Themes in Genesis: Deception

There was lot of deception in Genesis.

1. The serpent deceived Eve.

2. Abraham deceived Pharoah and the King of Gerar by claiming Sarah was his sister. Although this was true he puposely concealed the fact that Sarah was also his wife. How many times do we do conceal in what we reveal?

3. Abraham and Sarah sent a servant to get Isaac's wife - unusual, unless there was something about Isaac that would have hindered him from getting his own. The servant goes with a lot of gifts, money and great stories (true ones) about the power, wealth and prestige Isaac's wife would marry into. I cannot be sure, but I believe that this was trickery to get Rebecca to marry a man sight unseen she would never have accepted had she met the guy.

4. They have two sons of which the second one is a trickster. He deceives dad pretending to be his brother and thus steals a blessing from his father who cannot see and who does not have the smarts to put 2 and 2 together when he knew that he heard Jacob's voice but when he smelled and felt him he concluded it was Esau.

5. Jacob's mother Rebeccah put Jacob up to this last trick. When Jacob moved to live with his mother's brother, he cheated Jacob regularly.
a. Jacob worked 7 years for Leban in order to marry his daughter Rachel. On wedding night however, Leban put his older daughter Leah in the place of Rachel. Like his mother, Jacob was surprised with a spouse he did not expect - for the rest of his life.
b. Leban changed Jacob's wages over and over.
c. Jacob did everything he could to get the upper hand.

6. Rachel stole her father's idol and hid it under her seat. When asked to get up she said she was having her period and couldn't.

7. Tamar tricked her father-in-law Judah into believing she was an unknown prostitute when in fact she was only trying to get a child in the name of her dead husband.

8. Two brothers led a village into believing that the family would settle down with the village for economic and marrigage reasons if they were circumcised. Instead the brothers slaughtered all the men who were unable to defend themselves in their weakened state.

9. All the brothers tricked their dad into believing that Joseph was dead, when in fact they sold him into slavery.

10. Joseph tricked his brothers into believing he was a mean old ruler telling them that they were spies and imprisoning one of them until his other brother came to Egypt.

11. Joseph set them up again with a stolen cup placed in Benjamin's sack of food. He set them up for purposes to be explored later.

There was a lot of trickery, dishonesty and bad stuff going on in Genesis.