In this chapter, Jacob prepares to meet his brother Esau who has good reason to want to smash his tricky face in. He makes a tactical plan which involves a lot of bribing to pacify his old victim. Then there's a weird wrestling match with a "man" which turns out to be God in a fun sort of reveal. It's not gay at all, it's just confusing because God is weaker than a human, allows him to see him and also magically hurts his hip. All this is in the service of giving Jacob and new name and announcing the real hero of the story... Israel!

In this chapter, Jacob decides to leave Laban and go back to his native land (which is surprisingly Canaan). But to make good his excape, he doesn't tell Laban, which is apparently wrong, even when you're trying to get a head start. This results in a chase sequence which ends with the new Biblical trope: nothing happening. Well, they do put a heap of stones together, so maybe that's something.

In this episode, I go back over chapters 16-30 to, more or less, talk about how badly Abraham and Sarah treated Hagar. And how unfair God was to Abimelech. There’s one or two other comments too.

In this chapter, the women just ride Jacob constantly! Both of his wives, their slaves, everyone! The man can’t catch his breath. Until he can and he uses that breath to screw around and trick Laban out of a bunch of sheep. It’s a fun chapter… kinda.

In this chapter, Jacob is on the hunt for a relative to marry and he has his sights set on Rachel. But trickery is afoot (as it seems to be for these folks) and Laban tricks Jacob into first marrying his much uglier daughter, Leah. Jacob fixes this by doing more indentured servitude for another 7 years. Leah is the newest victim of these wacky characters and Bible reiterates a woman's value by Leah thinking she'll be loved by popping out boys.

In this chapter, there’s more casual racism as Jacob is commanded to go get a wife from Paddan Aram and steer clear of these awful Canaanite women. Esau tries to fix his mistake, but doubles down by marrying a half Egyptian (moron). And then Jacob has a famous dream of a ladder of angels, all just so God can repeat what he’s already said 1,000 times by now. Then the concept of tithe is invented.

In this chapter, a racist Rebekah uses her simple son Jacob to usurp a blessing from Esau because he married two Canaanite women (who are just awful because of their race). Isaac plays a little game of “pretend this isn’t obviously not Jacob” and confuses goat hair for his son’s arm. When Esau finds out about this, he cries like a little baby and begs his father to do it again, but Isaac can’t muster up another magical blessing.

In this chapter, we are treated to more creative limitations of the Biblical author(s) as Rebekah has to pretend to be Isaac’s sister. Luckily Abimelech doesn’t get punished for Isaac’s lie as he did for Abraham’s. Then there’s some more well drama and Abimelech is inconsistent with Isaac. And then Esau makes a terrible mistake that will cost him… EVERYTHING!

In this chapter, Abraham continues banging until he dies. Ishmael unbelievably returns to bury him. Then we get a redux of the barren drama for 2 seconds until Rebekah becomes pregnant with twins. These are not identical twins, they couldn't be more different. One of them is Jewish and the other one is Muslim. Jacob makes a killer red (lentil?!) stew, so good that Esau sells his birthright for it. This is why you don't go to the grocery store hungry.

In this chapter, Abraham's racism results in more incest. He commands a servant to go get a wife who isn't a dirty Canaanite or Egyptian, but rather, a blood relation. The servant sets a test for God who passes with flying colours by making Rebekah say some magic words (thus limiting her free will, presumably?). After recounting the whole story to the girl's family (basically writing the chapter twice), the servant manipulates Rebekah and her family into leaving immediately by invoking the name of God. When they return home, there's a sweet meet cute where Rebekah puts on a veil for 5 minutes before going into Sarah's tent to "comfort" Isaac who is still mourning his mom's death.