Verse 8. One would scarcely fancy when reading the life of Abraham and this conclusion, that he had died younger than any of his predecessors on record. The Douay has it, 'and decaying, he died in a good old age, and having lived a long time.' Why, instead of dying in a good old age, he had lived a much shorter period than any of his ancestors, and the verse, to be in accordance with the previous chapters, ought to have lamented his premature death.
Verse 23. God seems to have a preference for younger sons; the dutiful Ishmael (who, though turned out into the desert to starve, forgot his wrongs, and attended to place his father's body in the grave) was set aside for his younger brother Isaac. The truthful, manly, and forgiving elder born Esau is supplanted by the crafty, cowardly, and untruthful Jacob.
Chapter xxvi., v. 7 to 11. Of this adventure happening a third time in the history of father and son, and a second time in the same country, Professor Newman says, 'Allowing that such a thing was barely not impossible, the improbability was so intense as to demand the strictest and most cogent proof; yet, when we asked who testified it, no proof appeared that it was Moses; or, supposing it to be he, what his sources of knowledge were'—and, on chap, xxvii.,' Was it at all credible that the lying and fraudulent Jacob should be so specially loved by God?'
Verse 34. These wives are differently named and described in chap, xxxvi., v. 2 and 3.
Chapter xxviii., v. 11. Even in a dream, the idea of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven to enable God and his angels to go up and down is rather ludicrous. The Douay says that Jacob 'saw the ladder in his sleep.' A dream, in Genesis, is intended to have a stronger significance than we should attach to it; we are told that God often appeared to various persons in dreams. The writer of Genesis evidently conceived a ladder necessary to enable God to get up to heaven, in the same style in which you or I might ascend to the roof of a house.
Verse 20. The inference from this conditional statement is, that if God does not keep, clothe, and feed Jacob, then he shall not be Jacob's God. Jacob was rather a shrewd fellow; he did not want to be religious for nothing.
Verse 22. How can a stone be God's house, and what benefit would tithes be to God?
Chapter xxix., v. 5. Laban was the son of Bethuel, not the son of Nahor; see chap, xxv., v. 20. Verse 17. The Douay says that Leah was blear-eyed. Verse 25. The cunning Jacob was outwitted by Laban, his uncle.
The bickerings between Jacob and his wives, and the curious mode of cheating Laban (chap, xxx., v. 32 to 42), need no comment other than that of surprise that a special providence should interfere to make women fruitful or barren, or to make sheep of divers colours, white, black, brown, speckled, spotted, grisled, and ringstraked—extraordinary sheep those. In the Douay and Breeches Bibles, the word 'sheep' stands instead of 'cattle' in our version. Perhaps the authorised translators had never seen sheep so peculiar as those first described:
Chapter xxxi., v. 53. Who is the God of Nahor?