“… and he went to Paddan-Aram” (Gen 28:5)

Against the background of the post-exilic period and the specific situation in the Persian empire, the Priestly passages of the Jacob story thus break up the formerly close connection between land and people. The Priestly passages present the land as a multiethnic entity and one's own people as scattered across a greater territory. On this basis, the Priestly passages plead for the people's peaceful coexistence with other peoples in and around the land, and at the same time for the preservation and cohesion of their own group inside and outside the land. For that reason, the Priestly redactors reworked the older non-Priestly Jacob story and integrated their own geographical concept by using the terms »land of Canaan« and »Paddan-Aram.« For them it is clear, that Israel only includes those who, like Jacob with his whole family, have come into the land from outside the promised land.