July 14, 2007

• Discovering God’s Character – Part 13
  
  
  
  Jacob Meets Rachel – 20 years with Laban

  Here in Genesis 29, we see Jacob has left Bethel and continued to
  journey toward the land of the sons of the east searching for the house
  of Laban.  He meets up with some shepherds from Haran with three flocks
  of sheep at a well that has a large stone on its mouth. He asks them if
  they know Laban, the son of Nahor and if he is well. They do and they
  tell him he is doing fine. They also tell him that Rachel, his
  daughter, was coming with her father’s sheep since she was a
  shepherdess.

  He kept talking to them, once encouraging them to water the sheep and
  go but they were waiting for Rachel.  When he saw her, he went up and
  took the large stone and rolled it off the well and watered Laban’s
  flock. Now Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept. He
  told her that he was a relative, Rebekah’s son, so she ran and told her
  father. Talk about a guy falling head over heels for a girl!

  So Laban ran  to meet Jacob embraced and kissed him and brought him to
  his house. Then Jacob told what had happened and most likely telling
  Laban all the family stuff from Canaan. So Laban knows Jacob is for
  real and Jacob stays with him a month. From Laban’s offer to pay him
  for his work, its sounds like Jacob was a hard, productive worker.

  It is at this time that it is agreed upon that Jacob will work for the
  hand of Rachel, Laban’s younger and beautiful daughter, for seven
  years. Laban had another daughter, Leah, whose eyes were weak. Anyway,
  the text says the time went pretty fast for him because of his love for
  Rachel.

  It would have been a great love story except for old uncle Laban. After
  seven years passes, Jacob says he is ready to settle up and marry
  Rachel. So they have some festivities and while doing so, Laban
  deceives Jacob and gives him the “bait and switch” trick, and gives him
  Leah, with her maid Zilpah, instead.  Jacob doesn’t realize this until
  morning and confronts Laban about it. Now whether we want to believe
  Laban’s story about not marrying the younger daughter before the older
  one, Laban connives another seven years of work out of Jacob for him to
  get to marry Rachel. Now this won’t be the last time Laban cheats Jacob.

  This set up a very bad situation for Leah, his daughter. Laban, not
  only cheated Jacob, he also “soured the well” in Jacob’s house so to
  speak. The whole affair did not set well with Jacob as we will find
  once Leah begins to have children. It isn’t that Jacob wasn’t kind to
  Leah, my guess is that him being forced into the situation was not
  quite what he had in mind and I would think every time he saw Leah it
  was a reminder how Laban had cheated him. In fact, we don’t see Leah
  having children before he gets Rachel as his wife. So after the 14
  years were finished, Jacob still loved Rachel and she became his wife
  and Laban gives his daughter, Rachel, Bilhah as her maid.

  Now it will be that Leah will have children and Rachel will not for
  some time. The Lord saw that Leah was unloved and so gave her the
  advantage to give sons to Jacob. Leah will bear, in order, Reuben,
  Simeon, Levi, and Judah and then she stopped bearing. As we move into
  Genesis 30, Rachel wasn’t yet bearing and she gets jealous and
  frustrated and gets Jacob upset when she blames him for the problem. 
  So Rachel gives her maid, Bilhah, as a wife to Jacob and she bears two
  sons: Dan and Naphtali.  Leah gets into the act and gives her maid,
  Zilpah, to Jacob as a wife and she has Gad and Asher. Leah then has two
  more sons, Issachar and Zebulun and then a daughter, Dinah.  Then
  Rachel has her first child, Joseph.  That makes a total of 11 sons and
  1 daughter before Jacob will ask to leave Laban. 

  The next section is rather interesting. Jacob asks Laban to leave and
  Laban wants him to stay and says “name your wages”. Jacob has done well
  for Laban and he knows it. However, Jacob doesn’t want a thing from
  Laban and won’t pasture his flock any more except that he does one
  thing. Laban must give Jacob all the speckled and spotted sheep and
  goats and every black lamb that’s in his entire flock. Laban agrees to
  this. Laban keeps all the white goats and sheep, and the black sheep.
  So Laban puts 3 days journey between himself and Jacob. Now I’m not so
  sure exactly what sort of thing was going on with all the mating of the
  sheep and goats but in the end, Jacob became exceedingly prosperous
  with large strong flocks, female and male servants, camels, and
  donkeys. This gets Laban’s sons all worked up and were saying that
  Jacob stole their father’s flocks and made his wealth from his father’s
  property. Now Laban’s attitude wasn’t friendly anymore either.

  So the Lord tells Jacob to return to Canaan. Jacob has a “family
  meeting” with Rachel and Leah to discuss the matter. He recounts that
  he has been faithful to Laban and served him with all his strength and
  that their father has cheated him and changed his wages ten times but
  the Lord was still with him and did not allow him to hurt Jacob.  In
  fact, he tells them that the Lord prospered him in whatever way Laban
  said he would pay him regardless of how he might have wanted to cheat
  him anyway. Also, he tells them that the Lord has called him back home
  to Canaan. Rachel and Leah both agree with Jacob and tell him to do
  whatever the Lord has told him to do and that they saw it was the Lord
  that caused their husband to prosper.  So they loaded up everything
  they had and headed back to Canaan. Now Rachel decides to steal her
  father’s household idols. Jacob deceived Laban by not telling him that
  he was fleeing. So he fled with all he had and crossed the Euphrates
  River and proceeded to the hill country of Gilead where Laban will soon
  catch up to him. We’ll finish the encounter next time.

  What would you have done if you had been cheated like Jacob?  Laban was
  quite a scoundrel. Even his own daughters could see all this as I
  noticed Leah and Rachel were in one accord about this. Maybe even all
  three of them realized that it was probably better that they were all
  together after all. It seems so when Jacob lets them know that they are
  leaving Paddan-aram. It seems clear the Lord evens the score. Jacob
  will have his say when Laban finally catches up to him.

  I noticed that God was with Jacob through all the sweat and toil that
  Jacob endured with such a devious fellow.  It would appear that we
  could trust God to be with us when people aren’t treating us right. 
  God is with us in the “long haul”, too. It was 20 years between when
  Jacob arrived at Laban’s and when he leaves when he’s 60 years old. He
  didn’t forget about Jacob. We see the hand of God in the race that Leah
  and Rachel had to have children for Jacob. We’ve seen 11 of the 12 sons
  born now and God’s timeline is moving forward in His plan inside the
  everyday ups and downs that have happened in Jacob’s life and he isn’t
  even aware of that yet.  Although God is largely silent in these
  passages, it is safe say that His hand is not still in all this.
  Sometimes, we’ve got to wait until things run their course in order to
  know what the next thing the Lord has waiting for us.  Waiting for 20
  years to come home is a long time and remember he's not heard back from his mother, Rebekah. The Lord uses times of  waiting to build patience in us and
  develops trust in the One who knows and holds the future.  Mr.Vee

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