Jacob Stacked Twelve Stones That Became One Pillow

Click for full size

Fourteen Years Without Lying Down

Jacob lay down at Bethel, and it was the first time in fourteen years.

He had spent them hidden in the house of Ever, studying, and in all that time he never stretched out to sleep. He sat up through the nights and recited. Fifteen songs of ascent, one after the other, and some say the whole book of Psalms before morning.

Now he was on a road with nothing on him, running from a brother who had promised to kill him, and the sun had gone down on him in open country. He looked at the ground and started picking up stones.

He Would Not Sleep Until the Stones Answered

Twelve of them. He stacked them under his head and put a condition on them, the way a man talks to God when he is too tired to be careful.

Abraham never produced twelve tribes. Isaac never produced twelve tribes. "If these twelve join with one another, I will know that I am going to produce twelve tribes."

There was an uglier fear underneath the first one. His grandfather had produced waste along with the good, Ishmael first and then the sons of Keturah. His father had produced Esau and every chieftain who came out of Esau. Jacob had been running from that waste for three days and it was his own family. If the stones came together, nothing like that would come out of him.

Other travelers on that road had a plainer reason for arranging stones around their heads. Rabbi Yosei bar Zimra said Jacob built his into a gutter around his skull because of the animals.

The stones joined. Where God only passes through, mountains melt and valleys split open like wax; in a place where He shows Himself, stone does not stay stone. The twelve became one. Under his head it went soft as a bed, soft as a feather pillow, and he slept.

Leah Named Her Sons Like Verdicts

In Laban's house, Leah bore sons and named them out loud, and every name was a report on her marriage.

"Because the Lord heard that I am hated, He gave me this one too." She called him Simeon (Genesis 29:33). The hearing ran further than she meant it to. Out of that son would come Zimri son of Salu, who would walk a Midianite woman past Moses and the whole weeping assembly, and the man who put a spear through that scene would come out of Levi, and his name would be Pinhas. A mother's relief at being heard carried a wound and its healer in one breath.

The next boy she named for company. "This time my husband will accompany me, since I have borne him three sons." Levi (Genesis 29:34). Rabbi Yudan said that child would end up doing the accompanying for everyone: Levi is the tribe that walks the children to their Father in heaven.

The Priest at the Threshing Floor

The fourth son she named differently. "This time I will thank the Lord." Judah (Genesis 29:35). Then she stopped bearing for a while, as though the room had finally gone quiet.

Rabbi Berekhya told it with a priest in it. A priest comes down to the threshing floor at harvest. One man hands him a full measure of tithe, a kor of grain, and the priest takes it and says nothing. Another man hands him a fistful of ordinary produce that he owes to nobody, and the priest thanks him warmly. The first man is insulted. "I gave you a kor. He gave you a handful. You thank him?"

"You gave me from my portion," the priest said. "He gave me from his own."

Four wives, twelve sons expected, three apiece. Leah had counted her share and reached the end of it with her third. The fourth was not her portion at all. It came out of somebody else's, and she put the thanks in the boy's name so it could not be taken back.

God Blessed Him With the Words for Mourners

Jacob came back into Canaan a rich man with a limp and a second name, and God appeared to him again (Genesis 35:9).

Rabbi Berekhya heard a door closing in that word again. I will not attach My name to anybody else. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and there is no fourth name on the list. Rabbi Yudan heard a promise instead, that there would be another appearance still to come.

And He blessed him. Rabbi Asi said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that the blessing was the one spoken over mourners. Rebecca had died while her son was away.

The boy who put stones under his head to ask whether his line would hold came home to a full house and an empty one. A house full of sons, and no mother left to show them to. What God said to him at Bethel that day was what people say to a man whose dead is still fresh.