This is a short chapter and gives me a chance to offer some commentary about slavery in the ancient world and the difficulty of translating Hebrew.

Genesis 33

Jacob raised up his eyes and looked, and saw Esau coming with four hundred men. And he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants.

2 He placed the female servants and their children in the front with Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph in the back.

3 And he went ahead of them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother.

4 Esau ran to meet him and embraced him. He threw his arms around his neck and kissed him: and they wept.

5 He looked up and saw the women and the children; and said “Who are these with you?” And he said “The children which God has graciously given your servant.”

6 Then the female servants came near with their children, and they bowed down.

7 Leah with her children came next, and bowed themselves. Last of all Joseph came near and Rachel, and they bowed down.

8 And he said “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” And he said “To find favor in the sight of my lord.”

9 But Esau said “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.”

10 Jacob said “No, please, if I have found grace in your sight, then receive my present from my hand: for seeing your face is like seeing the face of God, and you were pleased with me.

11 Please, take my blessing that I have brought to you; because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” Because Jacob urged him, he took it.

12 Esau said “Let us take our journey, let’s go, and I will go before you.”

13 But Jacob said “My lord knows that the children are weak, and the flocks and herds with young are with me. If men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die

14 Please, let my lord go ahead of his servant: and I will continue slowly, as much as the herd that goes before me and the children be able to endure, until I come to my lord at Seir.”

15 Esau said “Let me leave some of my people with you.” But he said “What need is there? “Let me find grace in the sight of my lord.”

16 So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.

17 Jacob went on to Succoth and built a house for himself, and made shelters for his livestock: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth. 

18 And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram; and pitched his tent before the city.

19 And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money. 

20 And he built an altar there, and called it El Elohe Israel.