Sneaking into the Promised Land
Genesis 31 · Vern Peterman · Oct 26, 2008
Genesis, No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926115155696

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're proceeding now into this 31st chapter of Genesis. Today we're going to be wrapping up Jacob's long working vacation. He's been on this working vacation, as we'll find out here, for 20 years. That's a long vacation. What's going on? He's going to be giving us here the end of 20 years at Laban's dude range. So now, as he wraps it up, let's just kind of review. Back in chapter 28, God had told Jacob that he would be with Him and that He would get him safely back to the Promised Land. Now, I would just kind of insert this as an important thought.

Here we are at a time we have uncertainties in our economy. Those continue. We have volatile gas prices, international tensions, and upcoming elections. We've got all these things going on. And in the midst of all those uncertainties, it is ever more important for us to keep in mind what is totally uncertain. And that is our Lord's love for us and the position that we have in Him. I'm sorry. Totally certain. Thank you. Okay. Nothing like shaking everybody up, right? Okay. Yes.

In chapter 29, it began with Jacob first meeting Rachel and being introduced to his uncle Laban. By the end of that same chapter, chapter 29, Jacob was married to Rachel and her sister Leah and had four sons. And it progressed into chapter 30 that we studied last week.

Jacob had 11 sons, at least one daughter, and he made an arrangement for payment for these two daughters as his wife. Now, one of the charts that we had, it's not in today's handout, but in the prior two weeks, showed all of Jacob's sons and also his daughter Dinah. We had mentioned before that Jacob likely had other daughters as well.

And the descendants of each of those, from Levi would come the priests and Levites in the kingdom of the Jews. We'd also find the line of King David, and from David, Jesus Christ would descend. And then also from the Benjamites, one not yet born, we'll cross paths with Benjamin here just in a few chapters, King Saul was descended. And we also mentioned that Paul the Apostle was also from the tribe of Benjamin.

And now for the last leg of this trip. We're going to step our way through this. And it goes like here. In chapter 31, Jacob will attempt to sneak back to the promised land. I say attempt because it doesn't get quite pulled off correctly. Laban will catch up to Jacob, as we see in these middle section of verses here. And we'll see how that encounter goes. After some tense moments, Laban and Jacob will end up two decades of mutual manipulation and deception, ending with Jacob's sneaky, ungrand finale, with a covenant, an agreement between the two of them, which is really sort of a truce, and we'll see the character of that, too.

Now, we've presented a couple weeks ago, and we looked initially at this this last week, three questions. We asked the question, particularly last week, does Jacob ever appear to love either of his wives unconditionally? We'll be looking at those other two questions here today. Now, the question comes up, and Jacob certainly brings the point to the fore here.

How do you know when it's time to go? This is really a question of God's will, isn't it? It's a question we all face. Of course, we all like clear signals, right? Jacob had two kinds of signals initially, and I'll actually see a third, that told him that it was time for him to go home.

Right up front we see the talk among Laban's sons was they were resentful. Why? Because their inheritance, as they thought, was being diminished by all the things that Jacob was getting. Every sheep, every goat, every animal, every livestock that Jacob got was one less that they would get. So there was one kind of a signal, it was circumstantial.

One of the things that we presented before, I'll present it here briefly and then address you to a place where you can dig into it some more, is the big picture on God's will. Jacob is facing a God's will question. He's been there for two decades under his uncle Laban. And one of the things that we present here is that God has a will that is sovereign. It is fixed. It is a part of God's will overall. That's why we put it as the outside circle.

Next to that is God's moral will. the things that God lays out in scripture as right and wrong. These are things that are true also of every believer. And finally, God's individual will. What is different for each believer? And this is the point where Jacob is at. What is God's individual will for me?

And we ourselves can find ourselves there. I'd suggest, since we won't have time to go into that in detail, at the Holly Hills Bible Church website, biblical counseling class, May of 2008, we spent a month on this topic of God's will. So I would point you in that direction.

The other clear signal is that the Lord spoke to him. We have, of course, in our own time, God's revelation through Scripture, and the Lord makes things quite clear for us there. Circumstances are one way of knowing God's will, but the ultimate way of knowing God's will is God's Word. That's explicit, and it spells out what is true for every believer and wise for each believer. God's intent is that we look at everything in life, and that we also look at our Lord through the lens of Scripture. What does Scripture say? How does Scripture spell out that God wants us to look at this or that situation?

Jacob puts together here with two of his wives, who are sisters and daughters of his uncle, and therefore Jacob's cousins. Boy, all these relationships are a little bit much. He gets together with them for this extended discussion. How are we doing here? And he gets them, as Wayne read for us here, he gets them out by the flocks. We're okay, we're watching over the flocks, and we're kind of away from everybody, and the sheep are sort of covering our discussion with a few little bleats and baa's, and that sort of thing.

And then, what you see here is a fairly lengthy interaction, at least as you look at the number of interactions in conversation that are recorded. This is a fairly lengthy one, and it's kind of unusual, but it does give us a particular insight into the relationship that Jacob has with his father-in-law, and some other insights as well. Jacob, as he's speaking to Rachel and Leah, summarizes the character of the dealings he's had with his father-in-law, uncle, And as he does so, he kind of goes over the 20 years that he has spent, particularly focusing on the more recent time, which of course you'd understand.

And that was the event that allowed him to get a significant percentage of his uncle's flocks. Jacob tells his wives there, that he has served their father Laban certainly with all his strength. He has put everything he can into it, yet his uncle Laban had cheated him and changed his wages. He said ten times. As a matter of fact, he tells them to his face later on. Ten times.

Jacob's words, however, are not all griping, which is interesting to see. You would think that it would be overtaken with griping, but no. What we see is this. He says in verse 7 there in chapter 31, God did not allow him to hurt me. Notice what he does. He gives God the credit. What does he do this for? He does it because back a few chapters we see where the Lord had given promises to Jacob. And Jacob is basically saying, see, God is faithful to what he promised.

God has not allowed him to hurt me. I'm going to get through this. The next one that comes up, Jacob told his wives there in verse 9. Thus God has taken away your father's livestock and given them to me. The fact that his livestock number and quantity has grown, he says that's to the Lord's credit. It's what the Lord's done. So one of the things that comes out of this is Jacob does credit God's protection and God's blessing to God. He saw these as fulfillment of the promises that were given some 20 years before there at Bethel, before he left the land that was promised to him.

We also see here in these verses that he does talk to his wives about spiritual things and specifically about God. God did this. God said that. God accomplished this. He further goes on in verses 11 through 13 He tells them about how, he says, the angel of God, I believe that's equivalent to what we've seen previously as the angel of the Lord, said to me in a dream, Jacob, and he said, here I am. He then goes on to count what the Lord had said to him and notice the indications that it's not simply an angel speaking, but actually God himself. Jacob continues here to talk with his wives about spiritual things, including here what God said to him. Not only does Laban have some things to describe and to recount, as well as God's message to him, an even more recent message apparently, now Rachel and Leah have something to say.

They said, we hear you. Let me tell you something else. And each of them, and it's interesting, they speak almost with one voice here, which is interesting since we've seen a tension between them over childbearing and who has whose husband. But now they speak with one voice.

They say that their father Laban has not been saving up from Jacob's labors to give them some kind of a dowry, but rather it seems more like Laban is just selling them. So now, instead of them feeling like they're daughters who are due a dowry from their father, they feel like foreigners, and that's the word that they use, who are sold as slaves to Jacob. It's interesting, the way Laban handled it, made the daughters feel like, I'm not a daughter special to my father, but I'm just a slave, a piece of human property to be sold. And so they felt shafted by Laban. They felt like they had really been shorted and not treated fairly by him either.

We want to credit Jacob for something here, not stop there certainly, but Jacob did contrary to his prior pattern, treat the wives equally, didn't he? He treated them equally and they spoke with one voice. Jacob actually listened to them. He listened to them in such a way that he, it seems, understood them. He does seem to show not only equal consideration for these wives, but it seems like he's learned something over this experience. He's now been married for 13 years to these two ladies and finally he's learning to listen and to understand and apparently even to treat them as equals. Now, I had a question to consider. Can a person do the right thing the wrong way? Is that possible? Can you do that?

It's clear that the Lord had by outward circumstances and by God revealing directly, talking to him directly, told Jacob, it's time to go home. He had the third confirmation from the sentiment of his wives. So he had all those indicators pointing, it's time to go home. The move to go home, it was clear, back to the promised land, was exactly what he was supposed to do. It was clear by the supporting evidence from his wife. It was clear by the sentiment of Laban's sons and clear by the Lord's direct revelation to him. He was supposed to go back home.

God had even earlier promised, I will bring you back to the promised land. So, alright, now is apparently the time of what God already said he would do. But Jacob's attempt to sneak back into the land to this promised land wasn't something that God told Jacob to do.

You notice that? The Lord said, go back to the promised land. The Lord said, you're going back just like I promised you. And we've got all these confirming points of evidence. Yeah, you're supposed to go back. The Lord did not say, sneak back. As a matter of fact, in verse 20, what does it say? Jacob deceived Laban. Oh no! He did it again. He's got a problem with that, doesn't he? He hasn't quite learned his lesson.

So now, Laban is in hot pursuit. Laban finds out about Jacob's secret departure. And I think about this. I think, okay, here is Jacob with two wives, a bunch of kids, camels and goats and sheep and herds, and he's going to sneak out? Wow. And I don't know how he figured he was going to get any kind of a head start on this guy Laban. But nonetheless, that was his plan anyway. So three days afterwards, and I'm not quite sure why it took so long for Laban to figure this out. Three days later, Laban goes, I've been deceived. And he takes off after Jacob. Within seven days, he's caught up with him.

But before Laban caught up with him, just before, God caught up with Laban. God tells Laban not to say anything to Jacob, and it's interesting, neither good nor bad. Stay neutral, which is fascinating. The Lord intervened. This was likely one more way that God was protecting Jacob, as he had promised Jacob back in Bethel. I'll protect you. I'll get you back home safely. Don't worry, you'll get there. This is one more way the Lord intervened, apparently even in spite of Jacob sneaking away or trying to.

In verses 26 through 30, there's something interesting that comes up here in the translation from the New American Standard. In verse 26, Laban says to Jacob, what have you done by deceiving me? And we notice there in verse 27, why did you flee secretly and deceive me?

Well, something very interesting. This word for deceive actually means to steal my heart. Steal my heart. As a matter of fact, these words here, same word as steal in here. To steal my God's that's later in there. So Laban is placing this. It's not just a deception. This is criminal. This is criminal. You're taking my heart out.

So, Jacob responds. Why would Jacob do such a thing? Jacob tells Laban that he was afraid that Laban would take his daughters by force. At least that's what he said. if Laban had any idea that they were leaving. Of course, Laban comes up with this, oh, if you'd only told me, then we could have had a kind of a going-away party for you. That's my paraphrase, okay? If you could only told me, we'd have a going-away party for you, and we'd bring in the musical instruments, and make it all kinds of song and dance, and send you off with good favor and blessing.

That's what Laban says. Jacob also tells Laban, because remember Laban has come up with this accusation, somebody stole my household gods. We'll talk about that in a minute. Jacob also tells Laban if any person in the group was found with those stolen household gods, they should be put to death. Now that's quite a thing for him to say. He said that because he didn't know that his wife Rachel was the one who had taken them.

Now, we have a picture of these household gods here, an example. These would be small little idols, usually made out of clay or sometimes out of metal. that in the pagan homes would be kept either somewhere towards the entry door at the threshold or sometimes over near the fireplace or something of that sort. And they had sort of various uses. Some of the use or thinking about them was that these household gods, teraphim, would be a good luck charm.

Some of the thinking about them would be that there might be some inheritance attached to them, and might even be some fertility attached to them, which would of course be very important to Rachel. But Jacob didn't know that Rachel had taken them, so now Laban starts a search. He searches through Jacob's tent and then he goes through Leah's tent as well as the tent of the two maids for each of Jacob's wives, Zilpah and Bilhah.

And what does he come up with? Nothing. He doesn't find anything yet. Because, after all, Jacob said, go ahead and search. Go ahead and look. Then he goes into Rachel's tent to search for these gods. Now, of course, you and I know there's just little figures of some kind out of clay, maybe metal, something of that sort. But that's what he's looking for. And Rachel had apparently attached some real significance to them, and so apparently had Laban. Now, it gets interesting.

Rachel had hidden them under a camel's saddle. that she was sitting on. Apparently she had other pieces of cloth and blankets or whatever sitting on top of these camel saddles. Here's the saddles, examples of them. So here she is imagining this tent sitting astride one of these saddles and covering the household gods underneath these things.

So that's how the story goes. She tells her father that she's having her menstruation. And like circumcision, I will not explain that here. If you need an explanation, come and talk to me later. Or talk to somebody else later. He does not want to disturb her then. Why? Here's the deal.

In the pagan superstitions of the time, the belief was that this menstrual blood drew demons. And you don't want to fiddle around with that because you'd risk getting demons all over you. And so he just didn't want to do that. And it indicates that he also believed in more superstition as well.

Well, so here's Laban. He walks out. He hasn't found these household gods anywhere. At that Laban says, you come here making false accusations. And Laban was ticked. Laban was upset. Since Laban had accused someone among Jacob's group of stealing the household gods and Laban found nothing, Jacob was furious. He burst forth with angry, and except for the denial of having the household gods, true words. Jacob recounts two decades of labor for Laban.

I worked for you for twenty years, he said. He starts to give the gory details. I worked for you for twenty years. You changed my wages ten times. You were dishonest the whole time. And somewhere in there you might have snuck in and your daughters are mad at you. Right?

Jacob then says, if God had not intervened, as He in fact had just the day before, and judged in Jacob's favor. After all, Laban was told, don't say anything good or bad. Laban would have left him with nothing. Don't talk to me about throwing a party. You would have left me with nothing.

So Laban, of course, comes back with this long, fiery refutation. Right? No. He says, and says, let's call a truce. That's what you do when you don't have any good refutation for the truth, right? Laban could not refute Jacob since what Jacob was saying was absolutely the truth. Instead, Laban says, let's make a covenant, an agreement between us, basically a permanent truce.

So Jacob set up a stone pillar. This is what he had done 20 years before back in Bethel. And he had his men gather up a heap of stones. Both of these would be markers. What's the marker? They called these markers a heap of witness in their own language. Laban spoke Aramaic and he called it a heap of witness in his language. Laban spoke Hebrew and so he called it a heap of witness in that language.

Now, at this point we see a particular verse, verse 49, that is sometimes just taken over from the Hebrew, called the Mizpah. It is frequently misunderstood because it's commonly used in Christian gatherings as a sort of a blessing and benediction. It's even used, as you see, on this kind of a pendant coin where they take the coin that has this, may the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other. And it has sort of a, you know, the Lord will take care of us. That may be fine and I don't particularly have a problem with people saying it.

It's just that we need to understand that's not what these two men were saying to each other. Okay? The real truth was they had broken, shattered trust between them. Laban and Jacob did not trust each other any farther than they could see each other. They did not trust one another at all. Total distrust. These words said that the Lord would watch between them because I don't trust you any farther than I can throw you. That's what these words mean. They're words of distrust. The Lord better watch because I don't trust you with my back turned. That's what it means.

Their covenant, their agreement with the stone pillar and the heap of stones was to mark a point past which neither one would ever go again to disturb or harm or deceive the other. Laban was essentially saying to Jacob, and Jacob to Laban, I will never see you again I will never cross paths with you again. I don't trust you ever at all for anything. And this is our last parting, our last goodbye. That's what it essentially amounted to. So this wasn't just an agreement not to bother each other, but actually don't go past this point to even consider bothering or deceiving one another again.

As we continue through the book of Genesis, one of the things we're going to see is that God is not done bringing Jacob face-to-face with his past issues. One of the points that we've made as we've gone through here is to see that Jacob, who has had a lifelong pattern of deception and manipulation, Jacob will be brought face-to-face with his issues. He will be brought to deal with his issues. And it may in fact take time and it may take some difficult circumstances. So while the Lord was with him and the Lord indeed protected him and was faithful all the way, the Lord also was faithful to bring him to face his issues of deception and manipulation. He is not done. He's not done.

In Genesis 31, the last few verses there, The God of Abraham and the God of Nehor, the God of their father, and notice these are actually two different gods. The God of Abraham is the God of the Bible. The God of Abraham is the God that had promised Jacob and was remaining faithful. The God of Nehor was the God of Laban, the pagan god. The God of Abraham and the God of Nehor, the God of their father, judge. And that word is plural. They judge. Each judge judges between us. Each God.

So, Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. This is a name for God, as you see in verse 42. Jacob offered a sacrifice then on the mountain. and called his kinsmen to the meal, and notice this includes Laban, and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain. Early in the morning Laban arose and kissed his sons and his daughters and blessed them. It doesn't say he kissed Jacob. Then Laban departed and returned to his place, never to see each other again. So here's a truce with a meal as we saw several chapters back in Genesis 26.

Now, let's go to our questions. We asked some questions earlier. The first question there, which of Jacob's wives appears to be more spiritually minded based on what Scripture reveals? Leah or Rachel? Let's take a look at that. When we go back to chapter 29, one of the things we notice is that in the birth of four sons, three of those have Leah connecting the birth to the Lord.

As a matter of fact, in verse 35, this time, I will praise the Lord. She doesn't have any connection with what this is going to accomplish. It's not even going to buy love from her husband. but she will just praise the Lord. And so she goes through these. Additionally, in chapter 30, verses 18-20, at the birth of two more sons, she gives the Lord the credit and connects the Lord with it each time. So basically, five out of the six sons, she gives credit to the Lord.

Rachel speaks of the Lord not only less often, but is the one who gravitates towards these pagan superstitions. We saw previously the Mandrakes in the last chapter, and in this one, she's the one who stole these household gods, which are just superstitions. It appears that Leah is the one who seems more spiritually minded, at least of things of the Lord.

Now, next question here, which we have is number three, does Jacob convey spiritual truth to either one or both of his wives? So what's the answer to that? Well, we pointed these out in verses seven and nine. In each case, Jacob gives credit to the Lord for what the Lord did to protect him and to provide for him. Then we saw in the next verses, Jacob says to his wives what the Lord has said to him. So in fact he does convey some things to his wives.

One of the things that we've looked at in times past, including earlier this year, is of the four kinds of loves in the Ephesians 5 passage in the New Testament. This second kind of love is a sanctifying love. It's a love for the spiritual well-being of the wife by the husband. One of the things as we look through these chapters, and we're going to be seeing it even more as we go into the chapters ahead, is it's clear believers have a God-given set of relationships. Relationships in our family, relationships with our friends, relationships here in the body of Christ, in which we've been entrusted to pass along the truth.

And one of the things we're going to find out here is that, yeah, Jacob seems to have done that to some degree. But especially when he comes to his sons, there's a huge gap between what could have been and what should have been and what actually is the case. I think as we look at this passage and as we look at the chapters ahead of us here, this comes to bear. We see here is Jacob who had the opportunity to spend time with his sons conveying valuable and precious truths and he falls short of it. He doesn't get the point across. And this is, I think, a key thing as we look at these passages. Certainly many spiritual truths to be drawn out of here. But a critical one. A critical one.

How's the handoff? How's the handoff at whatever place or stage the Lord has given us? How's the handoff from the truth that the Lord has passed on to us onto the next one? So we have here some really good examples, in some cases some really good bad examples.

But we'll learn from them both. Let's pray. Lord, we just look to You for the grace and for the sufficiency to pass along to hand off to those that you've put into our lives these spiritual truths and to talk about them as if they really matter, to talk about them as if they are of significance and substance, to pass them along as if they're essential. Lord, we look to you for the grace, for the sufficiency, for the wisdom to do that. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.