Holy Blasphemy

I should’ve been a Patriarch. Although the characters of the Old Testament repulse me, for their lies, tricks, and general lack of character, I like the Old Testament: where else can you find stories about dishonest sex-maniacs like Jacob.

Ok – he got screwed by Laban into working for 7 years for the wrong daughter (Leah) but gets the curvy Rachel too for only another 7 years of work; and he eventually pays Laban back by mysteriously breeding striped cattle and keeping only the strong ones for himself.

But then God gets involved. The purpose is a little unclear, but it seems he feels bad for Leah because Jacob loves Rachel more. (Well, she is the one he wanted, after all.) So God opens Leah’s womb but closes up Rachel’s. Rachel can’t stand that her sister is having all the babies, so she makes Jacob sleep with her slavegirl, Bilhah.

“I have fought a fateful battle with my sister, and I have won!” cries Rachel after Bilhah produces a couple of kids (Genesis 30:7). But then Leah took her slave-girl Zilpah and gave her to Jacob, and Zilpah bore two more sons. Jacob, meanwhile, is having lots and lots of sex.

But apparently, not enough to please the women. Leah’s son Reuben found some mandrakes (aphrodisiacs) but Rachel wanted them; so she traded sex with her husband in return for the mandrakes, saying, “Very well, he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”

When Jacob returned from the field, Leah went out to meet him and said “You must come to me, for I have hired you at the price of my son’s mandrakes.”

Jacob is being used for sex by 4 women. Sounds pretty good to me.