The other Side of the Jabbok: Genesis 32 as a Fiasco of Patriarchy

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to answer a question that is hardly ever asked by the exegetes: ‘Where were Jacob's wives and children during his famous single combat at the Jabbok?’ Identifying and analyzing topographic data scattered in Genesis 32, especially in vv. 23–24 (Eng. vv. 22–23), I argue that the text shows the patriarch trying to survive not only by fleeing the Promised Land—in spite of the deity's command to return there—but by using his family as a human shield against approaching Esau. Skillfully using the geographical setting of the episode, the narrator represents Jacob's outrageous treatment of his household as a part and parcel of his overall cowardice and faithlessness and thereby implicitly denounces patriarchy as a corrupting, ineffective and ultimately ungodly system.