Genesis 25: How to Win at Sibling Rivalry

Isaac Blessing Jacob - Govert Flinck, c. 1638

With his son Isaac married off, the old widower Abraham figured he might as well get around to getting himself married again. This was easy to do, since Abraham had a lot of property and was very old, which is a combination that a certain kind of woman finds very appealing. Keturah was one such woman. She and Abraham had six kids together. They lived to see their grandchildren and great-grandchildren be born. Well, we know Abraham did. After the mention of her bearing six children, Keturah disappears from the narrative, and there’s no telling what happened to her. Abraham himself lived to be 175. Odds are Abraham treated his second wife well, in light of the fact that he had been decent enough to set up the sons of his concubines with nice little nest eggs and sent them off to the east to get their lives going. Anything Abraham had that didn’t go to his concubines’ sons (and, possibly, his widow,) was left to Isaac.

As Abraham died, his family gathered around him. All living relations seem to have shown up—even Ishmael, whom Abraham sent off into the desert when he was still a boy, along with his mother. It was a harsh, cold thing to do, but Ishmael and his siblings held no grudge: all of them turned up for the funeral, too! There were probably some awkward conversations about who made whose mother strike out into the desert with only her young son in tow. Bygones were bygones. And soon Ishmael was gone, too. Unlike his long-lived father, Ishmael lived to the slight age of 137.

Isaac, set up well for life, wanted to have children, but that wasn’t working out. Nothing gets a woman to conceive better than prayer, so he tried that, and lo, Rebekah was pregnant—with twins! The couple was happy until later in the pregnancy when the two fetuses starting pushing and shoving each other. It made her miserable so it was Rebekah’s turn to pray. “Why, o Lord, are my twins fighting each other before they’re even born?” God, ever charming, replied with a little poem:

“You’ve got two nations in your womb,

Between which future conflicts loom.

One will dominate the other,

And the elder’s going to serve his brother.”

The first of the twins to emerge from her womb was hairy and reddish-colored. This one they called Esau. Jacob arrived right on his brother Esau’s heels—literally he was born holding Esau’s heel. As they grew up, Esau became a hunter, while Jacob preferred to hang around the tent. Isaac had a preference for Esau’s temperament, while Rebekah liked Jacob more.

One night the boys’ destinies were sealed. Esau came to the tent, exhausted from a long day of hunting. He asked Jacob for some of the stew he had made. “I’m dying from hunger,” Esau said. “At least a mouthful, please.”

Jacob considered this. “It’s yours, brother—for your birthright.” (This pattern of negotiation has been observed in numerous other pairs of siblings.)

“Jacob, I’m literally dying here. Just gimme some of that lentil stew.”

“’Literally’?”

“Yes. Now feed me.”

“Birthright.”

“I’m dying! What good is a birthright if I die?”

It was obvious to Jacob that his brother wasn’t really dying, but he knew a sure thing when he saw one. “Oath first. Then I’ll give you some lentils.”

“Fine.”

Jacob gave Esau some lentil stew and threw in some bread, to boot. Esau was okay with it. In time, both brothers would fully understand just how good (or bad) the deal would be for them.

How the Lemon was Invented

Lemons How do you make a lemon? Silly question, isn’t it? You just take the seeds out of one and plant them, and wait for the tree to come up, right? That’s true, but it hasn’t always been that easy. Lemons today are a widely cultivated citrus fruit, with a flavor used in cuisines of countries where no lemon tree would ever grow. You might think that it was just a matter of ancient peoples finding the trees, enjoying their fruit and growing more of them, but that’s not true. The lemon is a human invention that’s maybe only a few thousand years old. The first lemons came from East Asia, possibly southern China or Burma. (These days, some prefer to refer to Burma as Myanmar . I’ll try to stay out of that controversy here and stick to fruit.) The exact date of the lemon’s first cultivation is not known, but scientists figure it’s been around for more than 4,000 years. The lemon is a cross breed of several fruits. One f...

The Massachusetts Codfish License Plate Fiasco of 1928

A 1928 Massachusetts license plate with a bad omen! 1928 was a bad year for the Massachusetts codfish yield. Whose fault was it? The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles', of course—or you might think so, to listen to some of the irate fishermen that year. The problem started with the new license plate design. At the time, it was common for states to issue brand new license plates every year, and Massachusetts was no exception. The new plates for 1928 featured something revolutionary, too: it was the first time any state put a picture of anything on the plate. Since Massachusetts was known for cod, the picture the RMV chose was, logically, a codfish. It appeared at the bottom of the plate. In the bottom left-hand corner was the year, 1928. In the bottom right-hand corner was the state, written “Mass.” And in the middle was the codfish—the first picture of anything that ever appeared on an American license plate...

From Holy Water to the Automat: Great Strides in Self-Service

One of the greatest inventors of the ancient world was Heron Alexandrinus, aka Hero of Alexandria, who racked up an incredible 80 inventions throughout his lifetime in the first century CE. One of Heron’s remarkable inventions was an early (and possibly the first) steam engine. But one that we moderns might least expect is one that we seldom associate with the ancient world: the vending machine. Heron’s vending machine sold one thing: holy water. He invented it in order to stop the theft of holy water from the temples. The way it worked was you’d put a 5 drachma coin in a slot. The coin would land on one end of a lever which, when depressed, would allow holy water to trickle out of a spout. As long as the coin was balanced on the end of the lever, the water would keep coming. The coin would remain balanced for a short while. When it dropped off the lever, a counterweight was released, closing the spout and preventing anyone from tak...

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