1.  Where are you going?  I will be wearing a warm jacket and mittens.  We won!  Don’t forget to get bread at the store.  None of you will get to play if you don’t behave!  Aren’t you thrilled about the results?

2.  Stars  Knife  Angels

3.  Abram’s Covenant (Genesis 15)  Isaac: (Genesis 22) John Greenleaf Whittier concludes “The Human Sacrifice” (a protest against capital punishment) with:  My brother man, Beware!/With that deep voice, which from the skies/Forbade the Patriarch’s sacrifice,/God’s angel cries, Forbear!

4.  Lot’s Wife (Genesis 19) In Jane Eyre, when the title character assumed a new position as a schoolmistress, she was told not “to yield to the vacillating fears of Lot’s wife…I would counsel you to resist, firmly, every temptation which would incline you to look back.”

5.  You have 10 minutes to prepare a visual summary for the story that your group is given.  You should convey the main ideas and may do so in any way that will communicate the main points to the class.

6.  Abraham and Isaac (sacrificial offering)  Jacob and Esau (giving up birthright)  Jacob deceiving Isaac (taking blessing)  Jacob going to work for Laban/meeting Rachel  Jacob being deceived by Laban  Jacob marrying Rachel & Jacob’s children (growing family)

7.  When Isaac was 40, he got married to Rebekah. While pregnant, she was told:  Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body; one people shall be mightier than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. Genesis 25:23

8.  The differences in the twins is noted in how Esau traded his birthright (the double inheritance and power due him because he was born first) for a bowl of lentil stew (Genesis 25:27-34). Esau was the outdoorsman, active, physical and impetuous. Jacob was a shepherd, stayed closer to home and was his mother’s favorite. According to the text of Genesis, Esau got what he deserved because of his impetuosity and the fact that momentary hunger pangs weighed more on him than his status as elder son.

9.  An old English translation calls the red lentil stew for which Esau trades his birthright a mess of pottage. Mess originally meant “a meal” and is still used in this sense in military and camp settings ( mess hall). Pottage is a thick stew. The phrase has come to mean anything of trivial or temporary value for which one trades away a lasting treasure – in short, a “bad deal.”

10.  According to Genesis, Esau despised his birthright because of the responsibility associated with being the elder son initially, and later because of the way it was essentially stolen from him. When an aged and dim-sighted Isaac decided to carry out the ceremonial blessing and inheritance to Esau, Rebekah moved quickly to claim the blessing through outright deception.

11.  Despite the deception, however, it was once again the younger man whom God marked for special destiny, foreshadowing the bitter family feud to come. Both Esau and Isaac reacted to the deception in very human ways. Despite Isaac’s sadness and Esau’s pleas, Isaac had given his blessing and had to abide by his actions. Jacob went off to live with Rebekah’s brother Laban because he could not bear the torment after Abraham’s death.

12.  Genesis affirms that Jacob’s inheritance and blessing were part of God’s plan. An angel visited Jacob in Genesis 28:12 : And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to the heaven: and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending it.  The angels went up and down it much like a Jacob’s ladder toy or the waterfall works today. A Jacob’s ladder is also the name given to rope ladders on ships.

13.  Jacob’s dream occurred while he was in the wilderness alone. In his dream, Jacob renewed the covenant with God that had been made with Abraham (Jacob’s grandfather). God also pronounced a blessing on Jacob’s descendents.  When Jacob awoke from the dream, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place…This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17). He renamed the spot, Bethel, meaning “house of God.”

14.  If you are looking for literary allusions, you may want to read: Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner. He uses biblical allusions, humor and insights to tell these stories set in the south. Billy Buddy and Moby Dick by Herman Melville East of Eden by John Steinbeck The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy