We have reached the end of the book of Genesis. And what a mighty fine peroration it ends with! Jacob blessing his sons - the names, of course, being the names of the tribes of Israel. And the human touch, where Jacob insists on blessing Ephraim, the younger, with a greater blessing than Manasseh, the first born.
Passing over the first born seems to be a theme in Genesis. Isaac is preferred to Ishmael; Jacob over Esau; and Judah over Reuben. At a certain stage of my life, I became quite paranoid about this, being myself the first born of three brothers. It doesn't help that somewhere in the New Testament Esau is blamed for losing his birthright, whereas the story here suggests that Jacob both took advantage and deceived. Perhaps Esau didn't value something which he should have cared about, until it was too late, but I would have liked to see, somewhere, direct condemnation of Jacob for what, surely, amounted to theft. Or is the bible not as clear in its moral stance as we would like to think?
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