This is a spiritual gift.
Hey everybody, welcome back.
Thanks for joining us.
Closing out the week here
in the last part of chapter 31 in Genesis.
This chapter has been really wholly given over
to the relationship between Jacob and Laban.
Today, we kind of see that culminate
and we really,
to my knowledge, we don’t hear of Laban again in the book
and if we do,
it would be very
brief.
But this essentially concludes Laban’s role in the story.
An interesting part today,
I think, in that
you have likely heard some of these verses
though I’m going to be willing to guess
that most of the people who know the verses
maybe are surprised by the context of them.
So remember that Jacob and Laban have separated.
They are,
Laban has come,
kind of accused Jacob of taking some things.
Jacob’s defended himself
and then Jacob kind of let him have it a little bit.
And so now today we see the separation.
So I’m going to read through this
and then we’ll have a chance to talk about it.
Laban answered,
said to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters,
“the children are my children,
the flocks are my flocks,
“all that you see is mine.
“But what can I do about the daughters of mine
“or about the children whom they’ve born?
“Come now and let us make a covenant, you and I,
“let it be a witness between us.”
So Jacob took stones and set it up as a pillar.
And Jacob said to his kinsfolk,
“Gather stones.” And they took stones and made a heap
and they ate there by the heap.
Laban called it,
jagaras hadutha.
But Jacob called it galid.
Laban said, “This heap is a witness
“between you and me today.
“Therefore he called it galid and the pillar mizba.
“For he said, ‘The Lord watch between you and me
“‘when we are absent from one another.
“‘If you ill treat my daughters
“‘or if you take wives in addition to my daughters,
“‘though no one is with us,
“‘remember that God is witness between us.’”
Laban said to Jacob,
“See this heap and see the pillar
“which I have set between us.
“This heap is a witness,
the pillar is a witness.
“You and I will not pass beyond this heap.
“I will not come to you and you will not pass
“beyond the heap or the pillar to me.
“For harm,
may the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor,
“the God of our father,
judge between us.” So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac
and Jacob offered a sacrifice on the height
and called his kinsfolk to eat bread and they ate bread
and they tarried all night into the hill country.
Early in the morning,
Laban rose up, kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them
and he departed and returned home.
Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him.
When Jacob saw them,
he said, “This is God’s camp.”
And so he called the place Mehanahim.
So here we have this kind of,
it’s overstated to call it a showdown.
It is a parting of ways.
It is a kind of recognition that things have not gone well.
And as is often the case in the Old Testament,
in fact, we’ve seen it in Jacob’s story,
it is commemorated with a physical
item, a cairn, a pile of stones that is to evoke this moment in the memory
not only of Jacob and Laban,
but I think in the people of the story.
And it is a covenant between them.
Interesting,
I think the first time
we’ve seen that word used
between people, Michael.
Yeah, so here we get back to this language
of
there being a commitment to covenant between these two.
Promise of safety,
obviously Laban offered what was a kind of threat saying that
if I wanted to do you harm,
I could do so.
And so here we have the establishing of a boundary,
but
I think it’s interesting,
Clint, and we got a note that here,
the God of
Isaac is named as the one in the midst of this covenant.
And when we think of covenants,
I think we think of legal contracts,
which is partially true.
In the ancient world covenants were cut in such a way
that it was considered that they were done
as the middle between two parties
and that there was a mediator who would be responsible
for that agreement.
And so here that mediator is named as God.
And once again, this is in contrast to Laban
accusing Jacob of stealing his family God’s, little lowercase G.
And so here this thing is erected,
the boundary is set,
God is called upon in the middle of it.
And we’re gonna see that sort of passing
that goes on the other side of it,
because actually for Jacob,
this just sets up
really a moment of further question
as he sets his sights to go back home.
We’re gonna see that next week.
The outcome of this is not actually certain, but
here we have a kind of resolution
to this family relationship in an interesting way.
It’s interesting that Jacob,
or I’m,
excuse me, it’s interesting that Laban is the one who institutes
most of the God language in this text.
It’s Laban that
sort of reminds Jacob
that God is going to watch between them.
And I think the really interesting,
the really interesting development here,
this text sometimes called the mizpah,
the may the Lord watch over me and thee
while we are absent from one another.
That is often, you see that printed on rings,
on necklaces.
I know that at one time,
and I believe this is still the case,
the Presbyterian Women’s Organization says that,
it’s part of their liturgy,
and they say that together at the end of their meetings
or at the end of their gatherings.
It’s sometimes,
my daughter I think has a,
I believe a necklace that one of her childhood friends gave her
so that half of that verse is written on it.
And when it comes back together,
you read the whole verse.
In Christian circles, this verse has really,
it’s sometimes said at weddings.
But it’s interesting when you dig
into the circumstances of it,
it is not with deep affection and trust that it’s offered.
It is almost a threat that God is watching you
while I can’t see you.
When you’re out of my sight,
remember God is looking over your shoulder.
So keep our agreement and be good to my daughters,
et cetera, et cetera.
And don’t come past this pillar to do me harm,
that we are both living under the reality
that God is watching us and we should act accordingly.
So it’s a wonderful verse that has been used
in interesting ways in the Christian story,
by many people who probably don’t know its actual origin.
So another one of those stories,
Clint, that is telling us some regional history
as well as the story itself,
because we have this place named in two different names.
And my commentary makes the point of one being in Hebrew
and the other in Aramaic.
And the reality of that is that we’re seeing here
a kind of ongoing peace or treaty
that holds between the people of Israel
and the people of Aram.
So there’s nations involved in this as well.
So here we see the moving on of Jacob,
but doing so with a peaceful context with his father-in-law.
And that peace is creating a kind of family relationship
which is going to extend in the future.
So when this story gets told,
Laban becomes a stand-in for those people
and the people of Israel
continue to identify with Jacob.
So once again, we have another one of those
social political kind of aspects
to the telling of the story.
Another thing worth noting is
when the Bible includes references to things
that repeat in the midst of stories,
those are very rarely there on accident.
And so if you remember on his way to Laban,
Jacob laid at the foot of what he later calls Bethel,
and then he builds a tower,
if you remember that there.
Now here again, as he leaves his uncle,
now he once again builds a tower.
And so we see a kind of bookmark in this story.
He opens the chapter,
he goes, he gets two wives,
he becomes very wealthy.
Now he’s closing a chapter as he makes his way back
to his family of origin.
And it creates a meaningful sort of side story
of what happened in his life there,
but we are supposed to be clued in as readers.
Now we’re gonna reopen the chapter
of what maybe happened on the other side
of that previous pillar.
Yeah, and this story itself,
this kind of brings a close to the Laban stories.
And in a way that is the middle of a story sandwiched
in this part of the book of Genesis.
Because when we saw Jacob leave his home,
he comes,
ends up with Laban,
gets two wives,
two concubines,
I think at this point,
12 children.
Well, 13, he’s a daughter.
And now as he leaves Laban,
he has again succeeded,
he’s become very wealthy.
He’s kind of gotten the best of Laban
who seems to have tried to take advantage of him,
but Jacob ultimately prevails or at least succeeds.
And now with this pillar and this pronouncement
that God is watching between us,
he leaves again and very interesting,
notice that these last words,
early in the morning,
Laban rose, kissed his grandchildren and daughters and blessed them.
Now that doesn’t specifically say anything
about a blessing to Jacob,
but read the next verse.
Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him.
So when Jacob saw them,
he said, this is God’s camp, which again,
to Michael’s point, is very much like the story in Bethel.
And we do have that sense of reminding us again
that Jacob is blessed.
Now we return to that first part of the story
as Jacob now has to reckon with his actions at home.
As he now goes back,
the question that hangs over the story is,
what about Esau?
What is waiting for Jacob?
What happens now that he returns to that place
that he fled and what’s going to develop
in terms of those relationships?
And that’s really,
we will get to spend
a fair amount of time with that,
maybe possibly even all of next week
devoted to those questions.
Yeah, so let’s not forget,
it’s been a while ago now.
The reason for Jacob’s departure from his family
was because of the threat of Esau
and the fear of his mother
that Esau would make good on that threat
and that he would indeed kill Jacob.
And so here as Jacob has succeeded,
he’s done so financially,
maybe relationally,
he’s found ways to succeed,
but there is no evidence here
that he is somehow militarily fit to tackling his brother.
In fact, if you remember the threat of Laban,
there seems to be some awareness in Jacob’s even decision
to leave in the middle of the night
that there’s some good reason for why
he still has to be afraid.
So this is, I think, one of the things
that makes Jacob a really interesting character
is though while he’s very confident in the blessing,
I mean, he very much relies upon it
and in fact names it as the exact reason
for why his flocks have increased so much,
he yet has lived this entire story
with some level of decision-making rooted in anxiety.
I mean, he left in fear,
he left in the middle of the night,
which we’re certainly caused to question why that is.
And so now as he sets his face back,
as we see sort of the chapters turning again,
as readers, we’re naturally gonna ask that question, Clint,
what comes around this corner?
How many lives does Jacob actually have?
And that’s one of the interesting things
about this character is the text gives him so much time,
we have these different acts of his life,
these different sort of pivotal
moments.
And as the reader,
it’s intended to make us wonder
what form will the blessing take now?
How will this pan out for him?
‘Cause he often finds himself
in these difficult circumstances.
Yeah, we’ve had some of these conversations before,
but Jacob is a planner and Jacob has an end in mind
for almost everything that he does.
Jacob is not the guy who goes off half prepared.
Jacob is a schemer.
Jacob has an end goal,
and then he works backward to try and accomplish that.
And we’ve seen now, I think twice,
that Jacob is not typically a man
who stands face to face with his problems.
He works around the edges,
and when they’re about to blow up on him, he leaves.
We saw that at his home.
We see that here with Laban.
He leaves while Laban is gone at night.
I think we will see,
I think that’s on purpose.
I think we’ll see kind of an attempt to do that again,
and then ultimately we’ll see Jacob backed into a corner
where that’s not possible in our story next week.
And I don’t wanna get ahead of that story,
but I will just read you one line
from what we’ll look at early next week.
“Deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau,
for I am afraid of him.”
So Jacob faces this with anxiety.
He has succeeded.
He has done well.
He’s gained people and wives and wealth,
but he is not confident.
He is not unafraid.
He approaches his home,
and what he may assume is waiting there for him
with a good bit of fear and trepidation,
and that colors the story.
I think Genesis is doing that on purpose,
’cause I think ultimately it wants to tell us how that resolves,
but we’ll leave that for next week.
Now think about it with me for just a second.
Think about all of the things that Jacob has achieved.
The means of his success had never been traditional,
right?
Think about his wife.
He worked for seven years in hopes of marrying Rachel.
Who does Laban give him?
Leah,
right?
So this is backwards,
and then he works for seven years,
and he gets Rachel,
the woman that he loved,
the text tells us.
And then how does he get his wealth?
Well,
this really strange story of him finding out
that if he puts rods before the animals as they breed,
that then those animals became spotted
and he gets to keep them,
which is an odd method.
And then how does he get the family birthright
all the way back in the beginning?
Well,
through trickery, through tricking his brother.
In one case while he was extremely hungry,
while he was distracted,
and another case through outright deception.
There’s not been a single thing in Jacob’s life
that he’s gotten to through the broad highway,
through the path that you should take to get to it.
He hasn’t most often deserved it,
and he’s found ways around it.
And so here he stands really after a lifetime
of this kind of back doors and side roads.
He’s now on the broad path back home.
There’s no sneaking back in to his brother Esau’s life.
And that is part of what makes this next week conversation,
I think, so interesting is because
for all of the conflicts he’s avoided
and all of the advantages that he’s pushed,
it seems clear that Jacob knows
that he’s at the mercy of forces beyond his control here.
And we’re going to see what comes of it.
I think it’s one of the most,
next week, we’re gonna see some of the most compelling
kind of relational transformations in the book of Genesis.
So yeah, I hope you’re with us next week
’cause I think there’s some interesting things to come.
Yeah, not to discount this story.
This is an important moment,
but really I think the kind of culmination of Jacob’s story,
some of the most important things
that we see in Jacob’s story,
I think we see in the texts we’ll look at next week.
So I hope you can be with us.
Yeah, friends,
thanks for joining us this week.
Hope that you stay warm if you’re with us up north
and that your travels are safe.
If you’re down south,
we look forward to seeing you next week, Monday.