14 Years Wanting in the Patriarch’s Life
In the following survey, we would like to posit another way to look at the patriarch’s life and particularly at his journey to the foreign land of exile in reference to the 14 years wanting in his life. The matter will become clear once we understand when Ya’akov arrived in Charan. It all began with Ya’akov stealing the blessing that was meant for his brother Eisav, to which we now turn.
There are instances where a Biblical hero goes to his soul mate, and there are instances where his soul mate comes to him. In the case of the patriarch Yitschak, his soul mate Rivkah came to him (Genesis 24:63), and the third patriarch Ya’akov went to his soul mate, as it is written in Genesis 28:10: “Ya’akov departed from Be’er-sheva”. The same fate was with Mosheh, who went to his soul mate Tsiporah. In all these instances of match made in heaven, the history took a turn to its course of arranged fate. At first glance, Ya’akov’s departure for Charan, where he would find his soul mate, looks like a flee from the anger of his brother, but a closer examination shows that much of the story is hidden under the surface of the narrative.
Away from home
After Ya’akov received the blessing of his father, he left his parents and was on his way to Charan to live with his uncle Lavan for a few years, as his mother instructed him. Instead of a few years, however, he would live in exile away from his revengeful brother Eisav for 20 years unknown to him at that time. We read the first verse of our Torah portion Vayetzei (“He departed”) in Genesis 28:10-32:3,
And Ya’akov departed from Be’er-sheva and went toward Charan. (Gen 28:10)
When Ya’akov departed Be’er-sheva, it is assumed that he went directly to his uncle, to Charan where he lived. If so, why did the narrator not say simply that Ya’akov went to Charan, but instead he saw fit to tell us that he left Be’er-sheva, seeing that we already knew that this was the place where his parents resided (see Genesis 26:23). So, according to the plain meaning of the text, the verse describes that Ya’akov was headed for Charan. But why has the Scripture needed to repeat, “Ya’akov departed”, when it has already described in Genesis 28:5 that Yitschak (after giving the blessing) had sent Ya’akov away to Lavan”? Why was there the need for the Scripture to describe two seemingly different departures: one from Be’er-sheva and another one for Charan? The Torah is known for the brevity of its words. As we explain below, it will become clear to the reader that the perception of two departures is expressed by: (1) leaving Be’er-sheva and (2) going to Charan.
Insight: Genesis 28:10 alludes to a symbolism found in the Hebraic meanings of these two places; it reads: “And Ya’akov departed Be’er-sheva” (“Well of the Seven” or “Well of the Oath”) and went toward Charan (“Anger”). This does not necessarily mean that Ya’akov went to Charan. The phrase in Hebrew literally reads וַיֵּלֶךְ Va-yelech חָרָנָה Charanah (“he went to Charan”). The name of the place חָרָן Charan here is spelled with the suffix hey, which denotes “towards”, i.e., “in the direction of Charan”. Ya’akov did not head to Haran but more generally to the east (see Genesis 29:1). Ya’akov did not arrive in Charan on the day he left Be’er-sheva, because the very next verse explicitly tells us that he spent a night on the way toward Charan. In other words, after telling us that Ya’akov left Be’er-sheva and then went to Charan, the Torah returns to tell us what he encountered that night on the way toward Charan. Hence, “toward”, and not “to”, is the correct translation. For reason which will become known to us later in our study, the narrator saw fit to tell Mosheh to write down: “And Ya’akov departed from Be’er-sheva and went toward Charan”. We now return to the text.
Yitschak had been living in the southern region (Genesis 24:62), around Be’er-sheva, but he moved to Chevron, the place where Avraham and Sarah lived. Chevron became his permanent residence (Genesis 35:27). The story of Eisav selling his birthright to Ya’akov took place in Be’er-LaChai-Roi (lit. “the well of living and seeing”), a place in the desert (Genesis 25:11). To set the proper context of the narrative, we need to note here that according to the oral tradition, the day on which Eisav sold his birthright was the day Avraham died. During the famine, the family moved to and dwelt in Gerar in Philistia (Genesis 26:6). There Avimelech, the king of Philistia, attempted to kidnap Rivkah to be his wife. In Philistia, Yitschak prospered and became very great. For that reason, the Philistines envied him and urged him to leave. And he went to dwell in Be’er-sheva (Genesis 26:23,33). Genesis 27 tells us the story of Ya’akov stealing the blessing meant for his brother Eisav. There Rivkah urged Ya’akov to flee to her brother Lavan in Charan. And Genesis 28:5 tells us that Yitschak sent Ya’akov away, and he went toward Paddan Aram, to Lavan. Shortly after, our verse (Genesis 28:10) tells us that Ya’akov left Be’er-sheva toward Charan. Ya’akov thus did not arrive in Charan on the day he left Be’er-sheva, because Scripture explicitly tells us that he spent a night on the way. We keep on reading,
And he came upon the place and stopped over for the night, for the sun had set. And he took from the stones of that place and put them around his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. (Gen 28:11)
When Ya’akov came to “the place” and stopped over for the night, because it was getting dark. The careful reader will notice that the text does not say “a place”, i.e., any place on his way to Charan, but “the place”. “That place” was not yet of any significance, not until now.
Insight: The reason of the prefix bet in בַּמָּקוֹם ba-makom (in the place) is to indicate the place that was well known. There is a not-small difference between be-makom (“in a place”), which has a less significance, and ba-makom (“in the/that place”). This suggests that after this incident in “that place”, Ya’akov called in Bet-El (“the House of God”). According to the oral tradition, that place was Mount Moriah, where Avraham had bound Yitschak in an attempt to sacrifice him, and where the future Temple was erected. We now return to the text.
After Ya’akov decided that there he would spent the night, he took from the stones of that place and put them around his head. And he dreamed a dream. And in the dream he saw a ladder set up on the earth, and its top reached to the heavens, and messengers of Elohim were going up and coming down on it (Gen 28:12).
Insight: This dream should not be taken literally. In Bereishit Rabbah 68:12-13, we are told that the angels ascending and descending represented the ascent and subsequent descent of the four empires which ruled over the Land of Israel. Alternatively, in verse 12, “on” can also be translated as “because of”, and “it” to be translated as “him”, i.e., Ya’akov; hence, “messengers of Elohim going up and coming down because of him (Ya’akov)”. Also, notice that “descending and ascending” is not written, but rather, “ascending and descending”, which suggests that these angels lived on the earth. The simple explanation in the context of the story is that the angels, who were on earth were to carry out the Eternal’s will, for He assured Ya’akov of His ongoing protection on the journey to the foreign land. We now return to the text.
And see, YHVH stood above it and said, “I am YHVH Elohim of Avraham your father and the Elohim of Yitschak. The land on which you are lying, I give it to you and your seed. (Gen 28:13)
And then the Eternal further assured Ya’akov that his seed (descendants) should be as the dust of the earth, and all the clans of the earth should be blessed in him and in his seed; “And see, I am with you and shall guard you wherever you go, and shall bring you back to this land. For I am not going to leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you” (Genesis 28:14-15). In other words, the Eternal assured Ya’akov that he did not need to fear Eisav from whom he was fleeing or Lavan to whom he was going to, for He would be with him to bring him back to the land of Kena’an. Ya’akov needed this assurance, because of both of them.
We do not find that either the patriarchs Avraham or Yitzchak had been granted such a vision and protection Ya’akov had. The timing of this assurance was everything: Ya’akov was about to leave the Promised Land and to enter a foreign land, and he feared both Eisav and Lavan. Therefore, Ya’akov needed special protection, which would come through the angels of Elohim.
We should recall that Ya’akov did not, like Avraham, leave his birthplace in response to a call from heaven. Nor did he have Mosheh’s zeal and burning sense of justice. Yet a nation is named after him: Israel, not after Avraham nor after Mosheh, but after Ya’akov. Because the nation that came out of him learned to wrestle with El, as the patriarch did, and on his way back home after many years, his name would be changed to Isra-El (“He who wrestles with God”).
And Ya’akov awoke up from his sleep afraid and said,
Truly, YHVH is in this place, and I did not know it … How awesome is this place! This is none other than the House of Elohim, and this is the gate of the heavens! (Gen 28:16-17)
And Ya’akov proclaimed, “And this stone which I have set as a monument shall be the House of Elohim” (verse 22). He anointed the stone with oil, for he saw in the dream that this place would become the House of El in the future, hence, Bet-El, and he saw that the place was the gateway to heaven, which is to say in modern terms, “the stargate”. The reason was that this place on earth is directly opposite the throne of Elohim in heaven. Ya’akov planned to erect an altar at this site when he would return from Charan. Keep in mind that he was hoping to return home in a few years.
And Ya’akov also promised to tithe all the material goods that he would acquire with the help of the Eternal. But as we discussed there is no record in Torah that Ya’akov had ever kept his promise. For this reason, the Land he returned to denied its fruits, when a great famine of seven years came upon Kena’an, perhaps, because Ya’akov did not present the fruits of the land of exile before the Eternal. And this time Ya’akov had to again go in exile, in Egypt. This issue we explained in another place. In verse 18, we are told that in the morning before resuming his journey toward Charan, he took one of the stones that served as his bed to set it as a monument for he found that that place was of great significance.
And Ya‛akov arrived in the land of Lavan and came to a place that had a well in the field; at that well, he would meet his soul mate, and his life would change forever. There Ya’akov helped the shepherds to roll the stone from the well, which was on top of it. At his age Ya’akov’s ability to roll the rock from the well, something several shepherds had been unable to do, proves that his dream had left its impact on his life force, his ruach. And indeed, there at the well Ya’akov met Rachel, who came to water the sheep of her father Lavan. But did Lavan not have more daughters who could water the flock? Why were Leah, the mother-to-be of six tribes, or Bilhah and Zilpah, Lavan’s daughters from the concubine, not with the sheep? The plain explanation is that Rachel might have been youngest of the four, or it was her duty to water the sheep on that day. But heaven had other explanation: Rachel was meant to be the first of the daughters of Lavan Ya’akov would see at the well. It was the same with Eliezer and Rivkah, and with Mosheh and Tsiporah, both met the girls at a well (Exodus 2:17). It was the wells that served as medium to three of them.
Ya’akov arrived in Charan empty-handed, unlike Eliezer, and had no money to give for his love. Since he did not have money to start a family, he had to work for Rachel’s father for seven years. But why did Ya’akov have to even mention “seven years” to serve for Rachel? Perhaps for the reason that his mother bade him to stay out away from home “a few years”, and he thought that that was a good bargain: to serve for seven years and then leave Charan with Rachel. And Ya’akov added the word, “the younger one”, so that Lavan could not give a different girl. With this mindset he thought that seven years of service would be like a few days (Genesis 29:20). But this is not what his uncle Lavan had in mind when he said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to another man. Stay with me”.
So Ya’akov served seven years for Rachel. And when the seven years of service ended, he said, “let me go in to her”. We should note here that Ya’akov was already well advanced in years, when he said these words. He must have thought that because his mother told him to stay with his uncle for a few years, Lavan would let him go like this. But instead, we will see that reciprocal justice must have been served first. As Ya’akov tricked his father in order to steal the blessing meant for his brother, Lavan tricked him as well, and instead of marrying the one he wanted, he married Leah, and Rachel was thus stolen from him. The story spilled out of control; Ya’akov had to work for another period of seven years in order for him to marry his beloved Rachel. Consequently, he married the half-sisters of Leah and Rachel, who according to the oral tradition were Lavan’s daughters from his concubine. During these fourteen years, Ya’akov fathered eleven sons and one daughter. Now, this bigamy of Ya’akov must not be judged directly by the Torah, which later would prohibit marriage with two women (sisters) at the same time (Leviticus 18:18), nor must this be judged as incest, since there was no law in existence then to prohibit it.
After Rachel had borne Yoseph (Genesis 30:25), Ya’akov must have remembered his mother’s words for he said to Lavan, “Send me away that I may go to my country”, for it was at that point that he had completed the 14 years for Leah and Rachel. Instead of a few years, he was absent from home for fourteen years; that was too long period of time for his mother. Yet, we will see him willing to serve Lavan for six more years, for even though he had a large family, he had nothing; no possessions and no sheep, for all these fourteen years he worked solely for his uncle to pay off his debt to him. That made him absent from home for twenty years; well above the “few years” his mother bade him to stay with Lavan.
Meanwhile, after the fourteen years that Ya’akov had worked for Lavan in exchange for Rachel and Leah ended, per the tradition, Rivkah’s wet nurse Devorah arrived in Padan Aram to inform him that his brother’s hatred toward him had abated, and it was now safe for him to return home. And Ya’akov said to Lavan: “Give my wives and my children for whom I have served you and let me go” (Genesis 30:25-26). Ya’akov said that, but he had nothing in possession. Until now, he had worked solely for Lavan and his benefit. In order to return home, he needed independence from his uncle, and he agreed upon working for six more years—this time for himself. And when the six years ended, YHVH said to Ya’akov, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives. And I will be with you” (Genesis 31:3). Twenty years had passed since YHVH promised Ya’akov that He would his protection on the way to home. But Ya’akov would return home right away, as one would expect. When he entered Kena’an, he did not go directly to his father but decided to settle near the city of Shechem for “awhile”. There his daughter Dina was raped, and his sons devastated the city in revenge. For the fear of reprisal from the other nations, Ya’akov moved on to finally reunite with his father. His mother Rivkah must have been already dead by now. The whole journey home took him two years from his life, instead of a few days.
At this point in the survey, it is necessary to understand where the problem in reckoning of Ya’akov’s years lies. Let us see it a little deeper.
Reckoning of Ya’akov’s years
Let us reckon the years of the patriarch’s life. We know that Ishmael was 14 years old when Yitschak was born (see Genesis 16:16 and Genesis 21:5), and that Yitschak was 60 when the twins were born (Genesis 25:26), hence Ishmael was 74, when Ya’akov was born (60 + 14), since Ishmael was 14 years older than Yitschak. And we also know that Ishmael died at the age of 137 (Genesis 25:17). But why do we need to know Ishmael’s years, besides for the sake of the Torah chronology? We need to know them in order to trace through them the years of Ya’akov’s life, as we will see in the following. From the years of Ishmael, we learn that Ya’akov and Eisav were 63 years old, when Ya’akov stole the blessings from his brother and was sent to Charan (137 – 14 – 60).
Let us rewind time. Upon Ya’akov’s arrival in Egypt, he told Pharaoh that he was 130 years old,
The days of the years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning. (Gen 47:9)
Ya’akov said before Pharaoh that his years were few and evil. And indeed, his life was full of toil and trouble, for Avraham lived 175 years, and his father 180, and neither of them had such a troublesome life, so agitated and full of distress and dangers, as Ya’akov had: evil years from his flight from Eisav, twenty years in Charan working for his treacherous uncle, the rape of Dina, the loss of his favorite son Yoseph, up to the time of his coming to Egypt.
Back to the chronology. His son Yoseph was 30 years old when he became a viceroy of Egypt. From then until Ya’akov descended to Egypt were 9 years: 7 of plenty (Genesis 41:46-47) and 2 more years of famine (Genesis 45:6), and at the time of the family reunion Yoseph was 39 (30 + 7 + 2). This means that Ya’akov was 91 at the time of Yoseph’s birth in Charan (130 – 39). Yoseph was born 14 years after Ya’akov’s arrival in Charan (after he had worked for two seven-year periods), and at the end of his father’s third term of six years working for himself, Yoseph turned 20 years old (14 + 6). This means that when Ya’akov arrived in Charan, he was 77 years old (91 – 14). But when we were forwarding time (see above), we already came to the conclusion that he was 63 when he arrived there. This means that Ya’akov travelled to Charan 14 years. For comparison, Eliezer when making the same trip a generation earlier to find a wife for Yitschak, travelled in a single day. Or alternatively, there are 14 years missing in Ya’akov’s life (91 – 77)!
Another way to put it. Ya’akov first met Yoseph as a viceroy of Egypt and said to the Pharaoh that he was 130 years old. When Ya’akov left his father, he was 63. He lived in Charan and worked for Lavan for 14 years before Yoseph was born (63 + 14 = 77). Yoseph was 30 years old when he appeared before Pharaoh and became a viceroy; this makes Ya’akov 107 years old (77 + 30). Add 9 years of Yoseph’s rulership in Egypt until Ya’akov came, and Ya’akov is already 116 years old. Yet he said to Pharaoh, “I am one hundred and thirty years old”. Hence, there are 14 years missing (130 – 116 = 14). How is that even possible? The last thing we would expect to find in the Torah is an error. Here comes the Scripture not to make things obscure but to explain.
The tradition
The whole subject in the Torah portion Vayetzei (“He departed”) in Genesis 28:10-32:3 is extremely confusing, when we look only at what has been revealed to us in the narration. In such a case, in order to solve the apparent problem in Ya’akov’s years we need to resort to the oral tradition of the Rabbis to make better sense of this whole episode, which we will do in the following.
According to the oral tradition, the Rabbis have learned that there are 14 years missing in Ya’akov’s life. The medieval Torah commentator Rashi in his commentary on Genesis 28:9 citing Megillah 17a, writes that the Sages of the early generation taught as part of the oral tradition that Ya’akov resided at Shem and Ever, who were still alive at that time, for fourteen years before he headed for Charan. This is neither mentioned in the immediate context nor in in the Torah, but it is not to be called in question. It understandable that not all the details are given in the historical account of the event referred to. And although there is no Scriptural proof of what was orally transmitted to us, what purpose would be served in the Torah not telling us that which is supposed to be hidden? This we will attempt to explain at the end of our survey for the reader’s consideration. But before that we will summarize what has been revealed to us.
Ya’akov was 63 years old when he took the blessings and left his parents’ home in Be’er-sheva. Instead of going directly to Charan and staying there for a few years, as his mother bade him, Ya’akov went to Ever (the great-grandson of Shem, son of Noach) and lived there for 14 years, during which he was hiding from his brother Eisav. Thus, he arrived in Charan 14 years later at the age of 77. He then worked 7 years for Rachel (but married Leah) at the age of 84 (77 + 7). For comparison, Eisav married at the age of 40. He worked 7 more years again for Rachel, and 6 more years for himself and became 97 when he left Lavan (84 + 7 + 6). It took him 2 years in travelling to his father, and he was 99 when he arrived home.
Another thing to consider. Yitschak and Ya’akov were separated for 22 years: 20 years Ya’akov was in Charan and 2 in travelling until the reunification with his father. Ya’akov and Yoseph were separated for 22 years: from the age of 17 (see Gen 37:2) until the age of 39 (30 + 7 + 2), corresponding to the 22 years that Ya’akov was separated from his father Yitschak. And Yitschak died when Yoseph had already been sold in Egypt for 12 years. How so?
Ya’akov was blessed by his father at the age of 63. For 14 years he was hiding at Ever, and he was 77 when he headed for Charan. He worked 14 years there, and at the end of the 14 years, Yoseph was born. Hence, Ya’akov was 91 (77 + 14). Yoseph was sold when he was 17 (Gen 37:2), and Ya’akov was 108 (91 + 17). Since Ya’akov was 108 when Yoseph was sold and 130 when he arrived in Egypt, they have been separated for 22 years (130 – 108). Since Yitschak lived 180 years, and when Ya’akov was born, Yitschak was 60, then when Yitschak died Ya’akov was 120 (180 – 60). Since Ya’akov was 108 when Yoseph was sold, the selling of Yoseph preceded Yitschak’s death by 12 years (120 – 108). At the end of this study, let us return to our immediate subject.
If the oral tradition had not informed us concerning the whereabouts of Ya’akov from the time he left Be’er-sheva until his departure for Charan, and the only thing we were left was the reckoning of the 14 years in Ya’akov’s life, we would not have known how to solve the problem before us. And the want of explicit accounts in the Torah explaining this problem would have precluded the possibility of bringing this question to a definitive decision. Yet, what is not explicit in the story is implicit in the first verse of our Torah portion hinting at two apparent departures of the patriarch on his journey toward Charan.
There is no injustice done to the text, if we agree or disagree with the oral tradition. If we disagree with the tradition, namely that Ya’akov stayed with Shem and Ever for fourteen years, we still have the reckoning of time all should agree upon. What the tradition does is to give an answer to what is obvious: Ya’akov did not go straight to his uncle Lavan. But we have no intention to dwell on disagreements with the tradition, having been told by what the Torah clearly had shown that Ya’akov had spent fourteen years somewhere on his way to Charan. This is self-understood, although Scripture does not expressly say so. And perhaps, there is a reason why the narrator has omitted this. Perhaps, he did not wish to associate Ya’akov’s choice of behavior with a direct statement in the narrative which may further embarrass the patriarch, who instead of a few years was absent from home for total of thirty-six years; fourteen with Shem and Ever, twenty with Lavan, and two more on his way back to Kena’an. If we are correct in our supposition, then it explains why Ya’akov did not go straight to his father when he entered Kena’an but dwelled some time at Shechem and elsewhere. Perhaps, he felt guilt that he did not follow his mother words and was not there to give her last honor to bury her. Or his guilt was towards his father whom he deceived obeying his mother’s words. We do not know, but we are content with this answer.
Suggested reading:
When a Mother Lost All She Had for Doing Good
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