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 CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
The Deaths of Rachel and Isaac, Genesis 35:16 - 35:29.

THE FACTS!

Jacob and his family once again left Beth-el.

As they are nearing Ephrath, Rachel is forced into a chain gang.

Rachel's midwife tells her to fear not as she will soon have a son while breaking rocks.

Rachel names her son Ben-oni (son of my sorrow) and dies.

Jacob goes against his dead wife's last words and calls his son Benjamin (son of my right hand).

Rachel is buried in Beth-le-hem which means Bakery.

Jacob sets up a pillar on Rachel's grave.

Jacob spreads his tent beyond the tower of Edar.

Reuben sleeps with Bilbo.

Jacob hears about it.

Jacob visits his father Isaac in Mamre.

Isaac dies at 180 years old.

Jacob and Esau bury Isaac.

STUDY QUESTIONS!
Question God and Religion!

See? They're leaving Beth-el again! They'll be back! Perhaps they aren't allowed to live in Beht-el since Beth-el means House of God and God is their Father and why would He want a bunch of grown men moving back in with their families and problems and asses? Sometimes, I guess, they find themselves without a place to stay so God allows them to stay with him until he gets tired of them and tells them to move on to Egypt or Canaan or Mamre or something.

What did Rachel do wrong? Why was she forced into hard labour after leaving Beth-el? And while she was pregnant, too! When did that happen? The Bible is usually pretty good at keeping us up-to-date with conceptions! Why the surprise this time?

Where did Rachel's midwife come from? Who is she? Why didn't Rachel slap her wen she told Rachel, "Fear not; thou shalt have this son also"? I'm pretty sure birthing the kid wasn't exactly Rachel's big fear. Her big fear was probably all of the blood and the feeling weak and the realizing she was dying. Seriously! She already had 11 or 12 kids (I lost count a long time ago). Who needs another one? Let it die!

Why did Jacob change Ben-oni's name to Benjamin? Son of my sorrow seems a lot more appropriate than Son of the Right Hand. Do you think Jacob knows something about Benjamin that nobody else knows and his name will have a double meaning like Jacob's name? Do you think Benjamin will grow up to resent Jacob and gas him while in a mini-van? In Lost, Son of the Right Hand works really well since Benjamin Linus really is the right hand of Jacob, the mysterious island ruler.

Do you think Canaan was covered in piles of stones? Is it just Jacob and his forefathers who love to stack stones on every occasion, like praying to God and burying their dead wives? Or do all the Canaanites do it? I imagine you can't go anywhere in this country without barking your shin on a stupid pile of rocks.

Hold the phone! I want to hear more about Reuben and Bilbah! What happened when Jacob found out that his eldest son was sleeping with one of his wives? Sure, it was the least liked wife of the bunch! Unless the least liked wife was Leah. I mean, Leah's servant! Jacob only has three wives left and his son has started banging one and The Bible just says, "Jacob heard of it", and moves on to other things? Am I going to have to write some Bible Fanfic? At least Reuben wasn't nailing his mother's handmaiden. That would have been weird.

Oh, Jacob has 12 sons and 1 daughter. The Bible just confirmed it for me. Can The Bible answer people's questions like that Magic Billiard Ball? Let me try. "Bible, will I become rich from writing stories?" *shake Bible* Bible: "Asher continued on the sea shore and abode in his breaches." Hmm. I guess that means ask again later.

Do all of God's Chosen People die of old age? Not one of them dies from tripping on a pillar or falling down a well? I guess they really are blessed!

On the television series Lost, the mother of Benjamin Linus also dies in child birth. But her name was Emily and not Rachel. I think that must have been an error in the script.

My cousin, The Great Neutral (he's not part fish! He's my cousin on my mother's side!) has just started watching Lost on Netflix. After the first appearance of the mysterious monster, he has a theory: he thinks it's a bulldozer. A bulldozer which can launch people like a catapult with its big shovel! His girlfriend also has a theory. Her theory is that since the show didn't immediately tell her what it was, she should go online and find out. I don't know what she read but it was probably something like, "The monster is a big pillar of black smoke that sounds like a roller coaster going uphill and acts as the island's security system which also judges and condemns people while brainwashing them into what the Survivors have dubbed 'Others'. It also likes to rip people apart and fling them into trees with its big catapult driven shovel. John Locke may or may not have had sex with it."

Rachel's grave has become a gigantic tourist attraction in Bethlehem. It's located directly beneath the second loop of the El-Nahash-el Coaster in the Action Fun Time Grand Land Amusement Park.

After looking at web pages for Israeli Amusement Parks, I think a good job to have, if you're looking for work, is Israeli Amusement Park Web Page Designer because they obviously don't care if you know what you're doing. So if you don't know how to do web design, it won't matter since whoever they have doing it now isn't any good anyway. And if you do know what you're doing, you'll probably get paid a lot of Shekels and maybe even become the king of Kosher Amusement Park Web Sites.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on Israeli web designers. It could be that Firefox just can't interpret Kosher HTML. And some of the Amusement Park sites aren't that bad! Like King City and Gai Beach Resort!

Pickle Boy's Historical Facts #2 of 1000: George Washington was a pot smoking jerko!

A. Why would Reuben have sex with Bilbah? Aren't there any women he's not related to hanging around? I guess he's not really related to Bilbah. But just try having sex with your step-mom now and see how good that turns out!
B. Both Rachel and Oscar Wilde had to do hard labour. Compare and contrast these two fictional characters.
C. Now that Rachel is dead, do you think Jacob will look for another wife? Since he never really wanted the other three anyway. And since this is an Essay Assignment, you can't just answer yes or no to that question! You have to drag the answer out for at least three pages!

DRAWING TIME!

Draw a picture to go with the following Bible Fanfiction:

Graduation Day
By Grunion Guy

Reuben walked into the apartment and gulped. He had trouble gulping until he loosened his tie and took off his brown corduroy jacket. He gulped because Bilbah was sitting really close to the camera with her practically naked legs as she slowly made them nakeder.

"Are you trying to do it to me?" asked Reuben in a quavering voice that proved he could be Everyman and even Autisticman too.

"Benjamin. I mean, Reuben! That would be weird if you were Benjamin! I mean, he's just a little baby! Anyway, Reuben, I am not trying to do it to you," stated Bilbah in a breathy, sexy voice as she unraveled her stockings so that Reuben could see her bare legs and probably even some of her underwear.

"I know that, Step-mom, but please, this is difficult, seeing as how you changed my diapers and helped circumcise me and all that jazz." Unless Jazz wasn't invented yet. Then he said, "All that Jug Music." Reuben was so excited that he almost did it to the inside of his pants. But he didn't do that yet!

"Do you want me to do it to you, Reuben?" asked Bilbah very sexily. And then Reuben did do it to the inside of his pants.

Then Jacob burst in and said, "Aha! I heard that my son was doing it to one of my wives!" And then he left to go count his sons.

The End!

WHAT DID CHRISTIAN LITERALISTS LEARN?

If you're the man of the house, you have the last say in naming your son. Especially if your wife is too dead to argue about it.