The Patriarch Jacob—An “Innocent Man”

032

At the beginning of the story of Jacob and Esau, the Bible tells us that Esau was a hunter, a man of the outdoors; Jacob, by contrast, was an ’ îš tām (Genesis 25:27), (pronounced ish tam).

If we were to render this expression in accordance with the Bible’s usual meaning of tām (’ îš unquestionably means “man”), we would say that Jacob was a “perfect man,” a “blameless man,” a “man of integrity” or an “innocent man.”

This range of meaning can be gleaned from other biblical passages in which tām is used. Job was called an ’ îš tām w^eyāšār, a “blameless and upright man” (Job 1:1, 8; 2:3). Noah was an ’ îš ṣaddîq who was tāmîm in his age, a “righteous man…blameless in his age” (Genesis 6:9). Psalm 37:37 connects tām with yāšār (the “upright”) and the ’ îš šālôm (the “man of integrity”).

Clearly ’ îš tām in the biblical idiom usually refers to a man whose character is beyond reproach. And yet, in the case of Jacob, translators have often avoided the plain meaning of ’ îš tām, providing instead ingenious substitutes.

The King James Version says Jacob was a “plain man”; the Revised Standard Version and the Jerusalem Bible say he was a “quiet man”; the new translation of the Jewish Publication Society says a “mild man”; Speiser in the Anchor Bible translates the term as a “retiring man”; the New English Bible says Jacob “led a settled life.” The list could go on and on.

Why not an “innocent man” or a “man of integrity” or “a blameless man”? Clearly such a translation has been avoided in many Bibles because the translators are quite aware that immediately after this characterization the text tells us how Jacob obtained his elder brother Esau’s birthright and later the blessing Isaac intended for Esau. Translators resist the natural meaning of the term because they perceive Jacob as a deceiving, conniving character.

Lansing Hicks has described the problem quite well:¹

“The character of Jacob the clever, mendacious supplanter projects so prominently from the narrative that it is difficult to bring the story into proper focus. The reader frequently feels that the deceitful Jacob deserves to be forsaken, left to face alone the full force of his dangers. No other patriarchal narrative is so inescapably dominated by the character of the man himself; and this tends to distort the evaluation of every incident.” How can 034Jacob be an ’ îš tām in the usual sense of that term if he is also a liar and a cheat?

Traditional Jewish exegetes have interpreted Jacob’s character quite differently from their modern counterparts. Rashi, the great Jewish commentator of the 11th century, for example, saw Jacob and Esau as contrasting religious types. Jacob as the ’ îš tām was a man of integrity; his heart and his lips spoke the same language. By contrast, when the Bible in the same verse calls Esau an ’ îš yōdêa‘ ṣayid (literally, “a man who knows hunting”(?)) it means that Esau knew how to deceive with his mouth. According to Rashi, Esau hypocritically asked his father how tithes were to be taken on salt and straw, to deceive his father into thinking he was very pious.² So much for Esau.

Although traditional Jewish exegesis saw Jacob as essentially pure, Hosea the prophet recognizes Jacob as something less than a model of virtue. When Hosea pleads for Israel to return to God, he presents Jacob as someone who, having been punished for his misdeeds, wept and begged for God’s favor. The Lord, we are told, was resolved to:

“ … punish Jacob according to his ways, And requite him according to his deeds.”

(Hosea 12:2b, English)

(Hosea 12:3b, Hebrew)

Perhaps these conflicting views of Jacob’s character are attributable to the predispositions of the interpreters. Is there a more reliable way of discerning what the biblical author meant when he used the term ’ îš tām?

Robert Alter has recently emphasized the importance of reading biblical narratives from within the imaginative world of the authors of these texts. Alter’s studies in literary criticism have shown that the biblical authors’ purposeful, artistic use of literary techniques enabled them to depict complexity and moral ambiguity in their characters.³

The literary question in this instance is this: Why did the author characterize Jacob as an ’ îš tām (an “innocent man”) and then place him in a series of concrete situations with other characters that seem to portray Jacob as deceitful and manipulative? Did the narrator want the reader to agree or disagree with Isaac that Jacob “came with guile” to take away his brother’s blessings (Genesis 27:36)? Did the narrator want us to agree or disagree with Esau that Jacob was appropriately named because he had supplanted his brother twice, first with the birthright, then with the blessing (Genesis 27:36)?^a Did the narrator want us to agree or disagree with Laban charging that his son-in-law Jacob had cheated and stolen from him while amassing a fortune (Genesis 31:26)?

We must distinguish between the author’s purview, on the one hand, and the perception of each of the characters, on the other. We must ask what each character knows—or does not know. How does his knowledge color his perception of events? How does his knowledge affect his interpretation of the motivation behind the actions of others? The narrator is, of course, omniscient as he creates the story, How does he disclose to us what he knows, and how does he disclose this, to disclose it, or fail to disclose it, to each of the characters?

At the beginning of the Jacob cycle, the author employs a literary device for communicating special knowledge to one of his characters: a divine oracle. The oracle is given to Rebekah, Isaac’s wife and Jacob’s mother. Rebekah knew that she was pregnant, but was tormented by strange happenings within her womb. Her anguished inquiry of the Lord brings the oracular response: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23). Thus, Rebekah knows, and the reader knows, that Jacob—not Esau—is to be the child of destiny, But none of the other characters have this knowledge. Rebekah tells no one. Why doesn’t Rebekah tell anyone—not even her husband Isaac? Perhaps the knowledge is too troubling for her to talk about. The right of primogeniture is to be upset and this is certain to cause family strife. Not even Jacob, at least in the beginning, is aware that providence has decreed that he, not Esau, shall be the bearer of the divine promise from his generation to the next.

Jacob, then, is initially ignorant of his divinely appointed role. Thus, when the narrator proceeds to tell us in the next frame that Jacob is an ’ îš tām, he gives us, his readers, a wink. We know that Jacob is an “innocent man,” but the characters in the drama do not. The reader can only assume that Jacob’s innocence will somehow be demonstrated in the stories that follow.

035

The opposing nature of the character of Jacob and of Esau is reflected in what happens. Esau, the hunter and outdoorsman, comes in from the field famished. Jacob, the innocent homebody, is minding his business, cooking a pot of stew. Esau wants Jacob’s stew, and says to his brother: “Let me eat some of that red pottage, for I am famished!” Jacob seizes the opportunity to buy the birthright from his elder brother, in exchange for the food. The narrator tells us that Esau “ate and drank, and rose and went 036his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright” (Genesis 25:34).

How are we to assess what Jacob has done? Did he take advantage of his brother in a weak moment, acquiring for himself something that was not rightfully his? Or was Jacob innocent?

The narrator supplies the answer. Nothing in the narrative suggests that Jacob did not act within his legal and moral rights. There is not even a hint of condemnation. We may justifiably conclude that the narrator did not intend to portray a morally compromised Jacob. Jacob is innocent of wrongdoing; the guilty party is Esau. Esau was unworthy of the birthright; he “despised” it or “spurned” it, the narrator says.

In the next episode, Jacob masquerades as Esau and wins his blind father’s deathbed blessing. If we ask who is responsible for concocting this act of deception, it is surely Rebekah. She is the eavesdropper, overhearing the conversation between Isaac and Esau. Isaac orders his son Esau: “… go out to the field, and hunt game for me, and prepare for me savory food, such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat; that I may bless you before I die” (Genesis 27:3–4). Before Esau can return from the hunt and prepare Jacob did his father’s favorite dish, in order to receive his blessing, Rebekah springs into action to deflect the legal blessing to Jacob. She acts with dispatch; her instructions are precise. She says to Jacob: “Go to the flock, and fetch me two good kids, that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he loves; and you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies” (Genesis 27:9–10). Her instructions echo Isaac’s to Esau. She knows that Isaac’s intention runs counter to the realization of the divine oracle. Her knowledge of what Providence has decreed forces her to act. Moreover, she loves Jacob more than Esau.

Jacob is reluctant to go along with the ruse. He objects: “Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing” (Genesis 27:11–12). But Rebekah insists, claiming that if there is a curse it will fall on her. Jacob fetches the animals, but Rebekah carries out the preparations for the use. It is she who makes the savory food; it is she who takes Esau’s garments and puts them on Jacob; it is she who thrusts the food into his hand. Once inside Isaac’s room, Jacob is left to carry out his mother’s act of deception on his own. He says to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn,” and cleverly carries out the ruse.

After Jacob has been blessed, Esau returns from his hunting and the trick is discovered. Isaac says to his disappointed son Esau: “Your brother came with guile, and he has taken away your blessing” (Genesis 27:35). Esau’s reply echoes Isaac’s low opinion of what Jacob has done; says Esau: “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted^b me these two times. He took away my birthright and behold, now he has taken away my blessing” (Genesis 27:36).

But how does the narrator judge what Jacob has done? Does he share Isaac’s and Esau’s condemnation of Jacob? It is by no means clear that he does. He has gone to great effort to make Rebekah the instigator of the whole affair. Jacob is drawn into the deceptive scheme, but only reluctantly. It is understandable that commentators see Jacob’s behavior as a moral lapse, but lest we draw that conclusion too easily we need to note that the narrator does not make any explicit judgment to that effect. Instead of telling us how to judge Jacob’s behavior, the narrator chooses to let us ponder as we read on.

Rebekah’s craftiness is further that evidenced in the next episode, did not where she is again a manipulator of events. On hearing that Esau is so angry that he is determined to and kill Jacob, Rebekah warns Jacob and instructs him to flee at once to her brother Laban in Haran. Her opening words are a precise echo of the entire episode when she enlisted Jacob’s participation in tricking Isaac. Again she says to Jacob, “Now, my son, listen to me” (Genesis 27:43 and 27:8). She will trick Isaac again. She tells Jacob one thing, and she will tell Isaac another. Jacob must go to stay with Laban, Isaac is told, because it is time for Jacob to take a wife.⁴ She communicates the urgency of the situation by stating, “I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?” (Genesis 27:46). Isaac, unaware that he has again been deceived by his wife, obligingly responds to her frantic plea. He summons Jacob, instructs him to go to the ancestral homeland to marry one of Laban’s daughters, blesses him in the name of El Shaddai, and sends him on his way. Rebekah has cleverly manipulated her husband a second time, and Jacob is blessed again before his departure.

With this blessing, pronounced by his father Isaac, Jacob learns for the first time that the Almighty has conferred on him the blessing of Abraham, to be passed on by Jacob to his own 037descendants:

“May El Shaddai bless you, make you fertile and numerous, so that you become an assembly of peoples. May He grant the blessing of Abraham to you and your offspring, that you may possess the land where you are sojourning, which God gave to Abraham” (Genesis 28:3–4).

Through her carefully crafted schemes, Rebekah has been a midwife to Providence. Jacob now knows his special place in the chain of generations.

In the next episode, this judgment is confirmed by God himself in the dream of the ladder extending to heaven with angels going up and down. The Lord says to Jacob as he sleeps, his head upon a stone:

“I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will give to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants” (Genesis 28:13–14).

We shall not follow Jacob to Laban’s house and back, except to note, as many commentators have observed, that the stories of Jacob’s experiences in Haran contain numerous subtle connections with the stories we have just reviewed—for example, Laban’s deception of Jacob by substituting Leah for Rachel, followed by Laban’s explanation: “It is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn” (Genesis 29:26). But does this story, rich in associations with Jacob’s acquisition of the firstborn’s blessing from his blind father, imply a moral judgment of Jacob? Has the author created the subtle connections in order to show that the perpetrator of deception had now become the victim? Is the narrator passing an adverse moral judgment on Jacob’s earlier actions?

Admittedly, the story can be read in that way. But another interpretation is at least equally plausible. Jacob, again, has been drawn into a plot against his will. For seven years Laban led him on, and Jacob innocently participated in the scheme. He did not know Laban’s mind, and he fell victim to his sinister workings. The narrator wants us to note, however, that Jacob did not let his unfortunate plight do him in. He dutifully agreed—without complaint or a word of resentment—to work seven more years for Rachel. Unfortunately the result was that Jacob was, drawn into still another round of strife, set up by the rivalry between Leah and Rachel another story of older and younger siblings.

From beginning to end the stories about Jacob can be read as the narrator’s imaginative effort to maintain Jacob’s innocence—to be consistent with his opening characterization of Jacob as an ’ îš tām. To this end, the storyteller puts Jacob, time and again, into situations of strife and conflict that test the patriarch’s character. When Jacob is not yet aware of his divinely appointed destiny as the supplanter of Esau, he strives innocently to obtain Esau’s birthright; having obtained it by legitimate means, he then resists his mother’s deceitful plan to win the blessing Isaac intends for Esau. When Rebekah insists, Jacob becomes a reluctant, but effective, participant in the scheme. And yet it is he—not his mother—who receives the harsh judgements of his father and brother. In Haran, it is Laban who conspires to take advantage of Jacob, and yet Laban will later accuse Jacob, wrongly, of cheating and theft. And so it goes. Despite his difficulties, and despite repeated assaults on his character, Jacob remains an “innocent man,” an ’ îš tām.

The narrator deliberately withholds his explicit judgment of Jacob—except to describe him at the outset as an ’ îš tām. And the description is delightfully ambiguous! While Jacob is kept in the dark about his appointed destiny (thus preserving his cognitive innocence), the narrator allows his characters, who likewise are unaware of the divine plan, to condemn the patriarch time and again. Thus, the question of Jacob’s moral innocence hovers disturbingly over each successive episode.⁵ In the end, however, the narrator’s verdict on the patriarch—did he do right? did he do wrong?—is announced in the words of the mysterious one with whom Jacob struggled at the Jabbok (Penuel) on his journey back to Canaan from Haran. Here the narrator at long last articulates the meaning of Jacob’s struggles: “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28). Indeed, Jacob had!

At the beginning of the story of Jacob and Esau, the Bible tells us that Esau was a hunter, a man of the outdoors; Jacob, by contrast, was an ’ îš tām (Genesis 25:27), (pronounced ish tam). If we were to render this expression in accordance with the Bible’s usual meaning of tām (’ îš unquestionably means “man”), we would say that Jacob was a “perfect man,” a “blameless man,” a “man of integrity” or an “innocent man.” This range of meaning can be gleaned from other biblical passages in which tām is used. Job was called an ’ […]