All right, welcome back as we continue with Genesis on a Monday here.
And we are in the 30th chapter about halfway through or so.
And kind of an interesting story today.
We get a few chapters here where we’ll focus on the relationship between Jacob and Laban.
Rachel and Leah will be somewhat involved in that.
But primarily,
it will be a kind of highlight of
a little bit of tension between Jacob and Uncle Laban.
It’s not clear that that begins at the wedding,
though it couldn’t have helped the relationship
when Laban pawned off his older daughter on Jacob who hadn’t asked for her.
But he also got seven years of work out of it.
It’s possible that there’s bad blood going in,
though we really haven’t had that impression.
There’s been nothing that has indicated that.
However,
today we see a little bit of tension growing and its family tension.
So let me jump in here,
verse 25 of chapter 30,
and we’ll go for a while.
“When Rachel was born,
Joseph Jacob said to Laban,
‘Send me away that I may go to my own house,
my own home and country.
Give me my wives and children for whom I’ve served you and let me go,
for you know the well,
the service I’ve given you.’ But Laban said,
‘If you allow me to say so,
I’ve learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you.
Name your wages and I will give it.’ Jacob said,
‘You yourself know that I’ve served you,
how your cattle have fared with me,
for you’ve had little before I came and it’s
increased abundantly and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have turned.
Now,
when shall I provide for my own household?’
He said, ‘What do you want?
What should I give you?’
Jacob said, ‘You shall not give me anything.
Do this for me.
I will again feed your flock and keep it.
Let me pass through your flock today,
removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every
black lamb and the spotted and speckled among the goats and those will be my wages.’
So my honesty will answer for me later when you come to look at my wages.
Everyone that is not speckled and
spotted among the goats and black among the lambs,
if found with me,
shall be considered
stolen.’ Laban said, ‘Good.
Let it do as you have said.’ But that day Laban removed the male ghosts
that were striped and spotted and all the female ghosts that were speckled and spotted,
everyone that had white on it and every lamb that was black
and put them in charge of his sons.
And he set a distance of three days journey between himself and Jacob while Jacob was pasturing the rest of
the flock.
So a long reading there.
Let’s just recap what’s happening.
Jacob wants to leave.
Laban says, ‘Look, I think good things have happened while you’re here.
I think the Lord
blesses you and through you has blessed me.
I want you to stay.
Name your wages.’
Jacob says, ‘Well, here’s what I’d like to do.
I’d like to build my own flocks and I’ll take the second class sheep.
I’ll take the spotted ones.
I’ll take the striped ones.
I’ll take the black ones, the goats.
I’ll just take all of those and that way if there’s any that aren’t that in my flock,
you’ll know that I have stolen them and that I didn’t deserve them and you can even consider them stolen.’
And Laban agrees.
And this is Jacob’s way of essentially saying,
‘Split your flocks with me.
I’ll take the less desirable animals and you’ll know for sure that we are keeping
the bargain because it’s visibly obvious if we break
it.’ It is a
really interesting kind of amplification of some of the conflict we’ve already seen.
The theme of
tricking one another has been clear.
Jacob clearly in the early stories
was the one supremely adept at doing that in his family of origin.
Now he’s with Uncle Laban who’s
got a little bit of the tit for tat.
He’s got the ability to come back and Jacob has been tricked by that,
certainly with his two wives.
And now we see in this story there’s already a build up to
the next round.
Here we have the setup where we’re going to have the flocks being separated
with the agreement of who gets to keep what.
And we see that here Laban’s already got a plan of how
he can both keep Jacob and the blessing that he’s been bringing,
that Laban says he’s divined
or he’s come to know spiritually.
And his thought is I get to both keep the treasure and I get to
keep the blessing.
I’m winning.
Of course what we’re going to see as this text moves forward is
there’s a lot more in store here for that trickster as Jacob sort of moves into his own.
This is sort of his battlefield, his playing ground.
And this is an interesting theme of the Old Testament,
Clint, that I don’t think we really,
we don’t emphasize this in Sunday school or we don’t
talk to our kids about this when we’re talking about some of these you know fathers of the faith kinds of stories.
This is a really interesting almost,
it’s not political so I can’t call it a
political thriller, but it does have a little bit of that back and forth what’s going to happen edge
of your seat kind of nature to it.
Yeah,
Middle Eastern culture and literature loves this kind of one-upsmanship,
a kind of shrewdness let’s call it.
It’s
right on the edge of dishonesty,
but it’s more really forcing any advantage.
I know people that have served on businesses for businesses in
the Middle East and they say this is typical that there’s just a kind of aggressiveness to the
negotiations and an endeavor to kind of take advantage of any opportunity and that’s what it is here.
And so we see this in Laban.
This is very close to unethical.
Laban says yeah okay you can
have all the spotted sheep,
the striped goats, you can have all those things,
but before Jacob gets
to the flocks he has his people pull them all out and gives them to his sons and takes them three
days away so that Jacob can’t have access to them.
He kind of tries to one-up Jacob.
He tries to take
advantage of him you know.
He’s kind of done that with his daughter.
Now he tries to do that with his flocks
and again is this cheating?
It’s not a hundred percent ethical.
Is it morally wrong?
It’s probably a gray area.
Some would say this is good business.
He’s just being shrewd.
Others would say no he’s it’s beyond shrewd.
He’s probably doing something that seems out of line, but
he does it and
you would think then that puts Jacob in a bad place,
but then let’s read the
rest of the story.
Jacob took fresh rods of poplar,
almond,
and plain and peeled white streaks in them
exposing the white flesh of the rods.
He set the rods he peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs
that is the watering places when the flocks came in to drink and since they bred when they came in for drinks
that when they came in to drink the flocks bred in front of the rods so the flocks
produced young that were striped, speckled, and spotted.
Jacob separated the lambs and set the
faces of the flocks toward the striped and completely black animals in the flock of Laban
and he put his own droves apart and he did not put them with Laban’s flock.
When the strongest of the
flock were breeding Jacob laid the rods in the troughs before their eyes and the feebler of the
flock he did not lay the the rods in there.
So the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger were Jacob’s.
Thus the man grew exceedingly rich had large flocks and male and female slaves camels and
donkeys.
So God isn’t mentioned in this text but clearly anyone who’s raised animals knows that
it is likely not a factor if they’re looking at striped poles when they breed that will likely
have nothing to do with their offspring but here that’s Jacob’s scheme and it works.
We’re not told that it works because of God but if you read this text and you knew something about animals
you’d have to say well there’s more going on here than that that’s not a that that’s not a thing
that’s not a practice that’s not genetics that wouldn’t work well it does work and Jacob uses
this practice to strengthen his own.
Now is he doing anything wrong?
We’d probably say uh no
no I don’t think that he’s doing anything unethical.
He’s got this sort of trick that he’s using.
Is he giving himself the most advantage out of it?
Yes.
Is it unethical?
Especially given that Laban tried
to take flocks away from him?
Probably not.
It may be a little uncomfortable the whole thing but
the short version is as Jacob usually does he comes out on top.
It works in his favor and he gets exceedingly rich.
Yeah so I think those are the two themes that are worth pulling out of this
Clint.
The first is that God is always active even when God is not explicitly named and that is a
really nuanced part of the Old Testament literature that God is this character who goes throughout
these books these these individuals who are the human characters of this text they all have very interesting personas, challenges,
there’s some shared themes throughout of course but God is
always written underneath so to to name that’s happening here I think that’s incredibly helpful
and I think that is being in the astute reader of the text.
If you had inherited this text
from the original authors you would have understood that this has pointed to something
more than just animals breeding so so you see how God lives in the text but the other thing is
you know the Old Testament represents human action consequence and and the natural sort of causality
as being a fact of life so the fact that one person is using means which may be or may not
be ethical it really leaves that to the mind of the reader that really isn’t the thing that matters
fundamentally what matters in the text is that as these people are engaged in this kind of dual for
the top in this case for who’s going to have the best most successful herd in the midst of that
sort of fighting process which we’ve seen from the very beginning of Jacob’s character even before
he’s born he’s reaching he’s fighting here we see that once again now with his father-in-law and in
the midst of this process we begin to understand that God is not only blessing Jacob but that in
the midst of this really ethically dubious moment you see that God is making that promise that God
made all the way back to Abram in the very beginning you know follow me that in that moment
we see Jacob representing the continuation of God’s promise and by the way this strange breathing
thing right you got to remember all of the cases and situations in this text where women have been
unable to get pregnant here Jacob is a man whose
flocks and herds have exceptional uh and bountiful
birth so there’s this sense in which it’s growing rapidly and this
represents a converse view to
some of the moments in which you know there has been real trouble
and drought and famine all these
kinds of things here we see that God is blessing this man and we see that kind of exponential
growth not just in the flocks but here we have it named in that his uh his staff
his camels his documents everything is going with this movement this is a fun story in in this sense you just have
a lot going on you have an older man who has in the past taken advantage of this younger man he’s
also now his father-in-law you have this
this text in the beginning this conversation in the
beginning I want you to stay around because I think that’s good for me I think that I do well
when you’re here what do you want well I want this well yeah you can have that as soon as I make sure
to to protect myself from it and move the herds and then you have Jacob succeeding anyway now is
it because he’s shrewd and knowledgeable
yes that’s in the text in the competition between
these two men in this particular instance Jacob gets on top of Laban is it also because
God is in the background and what Jacob does is blessed yeah it’s not explicitly said but I think
we can read that it’s just a it’s an interesting text in that there’s so many layers relationally
Jacob and Laban Jacob and God Laban and God because of Jacob the this is one of those texts
where I personally like because it doesn’t pin everything down it leaves it very loose leaves
lots of little inlets for exploration and thinking lots of little nooks and crannies in a text like
this and I and I think that makes it um I don’t know that gives it a certain flavor that I appreciate
okay so I want to be clear here I’m not suggesting that we should have a conversation about whether
we like Jacob or not because I don’t think that that the scriptures are particularly interested
in our feelings about the men and women of faith that said I can’t think that there’s many people
who name Jacob as their favorite in the book of Genesis yet alone even the whole of the Old
Testament and I think a story like this in some ways is a good illustration of maybe some of the
struggle with Jacob is because he is certainly tricky we’ve named that that’s probably a positive
framing but Clint at some level don’t we have to admit he’s also always flirting on the edge of
this tasteful yeah yeah I think it I’m sure there are people who like Jacob and I think if you’re
drawn to a character that is um not entirely confined by where the lines are of either good
taste or morality if if you like the idea of kind of win at all costs the idea of kind of you know
you have to you have to take advantage of people to get ahead if you if you’re attracted to that
kind of idea then I think maybe Jacob is a character that that you would appreciate I
I find Jacob kind of a difficult character to appreciate I just um but you have to he’s he’s
bold he’s brash he’s aggressive he he’s risk-taking he’s fast and loose with everything I mean Jacob
is the guy who’s always going to come out ahead and I think many of us know some people like that
and if you’re attracted to that idea he’s probably an interesting character I think for most of us
he’s a little more um like why’d you pick this guy right you know what couldn’t we have gotten
a little somebody with a little more well but I that’s I think that’s part of his value is that
he makes us uncomfortable he’s literally the gateway to the 12 we have Jacob and then he’s
the father of the 12 tribes which is really when you think of it yeah surprising really because
you would expect Isaac would be the one who gets all of the press after all of the conversation
between God and Abraham and and here we find that Jacob gets all of these chapters I mean just a
huge portion of chapters with him being tricky at home fleeing home for his own safety coming
this whole exchange with his wives and then Laban and then now we’re gonna see him repeating that
that previous behavior and escaping again and and it’s gonna be two big question marks what’s
gonna happen it’s just it’s fascinating when you see a character like this and you realize how much
of this strong willed in some cases driven some cases a very very stubborn sort of approach to
life is going to be mirrored generation to generation in the people of God and and that’s
not in any way me poking light at the Israelite nation I mean fundamentally I think this is very
revealing of our human character I think this is replicated over and over and over again
for a far more universalistic sort of view it’s just it’s interesting to look at a person like
Jacob because it’s hard to get through his story without at some point thinking that there’s a
little bit of friction there’s a little bit of a rub with him yeah I mean the attraction of Jacob
may be that he’s a quote unquote winner and if you’re untroubled by how he wins okay then then
again he’s probably he’s probably you like him he’s probably a likable character to you if you
feel uncomfortable by how he gets ahead sometimes as I think most of us do then then it’s a more
interesting character study we will have more opportunity to talk about this we’re not we’re
not done with Jacob shrewdness yet right there’s more to come we are glad that you’d
be with us on our first day back here and we will see you tomorrow thanks