The Last Testament: A Memoir by God, David Javerbaum Read Free Book Online Page B

seriously wrong with me.

CHAPTER 18
1 T hings between Abraham and me were never the same after that.
2 Sarah died a few years later, leaving him disconsolate; feeling guilty, I gave unto him another wife, Keturah; she was 19 years old, and he was 139; it was a classic January–December romance.
3 And Abraham found for his son a wife; she was Rebekah, the daughter of Isaac’s cousin; not ideal, but alas Isaac had no available half-sisters or nieces.
4 And Abraham passed away at the ripe old age of 175, and was laid to rest alongside Sarah in the burial cave of Machpelah, near Mamre, toward the back, in the Jewish section.
5 And Isaac proved even more steadfast and upright than Abraham; I saw no need to test him as I did his father; and of the three patriarchs he gets by far the least play; for his life was not nearly as interesting as Abraham’s had been, or Jacob’s would be.
6 Yea; he remindeth me somewhat of John Scott Harrison: the only man to have been the son of one US president, and the father of another.
7 (Never challenge me to a trivia contest; epic shall be thy ass-whooping.)
8 Isaac built on his father’s wealth, for he bought all the wells in the valley of Gerar, profiting greatly thereby; even more so, after an adorable two-year-old Beersheban girl, Baby Milkah, accidentally fell into one.
9 Everyone within a 500-cubit radius came to assist in her rescue; the incident brought renown to the well, and honor to Isaac and all those involved;
10 Though sad to say Milkah herself grew up jaded by fame, and died of an incense overdose at age 16.
11 Isaac is best known for his two children, the twins Jacob and Esau: Esau emerged first from the womb, red and hairy; and impishly clasping his heel was Jacob;
12 And with his arrival the biblical narrative becomes more engaging; for from infancy it quickly became apparent to everyone, that Jacob was one tricky little bastard.
13 Fooling Esau into selling his birthright for a bowl of lentils; deceiving his own dying father into giving him the coveted blessing of the firstborn—these are but two of the hundreds of tricky little bastard things that tricky little bastard did;
14 I excluded them from the Bible, only so that the book of Genesis did not turn into the book of That Tricky Little Bastard.
15 Jacob was naughty, roguish, and full of mischief; a conniver; Dennis the Menace and Bart Simpson rolled into one little Semitic Iron Age package.
16 He even had his own catchphrase: “Thou gotst jaked!”
17 A visiting merchant slips on wet sand and falls into a dungpile: “Thou gotst jaked!”
18 A dim-witted neighbor is cozened into using his own precious silks to wipe himself in the dark: “Thou gotst jaked!”
19 Uncle Laban unwittingly cedes him possession of all his speckled and spotted cattle: “ Dee-amn, thou gotst jaked!”
20 Jacob was as wily a trickster as I have ever seen; on occasion an unscrupulous cutthroat; one of those people whose success others resent, considering them personally unworthy of such earthly achievement; and rightly so.
21 I loved Jacob.

CHAPTER 19
1 I t was Esau who most frequently and painfully received unto himself the business end of Jacob’s artfully wielded shaft; most significantly in regards to the two incidents I reference above, in Againesis 18:13.
2 (Truly it is a worthy thing, to have every sentence of one’s literary output citable by chapter and verse; not only is it convenient, but it bestows upon one’s every utterance the heft of unimpeachable authority.
3 In fact, here is a little boon I shall grant my readers:
4 If thou wert sent here to read this verse, thou art an asshole.
5 There; now, the next time thou findest thyself splitting hairs with a pedant on a finer point of scripture, say, “Ah, but art thou not forgetting Againesis 19:4?”; and send him scurrying here, to read my personal message.
6 The more ambitious among you may even attend a sporting event, and hold up a banner reading AGAINESIS 19:4; that