The story begins innocently enough. The writer of Genesis simply sets the stage with a reference to geography: "Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan" (37:1).

He settled in the land where his father had lived.

Jacob is the third generation of patriarchs by whom Israel's God was henceforth known. Several centuries later at the burning bush, for example, the Lord introduced himself to Moses as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Exodus 3:6). Jacob, his father, and his grandfather were the honored primogenitors of God's chosen people.

Abraham, you remember, was the Mespotamian man with whom God first initiated this covenant. Abraham's descendants would be God's people, and he would be their God. The covenant was not o…