Biblelicious

Genesis Chaper 27

What more can I say about a weasel like Jacob? Yet again, he tricks his brother out of a blessing. This time with the help of his mother, Rebecca.

Isaac is old and blind and tells Esau to go and hunt down some tasty venison, cook it up the special way he likes it and bring it in to him. Then, he will give Esau his special “I’m gonna die soon blessing.”

Rebecca overhears and tells Jacob to hoodwink Isaac into giving him the blessing instead of his brother Esau.

Dosen’t that picture of Issac look kinda like a really freaked out Christopher Walkin?

But, yet again, I digress.

There’s so much wrong here. But the thing that bothers me the most is that no matter what Jacob does, no matter what manner of man he is, he’s God’s chosen one.

God picked him, so he’s the one that will carry the name, be the father of the Israelites. Not strong, brave, albeit a bit dim, Esau. Nope, it will be Jacob, birthright stealing, blessing robbing, mamma’s boy, Jacob. He’s the one God chooses to be the father of his people.

One of the commentaries I read, my early 18th century puritan friend, talked quite a lot about this. He talked about the ends and the means. The end was good but the means were evil. He worked pretty hard to make this all OK, but he never was quite able to convince me that the ends can justify the means. Nope, no more than Machiavelli ever did, try as he might.

A good and just end can never justify deceitful or evil means. Not that I’m saying the old testament god is kinda like Machiavelli. No, no, I’d never say that.

Let’s take this ends and means stuff and jump right into the 21st century. Let’s say, oh I don’t know, you are a US Senator, say, on a layover in an airport in, I don’t know, Minneapolis, and you get arrested for soliciting gay sex in the men’s room.

And, let’s say you really do have a “wide stance” and you really were just taking a big ol’ dump while tapping your foot and running your hand repeatedly under the stall. That you really, really, weren’t asking that undercover cop in the next stall for sex, but that the cop was a little overzealous and misunderstood and you didn’t want to cause a fuss so you went along with it.

OK, so you are innocent, but you are a senator and this is a pesky, nasty, dirty little charge and the best thing to do is just lie and plead guilty and hope it all goes away.

So, the end, keeping your job, is good. Particularly if you are a lawmaker in the United States Senate. You make decisions and pass laws that effect the entire world and you think that you are the best man for that job. So, a little lie and a little harmless misdemeanor on your record is small potatoes compared to the greater harm caused by telling the truth and loosing your job.

Now, if you’ve been anywhere other than under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you know how that little lie is working out.

Not so good.

And, on the whole, much worse for the greater good (if you believe keeping republicans in power is actually a good) of the republican party.

Or, oh, I don’t know, say that you are the leader of the free world, and you see that your country and the countries of your allies are all dependent on gazillions of barrels of cheap middle eastern oil. And, let’s say, you decide that best way to make sure that your country and the countries of your allies don’t fall into anarchy because some Saudi dictator makes it difficult for the West to get cheap oil, to avoid the pandemonium, the general cultural breakdown that would occur if oil prices started to rise out of your control, is establish a permanent presence (government) in that area so that you can be assured that the cheap oil will continue to flow. And, say, you decide that the best way to maintain the high standard of living for the lives of your people and the people of you allies is to, without provocation, invade a strategically placed middle eastern country, topple the government and install your own government.

The end here? Peace and continued prosperity in your country and the countries of your allies. The means, the deaths of thousands of your people and the people of your allies and the deaths of hundreds of thousands middle-eastern people.

Again, the desired end is good, but the means are bad. The actual end? I don’t think we are quite there yet, but it’s not looking so good. We still have prosperity, but at a huge cost and oil is way less cheap and the economy is teetering on recession/depression for those aforementioned people and people of our allies.

Now, let’s hop back to Jacob and Esau. The end, Jacob gets the blessing he needs to be prosperous and have lots of kids and fulfill God’s promise to Rebecca that Jacob will be father to His chosen people. The means, trickery and lies.

Jacob gets the desired end, but the reverberations, the ramifications, one could argue, have followed the children of Israel to this day. They are one of the most maligned, systematically persecuted people in the history of peoples. And I’m not saying that all the terrible things that have been heaped upon the Jewish people can all be laid at the feet of Jacob, no, but I am saying that no matter how noble your end, the means must be noble too.