The History of Antiquity (Vol. 1-6). Duncker Max

with my wives and children, and give me my hire. What shall I give thee? asked Laban. Set aside all that are striped and spotted among thy sheep and goats, and whatever is afterwards born striped or spotted among thy sheep and goats, that shall be my hire, said Jacob. And Laban said: Be it according to thy word. Then Jacob set apart the coloured sheep and goats; and when the time of generation came, he took fresh wands of maple and almond-wood, and made white strips in them, by peeling off the bark, and cast them into the wells and runnels, where Laban's sheep and goats were watered; and everything was born spotted, and fell to Jacob's share, so that he became mighty, and gained many sheep and camels, and asses, and maid-servants, and men-servants. But Laban's countenance was not towards him as heretofore; and Laban's sons were angry and said: He has got his wealth from that which is our father's. Then Jacob arose, when Laban was gone to the shearing, and set forth secretly with his wives and children, and flocks; and Rachel took the images from the house of her father, and carried them with her, and Jacob fled over the river, and set his face towards Mount Gilead. Then Laban hastened after him, and came up with him on Mount Gilead, and said: "Why art thou fleeing secretly before me, so that I cannot accompany thee with drums, and music, and singing? why hast thou not allowed me to kiss my daughters, and why hast thou taken my gods?" Jacob answered: "I was afraid, for I thought thou wouldest take thy daughters from me." And Jacob set up a stone on Mount Gilead, and they made a heap of stones, and offered sacrifice on the heap, and Laban said: "The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor be judge between us, and guardian that thou do not afflict my daughters, or take other wives to them; and this heap be witness that I go not after thee for evil, nor shalt thou come beyond this sign after me for evil." And Jacob swore by him, whom his father feared, and offered sacrifice on the mountain. And the heap of stones was called Galeed (heap of witness), and Mizpah (watch tower), because Laban had said that Jehovah should be guardian if they were separated one from the other.

And Jacob sent messengers before him to appease his brother Esau, to Mount Seir, with 200 ewes, and 20 rams, and 200 she-goats, and 20 he-goats, and 30 camels with their colts, and 40 cows, and 10 bulls, and 20 she-asses, and 10 asses, as a gift to Esau; and he divided his flocks into two parts, that the one might escape, if Esau came against the other; for he was sore afraid. He rose in the night and took his two wives, and his two maids, and his eleven children, and carried them through the ford of the Jabbok, but he himself remained behind. Then a man wrestled with him till the morning broke, and smote the socket of his hip, and Jacob's hip was out of joint. And he said: "Let me go, for the morning is breaking." But Jacob said: "I will not let thee go, till thou blessest me." Then he said: "Thy name shall be Jacob no longer, but Israel; for thou hast striven with God, and with men, and hast overcome," and he blessed him there. And Jacob named the place Peniel (God's visage), and the sun arose as he passed beyond Peniel.

      Jacob lifted up his eyes, and lo! Esau came, and with him four hundred men. Then Jacob assigned his children to Leah and Rachel and the two maids, and the maids and their children he put in the front, and next Leah and her children, and last of all Rachel with her son. He went before them and bowed himself seven times before his brother. But Esau embraced him, and kissed him, and they wept. The present of cattle Esau would not accept. "I have enough, my brother," he said, "keep what is thine." But Jacob urged him to take them as a proof that he had found grace in his eyes. Then Esau took them and parted in peace from his brother, and on the same day turned back on his way to Mount Seir. But Jacob went to Shechem, and bought the field where he had pitched his tent, and there set up an altar; and from Shechem he went to Bethel, and there also he built an altar; and from Bethel Jacob returned to Hebron to his father Isaac.

As we have seen, the Arabs and Phenicians believed that the power and might of the gods was present in certain stones, which they worshipped in their sanctuaries (pp. 329, 360). The Hebrews also were acquainted with this worship. The first text tells us that God appeared to Jacob when he returned out of Mesopotamia, that He blessed him, and said: Henceforth Israel shall be thy name. And God went up from the place where he had spoken with him, and Jacob set up a stone as a sign on the place, and poured oil on it, and called the name of the place Bethel (house of God).[595] In the older mode of conception, the stone was itself the house of God. The Ephraimitic text represents Jacob as resting on the stone when he went to Mesopotamia, and as seeing in a dream the ladder on which the angels went up and down;[596] the appearance of Jehovah at the top of the ladder, as well as the form of the blessing, belongs to the revision.[597] The change of the name Jacob into Israel is referred by the Ephraimitic text to a definite occasion. To the Hebrews, in the old time, the god of their tribe was a jealous and fearful deity, averse to the life of nature—a god who exercised dominion above in the highest heaven, who rode on the clouds, and announced himself in thunder and lightning, and earthquakes, who appeared in flames of fire, whom the eye of mortal man could not behold and live.[598] The supernatural God can in the first instance be conceived and regarded only in contrast to nature, and the life of nature. But inasmuch as the natural life can only come into being and continue to exist by his permission, and with his consent, that life must be redeemed and purchased. Hence according to the primitive conception of the Hebrews, everything that was brought to the birth belonged to their god, the firstlings of the field, and of beast, the first-born male of the woman. Abraham was ready to sacrifice the firstborn son of his wife, the son of his own heart. But he was not permitted to slay him. He had already offered the sacrifice, inasmuch as he was resolved to sacrifice what was dearest, in obedience to the bidding of God. So runs the Ephraimitic text. As Jacob was returning from the Euphrates he came upon a place in Gilead, known as "God's visage." Here, in the dark of the night, a man wrestled with Jacob till the morning broke, and Jacob would not let him go till he had blessed him; "Thou hast striven with God and men, and overcome; therefore, henceforth thy name shall be Israel."[599] In the myth of the Phenicians, the power of destruction is taken from the hostile god, when the friendly god wrestles with him. The Hebrews changed the wrestling between the hostile and friendly deities, into a wrestling between the servant and the master, between the patriarch of the tribe and his god, a struggle from which the former does not let the god go till he has obtained a pledge, that he will spare him and his tribe, and send increase and blessing to him and his tribe. The contrast of hostile and friendly deities, and their struggle with each other, the Hebrew conceives as the work, the toil, the struggle of men, i.e. strenuous wrestling to win the blessing of God. Jacob carried away the injury to his thigh, but he won the blessing of Jehovah.

With this conception of the Hebrews, that the First-born belonged to Jehovah, is connected the ordinance that a ransom must be offered for him. Moreover, in every spring the Paschal lamb was offered as a sin-offering for the redemption of the house, along with the firstlings of the field. The use of circumcision also, as it seems, stood with the Hebrews in close connection with the idea that the life of boys must be ransomed by a bloody sacrifice. Jehovah is said to have commanded Abraham to circumcise his family in token of the covenant which he had made with him and his seed (p. 392). This custom was also in use among the Edomites and certain other Arabian and Syrian tribes.[600]

According to the genealogy of the Hebrews we had to assume that the Semitic tribes from Arphaxad first went to Serug, and afterwards to Ur in Chaldæa; and that these immigrants, or a branch of them, passed from Ur to Haran. While the Nahorites remained behind at Haran, the Abrahamites turned towards the southern border of Canaan, where the Ammonites and Moabites, the Ishmaelites and Midianites, separated, and took possession of the centre of Arabia, the peninsula of Sinai, and the land eastward of the Jordan. From the narrative of Isaac, Esau, and Jacob, it further follows that not only those nations but also the sons of Esau, the Edomites, were descendants of Abraham, and the Hebrews were a branch of the Edomites who had separated from them. Hence