Closer To Heaven
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You can view an in-depth discussion of Jacob the Supplanter; in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris. Click on the image to view: With thanks to Hope Channel – Television that will change your life.
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In this story, Jacob — who deceived his father and his brother to acquire the birthright, and who stole the blessing that Isaac designed to give to his elder son — nevertheless remained passive toward Laban and served him faithfully. Jacob knows well that he has been deceived by his father-in-law, and yet, he let it go. It is difficult to understand Jacob’s passivity considering his temperament. Jacob could have revolted, or at least resisted Laban or bargained with him. But he didn’t. He just did what Laban had asked, no matter how unfair it all was.
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Nevertheless, at the birth of Rachel’s first son Joseph, Jacob finally reached the fourteenth year of his “service” to Laban (Genesis 30:26), and now considers leaving Laban in order to return to the Promised Land. But Jacob is concerned about providing for his “own house” (Genesis 30:30).
It had been a very long detour for Jacob, who had long been gone from home. It probably had not been his original intention to stay away from his country for so long, but events kept him away for years. It’s now time to return home, and what a family he will return with too.
Meanwhile, Jacob’s unnatural compliance suggests that Jacob has perhaps changed; he has understood the lesson of faith. That is, Jacob waited for God’s signal to go. It is only when God speaks to him that Jacob decides to move.
God reveals Himself to Jacob as “the God of Bethel” and commands Jacob to leave Laban’s house and return to “your family” (Genesis 31:13, NKJV) with the same words that God used to call Abram to leave “from your family” (Genesis 12:1, NKJV).
What helped him see that it was time to go, too, was the attitude of Laban’s sons and Laban himself (see Genesis 31:1-2). “Jacob would have left his crafty kinsman long before but for the fear of encountering Esau. Now he felt that he was in danger from the sons of Laban, who, looking upon his wealth as their own, might endeavor to secure it by violence.” — Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 193.
Hence, he took his family and possessions and left, thus beginning another phase in the great saga of God’s covenant people.
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For Jacob the last seven years of exile were a burden, and yet, these were also the most fruitful years. In them, Jacob will father 11 of the 12 children who will become the ancestors of God’s people.
This section constitutes the center of Jacob’s story (Genesis 25:19-35:26), and it begins and ends with the key phrase God “opened her womb,” referring to Leah (Genesis 29:31) and to Rachel (Genesis 30:22). Each time this statement is followed by births, the evidence is that these births are the result of God’s miraculous action.
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God opened Leah’s womb, and she had a son Reuben, whose name contains the verb ra’ah, which means to “see.” Because God “saw” that she was unloved by Jacob (Genesis 29:31), this child was compensation for her in her pain and suffering.
In addition, she gives the name of Simeon, which contains the verb shama‘, “heard,” to her second son, because God had “heard” (shama‘) the depth and the humiliation of her pain and, thus, had pity on her just as He had heard Hagar’s affliction (Genesis 29:33).
Leah’s son “Simeon” will also resonate with the name of Hagar’s son “Ishmael,” which means “God will hear” (see Genesis 16:11). When Leah gives birth to her last son, she calls him Judah, which means “praise.” Leah does not refer to her pain or even her blessing anymore. She just focuses on God and praises Him for His grace.
Strangely, it is only when Leah cannot give birth again that God “remembers” Rachel and opens Rachel’s womb (Genesis 30:22). Rachel, the loved wife, had to wait seven years after her marriage, and 14 years after her betrothal with Jacob, to have her first son (Genesis 29:18, Genesis 29:27; compare with Genesis 30:25). She gave him the name of “Joseph” to signify that God had “taken away [’asaf] my reproach” and “shall add [yasaf] to me another son” (Genesis 30:23-24, , NKJV). However wrong some of these actions were, God was still able to use these actions, even if He didn’t condone them, in order to create a nation from the seed of Abraham.
| In what ways does this story reveal that God’s purposes will be fulfilled in heaven and on earth, despite human foibles and errors? |
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The first thing that Jacob sees when he arrives at the place of destination is a stone, perhaps a hint referring back to the stone of Bethel, which signified God’s presence (Genesis 28:18-19). It is this stone that will, after all, give Jacob the opportunity to interact with Rachel. When Jacob hears from the standing shepherds that Rachel is coming with her sheep to water her flock, he urges the shepherds to roll away the stone. They refuse, which gives Jacob the opportunity to do it alone, and to introduce himself to Rachel (Genesis 29:11).
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Rachel responded by running to her family. This first contact between Jacob and Rachel was productive: “Jacob loved Rachel” (Genesis 29:18), so much that the seven years he worked for Laban in exchange for Rachel were like “a few days” (Genesis 29:20).
However, after these seven years, Jacob is deceived. On the night of the wedding, it is Leah, the elder sister, and not Rachel, whom Jacob discovers in his bed. Taking advantage of the confusion of the feast and of Jacob’s intense emotion and vulnerability, Laban had managed this trick. Interestingly, Jacob uses the same root word for “deceive” (Genesis 29:25, NKJV) that Isaac had used to characterize Jacob’s behavior toward his father and his brother (Genesis 27:35).
Note that the same thinking is also implied in the lex talionis (law of retaliation), “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Exodus 21:24; compare with Genesis 9:6), which forces the culprit to identify with his/her victim in that the culprit faces what the victim did. In a similar way, then, what Jacob had done to someone else had now been done to him.
Jacob understands now what it means to be the victim of deception. Ironically, God teaches Jacob about his own deception through Laban’s deception. Although Jacob as “deceiver” (Genesis 27:12) knows well what deception means, he is surprised when he is the victim of deception. Thus, he asks the question, “Why … have you deceived me?” (Genesis 29:25, NKJV), which shows that he knows deception is wrong.
| Though Jacob was the deceiver, he himself was the deceived. How can we learn to trust God when we don’t see “justice” being done, when we see people who do evil get away with it, or when we see the innocent suffer? |
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