Jacob introduces a new name for God in this week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei (Genesis 28:10-32:3):
“If it were not that the elohim of my father—the Elohim of Abraham and the Pachad of Isaac—is with me, you would have sent me off empty-handed!” (Genesis 31:42)
elohim (אֱלֹהִים) = gods, god, God.
pachad (פַּחַד) = trembling; terror, dread. (From the verb pachad, פָּחַד = tremble uncontrollably, shudder, be terrified; dread.)
Everyone in the book of Genesis uses the common noun elohim to refer to gods in general. Descendants of Terach, both Abraham’s line in Canaan and Nachor’s line in Aram, also use the proper name Y-H-V-H for the god who becomes known later as the God of Israel.1 Y-H-V-H has other names and titles, but only Jacob calls God the Pachad of his father.
Jacob’s awe
In last week’s Torah portion, Toledot, Jacob cheats his older brother Esau twice, and Esau vows to kill him. He flees to his uncle Lavan’s house in Aram, a northern Mesopotamian territory far from Canaan. On the way, Jacob has his first direct experience of God: a dream featuring a stairway between the earth and the heavens, and God standing over him.
Then Jacob woke up from his sleep, and he said: “Surely there is Y-H-V-H in this place, and I, I did not know!” Vayiyra, and he said: “How awesome is this place!” (Genesis 28:16)
vayiyra (וַיִּירָא) = and he was afraid, and he was awed. (A form of the verb yarei, יָרֵא = fear, be afraid, be awed, revere.
Jacob feels awed and frightened by his numinous experience. Maybe he has goosebumps. But he is not overcome by the uncontrollable trembling associated with pachad, terror. When he gets up, he erects a stone, pours oil on it, and vows that if God protects him until he returns to his father’s house, he will worship God and give God a tenth of his possessions.
Isaac’s terror
Jacob’s practical bargaining is a far cry from his father Isaac’s relationship to God. As a young adult, Isaac voluntarily let his father tie him up on an altar as a burnt offering to God. Abraham almost cut his throat before God intervened.2 According to some classic Jewish commentators, Isaac experienced pachad then, and carried the trauma for the rest of his life.3 When Isaac is old and blind, Jacob impersonates his brother Esau in order to steal Isaac’s blessing in the name of God. When Esau arrives and confirms what Jacob did, Isaac is seized by another kind of fearful trembling, charad.4
Perhaps Jacob thinks of Isaac’s overwhelming relationship to God in terms of trembling.
Jacob’s wages
Jacob arrives safely at his uncle’s house in this week’s Torah portion, and promptly falls in love with Lavan’s younger daughter, Rachel. Having arrived without any gifts to use as a bride-price,5 Jacob works as a shepherd for Lavan for seven years. But on the wedding day, Lavan substitutes his older daughter, Leah. Jacob still wants Rachel, and Lavan tells Jacob he has to work another seven years for her.6
After Jacob completes fourteen years of service for his two wives, he continues to work for his uncle and father-in-law, this time in exchange for the black sheep and the spotted and brindled goats in Lavan’s flocks. Lavan promptly sends them all to a distant pasture before they can be counted.7 But over the next six years Jacob uses breeding techniques to build up his own flocks of black sheep and brindled goats.
… so the feeble ones were Lavan’s and the [sturdy] striped ones were Jacob’s. And the man spread out very much, and he owned large flocks, female slaves and male slaves, and camels and donkeys. (Genesis 30:42-43)
After Jacob has accumulated this wealth, he notices that Lavan and Lavan’s sons act as if they have a grudge against him.
Then Y-H-V-H said to Jacob: “Return to the land of your fathers and your clan, and I will be with you.” (Genesis 31:3)
Jacob talks it over with his wives, who agree it is time to leave their father in order to ensure their own children’s inheritance. While Lavan and his sons are away at a sheep-shearing, Jacob leaves town with his whole household (his two wives, two concubines, twelve children, and many slaves) and all his flocks and other possessions. He does not know that his wife Rachel secretly brings along the small idols from her father’s house.8 They cross the Euphrates River and continue west, heading for Canaan.
Final confrontation
Lavan and his sons are not amused. They pursue Jacob’s party for seven days, and catch up with them in the hill country.
And Lavan said to Jacob: “What have you done when you deceived me and you carried off my daughters like captives of the sword? … There is power in my hand to do harm to you all! But last night the elohim of your father spoke to me, saying: Guard yourself, lest you speak with Jacob for good or bad. And now, you are surely going because you surely longed for your father’s house. [But] why did you steal my elohim?” (Genesis 31:29-30)
Elohim is an elastic word in the Hebrew Bible. When Lavan remembers his dream, he refers to the elohim of Jacob’s father (and also of Lavan’s father), whose name is Y-H-V-H. But also when he remembers that his household idols are missing, he accuses Jacob of stealing his elohim. Lavan does not limit himself to a single god.
Jacob chooses not to respond to Lavan’s allegation that he carried off Leah and Rachel like captives. Instead he makes his own accusation.
And Jacob answered, and said to Lavan: “Because yareiti, because I thought: Lest you take your daughters from me by force!” (Genesis 31:31)
yareiti (יָרֵאתִי) = I was afraid. (Another form of the verb yarei.)
Jacob’s use of the verb yarei does not imply that he was pusillanimous, only that he recognized a danger. He was afraid, not terrified.
Then Jacob challenges Lavan to look through the camp and see if he can find his household idols. Lavan searches the tents belonging to Jacob, his two wives, and his two concubines without finding them. (Rachel has hidden them in a camel cushion and is sitting on them. She tells her father she cannot get up because it is her menstrual period.)8
After that, Jacob feels entitled to castigate Lavan. He points out that he did hard, honest work for for twenty years, while Lavan tricked him more than once regarding his wages. He claims that he had to leave while Lavan was away, because:
“If it were not that the elohim of my father—the Elohim of Abraham and the Pachad of Isaac—was with me, you would have sent me off empty-handed! But Elohim saw my plight and the labor of my hands, and gave judgement last night.” (Genesis 31:42)
The judgement, according to Jacob, is God’s warning to Lavan the previous night that he must not say (or do) anything bad to his nephew and son-in-law. If God had not intervened in Lavan’s dream, Lavan would have taken everything Jacob had earned.
The two men agree that the Elohim in Lavan’s dream is the god they both acknowledge, Y-H-V-H. But Jacob includes another name for God: the Pachad of Isaac.
Jacob is not the kind of person who says the first thing that pops into his mind. I suggest that Jacob thought of “the pachad of Isaac”, then decided to say the words out loud in order to warn Lavan that his father’s God is a god of terror. The aspect of Y-H-V-H that causes terror and dread is on Jacob’s side.
Lavan cannot resist one last protest:
“The daughters are my daughters, and the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and everything that you see, it is mine!” (Genesis 31:43)
But then he gives up and proposes that he and Jacob make a formal peace treaty. Jacob raises a memorial stone and builds a cairn (a heap of stones) to mark the boundary between them. Lavan says:
“A witness is this cairn, and a witness is the standing-stone, that I will not cross over past this cairn to you, and that you will not cross over past this cairn or this standing-stone to me, [to do anything] bad. The elohim of Abraham and the elohim of Nachor, may he judge between us—the elohim of their father.” (Genesis 31:52-53)
When Lavan swears by the elohim of Abraham (Jacob’s grandfather) and Nachor (his own grandfather) and their mutual great-grandfather, Terach, he knows he is swearing by Y-H-V-H, the god that Jacob also recognizes. Lavan phrases his oath to emphasize his kinship with Jacob. It is a reassurance: We have the same god.
And Jacob swore by the pachad of his father, Isaac. (Genesis 31:53)
Perhaps, as Robert Alter wrote, “he himself does not presume to go back as far as Abraham, but in the God of his father Isaac he senses something numinous, awesome, frightening.”9
Or perhaps Jacob is fed up with his uncle and father-in-law, and wants a clean break—as long as he gets to keep all of his own family and property. He does not care about his kinship with Lavan. Swearing by the pachad of Isaac emphasizes the dreadful power of the god who helped him and judged in his favor. It is a warning: My god is more dangerous!
Divine terror
The next time the word pachad appears is in the book of Exodus, in an ancient poem about how Egyptians were defeated at sea by the power of Y-H-V-H. The poem declares that all the nations in the region are aghast and tremble with fear of the God of Israel.
Horror and pachad fall upon them! (Exodus 15:16)
Pachad next appears in the book of Deuteronomy, when God promises the Israelites:
“This day I begin putting pachad of you and yirah of you over the faces of all the peoples under the heavens, so that they will pay attention to a rumor of you, and they will shake and they will weaken before you.” (Deuteronomy 2:25)
Later in Deuteronomy, Moses warns the Israelites that if they fail to obey God’s rules, God will inflict horrors upon them.
“And your life will hang in the balance, and you will be pachad night and day, and you will not [be able to] rely upon living. In the morning you will say ‘Who will make it evening?’ and in the evening you will say ‘Who will make it morning?’ because of the pachad of your heart that you will be pachad, and the vision of your eyes that you will see.” (Deuteronomy 28:66-67)
So God is the pachad of Isaac, who obeyed and nearly died; the pachad that Jacob uses to threaten Lavan; the pachad of the enemies and rivals of the Israelites; and the pachad of anyone who dares to disobey God.
I have felt a touch of yirah of the divine, though not quite at the goosebump level. I have never experienced pachad, the shuddering terror. I hope I never do. When I pray, I try to cultivate awe, but not dread.
Yet I know what is going to happen to Jacob in next week’s Torah portion. He will wrestle with a mysterious being, and walk away limping on his hip. He ran away from Esau and he ran away from Lavan, but he cannot run away from God.
I pray that everyone who is overwhelmed by terror is able to walk away—perhaps traumatized, like Isaac, or limping, like Jacob—but able to go on living.
- In Genesius 24:50-51, Nachor’s son Betuel and grandson Lavan spontaneously use the name Y-H-V-H.
- Genesis 22:1-14.
- Cf. Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Rabbeinu Bachya.
- Genesis 27:33. Charad (חָרַד) = tremble with fear.
- Even though Isaac is rich, Jacob runs off without any silver, animals, or trade goods to use as a bride-price. See my post Vayeitzei: Guilty Conscience.
- Genesis 29:9-20.
- Genesis 30:33-36.
- See my posts Vayeitzei: Idol Thief and Vayeitzei: Stealing Away.
- Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses, W.W. Norton & Co., NY, 2004, p. 175.
Questioning Torah 