The patriarchal narratives seem almost inebriated by the destabilizing habit of placing posterity and blessing upon the shoulders of the wrong child. The first-born, time and again, sees circumstances trump his privilege. The lesser becomes the greater. Legacy draws its protagonist from the margins and stations him front and center.
This strange, strong instinct is a signature feature of Israel’s constitutional history. The brilliant biblical scholar Jon Levenson has written poignantly and knowingly about it (The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son and Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel). For the reader wise enough to stroll slowly through these pages, it has the same captivating power as it exercises on even the rest of the biblical literature that finds itself drawn into its orbit.
What is this about? Why should an oddity become central to the story? Why does it become so carefully preserved, as though the accrued wisdom of the canon saw in the lesser-for-greater exchange an indication of the Creator’s own way with things?
Perhaps it is just that! Israel is taught by her very narrative that centrality in Yahweh’s program is a matter of divine serendipity. Jacob fought and deceived for his future, yet his own children and their children’s children are to understand that grace haunts the margins, the B-lists, the paths of the uncredentialed and hope-less.
The biblical anthology will press the point home in many ways, perhaps none of them as powerfully as it does when telling the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
First-born ought to walk away from this world-shaping biblical legend wary of making a mis-step. The second-born and the twelfth ought to wonder when the next, elevating surprise will come and from what unanticipated corner.
All of us ought to understand that we, in the end, do not make the world. Yahweh, rather, has his ways.
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