Mama's Boy and the Hairy Ape

Strange, really peculiar smell in the air this morning. But I'm outside on 7H porch anyway because Mostly Clear 77° 89% Wind N 5 mph and being out here with the moon, the moon makes it worth it.

This is my morning for a promised Bible study, and I'm thinking about stories the Israelites told around the campfires those nights in the Wilderness with Moses, under the same moon. And that Moses looked up and saw the same moon I'm looking at this morning. 

Our first reading for next Sunday, here's one of those stories:

Old Testament

Genesis 25:19-34

These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. The children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her,

“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.”

When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!” (Therefore he was called Edom.) Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

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There are reasons for these stories, and among the reasons this story is so loved is the ancient Judeans' hatred for their brother and neighbor nation the Edomites, who took the side of the marauding Babylonians during their c.a. 587 BC siege of Jerusalem (read Obadiah, it's short and you'll see what I mean); on that day, Edom chanting against Jerusalem, "Down with it, down with it, down to the ground" (Psalm 137). That this story of Jacob and Esau, the first of stories providing a chuckle around the campfire about "how we, our ancestor Jacob, put one over on the Edomites, those stupid, hairy apes". 

You'll see in Obadiah that Edom's treacherous backstabbing even turns y'Vah against Edom.

Members of our adult Sunday School class know that the Old Testament is my favorite, with all the good old Sunday School Bible stories to work and laugh through. 

This story for next Sunday (which probably will be printed in the worship bulletin, but may not be read, because we're trying for covid19 caution to reduce our assembled worship time down to about 40 minutes or less (last Sunday was 35 minutes), among many other things, begins to show Esau, for whom Edom is named, as a gullible, hairy brutish twin over against our ancestor Jacob as the intellectual twin. Jacob has to be shrewd and crafty because while Mom loves him best (see, he stays home and sets the table and helps Mom with the cooking while The Hairy Ape is out chasing down rabbits with a rock), Dad (Isaac) has in Esau the Real Man Son he'd always wanted (it makes it all the better that Esau is such a dimwit). 

I mean, you should be able to trust your twin brother, right?, but the two are so different, and Jacob obviously is jealous, and the rivalry between them is incredible, not Esau's doing, but Jacob's doing.

The stories go on and on. Jacob, with his mom's help, puts another tidy one over on Esau who, like the boy's sheep in The Alchemist, needs nothing but food and water. Esau, whose distinguishing characteristic is not his brain but his hairy arms and his stench, that he doesn't even have enough moxie to take a shower now and then. And you should see the ugly woman he got for a wife.

Of course, the Joke is not always on Esau. After the second great joke on Esau, Jacob himself goes off to hide from his murderous brother. And while he's away finds a wife, but under cover of darkness gets a really good one pulled on him, an even better campfire story than the one above if for no other reason than that it's sexily risqué and even the ladies put their hand over their mouth to snicker.

RSF&PTL for all the great Bible stories.

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