Chapter Overview
Esau arrives, gives Jacob a hug, and leaves. Jacob goes to a place and pitches his tent.
Additional Thoughts
The authors of Genesis are terrible at resolving conflict. They set Esau as willing to murderize Jacob on sight in chapter 27, removed the reason for it by retconning everything in chapter 28, and then doing a weird mashup of both chapters here.
3/10, needs better plot.
Chapter 33: Jacob Pitches His Tent (No Not That One You Perv)
- And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids.
- And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost.
- And he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.
- And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept.
- And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are those with thee? And he said, The children which God hath graciously given thy servant.
- Then the handmaidens came near, they and their children, and they bowed themselves.
- And Leah also with her children came near, and bowed themselves: and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed themselves.
- And he said, What meanest thou by all this drove which I met? And he said, These are to find grace in the sight of my lord.
- And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself.
- And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand: for therefore I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me.
- Take, I pray thee, my blessing that is brought to thee; because God hath dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough. And he urged him, and he took it.
- And he said, Let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before thee.
- And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young are with me: and if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die.
- Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir.
- And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. And he said, What needeth it? let me find grace in the sight of my lord.
- So Esau returned that day on his way unto Seir.
- And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built him an house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.
- And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padanaram; and pitched his tent before the city.
- And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for an hundred pieces of money.
- And he erected there an altar, and called it EleloheIsrael.
- Oh look, the name change has been completely forgotten already. The authors of genesis are terrible at keeping their plot points relevant and together. Case in point, this entire chapter.
- But why? Why go through all this trouble?
- I thought Esau wanted to kill Jacob based on chapter 27? These authors suck.
- But why? This doesn’t fit any of the narrative. The authors of this suck at resolving conflict.
- I wonder if there was any trouble figuring out that Jacob has kids from 4 different women.
- But why?
- But why? They never explain why they do this.
- AKA: Why did you think I was going to kill you, despite, ya know, the call to murder you in chapter 27.
- Esau has really chilled out in the years Jacob was gone
- Is this Jacob trying to make up for being such a dick so many years ago?
- Looks like Esau gets a blessing afterall.
- Who said this? Damn the authors and their lack of definite articles.
- Overall a fairly reasonable request. I presume this is Jacob speaking.
- Why so formal with your brother?
- Esau leaves some of the 400 people that were with him here. How will they be fed? Jacob wasn’t planning for this.
- Shows up and exists immediately, like any good character that we don’t care about.
- I really don’t care about this place name… especially since Jacob leaves it in the next verse.
- Cool story bruh.
- Interestingly, we have no idea how valuable these pieces of money would have been. Was that a lot? Was it a paltry sum? No clue whatsoever.
- Bah, stop naming everything. We really don’t care.