Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Come near, that I may feel whether thou be my
very son Esau or not."
So Jacob went near to his father, and the father felt of him; and he
said, "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau."
Then Isaac, thinking it was Esau who knelt, blessed him as his
first-born, and said, "The Lord bless thee, and give thee plenty of corn
and wine. Let the people serve thee; and be thou lord over all thy
brethren."
And all this came to pass; for Jacob's children came into possession of
the rich land of Canaan.
By and by, Esau entered the tent and knelt beside his father. "Thy
blessing, O father Isaac," he said.
The old man stretched out his hands. "Who art thou?" he cried.
"I am Esau, your first-born. Know you not that I am Esau?"
"Who was it then that came just now and received my blessing?" Isaac
asked.
Then Esau knew that to him was lost the blessing as an eldest son.
The old man wailed. "Alas! alas! my son," he said, "much wealth can I
yet bestow upon thee; still the greater honors are now with Jacob."
Now Esau's heart was filled with rage. He would have slain his brother;
but Rebekah, knowing this, sent Jacob away.
When night came on Jacob lay down upon the cold ground and placed a
stone beneath his head. And as he slept God sent a beautiful vision to
bless him.
He saw a ladder set upon the earth, whose top reached to Heaven. Holy
angels were going up and down the ladder, and, above them all, stood
God.
[Illustration: JACOB'S DREAM.]
And a voice said, "I am the God of Abraham and of Jacob. I will give the
land where thou liest to be a possession to thy children. I am with thee
and will keep thee in all thy places, and bring thee again into thy
land."
Then Jacob awoke. "This is God's place," he said, "and I knew it not.
This is the House of God and the Gate of Heaven."
Then he took a stone and poured oil upon it and blessed it. "This place
shall be called Bethel," he said; "Bethel, which means the House of God,
for here God appeared unto me."
From Bethel Jacob went on to the land of his uncle Laban; and there he
dwelt for many years, keeping the sheep.
But the time came when Laban looked with jealousy upon Jacob. The Lord
came again to Jacob and bade him take his wife, Rachael, and his
children and go back to Canaan. Jacob obeyed, and, driving his great
flocks before him, he set out again for his old home.
[Illustration: JACOB WRESTLING WITH THE ANGEL.]
As he neared the village of Seir, where Esau dwelt, he sent messengers
ahead to tell Esau that he was returning, and to beg him to forgive the
past that they might meet each other in brotherly love.
The servants came back and told him that Esau was coming to meet him
with four hundred men. Then Jacob was in great fear, for he thought Esau
meant to kill him.
He prayed to God to keep him safe. At night an angel came and wrestled
with him till break of day, but could not overcome him. And when morn
came, the angel said, "Let me go, for it is break of day." Jacob said,
"I will not let thee go till thou bless me." Then the angel blessed him,
and he saw him no more. This was a sign from God to Jacob that, as he
was a match for an angel, he need not fear men.
He took some of his cattle and sent them as a gift to Esau. He set them
in droves, so that when Esau met them, and asked whose they were, the
men should say, "They are Jacob's. It is a gift he has sent to my lord
Esau." Each man who drove the cattle was to answer in this way, so that
Esau might feel that Jacob had come as a friend.
All at once Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming. Then he called his
eleven sons and Rachel and Leah to go with him and meet Esau.
When he met Esau he bowed down to the ground seven times. Then Esau ran
to him and put his arms round his neck and kissed him, and they both
wept.
Esau led Jacob to his home and there feasted him for seven days. And
when he was rested Jacob set forth again, driving his herds before him,
to make a home for his people in the land of Canaan; for he was an old
man now, and wished only to rest in the land of his fathers, and to see
his twelve sons comfortably placed in homes of their own, with their
wives, their children, and their flocks about them. JOSEPH.
"Now let us thank the Eternal Power; convinced
That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
Serves but to brighten all our future days."
Jacob had twelve sons; but the one dearest to the old father's heart was
Joseph, a lad of only seventeen years when Jacob came back into the land
of Canaan.
The older of these sons were selfish, cruel men; and more than that,
they had forsaken the God of Abraham, and were worshipping graven
images. Poor old Jacob's heart was heavy!
"Go now to Bethel," said a voice to him one night in a dream. "Make an
altar there to thy God."
Jacob obeyed; and when the altar was built, he called his sons together
and told them the visions he had had. He told them the stronghold God
had always been to him in his life, and begged them to forsake their
idols and turn again to the true God.
Then Jacob went on to Hebron, where Abraham had lived, and where Isaac
still lived, an old, old man, nearly two hundred years old.
It was a joyous meeting--this meeting between Isaac and Jacob. Esau,
too, came, and Isaac blessed them both and bade them love each other.
Isaac died very soon after, and Jacob, an old man now himself, sat in
the door of the tent of his fathers.
To Joseph, Jacob had given a coat of many colors, as a token of his
great love for him. And because of this Joseph's brothers hated him only
the more. Jealousy burned in their hearts, and they plotted together to
slay the boy.
One night Joseph had a vision. In the dream eleven stars came and stood
before him and bowed themselves to the ground. And a voice said, "So
shall your brothers one day bow before you."
Joseph told his vision to Jacob and to his brothers. The father observed
the sayings, but the brothers were made only the more angry.
Now, his brothers spent their days upon the hillside tending their
flocks. And one day Jacob said to Joseph, "Go, my son, and see if any
evil has befallen your brothers."
So Joseph set out. It was a long way to the pasture lands, and the boy
was tired and footsore. And when he reached the place no sign could he
find of his brothers.
"Tell me," asked Joseph of the men upon the plains, "where are my
brothers that watch their sheep here upon these hillsides?"
The men answered, saying, "Your brothers have gone to the place called
Dothan, which is many miles from here."
Then Joseph, after resting, started on towards Dothan. There his
brothers saw him, and recognized him afar off by the bright colors of
his coat.
"Here comes our dreamer," sneered one brother.
"He who shall reign over us," sneered another.
Then the face of the oldest brother grew black and bitter. "Let us kill
him," he said, "and cast him into some pit."
"No," said Rueben, "we need not stain our hands with his blood. Let us
only cast him into the pit, and then tell our father Jacob that a wild
beast has slain him."
This plan seemed most pleasing to them; and when Joseph came near,
they fell upon him, tore his coat from him, and made ready to throw him
into a pit.
[Illustration: JOSEPH SOLD BY HIS BRETHREN.]
But just then there came along the highway a company of merchants, bound
for Egypt. They had a long train of camels, and these were loaded with
fruits and spices.
"Let us sell Joseph to these merchants," said one of the brothers. And
when the merchants came up, they pushed Joseph towards them and sold him
for twenty pieces of silver.
Then they killed a kid, and dipped the coat in the kid's blood, and went
back with it to Jacob.
"O father Jacob! This coat have we found by the wayside, and we know not
whether it be the coat of Joseph or not!"
The old father looked at the coat. He saw the blood upon it; then he
bowed his head and groaned. Too well did he know it to be the coat of
his dear son, Joseph.
[Illustration: DESPAIR OF JACOB. (_Schopin._)]
All day long the old man wept, refusing to be comforted. "I will go down
into my grave unto my son mourning," he said. But the sons cared not for
his grief. It was enough that they were rid of the brother whom they
hated.
[Illustration]