It’s difficult to know what the rules for recapitulation are. Clearly, if Jesus restories a story where an ancient tragedy still affects the nation, then He was dealing with sin that had never been repented of. Iniquity was allowed to repeat itself, century after century.
But are there occasions when someone else recapitulated the story, so that it was unnecessary for Jesus to do so?
Maybe. I’m not sure.
However, I present for your discernment a story that interacts with that of Esau and Jacob, and that happened in a later era. It is apparently a recapitulation of Rebekah’s part in facilitating the deception of her husband by Jacob. Moreover by its prominence it seems to have been recognised as such, long before the concept of recapitulation and restorying the story was ever thought of. In fact, it might be the earliest example of the idea.
Now by ‘prominence’, I don’t mean this is a long or well-known story. I mean that, despite its seeming triviality, it is featured in two different places in almost identical words—once in the first chapter of the book of Judges and once in the fifteenth chapter of Joshua. It involves the daughter of Caleb, not long after he has routed the giants in Hebron and taken possession of the city for himself. He’s in his late eighties when he says:
‘I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.’ Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him in marriage.
One day when she came to Othniel, he urged her to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, ‘What can I do for you?’
She replied, ‘Do me a special favour. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.’ So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.
Judges 1:12–15 NIV
That’s it. That’s all she gets. But it’s so important, it has to be highlighted twice in Scripture. And it includes a bit of bad storytelling—always a giveaway to a significant clue. The bad storytelling is the addition of the utterly superfluous extraneous comment, ‘she got off her donkey.’ Why do we need to know that? Commentators suggest it’s because it indicates she was honouring her father, but that’s not a good enough reason to make it so explicit. Honouring Caleb should go without saying. Unless, of course, this is a recapitulation of a matter that involved dishonour.
Aksah means anklet or fetter for the foot. Another female name meaning fetter for the foot is Rebekah.
Aksah is coming up from the Negev to Hebron and dismounting from the animal that carried her there. For the ancient Hebrew reader, it would have evoked Isaac coming up from the Negev to Hebron and seeing Rebekah for the first time as she dismounted from the animal that carried her there.
Aksah is meant to remind us of Rebekah. She’s also meant to remind us of inheritance since her bride-price was a bequest of land in the Negev. Her husband, Othniel, the first of Israel’s line of judges in the era before the kings, urges her to ask her father for an extension of the inheritance: a gift of water in addition to land.
Caleb readily complies. He gives her not only the upper springs but the lower ones. Her request is bold but honourable; his response is not only honourable but generous.
Aksah’s story suggests that all Rebekah ever had to do to ensure her favourite son was treated appropriately was ask. She should have simply reminded Isaac that he should bless Jacob too. Instead she facilitated a deception that split the family. Jacob had to flee Esau’s murderous anger and she never saw him again.
Recapitulation is often simple. It doesn’t have to be extraordinary to be miraculous. It’s Jesus sharing a meal at Emmaus and forestalling the repeat of a civil war. It’s Jesus asking for a drink of water at Sychar and reunifying the kingdom of David.
Generations of conflict between the Israelites and the Edomites might have been averted, if only Rebekah had asked.
This is Grace Drops and I’m Anne Hamilton. May Jesus of Nazareth restore and reconcile your ancestry.
Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.
John’s gospel is an epic poem in the mirror-reflective style of Hebrew prophetic poetry. Many commentators have noticed this and shown how the matching pairs line up. However, they haven’t looked beyond the loveliness of the design to the clues offered by the clues embedded in the symmetry. John reveals the inheritance given to specific disciples—the mantles of the patriarchs, prophets and kings that were handed on by Jesus as specific legacies: Elijah’s, Joseph’s, Reuben’s, Jacob’s, David’s, Esau’s… and more! The Elijah Tapestry, The Summoning of Time, The Lustral Waters, The Inviolable Kingdom and Bathing in Bronze (coming late 2026) work verse by verse from the front, matching to various verses from the back to unveil the not-so-hidden secrets of the mantles.