Now it was Jacob’s time to shine. Off he went to visit a cousin and acquire a wife and start patriarchin’. He promptly encountered a young woman named Rachel who happened to be the cousin’s daughter. Love at first sight. He asked Rachel’s dad (named Laban I think) if he could have her. Well I reckon so, said Laban. But only after you work for me for seven years.

The wedding was lovely, exactly seven years later. But the marriage kiss wasn’t. When Jacob lifted his bride’s veil it wasn’t Rachel’s visage upon which he gazed. It was the face of her older sister Leah. But the marriage was done.

What the hammer? Jacob complained to his father-in-law. Laban said, I couldn’t marry Rachel off while her older sister sat at home, a virgin. If you still want Rachel, that’ll be another seven years.

So Jacob didn’t get to marry his love until he’d put in fourteen years of hard labor. But he wasn’t celibate. He didn’t hate Leah. He didn’t hate her handmaiden either. And he was of course affectionate when he finally got around Rachel. So affectionate that he “knew” her handmaiden too. The book tells us he had six sons by his first wife and two by his second. He also had two sons each by the handmaidens, and one daughter by Leah. Jacob fathered twelve boys and a girl.

(At least. There were other daughters who aren’t named in the Bible. There have been persistent rumors about a thirteenth son, and we have the Rastafarians to prove it.)

Now things get complicated. Multiply the protagonist by twelve and the story expands. It’s not very surprising that Jacob favored the two boys he got from Rachel. The younger of those sons was named Benjamin, and he was such a baby in the family that he was protected by all. But the older boy, Joseph, was close enough to his brothers’ ages that he competed with them. He was such a father’s pet that they resented him. And it appears it all went to his head. He got cocky. Arrogant even. He was cruising for a fall.

His brothers helped. They threw him in a pit. They told their parents that Joseph had come to a sad accidental end but they really sold him into slavery. Joe went to Egypt.

And thrived. He did well at every job he got. But he ran into trouble with his boss’s wife. She tried to seduce him, he refused her, and she then complained to her husband that Joseph had raped her. Joseph lost his job and his liberty. I hate that theme of female dishonesty and I always wanted to believe it was misogynist propaganda. Unfortunately, I’ve now lived long enough to witness actual examples of it. Nasty.

But Joseph came out on top. While in jail he had an opportunity to interpret a few Pharaonic dreams. He predicted the famine that in fact came to pass, in time and credibly enough that grain was stockpiled, so Egypt survived and even had surplus to feed hungry immigrants from what’s now Israel, including Joseph’s own brothers, which led to reconciliation and other events.

Of course there’s more to these stories. I haven’t yet mentioned that Jacob was sent away for masquerading as the first-born, which is how he could dream of a ladder to heaven and angel-wrestling, and how he came to be visiting the cousin that gave him all the mothers of his sons. I haven’t mentioned much. But I hope I’ve provided enough to acquaint you a bit with some root stories from your culture. I hope I’ve whetted your whistle for more.