Texts in Conversation
In Genesis 27:16, Jacob deceives Isaac by wearing goat skins and Esau’s clothes. A similar trick appears in 1 Samuel 19:13, where Michal helps David escape by placing a household idol in his bed with a goat-hair pillow to fool Saul’s men. Both stories use goat materials and family deception to create a literary parallel.
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Genesis 27:16
Hebrew Bible
14 So he went and got the goats and brought them to his mother. She prepared some tasty food, just the way his father loved it. 15 Then Rebekah took her older son Esau’s best clothes, which she had with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She put the skins of the young goats on his hands and the smooth part of his neck. 17 Then she handed the tasty food and the bread she had made to her son Jacob.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Samuel 19:13
Hebrew Bible
11 Saul sent messengers to David’s house to guard it and to kill him in the morning. Then David’s wife Michal told him, “If you do not save yourself tonight, tomorrow you will be dead!” 12 So Michal lowered David through the window, and he ran away and escaped. 13 Then Michal took a household idol and put it on the bed. She put a quilt made of goats’ hair over its head and then covered the idol with a garment. 14 When Saul sent messengers to arrest David, she said, “He’s sick.”
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Several of the battle stories in the books of Joshua and Judges involve ambushes that delude armies and lead to their demise. In the stories of Samson, both his wife and later his lover, Delilah, are told, “Trick him” (Judges 14:15; 16:5). David’s wife Michal saves him from her father, Saul, by putting idols in David’s bed and a goat-hair pillow (as in J, where there’s a goat, there’s a deception) to deceive her father’s men about David’s escape (1 Samuel 19:13). And Saul says to her, “Why have you deceived me?” (1 Samuel 19:17), just as Jacob had once said to Laban, just as a woman at Endor later says to Saul himself (1 Samuel 28:12) ..."
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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