Questions for Thought
- How do you feel when you are lied to?
- Who does it hurt when one lies?
- What problems are caused when a parent shows more love toward one of the children (again)?
In the last blog, we had Jacob headed to his mother’s people in Padanaram to find himself a wife. In Genesis 28, the Lord had spoken to Jacob in a dream telling him he and his seed would someday possess the land he was leaving and in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed. In Chapter 29, Jacob continued his journey and stopped at a well where there were flocks of sheep waiting to be watered. Here at this well, one of Jacob’s Uncle Laban’s daughters came to water her flock. Jacob rolled the stone from the well and watered her flock for her. Jacob kissed Rachel at the well and told her who he was. She ran and told her dad who invited Jacob to come to his house.
Jacob moved in with Laban and after a month Laban asked Jacob what he would want for wages. Jacob told Laban he would work for him for seven years for Rachel as a wife. Laban agreed to the plan and Jacob served him for seven years. Then he asked for his wife. On the night of the planned wedding, Laban tricked Jacob by actually giving him Rachel’s older sister, Leah, for his wife. Somehow Jacob did not realize what had happened until the next morning when he questioned Laban concerning what he had done. Laban said in his county you must not marry off the younger sister before the older sister but if he would work for him another seven years, he could have Rachel as a wife too. He told Jacob to give Leah a week and then he could have Rachel too and then he would work out his seven years.
Jacob agreed to Laban’s plan but he loved Rachel and did not love Leah as much. When God saw how Jacob felt about the women, He allowed Leah to have a child but Rachel was barren. Actually Leah had four sons and Rachel was very unhappy about not having any children. She told Jacob to have a child by her maid, Bilhah and the child would be considered as Rachel’s. Jacob, just like Abraham before him, agreed to do as his wife requested and sure enough Bilhah had a son for him. Rachel, unlike Sarah, was pleased with the success and even had Bilhah to have another child. When Leah saw what was going on with Rachel’s maid, she too gave her maid, Zilpah to Jacob so she would have more children. Her maid had two sons.
One of Leah’s sons, Reuben, found mandrakes in the field and gave them to Leah. Historians believe mandrakes were used to increase sexual desire. Rachel asked Leah for some of the mandrakes and when Leah did not seem to want to give her any, Rachel offered to trade Leah a night with Jacob for the mandrakes. Leah agreed and when Jacob came in from the field, Leah met him and told him he had to sleep with her that night because she had hired him with her son’s mandrakes. Leah conceived two more sons and then a daughter. At this point Jacob had 10 sons and a daughter but Rachel still had not had any children. God then allowed Rachel to become pregnant and she had a son she named Joseph.
Once Joseph was born, Jacob asked Laban to send him and his family on their way back home. Laban asked him to stay with him because he knew the Lord had blessed him because of Jacob. Laban asked what wages he would want in order to stay. Jacob said he would stay with him and feed and care for his flocks if he could have all of the future speckled and spotted cattle, all of the brown sheep, and the spotted and speckled goats. Laban agreed to the wages and Jacob agreed to work. After about six more years of labor in which Jacob prospered greatly, he realized Laban was not looking upon him favorably. In addition, the Lord told Jacob it was time to return to his father’s land so he began making plans to do so.
Jacob told Rachel and Leah about his concerns with Laban. He reminded them how many times Laban had changed his wages but he stressed how God had taken care of him and given him much success in great herds. Rachel and Leah agreed it was time to go back to Jacob’s home land. Jacob and his family and flocks left and Laban was not told about it until three days later. Laban and some of his people went after Jacob and overtook him in seven days, but God had come to Laban in a dream and told him not to speak either good or evil to Jacob.
Laban was obviously mad because Jacob had slipped off. In Genesis 31 beginning in verse 26, Laban reprimanded Jacob and asked him why he didn’t let him send the off with a party and why he did not even let him kiss his children good by. But because God had told him not to speak good or evil to Jacob, Laban only asked him why he had stolen his gods. Now Jacob had no idea that when they left Laban, Rachel had stolen the gods and put them in the camel’s saddle. Jacob told Laban whoever took the gods would be put to death, so Laban went looking for them. Rachel told her dad she was having her period and could not rise up before him and she sat there on the gods. When Laban did not find the gods, Jacob was angry with him and fussed at him. He accused him of changing his wages ten times. He said if it had not been for God, Laban would have sent him away empty. Laban asked that they make a covenant between them for the Lord to watch over them both. He said Jacob was not to hurt Laban’s daughters or to take other wives besides them. Laban went home and Jacob continued his journey back to his father who was still living after more than 20 years had passed since Jacob left him dying.
Jacob was understandably scared now that he was going back home. Remember how mad Esau was at him when he left and how Esau had planned to kill him once Isaac died. Jacob decided to make a gift for Esau from the flocks and herds he had with him. He gathered 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 milk camels with their colts, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 mules, and 10 foals and gave them to his servants. He told them to go on before him and to put a space between each group of animals. When they met Esau, each servant leading a group of animals was to tell Esau they were a gift from Jacob for Esau.
Esau met Jacob and hugged and kissed him and they both cried. It seems all the hate was gone and they were very happy to see each other. Esau did not want to accept the animals but Jacob insisted so he did. He wanted to leave some of his people to help Jacob on his continued journey but Jacob told him he did not need anyone. Jacob traveled on to Succoth and build a house. He bought him some land and built an altar.
Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, went out to see the girls of the area and when Shechem the son of Hamor a Hivite saw her, he raped her. Dinah’s brothers were very angry and ready to fight the men of the area. Shechem’s dad went to Jacob to ask for Dinah to marry Shechem. Jacob’s sons told Shechem they could not do this because he and his people were not circumcised as required by the Lord of His people, the Jews. Shechem and Hamor persuaded their people to agree to be circumcised so they could marry into Jacob’s family. Three days after they were circumcised when they were still very sore, Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons, went in with swords and killed all the males of the city. They took all of their wealth from the city and they captured all the children and women. Jacob was very upset with them but the brothers defended their actions because of what had been done to Dinah.
God then told Jacob to leave and go to Bethel and make and altar to God who had appeared to him when he fled from Esau. Jacob obeyed God. As he was leaving Bethel, Rachel went into labor with her second and final child, Benjamin. She died while giving birth to him. After burying Rachel, Jacob continued on his journey and came to his father, Isaac. Isaac lived to be 180 and he died and Jacob and Esau buried him.
So Jacob now lived in the land of Canaan which God had previously promised would someday belong to Abraham’s descendants. Of all of his children, he loved the first born son of Rachel, Joseph, the most. In the next blog, we will look at Joseph’s life and trials and see how he depended upon God to take care of everything.
Christian Women's Responsibility in Sharing God's Word 