The Garden of Eden 5
And Jacob said, “Uncle Laban, I would like very much to have your
daughter Rachel.”
And Laban said, “Jacob, I would rather have her marry you than any other
man I know.” And Rachel felt just the same way. So it was settled that
Jacob should work for Laban seven years, and then should marry Rachel.
So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few
days for the love he had to her.
Now this, you understand, was a long time ago, and far away in Asia,
beyond the Euphrates. And they had a strange custom of marrying two
wives, or three, and sometimes more. So when the seven years were over,
Laban told Jacob that if he wished to marry Rachel, he must first marry
her older sister Leah. “In our country,” he said, “we must not give the
younger before the older.” So Jacob had to marry Leah, who was a good
girl but very near-sighted, and serve seven more years for Rachel. This
was pretty hard for both Rachel and Jacob, but he did it, and when the
seven added years were passed they were married with great joy.
Then Jacob felt that it was time for him to go home, for he had gone to
his Uncle Laban’s to spend a month and had stayed fourteen years. All
this time his flocks and herds had grown in number. For Laban gave him
sheep and goats, in payment for his work. But when Laban said, “This
year you shall have for your wages all the brown sheep and all the
speckled goats,” behold, that year almost all of the goats were speckled
and almost all of the sheep were brown. So Jacob got to be very rich. He
had sheep and goats, and cows and camels, and men-servants and
maid-servants. But Jacob was so useful to Laban that Laban was not
willing to let him go.
Finally, one day, when Laban was away off shearing sheep, Jacob and
Rachel and Leah gathered all their belongings together, and all their
cattle, and started for Jacob’s home without saying good-by. Off they
went, over the river. And though Laban followed and begged them to come
back, they would not go. Then they journeyed and they journeyed, till at
last Jacob saw in the distance the hills of his own land.
Then Jacob began to remember Esau and how he had threatened to kill him.
And he sent messengers to Esau to tell him that he was coming back, and
to find how Esau felt. And the messengers returned and said, “Esau is
coming to meet you with four hundred men.” And Jacob was greatly afraid
and distressed.
And that night he had a dream. He dreamed that he was wrestling with a
man; he was trying to throw the man, and the man was trying to throw
him; and neither could master the other. At last, as the sun rose, Jacob
found that the man was an angel, and the angel said, “Let me go, for the
day is breaking.” And Jacob said, “I will not let you go until you bless
me.” So the angel blessed Jacob, and he awoke. And there across the wide
field was his brother Esau. And Jacob stood up and bowed down before his
brother seven times, because he did not know whether Esau was a friend
or an enemy. But Esau ran to meet him, and threw his arms about his neck
and kissed him.
And Esau said, “Who are these with you?”
And Jacob said, “Esau, this is my wife Rachel, and this is my wife Leah.
And I have brought you a present, all this drove of cattle.”
But Esau said, “Thank you, Jacob; keep the cattle. I have enough of my
own.” Thus Esau forgave Jacob for the mean things that he had done.
VII
THE COAT OF MANY COLORS
Of all his twelve sons, Jacob loved Joseph best. Most of the others were
grown men, who were away all day at work in the fields; Benjamin was a
baby. But Joseph was a bright lad who was a great companion for his
father. And he was a good lad, who could always be trusted to do what
was right, while some of the others gave Jacob a great deal of trouble.
Joseph’s older brothers were stout farmers who spent most of their time
attending to their cattle. They expected to milk the cows and feed the
sheep and ride the camels all the rest of their days, and wished for
nothing better. But Joseph, even as a boy, had made up his mind to be a
great person, a prince, or perhaps a king. He thought that he would like
to sit on a throne, and wear a crown, and be a mighty ruler. And this
his father liked; for Jacob, too, in his own boyhood, had made long
plans. So his father gave him a coat such as princes wore, a coat of
many colors; and he wore it every day, even when he went to tend the
sheep,--a shining coat, reaching to his heels. But his older brothers
teased him, and called him names, and disliked him.
One time, when they came home from the pasture in their rough clothes,
and found Joseph wearing his fine coat, they said, “Well, Prince Joseph,
what have you been dreaming about to-day?”
And Joseph said, “I dreamed that we were all binding sheaves in the
field, and my sheaf arose and stood upright, and your sheaves came round
about, and bowed down to my sheaf.”
And that made his brothers very angry. “What,” they said, “shall you be
ruler over us?”
Another time, after the cows were milked and the older brothers came in
to wash their hands for supper, and found Joseph with his bright coat
flapping about his ankles, they said, “Well, King Joseph, what foolish
dream have you had to-day?”
And Joseph answered, “To-day I dreamed that the sun and the moon and
eleven stars bowed down to me.”
Even his father did not quite like that. “What,” he said, “shall your
mother and I and your brothers bow down to you?”
But his brothers hated him. And once, when four of them so misbehaved
themselves that Joseph told his father what they had done, they hated
him yet the more.
Now, when Joseph was seventeen years old, his brothers took the sheep
one day and led them so far in search of green pastures that their
father did not know where they had gone. So he called Joseph. “Joseph,”
he said, “you know which way your brothers went; go after them and see
if all is well with them and with the flocks, and bring me word again.”
So Joseph started out to find his brothers, and here he searched and
there he searched, till at last he found a man who knew where they had
gone, and there they were. So his brothers looked up, and in the
distance, shining in the sun, they saw the coat of many colors, like a
walking rainbow. And they said, “There is the dreamer!” And some said,
“Come, now, let us kill him and we shall see what will become of his
dreams.” And others said, “No, let us not kill him. That will do us no
good. Let us sell him; we will get some money.” So when Joseph came
near, they laid hold of him, and pulled off his colored coat, and put
him down in a deep pit till they should make up their minds what to do
with him, whether to kill him or to sell him.
There, then, was Joseph, in the pit, calling and crying; and his
brothers sat down to eat their supper. And as they ate, they saw in the
distance a caravan of merchants on their camels, riding down from Gilead
with bags of spices and balm and myrrh, to Egypt. And as they passed,
the brothers hailed them and said, “We have a boy to sell. What will you
give for him?” And they pulled up Joseph out of the pit, and the
merchants looked at him, and said, “We will give twenty pieces of
silver.” So Joseph’s brothers sold him for twenty pieces of silver. And
the merchants put him on the back of a camel, and away they went.
Then said the brothers one to another, “What shall we say to father?”
And some said, “Let us kill a goat, and take the coat of many colors and
dip it in the blood, and tell father that we found it in a field.” And
that they did. They carried the bloody coat to Jacob, and said, “See
what we found. Is it not Joseph’s coat?”
And Jacob cried out at the sight of it. “Yes,” he said, “it is my son’s
coat. Some wild beast has devoured him. Joseph is no doubt torn to
pieces.” And he mourned for him, day after day, and nobody could comfort
him.
But the men of the caravan carried Joseph down to Egypt, and there sold
him to a man named Potiphar, who
[Illustration: THERE IS THE DREAMER]
was the captain of the guard and the keeper of the king’s prison, and he
put Joseph into the prison to wait upon the prisoners.
The king of Egypt was called Pharaoh. And in Pharaoh’s prison at that
time were the king’s chief butler and chief baker. One morning, when
Joseph took them their breakfast, he saw that they both looked very sad.
So he said, “What is the matter? Why do you look so sad?”
They said, “We have each had a strange dream, and nobody can tell us
what it means.”
Joseph said, “Tell me what it was.”
Then the butler answered, “In my dream I saw a vine with three branches,
and ripe grapes grew upon them, and I pressed the juice into Pharaoh’s
cup.”
And Joseph said, “I will tell you the meaning of that: in three days,
Pharaoh will take you out of prison, and you will again be his chief
butler. When that comes true, remember me and bring me out of this
prison.”
Then the baker said, “In my dream, I had on my head three baskets full
of bread for Pharaoh, and the birds came and ate the bread of the top
basket.”
And Joseph said, “In three days, Pharaoh will take you out of prison and
cut off your head.”
And all this came to pass, for the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and
he pardoned the chief butler, and beheaded the chief baker. The butler, however, did not remember Joseph.
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