Bringing Babies Into The World-From the Beginning Till Now

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Our ancestors, wives of Jacob:  Leah-daughter of Laban, oldest sister of Rachel, with her 6 sons Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun,  Rachel with Joseph and Benjamin (born later) :   and Zilpah, handmaiden to Leah with Gad and Asher, and Bilhah, handmaiden to Rachel with Dan and Naphtali.  

Abraham, grandfather of Jacob, was born in about 1948 BCE-the 2nd millennium, almost 4,000 years ago. 

 When Rachel gives birth to Benjamin, she will die in childbirth near Bethlehem.  Benjamin is compensated for losing his mother by the land he inherits.  He is given land between Ephraim and Judah which includes the future Jerusalem.  Saul, 1st king of Israel, was a Benjamite.  The land eventually had to be partitioned between the 2 kingdoms of Israel and Judah, even though it was such a small plot.   

 Today, it costs about $20,,000 to give birth to a baby in the USA.  No wonder our population growth has slowed down.  There is only a 0.4% annual change from 2020.  The U.S. population grew at a slower rate in 2021 than in any other year since the founding of the nation, based on historical decennial censuses and annual population estimates.  The U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2021 Population Estimates released today show that population grew only 0.1% and that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the slower growth the country has experienced in recent years. 

What does that imply?  A baby will be born in a hospital with expert medical conditions guaranteeing the life for the baby and the mother. Parents cannot afford $20,000 for a child.   Now, Roe vs Wade is discarded and having an abortion is against the law.  The numbers should come up.  In our already crowded world, many are hysterical about this new law causing pain and inconvenience to their families. 

Eve didn't have it so well.  Imagine, her midwife was Adam and neither she or he knew what was happening or what to do.  She gave birth to Cain and Abel, and Cain wound up killing Abel when they were adults.  They had no understanding of the pain that Eve went through to bring them into this world.  

Jacob is our 3rd patriarch (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob).  He's the younger non-identical twin of Isaac and Rebekah.  The older twin was Esau.  Jacob was jealous of Esau as being the older, got the birthright benefits and the much desired Blessing, so their mother, Rebekah,  helped him cheat his twin out of it.  Esau went on to lose interest in  the family values having lost his birthright Blessing and status, and  threatened later to kill his twin, Jacob.  Jacob fled to Aram-Naharaim and Laban, his uncle.                         

They met 20 years later and Jacob tried to make friends with him and apologize  to no avail. The deed was done.    Then Esau became a villain, a violent person, a coarse materialist who was unable to recover from his trauma of having something and then losing it to trickery!  He had left the family and found wives amongst the Arabs.

 According to the Torah, Esau is the progenitor of the Edomites.  Jacob was born holding onto Esau's heel.  Esau, a "man of the field", became a hunter who had "rough" qualities that distinguished him from his twin brother. Among these qualities were his redness and noticeable hairiness.

                                                

Today's Edom is Israel, possibly as Edom was south of Judah-the southern end of ancient Israel.  Edom was the land touching the Dead Sea and bordering Judah.  Notice that much of Jacob's history took place in today's Syria.  

 Jacob was a plain or simple man, depending on the translation of the Hebrew word tam (which also means "relatively perfect man"). Jacob's color was not mentioned. Throughout Genesis, Esau is frequently shown as being supplanted by his younger twin, Jacob (Israel).                                              

Here, Esau did the hunting and Jacob does the cooking.  

Jacob fell in love with young Rachel and in order to win her as a wife, had to work for her father, Laban, who in fact was Jacob's uncle, for 7 years.  She was very young.  He was tricked into actually marrying her oldest sister, Leah, first, and had to continue working another 7 years to finally gain Rachel.  Leah gave him Reuben-1st son , Simeon-2nd son, Levi-3rd son, Judah-4th son, Issachar-5th son, and Zebulun-6th son.  Then he had a daughter, Dinah-order unknown.                               

Rachel, who also lived at Haran in Aram-Naharaim (Syria),  produced Joseph, Jacob's most precious son, and his 11th, finally produced by the love of his life.  He was an exceptional lad, treated as such even in the presence of his brothers, having been given a special coat of many colors that none had that showed favoritism.  Jacob hadn't had the chance to read child development books about such things as we have done.  He was ignorant of such things.  Joseph's brothers were so jealous that they intended to kill him, but settled for selling him to passer-by merchants on camels instead who took him to Egypt.     

 Rachel had finally given birth to Benjamin-12th son and then died in childbirth   near Bethlehem.  Who raised her son?  Probably her handmaiden, Bilhah, who, with Rachel's permission, had also given birth to Dan and Naphtali by Jacob before Rachel had ever given birth.  (Gen: 30) Rachel had said that if she remained childless, it would be as if she were dead, so that's why she needed her Bilhah to have a son.  Rachel would be credited for it.  She had threatened Jacob for not getting her pregnant, but of course he could do nothing about it.  The irony is that she was his great love and she had a hard time getting pregnant.  

This instigated Leah to add more sons from her, so she gave her handmaiden to Jacob and Zilpah then gave birth to Gad and Asher.  In those days, men felt obligated to produce sons.  It was of great value to them.  Probably these 4 women acted as midwives to each other.  There probably was jealousy among them, but necessity was also in the mix.  Their worth to Jacob had to be considered.  Their sons were their insurance.  

Who were the handmaidens?  Chances are they were bought in Egypt and were also  sisters.  They all would have spoken the same language, maybe those females that hadn't attracted a mate and the father could use the money.  

As we see, even with our Israelite family, women had less status than men did at this point in time.  We're lucky to know about Dinah and how she had been raped and what he brothers had done about it by putting themselves in jeopardy.

Resource:

Tanakh, Stone Edition

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia