Genesis 27:1-46

EXCURSUS G: UPON THE CHRONOLOGY OF JACOB’S LIFE (Genesis 27)

The elaborate calculations of Lightfoot, and most Jewish and Christian commentators, intended to show that when Jacob set out upon his journey to Haran, he and Esau were each about 77 years of age, and Isaac their father about 137, though based apparently upon the letter of Scripture, are so contrary to its facts that evidently there must be some error in them. Fortunately there are several dates which are open to no doubt, and if we start with these, it may prove not Impossible to arrive at more trustworthy conclusions.

When, then, Jacob went down into Egypt, he was 130 years of age (Genesis 46:9), and as Joseph when he “stood before Pharaoh” was 30 (Genesis 41:46), and as his first years of power were the seven years of plenty, and there had been already two years of famine when he made himself known to his brethren, he was plainly about 14 years of age when his father joined him. Now he was a lad of 17 when sold into Egypt (Genesis 37:2), and as he was born before the contract to serve Laban for the speckled cattle (Genesis 30:25), which lasted for six years (Genesis 31:41), he was about 7 when Jacob returned to Canaan. It follows, therefore, that Jacob was 91 when Joseph was born. Now the usual calculations allow only twenty years for Jacob’s sojourn in Padanaram, of which the first seven were spent in service before Leah and Rachel were given him in marriage. If from the twenty, we subtract these seven years and the seven years of Joseph’s age, there remain only six years for the birth of Leah’s six sons and the interval of her barrenness; and undeniably the narrative would be guilty of very remarkable exaggeration in its account of Rachel’s childlessness, and Rachel herself of excessive impatience, considering that at the end of six years she gave birth herself to a son, and in the interval had given her maid Bilhah to Jacob, who had by her two sons; and as the birth of these was the occasion to Rachel of very unseemly exultation over her sister (Genesis 30:6; Genesis 30:8), her conduct can only be accounted for by the fact that Leah had already a numerous offspring when Rachel gave Bilhah to her husband.

The case of Leah is still plainer. She bears four sons, after which she “left bearing” (Genesis 29:35), and this barrenness continued so long that she gave Zilpah as her substitute to Jacob, who bare him two sons, Gad and Asher. Now neither Rachel nor Leah would have resorted to this expedient until they utterly despaired of having children themselves; and Leah herself describes it as an act of great self-sacrifice (Genesis 30:18). Zilpah’s sons both seem to have been born in this period of Leah’s barrenness; for we find that Jacob had entirely discarded Leah, and it was only at Rachel’s request that he visited her again. Zilpah had taken Leah’s place plainly because she had no expectation of having more offspring, and from Genesis 30:15 it is evident that Jacob shared in this view, and had long ceased to pay any visits to Leah’s tent. Moreover, this interval lasted so long that Reuben was old enough to be allowed to ramble in the field — that is, the uncultivated pasture land where the flocks fed; and he had sufficient self-control to bring the mandrake-berries which he had found home to his mother. According to the usual calculations, he was between three and four years old at this time: for it is necessary to arrange for the births of Issachar and Zebulun within the six years. He is therefore described as carried by the reapers to the wheatfield, and somewhere there he finds the man-drakes; but the wheat harvest is mentioned only to fix the time, and Reuben had evidently gone a long ramble to places not often visited. For it is plain that the mandrakes were rarities, and that their discovery was unusual; and this would not have been the case had they been found near the tents, nor is it likely that a young child would have been the discoverer. On the other hand, if Reuben were an active young man, nothing was more probable than for him to wander away into distant quarters, looking, perhaps, for game; and the kind heart which made him bring the berries to his mother is in agreement with the brotherly affection which made him determine to save the life even of the hated Joseph (Genesis 37:21; Genesis 37:29). “Unstable” he was, with no great qualities, but not destitute of generosity or of sympathy; and to Leah her sons must have been her one comfort under her many trials, and no doubt she treated them lovingly. Now if we put all these things together — the birth of Leah’s four sons; Rachel’s jealousy at her sister’s fruitfulness, and her gift of Bilhah to her husband; Leah’s interval of barrenness, and her gift of Zilpah to take her place; the complete estrangement of Jacob from Leah, upon the supposition that she would never again conceive; and the fact that she had to purchase of Rachel the visit of Jacob to her tent, which was followed by the birth of two more sons, — if we bear all this in mind, few persons could probably be found capable of believing that so much could have taken place in six years. If we add the further consideration that Hebrew women suckled their children for two or more years (note on Genesis 21:8), the supposition that Leah had four sons in four years becomes very unlikely. The patriarchal women are described as the reverse of fruitful. Even Leah, the one exception, has only seven children; and where any patriarch has a large family, he obtained it by having more than one wife.

After the six sons, Dinah was born, for so it is distinctly said in Genesis 27:21. But even if we interpolate Dinah among the sons, so far from making the difficulty less, we only land ourselves in an impossibility: for we have now to cram seven births, and a period of barrenness into six years. We must, then, accept what Holy Scripture says as a literal fact — that she was born after Zebulun. Now if we bear in mind that Jacob was seven years unmarried, that Dinah was Leah’s seventh child, and that her mother had an interval of barrenness, it is plain that, if Jacob’s sojourn at Padan-aram lasted only twenty years, Dinah could not have been more than two or three years old when Jacob returned to Canaan. Now in the ten years which elapsed between Jacob’s return, bringing with him Joseph, then seven years old, and the sale of Joseph to the Midianites, at the age of seventeen, Jacob dwelt first at Shechem (Genesis 33:18), then at Beth-el (Genesis 35:1), and finally near Hebron (Genesis 37:14). But not only is Dinah marriageable at Shechem, but her brothers, Simeon and Levi, about whose age there can be no doubt, as they were Leah’s second and third sons, — these lads, then, aged one eleven and the other ten, on their arrival at Shechem, are so precociously powerful as to take “each one his sword, and come upon the city, and slay all the males” (Genesis 34:25). Jacob, a peaceful man, is horrified at what they do, but dares only to expostulate with these boys; and they, acting upon the usual law, that where there are several wives, the women look not to the father, but to those of their mother’s tent, for protection, give him a fiery answer. Really we find in Genesis 27:13 that the sons of Jacob were grown men, who took the management of the matter into their own hands.

If, too, Jacob was seventy-seven when he went to Haran, then, as his mother was barren for twenty years, and Laban was a grown man when he made the arrangements for his sister Rebekah’s marriage, Laban must by this time have been nearly 120. Yet evidently all his children are very young. The difficulty is not, indeed, removed by subtracting twenty years; but it is lessened.

Moreover, as Joseph was born seven-years before Jacob left Padan-aram, and Reuben in the eighth year of his sojourn there, he would be Joseph’s senior by only five years. Yet Reuben calls him a “child (Genesis 37:30), and all the rest treat him as one far younger than themselves, though really he was of much the same age as Issachar and Zebulon, and Zilpah’s two sons, Gad and Asher. Judah, Leah’s fourth son, would at most be only four years older than Joseph, yet he seems to have had a flock of his own at Timnath (Genesis 38:12), marries, and has three sons. The first, Er, grows up, and Judah takes for him a wife; but he was wicked, and died a premature death. Tamar is then given in marriage to the second son, and he also dies prematurely; whereupon Judah sends Tamar back to her father’s house, with a promise that when Shelah, his third son, is grown up, he shall be given her as a husband. While she is dwelling in her father’s house, Judah’s wife dies, and there were the days of mourning; and as Tamar had long waited in vain, she has recourse, when Judah was comforted after the loss of his wife, to an abominable artifice, and bears twin sons to her father-in-law. Now there were at most twenty-three years between the sale of Joseph and the going down of Jacob’s family into Egypt, and if it was really the case that Judah was only twenty-one at Joseph’s sale, all these events could not have happened within so short a period. The phrase “at that time,” at the beginning of Genesis 38, by no means implies that the marriage of Judah with Shuah’s daughter was contemporaneous with the sale of Joseph. It is quite indefinite, and intended to show that the episode about Judah and his family happened about the same general period; but really it could not have taken place many years previously, for, as we have seen, only ten years elapsed between Jacob’s return and the cruel treatment of Joseph by his brethren. Judah’s marriage, then, must have happened soon after the return to Canaan, when, nevertheless, according to these calculations, he was a boy only eleven years of age.

It is quite plain, therefore, that Jacob’s sojourn in Padan-aram lasted more than twenty years. What, then, is the explanation? It was long ago given by Dr. Kennicott, and, as stated in the Speaker’s Commentary, Bishop Horsley considered that the reasons he gave for his conclusions were unanswerable. All really depends upon the translation of Genesis 27:38; Genesis 27:41 of Genesis 31, and in the Authorised Version the two periods of twenty years are made to be identical, the second statement being taken as a mere amplification of the first. But if we turn to the Hebrew, it clearly distinguishes the two periods. In Genesis 27:38 it is literally, “This twenty years I was, with thee; thy ewes, and thy she goats, did not cast their young,” &c.; and in Genesis 27:41, “This twenty years was for me in thy house: I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy sheep.” But in Hebrew the phrase this... this, means the one and the other, or, in our language, this and that. (See Note on Genesis 29:27.) Thus, then, there were two periods of service, each about twenty years in duration, of which one was for settled wages, and the other for no stipulated hire. They would not necessarily be continuous, and Dr. Kennicott arranges them as follows: — First, Jacob served Labon fourteen years for his two daughters; next, there was a long period of twenty years, during which he took care of Laban’s flocks, receiving from them maintenance for himself and family, but acquiring no separate wealth; finally, after Joseph’s birth, Jacob rebelled at this treatment, and determined to go back to his father, but was prevailed upon to remain, on the promise of receiving for himself all the speckled sheep and goats.

This explanation is confirmed by the curious phrase in Genesis 27:41 : “This (second) twenty years was for me in thy house.” The other twenty years were for Laban’s sole good, and made him a wealthy man; but the fourteen years for the two maidens, and the six for the cattle, were, Jacob says, “for me.” They were mine, spent in attaining to the fulfilment of my own purposes.

In the Speaker’s Commentary, the following table is given as a probable arrangement of the chief events in Jacob’s life: —

Years of Jacob’s life.

Twenty years’ unpaid service.

0

Jacob and Esau born.

40

Esau marries two Hittite wives, Genesis 26:34. F

57

Jacob goes to Padan-Aram, Isaac being 117.

58

Esau marries a daughter of Ishmael, Genesis 28:9.

63

Ishmael dies, aged 137, Genesis 25:17.

64

Jacob marries Leah and Rachel, Genesis 29:20; Genesis 29:27.

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah born of Leah.
Dan and Naphtali born of Bilhah.

71

End of fourteen years’ service.

Fourteen years’ service.

72

Beginning of twenty years mentioned in Genesis 31:38.

Gad and Asher born of Zilpah.
Issachar and Zebulun born of Leah. Dinah born.

91

Joseph born of Rachel.

92

Agreement made, Genesis 30:25.

Six year
service for
cattle.

97

Flight from Padan-aram.

98

Benjamin born; Rachel dies.

108

Joseph, at seventeen, is carried to Egypt, Genesis 37:2.

120

Isaac dies, aged 180, Genesis 35:28.

121

Joseph, aged 30, governor of Egypt.

130

Jacob goes down to Egypt, Genesis 46:1.

147

Jacob dies, Genesis 47:28.

In this table there are only two dates to which I should venture to take exception. First, it is not probable that Dan and Naphtali were born during the seven years which followed upon Jacob’s marriages. Rachel would resort to an expedient so painful to a wife only in despair at her own barrenness, and in envy of her sister’s fruitfulness. The giving of Bilhah must have taken place during the twenty years of unpaid service. Next, Benjamin could scarcely have been born in the very year following the return from Padan-aram; for after the interview with Esau, Jacob goes to Succoth, and thence to Shechem, where he buys a plot of ground. We learn, nevertheless, that Jacob, when Dinah was wronged, had not been there long, from what Hamor and Shechem said to the citizens (Genesis 34:21). From Shechem, Jacob next goes to Beth-el, and “dwells there” (Genesis 35:1), but after some little stay, moves southward, towards the home of his father; and it was near Bethlehem that Benjamin was born. Most certainly Jacob would keep steadily in view his return to Isaac; but the events between the flight from Haran and Rachel’s death at Bethlehem, are too many to be crowded into a year. On the other hand, Rachel’s age warns us that Benjamin’s birth could not have happened long after her arrival in Canaan. If, then, we place it in the hundredth year of Jacob’s life, and the thirty-fourth of his marriage, two things follow — the first, that Rachel was very young at her marriage, and a mere child when Jacob first met her; the second, that Jacob must have spent about twenty years with Isaac at Hebron before the latter’s death.