Biblical stories, as familiar to us as our own family tales, can reveal hidden meanings when the text is meticulously reread. So it is with the story of Jacob and his beloved Rachel, for whom he yearned and labored for 14 years. Jacob’s impulsive vow that the person found with Laban’s stolen idols will die; his deathbed adoption of his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh; his erection of four pillars at places where critical events occurred—all are part of a tangled skein unraveled by Gordon Tucker in “Jacob’s Terrible Burden.” As the story unwinds we share Jacob’s awful revelation—that he […]
