A Suggested Soap in 12 episodes
based on Genesis 25-35
Introduction
The story of Jacob in Genesis 25-35 would make an ideal TV soap opera, in the mould of “Eastenders” or “Emmerdale”. It contains dramatic conflicts within and between families, and a mysterious stranger who intervenes from time to time. Here are summaries of the twelve episodes which cover the story – though they can easily be expanded. Names are made into modern equivalents. So “Jacob (or Yacoub) is here called Jake. There is a sequel next week about Jake’s favourite son Joe with a further twelve episodes.
Episode 1 Jealous twins. (Genesis 25)
Easy to make: Just boil up some red lentils in water with chopped onion, garlic and carrot, slat and pepper. See it’s worst selling your birthright for!
Two twins, Eddie the elder, and Jake the younger. As they grow up, Eddie is a huntsman, a rough hairy guy, his father’s favourite. Jake is a stay-at-home shepherd, his mother’s favourite. One day, after a long unsuccessful hunt, Eddie comes home famished, and asks for some red lentil stew Jake is cooking. Jake gives him some if he agrees that he, Jake, can be the eldest son. Eddie agrees. The start of bad blood between them.
(Note: Eddie in the Bible is ‘Esau”. Here he is named after ‘Edom’, similar to ‘red’ in Hebrew, because he was the founder of the tribe of Edomites).
Episode 2 Deceiving Dad. (Genesis 27 – 28)
Their father Zac (Isaac in the Bible) is old and blind. He wants to give Eddie the special dad’s blessing, but first he wants Eddie to go and get him a nice venison stew. While he’s out hunting, Zac’s wife Becky (or Rebecca) persuades Jake to pretend he’s his brother, wearing Eddie’s hunting clothes and imitating Eddie’s voice. Zac is taken in and gives Jake the blessing of the first-born. When Eddie returns and discovers the trick, he vows to kill Jake as soon as their dad is dead.
Zac and his family live miles away from their home country. The parents don’t want their sons to intermarry with the locals. Eddie, feeling rebellious, does just that, marrying not one but two wives from the local Hittite community. Becky says to Zac, “If Jake marries one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?” So Zac sends Jake off to find his mother’s relatives in Syria. Eddie then marries another wife, this time an Arab. He knows how to upset his folks!
Episode 3 Running away and a weird dream (Genesis 28)
Jake leaves home in disgrace, with no servant to help and protect him, and a long way to travel on foot. He walked for two solid days through the hill country of what will be Israel. Over fifty miles away from home, night has fallen, and he collapses exhausted outside a city called Luz. No tent, no sleeping bag, just a flat stone as a pillow. Asleep he has a weird dream. (Cue Dr Who’s opening music). An enormous ladder stretches out into space with bright beings going up and down. A voice proclaims, “I am the ONE – your father’s God and your grandfather’s God. All this land will be yours!” Jake wakes at dawn, and manages to lift the rock he has slept on upright as a pillar to commemorate his encounter with the ONE. He says, “From now on, I will call this place ‘the house of God’, and I will follow God – provided he sees me all right”.
Episode 4 Finding a new family (Genesis 29)
The next two to four weeks we follow Jake as he walks the 400 miles to the north Syrian/south-east Turkish city of Haran. He has to live off the land finding water, foraging for food, hunting for meat. (Ref: Bear Grylls ‘The Island”). In the open country outside Haran he comes to a well with an enormous stone on top to stop water thieves, so big that it needs half a dozen men to shift it. There are three shepherds there with their flocks, and he asks if they know Laban, his uncle. “Sure,” they say, “and here comes his daughter Rachel with their sheep.” The journey had toughened Jake, because on his own he rolls the stone off the well, kisses his cousin Rachel and breaks down in tears. He tells her he is Becky’s son and there is a great reunion with uncle Laban and everyone kisses everyone. “You’ve got to stay with us, Jake,” emotes Laban.
Episode 5 The fake wedding (Genesis 29)
Laban has two daughters, the elder Leah with weak eyes, and Rachel a real beauty. Of course, Jake falls in love with Rachel. But he’s got no money and no prospects. So Laban says “Work for me for seven years, and you can marry her, my boy.” So he does just that, and those seven years “seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.”
The wedding day finally arrives, with the bride wearing the customary heavy veil. Only at night does Jake get close to her and they make love. BUT in the morning light, Jake finds he has been tricked and it is not Rachel but Leah he has married! Laban explains that the custom is for the younger to marry only after the elder daughter has. “But don’t worry. Enjoy Leah for a week, and then you can marry Rachel, on condition that you work for me for another seven years!’ Jake is a stranger in the land, and has no option but to agree.
Episode 6 Feuding over babies (Genesis 29-30)
While Jake does his duty by both his wives, only Leah conceives. She had four sons in rapid succession. Rachel says to Jake “Give me children or I’ll die!” Jake responds angrily, “Am I God? He’s the one responsible for your having no babies!” “All right, here is my maid Billie, make children with her and they’ll be mine.” So this is what Jake does, and Billie (Bilhah in Hebrrew) has two sons for Jake. Leah feels she is in danger of being overtaken by Rachel, so she gives Jake her maid Zil (or Zilpah), who also produces two sons.
At harvest time Leah’s eldest Reuben goes and finds some mandrakes – a root plant, excellent for getting high and getting pregnant. Rachel says to Leah, give me some of your son’s mandrakes. Leah replies, “You take away my husband, now you want my son’s mandrakes?” “All right, Leah, give me the mandrakes and you can sleep with Jake tonight.” The result? Two more sons and a daughter for Leah. Finally, Rachel has a son herself and calls him Joe (short for Joshua).
Episode 7 A couple of cheats (Genesis 30)
Jake wants to leave, but Laban persuades him to stay, and asks him to name his wages. Jake asks for just the spotted or striped sheep. Laban agrees, but then drives all the spotted and striped sheep thirty miles away. So Jake cunningly uses white branches by the watering holes to influence how the sheep and goats conceive, and all the kids come out striped or spotted. (Don’t try this at home, it doesn’t work). So over the years he becomes rich, with a large flock.
Episode 8 Escape with stolen goods (Genesis 31)
Laban’s family become jealous of Jake. At this point God conveniently tells Jake to leave with all his family and possessions. His wives happily agree, so they plot their escape. without telling Laban. Rachel takes the opportunity to steal all the family’s household gods, she and Leah riding on camels, following the flocks of sheep and goats, aiming to return to Jake’s father Zac in Canaan.
Episode 9 Making peace with one family (Genesis 31)
It takes Laban three days to discover their flight and he goes after them, overtaking them a week later east of the Jordan. “Why did you flee secretly and not tell me? We could have had a party. And why did you steal my gods?” Jake replies, “I didn’t steal anything. Have a good look. Anyone who has done this will be punished.” Laban went into all the tents. But Rachel had hidden the gods in her camel’s saddle and sat on them. She said she could not get up as she was having her period. Jake was furious at Laban’s accusation. “I served out for twenty years, and ten times you cheated on my wages.” Laban replied, “They’re still my daughters. But let’s make an agreement. Where we are will be the boundary between your territory and mine.” So they agree and put up a a heap of stones as a boundary marker. Then they eat together, spend the night there and in the morning go their separate ways as friends.
Episode 11 Walking into a trap? Fighting a ghost? (Genesis 32)
This episode has a strange atmosphere of dread and the supernatural. It starts when Jake is nearing his family home and he is aware of spirit beings in his path, but no contact is made. He sends messengers to tell Eddie of his return. When he hears that Eddie is approaching with four hundred armed men, he is terrified. He prays to the God of his ancestors, asking to be kept safe from his brother, in case he, Eddie, comes and kills his whole family. The next day he sends an enormous present, hoping to buy off Eddie’s anger – forty goats, two hundred and twenty sheep, thirty camels, fifty head of cattle and thirty donkeys, in three instalments, to impress Eddie with his sincerity.
That night he sends his wives and children on ahead, but stays by the ford of the Jabbok, a brook that flows east to the river Jordan. There ‘Jake is left alone; and a man wrestles with him till daybreak.” (Perhaps to stop him crossing the brook?). Who was this stranger? He dislocate’s Jake’s hip but still loses. He gives Jake a new name, ‘Israel’, meaning ‘God-wrestler’. But he won’t give his name and at dawn he vanishes. Jacob marvels, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
(Note to the producer: Perhaps a leaf can be taken out of the last episode of the series “Rev”, in which Adam, the main character, has a clear encounter with Jesus, apparently an ordinary man, but played by a major star, viz. Liam Neeson, neither his name nor indeed his character appear in the credits at the end).
Episode 11 Making peace with a brother (Genesis 33)
Jake’s guilty conscience makes him assume the worst of Eddie. He divides his family into two groups so if the worst happened one would survive. He then does perhaps the one decent act of his life. He goes ahead of them all, prostrating himself every few yards as the two brothers approaches each other. But Eddie ‘runs to meet him, embraces him, falls on his neck, kisses him, and they weep aloud.’ What a reconciliation! But when Eddie suggested that they journey on together, Jake keeps making excuses, and eventually they part. They are not to meet again until their father’s funeral. Jake then moves over the Jordan to the city of Shechem, not far from where he had his first encounter with his father’s God in a dream.
(Episode 11a CENSORED; includes rape, bloody surgery, mass murder) (Genesis 34)
The story can be read in my recent blog, “5 Bible Scandals”. It is basically unfilmable, and unviewable before the watershed. See the blog “5 Bible Scandals”).
Episode 12 Moving home and three deaths (Genesis 35)
Having made Shechem too hot for him, Jake has a dream in which he hears God tell him to move to Bethel where he had his first dream. First he tells his family to get rid of their pagan statues and ear-rings, which he buries under the famous oak tree there (in case they were needed again?) But what if the locals mounted an attack while they were on the move? Amazingly, not only did the various clans they move through not attack them, they even shut the town gates against them, so they make the two days’ journey with all their flocks and herds in eery silence. When they get to Bethel, Debbie (or Deborah), Rachel’s old nurse whom she had known all her life, dies and is buried at the foot of the big oak tree there.
That night Jake has another dream in which God reminds him of his new name ‘God-conqueror’ and promises to make him the ancestor of a whole company of nations and kings. In the morning Jake sets up a proper altar at Bethel, makes an offering of wine and oil, then continues to travel south to meet his father. Near Bethlehem Rachel goes into labour, and it is a very difficult birth. Rachel loses so much blood that she knows she is dying and she calls her new baby boy “Ben-of-my-sorrow” before she dies. Jake thinks that’s very unlucky and he calls his new son “Ben-of -my right-hand”, or Ben for short; (in the Bible Ben-yamin or Benjamin). He sets up a grave-pillar to mark Rachel’s burial place. He arrives at Hebron just in time to see his father Zac still alive, but a few days later Zac dies and Jake and Eddie come together to arrange the funeral.
What happened next? See next week’s blog, “The Saga of Joe”.