Genesis 29

Genesis 29:1-31

Section 2. (Genesis 29:1-35; Genesis 30:1-43; Genesis 31:1-55.)Increase in the place of humiliation. The history at Paddan Aram is harder to read; and the details of its application to Israel’s history as scattered from their land, above all so: and yet it is easy to understand how this should be. During his twenty years of exile, Jacob enjoys no further such revelations of His presence. In the meantime, God deals with him as with one for whom He has purposes of blessing, only to be reached through disciplinary sorrow. He is multiplied through unwelcome Leah and the bond-maids mainly, serving long and with hard labor for wives and flocks. Like his descendants, he is multiplied as the dust, while trampled into it: they, enslaved, trodden down and yet preserved, and merging in the end into wealth and power, witness to the care of that God of Bethel whom yet they know not. It is a striking thing, in this connection, that it is when Joseph is born that Jacob begins to set his face homeward, although he does not actually start till six years afterward; gaining, however, in wealth continually in the meanwhile; and that his history practically ends with the birth of Benjamin. These two sons of Rachel we must know in their typical significance in order to be able to read aright much -indeed the larger part -of what follows in this book. Joseph, then, is the one separated from his brethren; having by them been delivered up to death, by them sold to the Gentiles, and coming to power among these, while yet Israel is a stranger to him; having his Gentile wife and children, causing him to forget all his kindred and his father’s house, until a famine in all lands forces them to him who becomes their saviour, and the saviour of the world. Joseph, therefore, represents the Lord as we know Him, and as Israel must know Him, to find their blessing in the last days. The birth of Joseph would seem, thus, to speak typically of the dawn of light for them as to Christ whom they have rejected. On the other hand, Benjamin, the son of the mother’s sorrow, becoming the son of the father’s right hand, in Jacob’s prophecy of the last days foretold to be the warrior-tribe of the nation, is plainly the type of Christ exalted and in power upon the earth. To a reigning Messiah the nation cling, but they do not see that through the Sufferer alone can they find the Conqueror. Thus the order here; and when the hearts of the remnant in the last days turn to the suffering Christ they have rejected, then it is that their restoration begins, although having to meet many trials, and find in them their needed discipline, as we see in the next section. The individual application is here, however, the most easily read. It is, indeed, impossible, one would think, to miss the lesson of a retribution which is the holy discipline of God for us, that we may be partakers of His holiness. The measure we mete is meted out to us again: what we sow we reap, and in what is the equity of divine government we find the chastening of a Father’s hand. Jacob receives from a relative the deceit he had practiced on a relative, has to learn painfully the rights of the first-born which he had disregarded, and, instead of the superiority he had sought, becomes a servant for hire. How hard a matter is the breaking of the will in man! The names of the wives seem quite significant. Rachel, “sheep,” is surely the type of the spirit of discipleship which, in its meekness of self-surrender, shows us the opposite of Jacob’s self-seeking temper. But her he must obtain by means of Leah, whose name, “wearied,” suggests the tribulation by which patience is wrought out. Nor only so, -for Rachel being barren, and in the despair which comes through unbelief, the bond-maids come into the house, Bilhah, “terror,” and Zilpah, “a dropping,” as of tears. Then Leah bears again; and the children’s names all the way through speak of blessing; Joseph’s -in whom Rachel is at last fruitful -means “adding,” and quite according to his origin, we find in him that martyr-spirit which is, in the Christian, the soldier “virtue,” or courage, which the apostle bids us “add to” faith (2 Peter 1:5), the secret of all true progress. This we shall see afterward to be the moral of his life.

As the fruit of Rachel’s long trial, he shows us the result of waiting upon God; and from the time of his birth, Jacob’s affairs assume another aspect. He begins to look again toward Canaan; and though he tarries six years more, they are years of growing prosperity. His compact with Laban as to the flocks, and his plans to secure himself a recompense, show still, indeed, that he is Jacob. In these, successful as they are, there seems to be a lesson for him, which he might well take home, and which remains for us a notable one. Plainly, the sheep in presence of the rods seems to show how “the eye affecteth the heart,” -how we, and all that comes of us, are moulded by the object that we have before us. So the Lord connects the “eye” and the “master.” (Matthew 6:19-25.) Our object is what controls us; and in a world like this, how many objects compete for the possession of us! Thus, if our mind be set on things which are above, the characteristics of a “life hid with Christ in God” are developed in us. (Colossians 3:1-3.) What need have we of concentration and of jealousy over ourselves, lest that in the midst of which we are, gain possession of us! After all his planning, Jacob has to learn that it is the power of God to which he owes the increase. God has looked upon his affliction and his toil, and ordained him a recompense. But his prosperity alienates Laban from him, as spiritual increase separates from the world. Then comes the call of God to return to Canaan. Laban, who cannot get on with him any more, is yet rendered openly hostile by his withdrawal, -just as the world feels the sting of separation, though there can be no more communion. He follows Jacob; God appears for him and shields him; and Jacob finally departs in peace with a covenant between him and Laban, at Galeed, the “heap of witness.”