Today when I read in my Bible I read in Genesis, from chapter 27 to chapter 50 and in the chapters between I noted a few things. From the notes in chapter 27 (in my new study bible :D) I realized that the whole rather silent conflict that probably started with Esau trading his birth right for soup, pretty much degenerated the whole family:

Esau married Hittites and they "made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah" and when he traded his birthright for soup he started hating Jacob.

Jacob used Esau's low blood sugar to con him out of his birthright, and helped to deceive his father which made his older brother hate him even more.


Rebekah had the idea to deceive her husband and convinced Jacob to help. (Not that he was really walking circumspectly) and then later (probably because she deceived her husband) she died unnoted.

Isaac tried to thwart God by telling Esau "Go get me some food and then I'll bless you," when he knew that Jacob was supposed to get the blessing and then he trusted in his fallible senses instead of God to guide him.

In chapter 29-30 Jacob meets and marries Leah and Rachel and the war between them starts.
But in chapter 29 Leah bears Jacob 4 sons in a row and he still didn't love her. What I first thought was "how mean!" but then I realized that it was pretty much Leah's fault because she couldn't have been innocent in tricking Jacob into marrying her, I mean think about it, if a handsome man was hanging around the house and is working for your cute little sister, is there really any chance that you wouldn't figure out that there was something fishy about you marrying him on the same day that he was supposed to marry your sister?
In chapter 30 Rachel gets jealous of Leah's children and decides that she will just adopt the children that her maid is going to have by Jacob, and when Leah sees that this is working she does the same thing and gives her maid to Jacob and I realised as I read this that this whole race/war/contest for Jacob's love had to have lasted several several years at least, yet Leah was buried in the cave with Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, and Rebekah, while Rachel was buried in the roadside (albeit with a pillar over her grave), and Leah was the mother of Judah which means that she was included in the Messianic line while Rachael the favorite wife wasn't.

In chapter 34 about Dinah and Shechem I wondered if Dinah even wanted to stay with him because after what he did to her, I know that I sure wouldn't even want to see his face again.
And I wonder if she even had any say in it, because when Simeon and Levi slaughtered the city they took her out of the house of Shechem which means he still hadn't let her go.