woman. And yet here is Laban (Rachel’s father) keeping these small idols in his personal shrine. Is he a man of YHWH or not? Further, his daughter takes them with her, suggesting that she is familiar with them. The practice was of concern to the Yahwist authors seeking to enforce centralization of spiritual and political power in the Jerusalem temple.
In reality, worship in household shrines was not only common throughout the ancient Near East, it remains a practice among such modern Christian denominations as Catholics, who may have a little house for Mary or a family saint in the home or garden.
There really is no difference.
These household statues were items of personal cult worship in opposition to the Yahwistic communal cult practices that are explicitly temple-based. In contrast, individuals in the Hebrew Bible are often seen building DIY shrines everywhere they go. Thus we encounter teraphim in other stories: Abraham, the original patriarch, was the son of Terah, who was a manufacturer of teraphim.4 David’s wife deploys personal idols to save him from Saul, there is a funky interlude in Judges 17 and in Ezekiel 21:2l we find a reference to the King of Babylon using teraphim for divination.
In this sense, they are similar to the Urim and Thummim found in the breastplate of the priest’s outfit (See Ex.28:30). There was no particular distinction between “religion” and “magic” in the ancient world and the Hebrew practices were no exception.
“And she said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.”
– Gen 31:35 [KJV]
NOTES:
- Later in this chapter of Genesis there occurs another well known phrase that means something quite different than the standard Sunday School interpretation. See May the Lord….
- Jacob becomes Israel (Isra – el) after wrestling all night with the Canaanite deity El on the banks of the river Jabbok. He grapples the Lord of the Universe to a draw, which is not bad. God then gives him the new name that means “struggles with God” (Isra – el). That moniker becomes the name of the chosen people.
- With the exception of Job, few Old Testament characters have been blessed with a sense of irony.
- The Hebrew Bible described Abraham’s father Terah (Terach) as an idolater, but later tradition in Jewish Midrash writings claims he was also a manufacturer of these teraphim.
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