Genesis 29

PART THIRTY-SIX RECAPITULATION: SURVEY OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGE

From A Class-Book of Old Testament History, pp. 73-76

by G. F. Maclear, D.D. Published by Macmillan, London, 1881, now long out of print.

With the death of Joseph the Patriachal Age of Israel’s history may be said to close. The Family had now thrown out many branches and was now on the point of emerging into the Nation. At this juncture, then, it may be well to look back, and review some of the chief features of the Patriarchal Life.

1. And the first of these that claims attention is its Nomadic character. Unlike the founders of Egypt, of Babylon, of Nineveh, the Patriarchs were not the builders of cities and towns, but pilgrims and sojourners, dwellers in tents (Hebrews 11:9). But they were very different from rude hordes, like the Amalekites and other sons of the desert, abhorring any higher mode of life. Abraham was no stranger to the highest form of civilization that his age afforded. He was acquainted with Ur, with Nineveh, with Damascus, with Egypt; he had left his home in one of the chief cities of Mesopotamia, not from choice, but in consequence of a direct personal call from God. Moreover, so far from regarding his present mode of life as an ultimate end, he and Isaac and Jacob were ever looking forward to a time when it would close, when their descendants should be settled in the Land of Promise, and become a great nation, when the portable tent should give way to the city that had foundations (Hebrews 11:10; Hebrews 11:13-16; comp. Genesis 24:7; Genesis 28:4; Genesis 49:4; Genesis 50:24). Hence, from time to time, as opportunity offered, we see the wandering life freely and willingly laid aside. Lot settled in Sodom (Genesis 13:10-12); Abraham in Egypt went direct to Pharaoh’s court (Genesis 12:14); at Hebron he settled and became a prince of God in the midst of the Hittites (Genesis 23:6); Isaac not only lived near the Philistines, but occupied a house opposite the palace (Genesis 26:8), and practised agriculture (Genesis 26:12); and Joseph’s dream of the sheaves points out that this was also continued in the time of Jacob (Genesis 37:7).

2. The Family was the center of the Patriarchal commonwealth. Its head was the source of authority and jurisdiction; he possessed the power of life and death (Genesis 38:24); he united in himself the functions of chief and priest; he offered the burnt-offering; he had his armed retainers (Genesis 14:14; Genesis 48:22; Genesis 34:25; Genesis 33:1); his intercourse with his wives (for polygamy was not forbidden) was free and unrestrained; the wife’s consent was asked before wedlock (Genesis 24:57-58); love hallowed the relations of Abraham with Sarah, of Isaac with Rebekah, of Jacob with Leah and Rachel; woman, indeed, did not occupy the position since conceded to her, but her position was far from degraded, and the sanctity of the marriage-bond was defended by severe laws, which made death the punishment for adultery (Genesis 38:24). Slavery, it is true, existed, but in the tents of Abraham the slave was ever treated with consideration, and not excluded from, but made a partaker of religious privileges (Genesis 17:13). The fidelity and attachment of Eliezer the steward of Abraham’s house, the mourning for Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse (Genesis 35:8), are pleasing proofs of the peace that reigned in the Patriarchal household.

3. Civilization. The life of the Patriarchs was chiefly that of the shepherd, and their wealth consisted in their flocks and their herds. But besides practising agriculture they were not unacquainted with money and the precious metals. Abraham paid for the field of Machpelah with coin (Genesis 23:9-20), and the sons of Jacob took money with them into Egypt (Genesis 42:25; Genesis 42:35); while the gold ring and armlets presented to Rebekah by Eliezer (Genesis 24:22), the bracelet and signet ring of Judah (Genesis 38:18), the ear-rings of Rachel (Genesis 35:4), the many-coloured coat of Joseph, indicate an acquaintance with the luxuries of life.

4. Religion. While other nations were rapidly learning to deify the powers of nature, the Patriarchs believed not only in a God above and beyond nature, but in a God Personal, Omnipotent, and Holy. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was. no mere abstraction, no mere law. He could and did reveal Himself by angelic appearances, by visions, by dreams; He could console, strengthen, encourage; He could punish, rebuke, and on repentance forgive. Abraham, the Friend of God (James 2:23), intercedes with Him in behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23-33); Isaac is warned by Him against going down into Egypt (Genesis 26:2); Jacob is consoled by Him at Bethel when setting out into the land of exile (Genesis 28:13-15), and wrestles with Him by the fords of Jabbok till the break of day (Genesis 32:24); Joseph believes in His invisible but ever-present help in prison and in a strange land, and ascribes to Him all his wisdom in the interpretation of dreams (Genesis 41:16). The Divine Promise of a great future Abraham believed under circumstances of greatest trial, and his faith was counted to him for righteousness (Romans 4:3). Moreover, the God of the Patriarchs was not a mere national or household God. His sphere of operation was not restricted to the Patriarchs and their families; He is the God of all the earth (Genesis 24:3), the God of Righteousness and Holiness. He punishes the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-25); He plagues Pharaoh’s house (Genesis 12:17); He is the God of the priest-king Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), and of the Philistine Abimelech (Genesis 20:3); He protects not only Isaac the child of promise, but the outcast Ishmael the child of the bond-woman (Genesis 21:13); He is with Joseph in prison, but He sends dreams to Pharaoh, and through Joseph He saves Egypt from famine (Genesis 50:20).

5. The Religious Worship of the Patriarchs was in keeping with the simplicity of their creed. The head of the family was also the priest of the family. Whenever Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, reached any new spot in their pilgrimage, they invariably erected an altar, generally of stone and on a high situation (Genesis 22:9; Genesis 26:25; Genesis 35:7); there they called on the name of Jehovah, there they presented their burnt sacrifice, there they offered up their prayers. Their history also proves the existence of offering covenant-sacrifices, and celebrating covenant-feasts (Genesis 15:9-18); the making and paying of vows (Gen. 28:23); the erection of memorial pillars, and the consecration of them by pouring upon them oil and wine (Genesis 28:18); the rite of circumcision (Genesis 17:10-14); and the paying of tithes (Genesis 14:20).

6. The Character of the Patriarchs is never represented as perfect; their faults are freely exposed; theirs is no ideal history. If we compare the four most eminent amongst them, we seem to trace in (i) Abraham, the faith that can remove mountains in its power and in its fulness, revealing itself in unfaltering trust and unquestioning obedience under the most trying circumstances conceivable; in (ii) Isaac, the faith that can possess itself in patience, and discharge the ordinary duties of life in quietness and waiting; in (iii) Jacob, the violent contest of faith with the flesh, the higher with the lower nature, till by hard discipline the latter is purified, and the Sup-planter becomes the Prince, the Prevailer with God; in (iv) Joseph, the fidelity and perseverance of faith, revealed not only in the patient endurance of the most grievous trials, but in energetic action, and at length crowned with victory. He unites in himself the noble trust and resolution of Abraham, with the quiet perseverance of Isaac, and the careful prudence of Jacob. He is moreover an eminent historic type of Christ, in (1) his persecution and sale by his brethren, (2) his resisting temptation, (3) his humiliation and exaltation, and (4) his dispensing to a famine-stricken people the bread of life, and (5) in the fulness of his forgiving love.

ADDENDA [Volume 3] LANGE: ON THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH

(CDHCG, 389-390, verbatim)

Between Abram’s connection with Hagar and the next manifestation of Jehovah there are full thirteen years. But then his faith is strengthened again, and Jehovah appears to him (Genesis 17:1). The most prominent and important theophany in the life of Abram is the appearance of the three men (ch. 17). But this appearance wears its prevailing angelic form, because it is a collective appearance for Abram and Lot, and at the same time refers to the judgement upon Sodom. Hence the two angels are related to their central point as the sun-images to the sun itself, and this central point for Abram is Jehovah himself in his manifestation, but not a commissioned Angel of the Lord. Thus also this Angel visits Sarah (Genesis 21:1; compare Genesis 18:10). But the Angel appears in the history of Hagar a second time (Genesis 21:17), and this time as the Angel of God (Maleach Elohim), not as the Maleach Jehovah, for the question is not now about a return to Abram’s house, but about the independent settlement with Ishmael in the wilderness. The person who tempts Abram (Genesis 22:1) is ElohimGod as he manifests himself to the nations and their general ideas or notions, and the revelation is effected purely through the word. Now, also, in the most critical moment for Abram, the Angel of the Lord comes forward, calling down to him from heaven since there was need of a prompt message of relief. In the rest of the narrative this Angel of the Lord identifies himself throughout with Jehovah (Genesis 22:12; Genesis 22:16). To Isaac also Jehovah appears (Genesis 26:2), and the second time in the night (Genesis 26:24). He appears to Jacob in the night in a dream (Genesis 28:12-13). Thus also he appears to him as the Angel of God in a dream (Genesis 31:11), but throughout identified with Jehovah (Genesis 31:13). Jehovah commands him to return home through the word (31:3). Laban receives the word of God in a dream (Genesis 31:24). The greatest event of revelation in the life of Jacob is the grand theophany, in the night, through the vision, but the man who wrestles with him calls himself God and man (men) at the same time. According to the theory of a created angel, Jacob is not a wrestler with God (Israel), but merely a wrestler with the Angel. It is a more purely external circumstance which God uses to warn Jacob through the word to remove from Shechem (Genesis 35:1). In the second-’ peculiar manifestation of God to Jacob after his return from Mesopotamia (Genesis 35:9), we have a clear and distinct reflection of the first (Genesis 32:24). In the night-visions of Joseph, which already appear in the life of Isaac, and occur more frequently with Jacob, the form of revelation during the patriarchal period comes less distinctly into view. But then it enters again, and with new energy, in the life of Moses. The Angel of Jehovah (Exodus 3:2) is connected with the earlier revelation, and here also is identified with Jehovah and Elohim (Exodus 3:4). But he assumes a more definite form and title, as the Angel of his face, since with the Mosaic system the rejection of any deifying of the creature comes into greater prominence, and since it is impossible that the face of God should be esteemed a creature.

The reasons which are urged for the old ecclesiastical view of the Angel of the Lord, are recapitulated by Kurtz in the following order: 1. The Maleach Jehovah identifies himself with Jehovah. 2. Those to whom he appears recognize, name, and worship him as the true God. 3. He receives sacrifice and worship without any protest. 4. The biblical writers constantly speak of him as Jehovah. We add the reasons. 1. The theory of our opponents opens a wide door in the Old Testament for the deifying of the creature, which the Old Testament everywhere condemned; and the Romish worship of angels finds in it a complete justification. 2. The Socinians also gain an important argument for their rejection of the Trinity, if, instead of self-revelation of God, and of the self-distinction included in it in the Old Testament, there is merely a pure revelation through angels. As the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity cannot be found in the Old Testament, so no one can remove from the Old Testament the beginnings of that doctrine, the self-distinction of God, without removing the very substructure on which the New Testament doctrine of the Trinity rests, and without obscuring the Old Testament theology in its very centre and glory. 3. It would break the band of the organic unity between the Old and New Testaments if it could be proved that the central point in the Old Testament revelation is a creature-angel, and that the New Testament revelation passes at one bound from this form to that of the God-man. The theory of the creature-angel in its continuation through a colossal adoration of angels, points downwards to the Rabbinic and Mohammedan doctrine of angels which has established itself in opposition to the New Testament Christology, and is bound together with that exaggerated doctrine of angels in more recent times, which ever corresponds with a veiled and obscure Christology. On the other hand, it removes from the New Testament Christology its Old Testament foundation and preparation which consists in this, that the interchange between God and men is in full operation, and must therefore prefigure itself in the images of the future God-man. 4. The doctrine of angels itself loses its very heart, its justification and interpretation, if we take away from it the symbolic angel-form, which rules it, as its royal centre, i.e. that angelic form which, as a real manifestation of God, as a typical manifestation of Christ, as a manifestation of angels, has the nature and force of a symbol. But with the obliteration of the symbolic element, all the remaining symbolic and angelic images, the cherubim and seraphim, will disappear, and with the key of biblical psychology in its representation of the development of the life of the soul, to an organ of revelation, we shall lose the key to the exposition of the Old Testament itself. 5. Augustin was consistent when, with his interpretation of the Angel of Jehovah as a creature-angel, he decidedly rejects the interpretation which regards the sons of God (ch. 6)as angel-beings; for the assumption of angels who, as such, venture to identify themselves with Jehovah, and notwithstanding they are in peril, abandon themselves to lustful pleasures and a magical transformation of their nature, combines two groundless and intolerable phantoms. We hold, therefore, that Old Testament theology, in its very heart and centre, is in serious danger from these two great prejudices, as the New Testament from the two great prejudices of a mere mechanical structure of the Gospels, and of the unapostolic and yet more than apostolic brothers of the Lord. (See the defence of the old ecclesiastical view in the Commentary by Keil, also with a reference to Kahnis, de Angelo Domini diatribe, 1858. The assertion of the opposite view held by Delitzsch in his Commentary, meets here its refutation).

6. The aspect of all theophanies as visions. It is a general supposition, that divine revelation is partly through visions, or through inward miraculous sights and sounds. We must, however, bring out distinctly the fundamental position, that every theophany is at the same time vision, and every vision a theophany; but that in the one case the objective theophany and in the other the subjective vision, is the prevailing feature. The subjective vision appears in the most definite form in dream-visions, of which Adam’s sleep, and Abram’s night-horror (chs. 2 and 15.), are the first striking portents. It develops itself with great power in the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and is of still greater importance in the lives of Samuel and Solomon, as also in the night-visions of Zechariah. We find them in the New Testament in the life of Joseph of Nazareth and in the history of Paul. It needs no proof to show that the manifestations of God or angels in dreams, are not outward manifestations to the natural senses. In the elements of the subjective dream-vision, veils itself, however, the existing divine manifestation. But what the dream introduces in the night-life, the seeing in imagesthat the ecstasy does in the day or ordinary waking life (see Lange: Apostolic Age). The ecstasy, as the removing of the mind into the condition of unconsciousness, or of a different consciousness, is the potential basis of the vision, the vision is the activity or effect of the ecstasy. But since the visions have historical permanence and results, it is evident that they are the intuitions of actual objective manifestations of God. Mere hallucinations of the mind lead into the house of error, spiritual visions build the historical house of God. But in this aspect we may distinguish peculiar dream-visions, night-visions of a higher form and power, momentary day-visions, apocalyptic groups or circles of visions, linked together in prophetic contemplation, and that habitual clear-sightedness as to visions which is the condition of inspiration. But that theophanies which are ever at the same time Angelophanies and Christophanies, and indeed as theophanies of the voice of God, or of the voice from heaven, of the simple appearance of angels, of their more enlarged and complete manifestations of the developed heavenly scenethat these are always conditioned through a disposition of fitness for visions, is clear from numerous passages in the Old and New Testaments (2 Kings 6:17, Daniel 10:7; John 12:28-29; John 20:10-12; Acts 9:8; Acts 12:7-12; Acts 22:9-14).

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THE ABRAHAMIC PROMISE

(by H. Christopher, The Remedial System, pp. 146-150)

The promise that God would bless the whole world through him [Abraham] had reference to Christ, the son of Abraham, through whom God would fulfill his promise of blessing the whole world through the offspring of Abraham. Whilst it was the first and chief promise made to Abraham, it was the last in fulfillment. Nearly two thousand years intervened. It was ratified and covenanted by the blood of Christ, and looked to the possession of the heavenly Canaan, and to a circumcision that cut off the heart from all that is worldly and sensual, and to a seal that became the pledge of the purchased possession, and its settlement in the heavenly Canaan, by the resurrection from the dead, when the spiritual people of God cross the Jordan of death, and take possession of the land of promise, for which even Abraham looked, when he sought a city whose maker and builder is God. This promise and its blessings have no connection with the others made to Abraham. They differ as widely as flesh and spirit, and as earth and heaven. They connect or coalesce no where. The first were but preparatory and necessary to the last. When the last appeared, the first had served their chief, if not all their, purpose. The first had chief reference to man’s body, while the last has chief reference to man’s spirit. And as the spirit of man is superimposed, as it were, upon the body, and is capable of a separate and independent existence, so was the last promise superimposed upon the first, and is capable of existing, and does exist, independently of it. Hence, the promises and the covenants by which they were ratified, connect with each other only as the flesh connects with the spirit. Between them lies an impassable gulf. There is no possible passage from the first to the last. The Jew has no rights and privileges under Christ by virtue of his being the son of Abraham according to the flesh; for the promise was; In Isaac shall thy seed be called, and he was the child of promise and of faith. The Christian is the child of promise and of faith, and hence is reckoned through Isaac as a special creation of God, and is, therefore, himself a new creation. The last creation supersedes all former ones, and by this supersession abrogates them. The adoption of the children of Abraham as the special and peculiar people of God, set aside the adoption by creation, and during the time of their adoption, the natural adoption was set aside, and the rest of mankind ignored, and treated as an uncovenanted people. So when the Christian adoption came in, the Jewish was set aside, and all the rest of mankind, not embraced in the new adoption, were ignored and treated as uncovenanted. Hence, under Christianity there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither circumcision nor uncircumcision; but all the families, nations, and races of mankind are one in Christ, in perfect fulfillment of the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

All this is necessarily true. The Remedial System is developed by differentiations which mark the boundaries of the development. The patriarch had no privileges, special and peculiar, after the calling of Abraham. By that call God isolated a part from the whole, and made this part his special care. By the new creation through Christ another isolation was made, which placed Jew and Greek on the same plane before God, and abrogated all special and peculiar rights or privileges claimed by the Jews. This is necessarily true from another consideration. The claim of the Jew rested on an explicit covenant. That covenant recognized him as the chosen of God, through a means wholly different from that by which he had recognized the patriarch, and does now recognize the Christian. This consideration or means was his birth. He was the son of Abraham according to the flesh, and entitled, consequently, only to the rights and privileges guaranteed by the covenant ordained to grant and secure these. He could claim only under the stipulated grants of his covenant. Under other and different covenants, and made with other people, he could, of course, have no claim or right whatever. His circumcision effected all it was designed to effect, and meant more than the Jew was willing to accept. It cut him off from all the rest of the world, and also from all other covenants of God, but according to the flesh. His circumcision bound him down to the provisions and obligations of that covenant, and confined him within its prescribed limits. What claim, therefore can a Jew have to the grants and blessings of a covenant that has no special reference to him whatever, and that was not made with him as a Jew? The European had as well claim equal rights with the American under the constitution of the United States. The Jew was the chosen of God only according to the flesh, and entitled only to blessings of his covenant. He is not the chosen of God according to the spirit, or the seed of Isaac according to the promise, and hence he can have no right with those who are.

There are four things necessary to make a nation the peculiar and chosen people of God, and all these obtained in the case of the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh. These things are, 1. A creation. This we have in the birth of Isaac. His conception was a miracle, and hence a creation. 2. A seal. This we have in circumcision. 3. A purchase. This we have in the deliverance of this people from Egypt. And 4. A covenant. And this we have in the covenant made before Mt. Sinai. All these are peculiar and consistent, and perfectly harmonious with all that God has promised, or has done for, the Jews. They were all equally necessary, and they follow each other as necessary results one of the other. The seal came to ratify the creation, the purchase, in demonstration of the fulfillment of the promise, and the covenant, in order that the people might also pledge themselves by covenant. By this the people became cemented and organized into a nation. As such they needed laws and institutions for their government and welfare as a people; and as the people of God, religious institutions for the various purposes which God had in view with that people. It will be observed that this covenant made with Abraham’s descendants arose under that which covenanted them as the peculiar people of God, and was, consequently, entirely Jewish. The covenant of Mt. Sinai was made with that people, and the institutions subsequently given, were given to that people, and to no other. The Jewish institution, in all its entirety, was as verily circumcised as were the people for whose benefit it was ordained. It was as completely isolated from all other religions and peoples, as were that people. Hence, it had no connection with any other, nor relation, except that of opposition. The covenant stipulated and embraced no more than did the promise under which it was made. It was a ratification, or acceptance on their part, of the stipulations of the promise. It was the covenant by which God renewed his promise to be their God, and by it the people accepted the offer, and covenanted to be the people of God. This covenant bound both parties to their pledgeGod to be their God, and them to be his obedient people. It did not, and could not stipulate and grant more than did the promise; hence, all these were temporal in their nature. This completed all that God had to provide for that people. Henceforth there was naught for either party to do, but to carry out the provisions of the covenant which formulated the promise. But this covenant was not only temporary as respects the rights, privileges, and blessings which it secured to that people; but it was also temporary in its duration. The people broke that covenant: and a covenant broken on one side, is broken on both. It was faulty in that it only contemplated and provided for man’s temporal wants. Indeed, this was the fault of the whole Jewish fabric, from the inception to the close. This was foreseen; and not only foreseen, but the whole structure was but a means to an end; a measure to give time for the preparation and institution of a better. The promise of God under which the whole Jewish structure arose, was not the first and chief promise that God made to Abraham, nor his chief purpose in calling him. This chief and greatest promise was that through him he would bless the whole human family. This promise the apostle interprets as having reference to Christ, and consequently, it was sooner or later, to take precedence of all others. It could not be annulled by any subsequent promise, unless that promise annulled, at the same time, all former ones. But this the subsequent promises did not do, as is affirmed by the people. The promise which had reference to Christ, preceded the ratification of that concerning the land several years, and antedated the covenant of circumcision twenty-four years. The covenant at Mt. Sinai followed the latter four hundred and six thereafter. So that nothing which transpired under the later promises could annul the first. The first and chief promise which contemplated spiritual blessings and a spiritual offspring through Isaac, was not ratified, fulfilled, or covenanted, for nearly two thousand years. All that has grown out of this promise has no connection with what arose under the others. It differs from them in every respect. It differed from them in the beginning. It came into the world through a different line. There were two lines of descendants in Isaac, as two promises were fulfilled in his descendants. The one line was the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, and the other the seed according to the spirit, the latter of which is reckoned the true line under the covenant of the first promise. This excludes the children according to the flesh from all rights and privileges pertaining to the children according to the spirit. As respects, therefore, their nature, rights, and privileges, the Jewish and Christian institutions differ radically and entirely; to that degree as to exclude the one wholly from the other. The creation, the circumcision or seal, the purchase, and the covenant, that made the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh the people of God, have no place nor value under the Christian institution. The latter has its own creation, seal, purchase, and covenant, all of which are spiritual and eternal, and these give the Christian no rights or privileges under the former. Hence, as respects institutions differing so completely and widely, there can be no community of rights and privileges; nor can the one flow out of the other so as to establish any genetic connection between them. As the spiritual and the eternal necessarily supersede the fleshly and temporal, so does the Jewish institution, in whole and in part, give way to the Christian. Under the latter arises a people of God as distinct from the former as spirit is from flesh. The Christian is a new creation, and all that pertains to his creation is new. Before it the Jew and Gentile stand on the same ground. Both must become the subjects of this new creation before they can be regarded as belonging to the people of God. All the claim which the Jew once preferred, goes for naught under the operation of the new creation. A new birth is just as essential for the Jew as for the Gentile. Hence, the Jew’s creation, seal, purchase, and covenant are all naught when he stands before the Christian’S. His birth of the flesh avails nothing, and neither does his circumcision, Nothing is now acceptable to God but the new creation in Christ. These things being true, all that is Jewish has passed away. The Jews are no longer the people of God. Their whole religious service has perished; and what purpose God has now with that people remains to be seen. That he has no further purpose with them in regard to the fulfillment of his promise of blessing the world through them by Christ, is evident from the fact that Christianity has superseded Judaism, and that the whole religious service of that people perished with the total destruction of their temple. Christ is the end of the law, and of all that pertained to it. It was but a pedagogue to lead the Jews to Christ; so that when he came all that was Jewish was set aside, and the pedagogue was dismissed. All now become the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither bond nor free; neither male nor female; but all are one in Christ Jesus. And all who are Christ’s by virtue of the new creation, the spiritual seal, the eternal purchase, and the everlasting covenant, are the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise: In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (N. B. After hunting several years for a copy of Christopher’s book, I found it in the Dallas Christian College LibraryC. C.)

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THE EXCELLENCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 5:1-11).

In the study of First Principles the term which first engages our attention is faith. We shall find that it occupies a prominent place in connection not only with conversion, but also with every phase of Christian activity and growth.

Faith is one of the most far-reaching words in the vocabulary of inspiration. Without faith none of the blessings of the spiritual realm would be available to man. Contrariwise, on the ground of faith, such blessings as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived (1 Corinthians 2:9), are within his power to appropriate and enjoy.

Faith is an oft-recurring word in the New Testament. Jesus had much to say about it, and the word is used repeatedly in the Epistles. Paul states expressly that we are justified by faith (Romans 5 :).

The excellence of faith is indicated in scripture by the following representations:

1. Faith is superior to things and circumstances of this material world.

When given full sway in the human heart it rises above the circumstances of life and controls them. The power of faith is described in such scriptures as Matthew 17:20, Mark 9:23; Mark 11:23, Luke 17:6. Christians of this materialistic age, in bondage as they are to the tyranny of things, are inclined to look on these sayings of the Master with more or less skepticism. The tragedy is that we have never really learned to walk by faith. We cannot testify that these sayings are true for the simple reason that we have never learned to stand on God’s promises. True, we claim to do so, and we sing Standing on the Promises, but always with mental reservations. It is only through the exercise of implicit faith that we can throw off the fetters of anxiety and fear which enslave us to this present evil world. We are willing to obey the Lord in confession and baptism, but we certainly fall far short of His teaching in regard to such everyday matters as fear, worry, forgiveness, humility, and the like. (See Matthew 5:3-12; Matthew 5:21-26; Matthew 5:38-42; Matthew 6:25-33; Matthew 7:1-5; Matthew 7:7-12, etc. Cf. 1 John 4:18) He might well say to us as to His disciples of old, O ye of little faith!

2. Faith is the ground of our justification.

Being therefore justified by faithnot by faith alone, or mere intellectual assent (the theologians have added the word alone)we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not by faith alone, because faith apart from works (i.e., works of faith) is dead (James 2:26). The faith that is unto the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39) expresses itself in works of obedience, sacrifice and service (Romans 12:1-2). To walk by faith is to live by the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25). God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son as a propitiation for our sins (John 3:16), but we must appropriate this matchless Gift by faith. By true faith in Him we have access into this grace wherein we stand (Romans 5:2). For by grace ye have been saved through faith, and that (i.e., that salvation) not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

3. Faith is the motivating principle of all Christian worship and service.

True worship is (1) communion of the human spirit with the Divine Spirit, (2) on the terms of the truth as revealed in scripture (John 4:24). This can be realized only through faith. Repentance is faith choosing; the confession is faith speaking; baptism is faith obeying; the Lord’s Supper is faith remembering; liberality is faith acknowledging God’s ownership; prayer is faith communing; meditation is faith pondering; and. the whole Christian life is faith serving. Therefore we are justified by faith. From the day of conversion to that of the putting, on of immortality, the actuating principle in the life of every true Christian is faith.

4. Implicit faith, along with obedience, is a necessary, condition to the answer of prayer (John 14:12-15; John 15:5-10, etc.).

(1) Acts 12:1-17. We read here that many of the early disciples were gathered together in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, praying for Peter’s deliverance from prison. Yet they were amazed when their prayer was answered and Peter stood in their midst. Most of our praying is of this kind; it has little conviction back of it. (Matthew 21:22).

(2) The prayer of faith, i.e., the petition offered in harmony with the teaching of God’s word, will not go unanswered.

Unanswered yet? The prayer your lips have pleaded

In agony of heart these many years?

Does faith begin to fail? is hope departing?

And thing you all in vain those falling tears?

Say not the Father hath not heard your prayer,

You shall have your desire, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Tho-’ when you first presented

This one petition at the Father’s throne,

It seemed you could not wait the time of asking

So urgent was your heart to make it known.

Tho-’ years have passed since then, do not despair;

The Lord will answer you, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say -ungranted-';

Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done;

The work began when first your prayer was uttered,

And God will finish what He has begun;

If you will keep the incense burning there,

His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere.

Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered;

Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock;

Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,

Nor quails before the loudest thunder-shock.

She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-’ And cries, -It shall be done, sometime, somewhere!-'

5. The blessings and rewards of the gospel are all received and realized through faith.

Among these are: (1) salvation from the guilt of sin (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38; Acts 10:43; Acts 16:31; Acts 26:18); (2) spiritual life (John 20:31; John 6:40, John 3:16; John 3:36; 1 John 5:12); (3) spiritual light (John 1:9; John 8:12; John 12:36); (4) heavenly adoption (Galatians 3:26); (5) the indwelling Spirit (John 7:39, Ephesians 1:13, Galatians 3:14); (6) justification (Romans 5:1, Galatians 2:16): (7) true righteousness (Romans 1:16-17; Romans 10:6; Romans 3:22); (8) true worship (John 4:24, Ephesians 3:12); (9) providential oversight (1 Peter 1:5); (10) eternal rest (Hebrews 4:3). In fact the inheritance of all the promises of God is to be realized through faith (Hebrews 6:12).

Conclusion: No wonder then that faith is represented to be the foundation which supports the entire pyramid of Christian virtues that true disciples build, one stone upon the other, and upon which they climb heavenward (2 Peter 1:5-7). True Christians walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Faith, hope and love, according to Paul, constitute the abiding trinity of spiritual virtues (1 Corinthians 13:13). Of these three, love is greatest; because, in the home over there, faith will have given way to spiritual knowledge, and hope to fruition, leaving only love to consummate the blissful intercourse of the redeemed with their heavenly Father (Revelation 21:1-5).

THE NATURE OF FAITH

(Read Hebrews, ch. 11, esp. Hebrews 11:1.)

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews has been called Israel’s Roll of Honor. It is the great faith chapter of the Bible. It is an inspired discourse on the subject of faith. The discourse begins properly with the last three verses of ch. 10, in which the writer speaks of a faith that is unto the saving of the soul. The subject-matter which follows, in ch. 11, is an analysis of that kind of faith, what it is, whence it is obtained, and how it operates unto salvation, as exemplified in the lives of many illustrious believers of olden times. The writer proves to be an excellent sermonizer, as we might expect in view of his having been inspired by the Spirit of God. He states his text in v. 1, and then proceeds to develop it with appropriate illustrations drawn from Old Testament history. His concluding exhortation follows, in ch. 12, Genesis 12:1-2. We shall attempt here to evaluate the teaching of this great chapter on the nature (i.e., the original and essential characteristics) of faith.

Let me repeat that the kind of faith under consideration here is the faith that works unto the saving of the soul. By some this has been called saving faith. Not that faith of itself will save any one, because it will not; but that the right kind of faith will motivate the believer to such intelligent and sincere cooperation with God, on God’s terms and according to His plan, that He may consistently save the one who so believes. It is God who pardons and saves, but always through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

What is faith? Considering the excellence of faith, it is exceedingly important that we know what faith is. I am profoundly thankful that the Holy Spirit has not left us in darkness regarding this essential matter. Nor has he left it to our finite minds to formulate a definition. We are not compelled to go either to philosophy or to theology for a definition of faithwe have it in clear, unmistakable terms, in the Christian Scriptures.

What, then, are the essential characteristics of faith? This question is fully answered in the words of our text, as follows:

1. Faith is assurance. Assurance is defined as confidence inspired or expressed, that which produces certainty. It connotes positiveness, certainty, even boldness.

2. Faith is assurance of things hoped for. That is, faith is the foundation of hope.

(1) Authorized Version: the substance of things hoped for. The word substance means in our language the stuff, material, or matter of which anything is composed. It is used here, however, in its derivative sense. It is derived from the Latin prefix, sub (under) and the Latin participle stans (standing). Substance, then is that which stands under. Faith is that which stands under hope. Cf. Living Oracles: faith is the confidence of things hoped for. Moffatt: faith means we are confident of what we hope for. Weymouth: faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope. Goodspeed: faith means the assurance of what we hope for.

(2) Faith is the foundation of hope. This is true in every department of human activity. It is true in the business world. I visited a friend on one occasion to solicit a contribution from him for a worthy cause. Having heard my case, his reply was: I believe in your proposition, and I am sorry that I am not in a position to help just at this time. But I will do something later. I have invested a considerable sum of money in an oil well in Texas, and I am expecting returns from this investment within a few months. If you will come back about a year from this date, I will give you a substantial donation. I thanked him, and departed. About a year later I called at his office a second time, and as soon as I entered he looked at me and exclaimed: I know what you have come for, but I can-’t do anything for you. What is the trouble? I asked, didn-’t the oil well turn out satisfactorily? And in extreme disgust he said: I wish I had the money back that I sank in that hole in the ground. The first time I called he was extremely hopeful, because he believed in the enterprise in which he had invested; the second time I found him with hopes blasted, because he had lost all faith in it. Where there is no faith, there is no hope.

(3) This is also true in the social realm. In the course of time a young couple will fall in love, marry, and establish a home. The success of their undertaking will depend largely on their faith in each other. On this foundation of faith they will erect a structure of dreams and plans and hopes. But let the confidence of one in the other be destroyed and this structure will fall to the ground. Both marriage and home are erected on a foundation of faith.

(4) So, in the realm of spirit, as elsewhere, hope rests upon faith. Every act of worship and service we perform is motivated by faith. Faith underlies the pyramid of Christian virtues (2 Peter 1:5-7). And all our aspirations and hopes respecting the home over there, the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away (1 Peter 1:4) rest on faith. In everything faith is the foundation of hope.

(5) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel’s hope that his offering would be acceptable to God rested on faith, Hebrews 11:4. (1 John 3:12) (b) Enoch’s walk with God was a walk of faith, Hebrews 11:5. (c) Faith was the foundation of Noah’s hope of deliverance from impending judgment, Hebrews 11:7. (d) Abraham’s hope of attaining the far country which he was to receive for an inheritance was founded on faith, Hebrews 11:8. Also, his hope of receiving Isaac back from the dead was inspired by faith, from whence he did also in a figure receive him back, Hebrews 11:17-19. (e) Sarah’s expectation of a son, the child of promise, rested on faith, Hebrews 11:11. (f) Joseph’s hope that the children of Israel would ultimately take possession of the land of promise rested upon his faith, Hebrews 11:22. (g) The aspirations, hopes and plans of Moses for his people, and his matchless efforts in their behalf, were all inspired by his faith, Hebrews 11:24-29. In every example cited, faith is presented as the foundation of hope.

3. Faith is a conviction … A conviction is defined as a strong belief, something firmly believed. The faith which operates unto the saving of the soul is something more than a passive intellectual assent. It is a conviction. It must be a conviction, one that takes hold of the soul and determines the course of one’s life. In the light of this definition, it is obvious that faith is precisely the thing that is lacking in the modern church.

4. Faith is a conviction of things not seen, i.e., a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(1) Authorized Version: the evidence of things not seen. Moffatt: Faith means. we are convicted of what we do not see. Weymouth: a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see. Goodspeed: our conviction about things we cannot see.

(2) Note that faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen. I have never seen Paris, but I have a conviction that there is a city by that name and that it is the capital of France. My conviction is the result of satisfactory evidence. Things which are seen are matters of observation and knowledge, but things that are not seen belong to the realm of faith. God who is a Spirit (John 4:24) cannot be seen, and is therefore to be apprehended only by faith. Angels, spirit, resurrection, immortality, heaven, etc., all these realities of the unseen world are matters of faith. Faith pertains not to the things that are illusive and transitory, but to the things which are abiding. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

(3) We have never seen God, but we believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6). We were not present to see the worlds created, but our conviction is that they were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). We have never seen Christ, our Elder Brother, but we believe in Him as the One who is abundantly able to save us from sin and mortality. We have never had a glimpse of heaven, but we believe that the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in us, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to our mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in us (Romans 8:11). Therefore we are exhorted to live by faith, to walk by faith and to die in the faith.

(4) Illustrations from the chapter (Hebrews 11). (a) Abel brought his offering to the altar with the conviction that the God whom he had never seen, but in whom he believed, would accept it, Hebrews 11:4. (b) In Noah’s heart there was an overwhelming conviction that judgment would come upon the antediluvian world because of its wickedness. Although summer and winter, and seedtime and harvest, continued to come and go as usual for one hundred and twenty years, he never faltered. Through all the trying experiences of this period of grace he retained his conviction. Because that during all these intervening years there was no evidence in nature of the impending catastrophe, it was a conviction with respect to things not seen, Hebrews 11:7. (c) Abraham left home and kindred and friends, and started on a strange journey to a land both unknown to him and unseen by him. He had no idea how far he would have to travel in order to reach it. All that moved him was a conviction with respect to the far country and a conviction that God would give it to him for an inheritance. Hebrews 11:8-12. (d) These fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all died in the faith, having never received the literal fulfilment of the promises. So far as we know they all died without possessing a single acre of the land of promise save the few square feet they had purchased for a burial ground. It seems that as they continued in their pilgrimage their faith became clearer, and they began to look beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise, in the city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God, Hebrews 11:13-16. (e) Joseph’s conviction with respect to the exodus of his people from Egypt pertained to an event far in the future, an event not seen, Hebrews 11:22. (f) Moses, the man who saw an undying flame, chose to share ill treatment with the people of God, above the temporary enjoyment of the pleasures of sin, because he endured as seeing him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:23-29). In all these cases, faith was a conviction with respect to things not seen.

(5) As in the various cases cited from Old Testament history, so it is with respect to faith in the present dispensation and under the new covenant: (a) our faith must be something more than mere assent; (b) it must be genuine conviction in order to work unto the saving of the soul; (c) it must be conviction with respect to things not seen, viz., God, the Son of God, the Spirit of God, the future life, heaven, etc.; (d) this faith undergirds all our spiritual blessings, aspirations and hopes (1 Corinthians 2:6-10).

Conclusion: 1. This inspired definition of faith is perfect and complete. Nothing can be taken from it without weakening its import. Nothing can be added to it that would give it greater force.

2. Christian faith takes in all those convictions with respect to God, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, immortality, heaven, and the like; all of which are eternal realities above and beyond the realm of time and space. Like Moses, we endure as seeing him who is invisible, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Like Abraham, we realize that we are pilgrims and strangers upon this earth, that our present dwelling places are but the tabernacles of a night-time; and, like him, we anticipate a more glorious fulfilment of the promises than would be possible in this world of places and things (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). Our ultimate goal is that heavenly country towards which he made his pilgrimage. In the words of Emily Dickinson:

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea, Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

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THE SOURCE OF FAITH

(Read Romans 10:1-17).

Having ascertained the essential nature of faith (1) the assurance of things hoped for, and (2) a conviction with respect to things not seen, we shall now turn our attention to the source of faith. Whence is the faith obtained that is unto the saving of the soul? We may find the answer to this important question by turning again to the cases cited in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews:

1. Abel, Hebrews 11:4. Whence did Abel obtain his conviction that the offering of a sacrifice of blood would be pleasing to God and would bring him God’s blessing? Evidently from the word of God. It seems obvious that God laid down the law of sacrifice as soon as man fell, in order to establish the principle that apart from shedding of blood there is no remission (Hebrews 9:22). Abel, in bringing an offering in which blood was shed, obeyed the law; Cain, in bringing the fruit of the ground, disobeyed it (1 John 3:12). This explains why Abel’s offering was accepted and Cain’s rejected.

That this institution was of divine origin is evident from several considerations: I. We learn from Hebrews 11:4, that Abel offered his sacrifice in faith. But in Romans 10:17, we are told that -faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.-’ And hence it follows that Abel could not have offered in faith without a command from God. II. It could not have been a human invention, because Reason can perceive no connection between the means and the end. It is evidently a positive and not a moral or natural institution. III. Its universality is another proof of its divine origin. Mr. Faber says that -throughout the whole world there is a notion prevalent that the gods can be appeased only by bloody sacrifices. There is no heathen people,-’ he adds, -that can specify a time when they were without sacrifice. All have had it from a time which is not reached by their genuine records. Tradition alone can be brought forward to account for its origin.-’ IV. The distinction between clean and unclean beasts even in the time of Noah (Genesis 7:2) proves also the divine origin of sacrifice. This is a distinction which is altogether positive, and which has no foundation in either reason or philosophy (Milligan, SR, 67).

2. Enoch, Hebrews 11:5.Enoch’s walk of faith was evidently inspired and directed by the word of God (Genesis 5:24).

3. Noah, Hebrews 11:7. How did Noah obtain his conviction that an overwhelming deluge would come upon the antediluvian world? How did he obtain the conviction that in the building of the ark a means of deliverance would be provided him and his family? Evidently from the word of God. God told him the flood would come in due time. God told him to build the ark and how to build it. God gave him the plans for it. God promised him deliverance through the instrumentality of the ark. And Noah believed God. His conviction was inspired not by any manifestation in nature, but solely by the word of God. See Genesis 6:13-22; Genesis 7:1-5; Genesis 8:15-17.

4. Abraham, Hebrews 11:8-19. Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction regarding the land to which he journeyed? Whence did he obtain his belief that this land would be given him for an inheritance? From the word of God. See Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18, etc. It was God who told him about the far country and promised it to him for an inheritance. Whence did Abraham and Sarah obtain their conviction regarding the birth of the child of promise? From the word of God (Genesis 17:15-21). Whence did Abraham obtain his conviction that God would not allow Isaac to suffer an untimely end (Hebrews 11:19)? From the word of God. Had not Isaac been miraculously conceived and born? Were not the details of the Abrahamic promise to be worked out through him? (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 13:16; Genesis 17:19, Hebrews 11:18). Cf. Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23.

5. Joseph, Hebrews 11:22. Whence did Joseph obtain his conviction that his people would leave Egypt and repossess Canaan? Evidently from God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-4; Genesis 13:14-18; Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 26:2-5; Genesis 28:12-17).

6. Moses, Hebrews 11:22-29. From whom did Moses receive his commission to lead his people out of bondage? From whom did he receive the Law ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator (Galatians 3:19)? From God Himself. See Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 4:17, Exodus 20:1-26, Deuteronomy 5:1-33, etc. Who was his constant Guide and Protector through all those terrible marches in the wilderness? Who rained manna from heaven upon the starving people? Who guided them by means of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? Moses constantly endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

7. Joshua, Hebrews 11:29. Whence did Joshua obtain his confidence that the walls of Jericho would fall? From Jehovah’s word. He went to God for a war program, in his extremity, and God supplied it (Joshua 6:1-20).

8. Rahab, Hebrews 11:30. Whence did Rahab obtain her belief that she should give aid and succor to the men of Joshua’s army? Evidently from her knowledge of God’s promises and judgments (John 2:9-21; John 6:22-25, James 2:25).

9. The creation, Hebrews 11:3. Whence do we obtain our belief that our physical universe was the materialization of God’s word? Our conviction that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear (i.e., that this universe was not fashioned out of pre-existing materials, as the evolutionists and materialists contend)? From the word of God. (See Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 148:5, etc. Note that the expression, God said, is found ten consecutive times in Genesis 1. Cf. also John 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2 Peter 3:5-8, etc.).

10. Other great heroes and heroines of faith, Hebrews 11:32-39. All received their inspiration to deeds of heroism from the attractions and impulsions of God’s word. So, then, belief cometh of hearing the divine word, as our text says. Believers in all ages endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

Conclusion: So much for the examples from Old Testament history. But what about the faith that operates unto the salvation of the soul, in the present dispensation, under the new covenant?

1. From what source do we obtain our belief that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6)? From the testimony about Him as revealed and recorded in Scripture. From the complete and perfect revelation of Him afforded us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, whom to know aright is eternal life. John 15:9-11, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, Hebrews 1:1-3, 1 Peter 1:3-12, etc.

2. From what source do we obtain our conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? From the testimony presented in the Scriptures, particularly that of the gospel records. This is our only source of accurate information about Him, See John 17:20, John 20:30-31, Acts 15:7, Acts 17:11-12, etc. Why should me reject the testimony of these competent eye-witnesses, these men who walked and talked and supped with Him, and listen to the quibblings of half-baked professors removed from Him by a span of twenty centuries?

3. Whence do we obtain our convictions respecting the future life and its rewards and retributions? From the testimony of Scripture? From the great and exceeding precious promises of God.

4. Romans 10:17. Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Faith does not come by feeling, nor by a direct operation of the Spirit, nor in answer to prayer, but faith does come by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:6-8, 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

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THE PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH

(Hebrews 11:1-19, esp. Hebrews 11:13)

One of the most illustrious characters of ancient times to whom our attention is called by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people.

Abraham’s life and walk were so eminently motivated by faith, that his name has gone down in sacred history as the Father of the Faithful, and as the Friend of God (Romans 4:17, Galatians 3:29, Isaiah 41:8, 2 Chronicles 20:7, James 2:23).

1. Note, in the first place, that Abraham’s whole life was a pilgrimage of faith.

(1) It was by faith that he first went out from his native home, Ur of the Chaldees. As faith comes from hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17), so he went out in response to God’s command (cf. Genesis 12:1-3). He did not go out in consequence of any urge within himself, but solely in obedience to God. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance (Hebrews 11:8).

(2)* By faith he made his initial pilgrimage from Ur of Chaldea to the land of promise.* As faith is a conviction with respect to things not seen (Hebrews 11:1), he therefore went out not knowing whither he went (Hebrews 11:8). Commenting on this verse, Milligan says: Here we have given the fact that Abraham received a call from God; that by his call he was required to leave his home and kindred in Ur of Chaldea, and go out into a strange land; that this land, though promised to his posterity, was wholly unknown to him at the time; and that he nevertheless obeyed God, and went out of his own country, not knowing whither he went (Milligan, NTCH, in loco.)

(3) By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, etc. It would seem from this that Abraham never regarded Canaan as his home. He knew of course, by faith, that when the Canaanites should have filled up the cup of their iniquity to the full, in the fourth generation, the land would be given to his posterity for an everlasting possession, as indeed it was in the time of Joshua (Genesis 15:12-21). But until that time neither he nor his seed, he realized, had any rights or privileges there beyond what might have been accorded other strangers under like circumstances. (Cf. Acts 7:5). Hence Abraham died without owning a foot of the land other than the cave of Machpelah, which he purchased from Ephron the Hittite for a burying-ground (Genesis 23:3-20); and hence, also, neither he, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, ever established a permanent residence in the country. They were satisfied to live in movable tents, feeling assured that according to the promise, they were to fall heir to a better inheritance than any that is to be found on this earth.

(4) By faith he looked beyond the literal to the spiritual fulfilment of the promise. For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, etc. (Hebrews 11:9-10). From this and other like passages we are constrained to think that God had given the patriarchs information with regard to the heavenly country, far beyond what is now recorded in Genesis or any other part of the Old Testament. What we find there at present was written for our instruction, as well as for the benefit of the ancients (Romans 15:4). But much may have been said to them which would in no way benefit us; and which was, therefore, excluded from the Canon by Moses, Ezra and other inspired writers. The origin of sacrifice, for instance, is nowhere expressly mentioned in the Old Testament; nor is there anything said in it respecting the origin of the Patriarchal priesthood. Information, clear, full, and explicit, on all such matters, was of course needed by the ancients; but for us the more general instructions of the Bible are quite sufficient. And so, also, we think it was with respect to the heavenly country. The Patriarchs seem to have received revelations concerning it which have never been transmitted to us; for it is obvious that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived in constant expectation of entering it at the close of their earthly pilgrimage. They were satisfied to live here as strangers and pilgrims, knowing that they had in heaven a city having permanent foundations whose Architect and Framer is God. This city is manifestly the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:28, Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14), which for the present is located in heaven, but which will hereafter descend to the earth after the latter shall have been renovated by fire (Revelation 21). Then will be fulfilled in its full and proper sense the promise made to Abraham, that he and his seed should be the heirs of the world (Romans 4:13) (Milligan, ibid.).

In the land of fadeless day,

Lies -the city four-square-';

It shall never pass away,

And there is -no night there.-'

God shall -wipe away all tears,-'

There’s no death, no pain nor fears,

And they count not time by years,

For there is -no night there.-'

(5) By faith he anticipated the birth of the child of promise (Hebrews 11:11-12, Galatians 4:23, Genesis 17:15-21; Genesis 18:9-15; Genesis 21:1-7). The miraculous conception and birth of Isaac, typical in respect to its supernaturalness of that of Jesus, were direct fulfilments of the promise of Jehovah which Abraham believed. In this respect Abraham’s faith was even greater than Sarah’S, who, on being told, at ninety years of age and long after she had passed the age of child-bearing, that she should give birth to a son, received the announcement at first with considerable incredulity (Genesis 18:9-15).

(6) By faith he offered up Isaac on Mount Moriah, accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a figure receive him back (Hebrews 11:17-19). Abraham’s faith was such that he knew that the promise of God (Genesis 17:21; Genesis 21:12) could not and would not fail, and as he could not anticipate that God would interfere, as He did, so as to prevent the immolation of his son, there was really left for him no alternative other than simply to conclude that God would restore Isaac to life. This conviction seems to be implied in the remark which he made to his servants, -Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again.-’ The word rendered come again (we will return) is in the plural number, and seems to indicate a belief on the part of Abraham, that God would immediately raise Isaac up again from the dead (Milligan, ibid.) The account of this, the severest trial and consequently the supreme manifestation of Abraham’s faith, is related in Genesis 22:1-14).

(7) Having walked in faith, he likewise died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them and greeted them from afar, etc. What were the promises? (a) That Abraham should have a, numerous offspring (Genesis 13:16; Genesis 15:3-5; Genesis 17:2-4; Genesis 22:16); (b) that God would be a God to him and to his seed after him (Genesis 17:1-8); (c) that He would give to him and his seed an everlasting inheritance (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 13:15; Genesis 15:18-21; Genesis 17:8); (d) that through him and his seed, all the nations of the earth should be blessed (Genesis 2:3; Genesis 22:18). With respect to these four details, Abraham looked beyond their literal to their spiritual fulfilment. To each of these God attached a double significance.. They each consisted, so to speak, of two elements, one of which had reference to the carnal side of the covenant, and the other to the spiritual side; one to the type, and the other to the antitype. Thus Abraham was made the honored father of two families: to each of which an inheritance was promised, and through each of which the world was to be blessed (Milligan, ibid.). Abraham, it would seem, understood all this, understood by faith that the spiritual side of the promise would be realized through his seed, the Messiah, and consequently rejoiced to see his day, and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56). (Cf. Galatians 4:21-31; Galatians 3:6-13, etc.) Hence, he died in faith, knowing that the promise in its various details would be worked out according to God’s eternal purpose and plan. Hence, too, by his constant life and walk of faith, he admitted that he did not seek a home on this earth, that here he considered himself merely a stranger and sojourner, that he did not expect to enter into possession of his true home until he should have reached the end of his pilgrimage and been received into a better country than this, i.e., heaven itself. Wherefore God approved and rewarded the faith of Abraham, and of Isaac and Jacob as well, by preparing for their inhabitation, and for all the redeemed of all ages, a city whose foundations had, even in their day, been laid prospectively in the blood of Jesus Christ (cf. Hebrews 12:22-24).

2. Note, in the second place, that Abraham’s pilgrimage of faith was designed to be typical of the believer’s journey.

(1) A voyage to a distant landsuch is the life of every Christian believer.

Our life is like the hurrying on the eve Before we start on some long journey bound, When fit preparing to the last we leave, Then run to every room the dwelling round, And sigh that nothing needed can be found; Yet go we must, and soon as day shall break; We snatch an hour’s repose; when loud the sound For our departure calls; we rise and take A quick and sad farewell, and go ere well awake.

(2) Here we walk by faith, and not by sight, if we are true Christians. Though in the world, we are not of the world. The worldly spirit deals with things present, but the spirit of faith anticipates the more glorious things to come. The worldly spirit is neither far-reaching nor far-sighted. Its range is bounded by the horizon of time and sense. It has no wings with which to soar into realms invisible. It is of the earth, earthly. Whence comes the manna? why gushes the water from the rock? whither guides the pillar of cloud and fire?these are questions it never asks. It knows not how to soar, how to anticipate and trust and wait, how to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, how to repose under the shadow of His wings, unmindful of the dangers of the wilderness and unalarmed by foes. But the heavenly-minded man walks by faiththat faith which is the substance of things hoped for, and a conviction with respect to things not seen. And, among all the great verities which possess his soul there is none greater, none nobler, none surer, than his conviction with respect to the saints-’ everlasting home. All the circumstances of his present journey, all the remembrances, all his reasonings, all his aspirations, point to a Better Land. By faith he sings:

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign,

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides

And never-withering flowers;

Death, like a narrow sea, divides

This heavenly land from ours.

(3) We realize that as far as this present life is concerned we are but strangers and sojourners on the earth. We dwell in tents, as did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the tabernacles of a night-time. We are here today, and gone tomorrow. There is nothing that we possess here that we can really call our own. All that we shall have in the end is a few square feet of earth in which our mortal remains will be laid away to mingle with the dust. This is not sentimentaityit is plain fact. We can-’t take anything material with us into the next world, for the simple reason that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. No matter how diligently we may toil and strive to accumulate houses and lands and worldly goods, of what value will these things be when we reach the end of the road? We are pilgrims, nothing more, walking by faith in the direction of the heavenly country which we expect to reach beyond the swelling of the Jordan, the country that will truly be, Home, Sweet Home. The true Christian philosophy is expressed by Phoebe Carey in these lines:

One sweetly solemn thought

Comes to me o-’er and o-’er:

I am nearer my home today

Than I have ever been before.

Nearer my Father’s house

Where the many mansions be;

Nearer the great white throne,

Nearer the crystal sea.

Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down;

Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer gaining the crown.

(4) Observation teaches us that much in this life is inequality and injustice. As far as this world alone is concerned, honesty is not always the best policy, Judas fares about as well as John, and Nero quaffs more of the wine of living than Paul. The voice of experience speaks to us that if this life is all, it is scarcely worth the living. In the words of Robert Browning:

Truly there needs be another life to come! If this be all And another life await us not for one, I say, -Tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure, I for one protest Against, and I hurl it back with scorn.

(5) Life as we live it here is largely illusion. (See F. W. Robertson, Sermons, The Illusiveness of Life). Our senses deceive us. They deceive us with respect to distance, shape, and color. That which, afar off, seems to be oval, turns out to be circular when modified by the perspective of distance; that which appears to be a speck, becomes a vast body, on nearer approach. Stand in the middle of a railroad track, and look in either direction, and the rails appear to converge; but they do not actually do so. Look at what we call the horizon and it seems that the earth and sky meet, but they do not actually, meet. The beautiful berry turns out to be bitter and poisonous; that which apparently moves is in reality at rest; that which seems to be stationary is in perpetual motion; the earth moves, but the sun, which appears to be moving, stands still. All experience here is but a correction of life’s illusionsa modification or reversal of the judgment of the senses. Our natural anticipations deceive us. Every human life starts out bright with hopes that will never be realized. These hopes may be different in nature: finer spirits may look on life as an arena for good deeds, while the more selfish regard it as a place only for personal enjoyment; but the results are usually the same. Regardless of the nature of these hopes, the majority will fail of fruition. It would seem almost a satire on life to compare the youth in the outset of his career, flushed and sanguine, with the aspect of the same man when he is nearly done, worn, sobered, covered with the dust of life, confessing that its days have been few and evil. Where is the land flowing with milk and honey? Not on this earth. With our affections it is even worse. Man’s affections are but tabernacles of Canaan, the tents of a nighttime, never the same, always changing. Where are the charms of character, the perfection and purity and truthfulness which seemed so resplendent in our friend? Association has rendered them sordid. They were only our conceptions and they proved false; hence we outgrow friendships. Life as we live it here is an unenjoyable Canaan with nothing real or substantial about it. Our expectations, resting on divine revelation, deceive us. For example, the attitude of the church with respect to the second coming of Christ. The apostles expected Him to return while they were yet here, and the early churches were vitalized by this hope of seeing the great and notable day of the Lord. John, in penning the last words of the New Testament, expressed this hope, Come, Lord Jesus. The church, throughout the centuries of the Christian era, has revived and revitalized this hope many times; in fact it has never died away. And even today, if it should turn out that we who are alive shall remain unto the coming of the Lord, we would consider ourselves fortunate indeed. However, He has not come. He will comebut not as yet. The promise, This Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven, remains unfulfilled. What is the meaning of all this illusiveness of earthly life? Faith replies that it is not delusion, but illusion; that the non-fulfilment of the promises literally, is a pledge of their spiritual fulfilment later; that God, by their very non-realization, lures us onward and upward to nobler things. Suppose, for instance, that the spiritual side of the Abrahamic promise had been revealed to ancient Israel at first; suppose they had been informed at the outset that God’s rest is inward, that the land of promise is to be found only in the Jerusalem which is above; not material, but immaterial; not visible, but invisible. That rude, gross people, yearning after the flesh-pots of Egypt, willing to go back into slavery so only they might have enough to eat and drinkwould they have quitted Egypt on such terms? Would they have taken one step on that pilgrimage which was to find its meaning in the discipline of the ages? Nothey had to be lured on by something visible, something tangible. So we are lured on through life as upon a journey. Could man see the route before hima flat, straight road, unbroken by tree or eminence, with the sun’s heat burning down upon it, stretching out in dreamy monotonyhe could scarcely find either the inclination or the energy with which to begin his journey. It is the very uncertainty of that which is not seen, that which lies just around the bend, that keeps expectation alive. The view we think we may get from yonder summit, the landscape that may be glimpsed as the road winds around yonder knoll, hopes like these beguile the weary traveler on. So our heavenly Father leads us on, educating us day by day, and hour by hour, to walk in faith, ever holding up the seen as an incentive to the unseen. So He deals with us, luring us on by means of life’s unsatisfactory and illusive rewards, ever schooling us in the art of waiting, of enduring as seeing Him who is invisible. Canaan first; then the hope of a Redeemer; and finally the Better Land. It was in this manner that the ancient saints interpreted this mystery of the illusiveness of life. They did not regard life as a dream, nor as a bubble, nor as a delusion. Though they no doubt felt as keenly as any moralist could feel; the brokenness of its promises, yet by faith they pressed on, confessing that they were pilgrims and strangers here, that they had no continuing city, never mournfully moralizing about it, but admitting it cheerfully and even rejoicing that it was so. They felt that all was right; they knew that the promise had a deeper than material significance; so they looked for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. They even died in faith, not having received the promises, not expecting to receive them here, but hereafter. Now observe the glorious result that comes from the indestructible power of believing and continuing on, in spite of apparent failure. The primitive Christians, for instance, believed in their day that the millennium was at hand. They had heard the apostolic warning, brief and clear, to watch. Now suppose, instead of this, they had been able to look into the future and see all the dreary pages of church history unfolded, with its heresies, its apostasy and divisions; suppose they could have known that even after two thousand years the world would scarcely know the alphabet of the Christian religion; knowing all these things, what would have become of their gigantic and heroic efforts, their sacrifices, their persecutions and their martyrdoms? With such knowledge of the future, do you suppose there ever would have been what we consider the heroism, the sacrifice, the passionate zeal of primitive Christianity? It is in this way that God leads His children on, on to realization and achievement through the illusiveness of the past; as a father educates his child, holding up the seen, all the while nurturing the thought of the unseen. Thus we shall continue to the endto that day when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. Thus the non-fulfilment of God’s promises becomes to the man of faith an earnest of their deeper and nobler fulfilment.

(6) Finally, as in Abraham’s case, heaven is the goal of our pilgrimage. We expect to find illusion here, and we expect to find reality hereafter. We know that things here are seen and temporal, and we know, too, that the things we shall enjoy hereafter, the things that are now unseen, will be eternal. Interpreted, then, in the light of faith, life’s illusions are not disappointing; in fact nothing is disappointment if spiritually discerned. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called our God; for he hath prepared for us a city (Hebrews 11:16).

There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar,

For the Father waits over the way,

To prepare us a dwelling-place there.

Just recently Dr. F. B. Meyer, one of England’s greatest preachers, entered into rest. Writing to a friend just three days before his death, this is what he said: Dear Friend: I have just been told, to my surprise, that my days on earth are numbered. It may be that before you receive this letter, I shall have passed within the Palace of the King. Do not trouble to write. I will meet you in the morning. Yours, with much love, F. B. Meyer. I will meet you in the morningwithin the palace of the King. This is Christian faith. This is conviction. Death isn-’t the end, it is the beginning, the beginning of greater growth, greater progress, greater service, and greater joy. As Louise Chandler Moulton has written:

At the end of Love, at the end of Life, At the end of Hope, at the end of Strife, At the end of all that we cling to so The sun is settingmust we go?

At dawn of Love, at Dawn of Life, At dawn of Peace that follows Strife, At dawn of all we long for so The sun is rising*let us go!

Conclusion:* Wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city. This is the promise! And God keeps His promises!

How beautiful to be with God,

When earth is fading like a dream,

And from this mist-encircled shore

To launch upon the unknown stream!

No doubt, no fear, no anxious care,

But, comforted by staff and rod,

In the faith-brightened hour of death,

How beautiful to be with God.

Beyond the partings and the pains,

Beyond the sighing and the tears,

Oh, beautiful to be with God

Through all the endless, blessed years

To see His face, to hear His voice,

To know Him better day by day,

And love Him as the flowers love light,

And serve Him as immortals may.

My sinner friend, will you not turn now, and start upon your pilgrimage of faith?

Genesis 29:1-12

**PART FORTY-ONE

THE STORY OF JACOB: HIS EXPERIENCES IN PADDAN-ARAM**

(Genesis 29:1 to Genesis 31:16)

*The Biblical Account

1. Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the children of the east. 2 And he looked, and, behold, a well in the field, and, lo, three flocks of sheep lying there by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks: and the stone upon the well’s mouth was great. And thither were all the flocks gathered: and they rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well’s mouth in its place. And Jacob said unto them, My brethren, whence are ye? And they said, Of Haran are we. 5 And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him. 6 And he said unto them, Is it well with him? And they said, It is well: and, behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep. 7 And he said, Lo, it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together; water ye the sheep, and go and feed them. 8 And they said, We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered together, and they roll the stone from the well’s mouth; then we water the sheep. 9 While he was yet speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep; for she kept them. 10 And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. 11 And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. 12 And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother, and that he was Rebekah’s son: and she ran and told her father. 13 And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister’s son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. And he told Laban all these things. 14 And Laban said to him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him the space of a month. 15 And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages be? 16 And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel, 17 And Leah’s eyes were tender; but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored. 18 And Jacob loved Rachel; and he said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. 19 And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me. 20 And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. 21 And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that 1 may go in unto her. 22 And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. 23 And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her. 24 And Laban gave Zilpah his handmaid unto his daughter Leah for a handmaid.* 25 *And it came to pass in the morning that, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? 26 And Laban said, It is not so done in our place, to give the younger before the firstborn. 27 Fulfil the week of this one, and we will give thee the other also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. 28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife. 29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah, his handmaid to be her handmaid. 30 And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.

31 And Jehovah saw that Leah was hated, and he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. 32 And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Because Jehovah hath looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me. 33 And she conceived again, and bare a son: and said, Because Jehovah hath heard that I am hated, he hath therefore given me this son also: and she called his name Simeon. 34 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have borne him three sons: therefore was his name called Levi. 35 And she conceived again, and bare a son: and she said, This time will 1 praise Jehovah: therefore she called his-’ name Judah; and she left off bearing.

1. And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and she said unto Jacob, Give me children or else I die. 2 And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? 3 And she said, Behold, my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; that she may bear upon my knees, and I also may obtain children by her. 4 And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her.* 5 *And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a Song of Solomon 6 And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Daniel 7 And Bilhah Rachel’s handmaid conceived again, and bare Jacob a second Song of Solomon 8 And Rachel said, With mighty wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed: and she called his name Naphtali.

9 When Leah saw that she had left off bearing, she took Zilpah her handmaid, and gave her to Jacob to wife, 10 And Zilpah Leah’s handmaid bare Jacob a son, 11 And Leah said, Fortunate! and she called his name Gad, 12 And Zilpah Leah’s handmaid bare Jacob a second son. 13 And Leah said, Happy am I! for the daughters will call me happy: and she called his name Asher. 14 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son’s mandrakes. 15 And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken away my husband? and wouldest thou take away my sons-’ mandrakes also) And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to-night for thy son’s mandrakes. 16 And Jacob came from the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me; for I have surely hired thee with my son’s mandrakes. And he lay with her that night 17 And God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived and bare Jacob a fifth son. 18 And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I gave my handmaid to my husband: and she called his name Issachar. 19 And Leah conceived again, and bare a sixth son to Jacob. 20 And Leah said, God hath endowed me with a good dowry; now will my husband dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons: and she called his name Zebulun. 21 and afterwards she bare a daughter, and called her name Dinah. 22 And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb. 23 And she conceived, and bare a son: and said, Goth hath taken away my reproach: 24 and she called his name Joseph, saying, Jehovah add to me another son.

25 And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country. 26 Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served thee, and let me go: for thou knowest my service wherewith I have served thee. 27 And Laban said unto him, If now I have found favor in thine eyes, tarry: for I have divined that Jehovah hath blessed me for thy sake. 28 And he said, Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it. 29 And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy cattle have fared with me. 30 For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it hath increased unto a multitude; and Jehovah hath blessed thee whithersoever I turned: and now when shall I prove for mine own house also? 31 And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me aught: if thou wilt do this thing for me, I will again feed thy flock and keep it. 32 I will pass through all thy flock to-day, removing from thence, every speckled and spotted one, and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire. 33 So shall my righteousness answer for me hereafter, when thou shalt come concerning my hire that is before thee: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and black among the sheep, that, if found with me, shall be counted stolen. 34 And Laban said, Behold, 1 would it might be according to thy word. 35 And he removed that day the he-goats that were ringstreaked and spotted, and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons: 36 and he set three days-’ journey betwixt himself and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks. 37 And Jacob took him rods of fresh poplar, and of the almond and of the plane-tree; and peeled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. 38 And he set the rods which he had peeled over against the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs where the flocks came to drink; and they conceived when they came to drink. 39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth ring-streaked, speckled, and spotted. 40 And Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstreaked and all the black in the flock of Laban: and he put his own droves apart, and put them not unto Laban’s flock. 41 And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger of the flock did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the flock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods; 42 but when the flock were feeble, he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban’S, and the stronger Jacob’S. 43 And the man increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, and maid-servants and men-servants, and camels and asses.

1. And he heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, Jacob hath taken away all that was our father’S; and of that which was our father’s hath he gotten all this glory. 2 And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold it was not toward him as beforetime. 3 And Jehovah said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee. 4 And Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field unto his flock, 5 and said unto them, I see your father’s countenance, that it is not toward me as be foretime; but the God of my father hath been with me. 6 And ye know that with all my power I have served your father. 7 And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me. 8 If he said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the flock bare speckled; and if he said thus, The ringstreaked shall be thy wages; then bare all the flock ringstreaked. 9 Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me. 10 And it came to pass at the time that the flock conceived, that I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold, the he-goats which leaped upon the flock were ringstreaked, speckled, and grizzled. 11 And the angel of God said unto me in the dream, Jacob: and I said, Here am I. 12 And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see: all the he-goats which leap upon the flock are ring streaked, speckled, and grizzled: for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. 13 I am the God of Beth-el, where thou anointedst a pillar, where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy nativity. 14 And Rachel and Leah answered and said unto him, Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house? 15 Are we not accounted by him as foreigners? for he hath sold us, and hath also quite devoured our money. 16 For all the riches, which God hath taken away from our father, that is ours and our children’S: now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do.*

2. Jacob’s Meeting with Rachel (Genesis 29:1-12). (1) Note that Jacob went on his journey: literally, he lifted up his feet: a graphic description of traveling. Inspired by new hopes and conscious of loftier aims than when he fled from Beersheba, the lonely fugitive departed from Bethel (PCG, 356). After the night of the dream-vision, Jacob resumed his way with a light heart and elastic step; for tokens of the Divine favor tend to quicken the discharge of duty (Nehemiah 8:10) (Jamieson, CECG, 201). (2) The land of the children of the east. His destination was Paddan-Aram (in the A.S.V. and the R.S.V., Padan-Aram in the A.V.), the homeland of Rebekah (Genesis 25:20), and the abode of Laban (Genesis 28:2-7), called the field of Aram by Hosea (Hosea 12:12; A.V., country of Syria). Arabia, Mesopotamia, and the entire region beyond the Euphrates, are by the Bible writers included under the general designation, the East (cf. Job 1:3, Judges 6:3, 1 Kings 4:30). In the present instance, Mesopotamia is the country especially referred to. Paddan-Aram was a district of Mesopotamia; it is described as the large plain surrounded by mountains, in which the town of Haran was situated. This region was closely associated with the history of the ancient Hebrew people, Abraham’s family had settled there, and thither the patriarch sent his steward, Eliezer, to secure a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24:10 ff; Genesis 25:20), and now we find Jacob going there to find a wife (and secondarily to escape the revenge threatened by Esau his brother). (3) The well of Haran. On arriving in the area, Jacob came upon a well in the field, that is, in the open field for the use of flocks, and covered at the time of his arrival with a huge stone: and, lo, three flocks of sheep were lying there by it, This, we are told, was a rather common Oriental scene (cf. Genesis 24:11, Exodus 2:16). This well in the open country evidently was distinct from the well at which Eliezer’s caravan halted. The latter was a well used by the village maidens, situated in front of the town, and approached by steps (cf. Genesis 24:16), but this was in the open field for use primarily by the flocks, and at the time of Jacob’s arrival was covered with a huge stone.

There is a rude etiquette (in the Eastern country) which requires the chiefs to be foremost in all hardships which they and their followers encounter. So also the fact that Laban’s daughters were keeping the flocks, and Jacob’s mother carrying water from the well, and other similar examples, do not contradict the customs of wealthy Eastern shepherds. And who that has traveled much in this country has not often arrived at a well in the heat of the day which was surrounded by numerous flocks of sheep waiting to be watered. I once saw such a scene in the burning plains of northern Syria. Half-naked, fierce-looking men were drawing up water in leather buckets; flock after flock was brought up, watered, and went away; and after all the men had ended their work, then several women and girls brought up their flocks and drew water for them. Thus it was with Jethro’s daughters when Moses stood up and aided them; and thus, no doubt, it would have been with Rachel, if Jacob had not rolled away the stone and watered her sheep. I have frequently seen wells closed up with large stones, though in this part of the country it is not commonly done, because water is not so scarce and precious. It is otherwise, however, in the dreary deserts. Cisterns are very generally covered over with a large slab, having a round hole in it large enough to let down the leather bucker or earthen jar. Into this hole a heavy stone is thrust, often such as to require the united strength of two or three shepherds to remove. The same is seen occasionally over wells of -living water-’; but where they are large and the supply abundant no such precaution is needed. It was either at one of these cisterns, or less abundant and more precious wells, that Jacob met Rachel; and being a stout man, nearly seventy years of age, he was able to remove the stone and water the flock (Thomson, LB, 589). There is nothing in this story to indicate that the city of Haran was within proximity of this well: as a matter of fact, when Jacob accosted the shepherds, he learned that they had come from Haran. (It should be noted here that the distance which Jacob had traveled, from Bethel to this spot, was some 400 miles: this might rightly be called the spatial gap between the first two verses of this chapter.) Evidently Laban was not a city-dweller, but a nomad sheik; the life that is depicted here is everywhere that of the desert.

Jacob then inquired of the shepherds whether they knew Laban the son of Nahor, i.e., the grandson, Laban’s father having been Bethuel, who, however, here, as in ch. 24, remains in the background, at least is passed over as a person of no importance in the family (cf. Genesis 24:53; Genesis 24:55). By inquiry of the shepherds, Jacob learned that his relatives in the vicinity of Haran were well. This prompted him to inquire of these shepherds why they were idling there during the best part of the day, instead of watering their flocks and sending them back to pasture. Jacob’s object evidently was to get these shepherds out of the way, in order that his introduction to his fair cousin might take place in private, and the conversation relative to their respective families might not be heard by strangers (Jamieson, CECG, 202; also Lange, Murphy, Keil). Or was his attitude here due to the prudent and industrious habit of mind which shone forth so conspicuously in himself and which instinctively caused him to frown upon laziness and inactivity (Starke, Bush, Kalisch)? From the middle of Gen 29:2 the words are parenthetical, the watering of the flocks not having taken place till Rachel had arrived (Genesis 29:9)and Jacob had uncovered the well (Genesis 29:10) (Whitelaw, PCG, 356). The shepherds replied: We cannot, until, etc., Genesis 29:8: in order to prevent the consequences of too frequent exposure in places where water is scarce, it is not only covered and secured, but it is customary to have all the flocks collected around the well before the covering is removed in the presence of the owner, or one of his representatives; and it was for this reason that those who were reposing at the well of Haran with the three flocks were waiting the arrival of Rachel (CECG, 202), Jacob is puzzled by the leisurely ways of these Eastern herdsmen, whom he ironically supposes to have ceased work for the day. He is soon to show them how things should be done, careless of the conventions which they plead as an excuse (ICCG, 382). The content of Chapter s 29, 30, 31, put Jacob in the important years of his life, learning in the school of experience.

Genesis 29:9Note well Rachel the shepherdess (cf. Exodus 2:16). It is customary among the Arabs of Sinai, that the virgin daughters drive the herds to the pasture. Thus Jacob had reached his objective at or near Haran, and another famous and much-loved Biblical romance that the reader must read for himself gets under way (Kraeling, BA, 83). When Jacob saw Rachel for the first time, he rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the flock which she was shepherding. As this was a stone of no slight dimensions, how account for Jacob’s strength? Surely the speculation advanced by Dillman, Gunkel, et al, that this was a feat of strength which belonged to a more primitive legend, in which Jacob figured as a giant (cf. Genesis 32:26) is utterly absurd. As Rachel came up in the meantime, he [Jacob] was so carried away by the feelings of relationship, possibly by a certain love at first sight, that he rolled the stone away from the well, watered her flock, and after kissing her, introduced himself as her cousin (brother, i.e., relation of her father) and Rebekah’s son. What the other shepherds thought of all this, is passed over as indifferent to the purpose of the narrative, and the friendly reception of Jacob by Laban is related immediately afterwards (BCOTP, 285). The strong impression that the beautiful Rachel made upon her cousin Jacob is manifested in two ways. He thinks himself powerful enough to roll the stone from the mouth of the cistern out of love to her, and disregards the possibility that the trial might fail. At the same time, too, he boldly disregards the common rule of the shepherds present. Rachel’s appearance made him eager, as formerly Rebekah’s appearance even the old Eliezer, when he took out the bracelets before he knew her. The power of beauty is also recognized here upon sacred ground. Tuch thinks that the united exertion of the shepherds would have been necessary, and the narrative, therefore, boasts of a Samson-like strength in Jacob. But there is a difference between Samson-like strength and the heroic power inspired by love (Lange, CDHCG, 528). To this Gosman adds (ibid,) Perhaps, however, there was mingling with this feeling the joy which naturally springs from finding himself among his kindred, after the long, lonely and dangerous journey through the desert. A great stone was over the well where the sheep were watered, and the men who were there were waiting for other shepherds to come and help them roll it aside: but Jacob went and rolled it aside himself. Why? Because he had met Rachel; and in contact with Rachel, Jacob from the first moment was a different man (Bowie, IBG, 697). What of the fact that Jacob rolls away singlehanded a stone which required the united efforts of the rest? That is to be explained partly by the fact that he was naturally very strong, then partly by a mixture of two facts: his joy at finding his kinfolks and his joy at finding such a pretty cousin stirs him greatly and makes him strong. It may be that we have here a Biblical instance of love at first sight, although even that had more fitly find mention in connection with the next verse. But to talk only of that love and to make Jacob act like a young fellow who tries to impress his ladylove* by feats of strength is just a bit shallow by way of interpretation. Life, here, as usual, was rather a complex of various motives that surged strongly in Jacob’s heart. The text by its threefold repetition of the phrase, -of his mother’s brother Laban,-’ shows on what his thoughts dwell at the moment. It has remained for Gunkel and men of his type to ascribe to the narrative the attempt to make out Jacob to be a man of Herculean strength, a gigantic fellowfabulous elements in the story. Such conclusions in reference to Jacob are, to say the least, most fantastic and far-fetched (Leupold, EG, 788). (Note here, Genesis 29:10, the threefold use of the phrase, his mother’s brother. Was this repetition for the purpose of putting the greatest possible stress on the fact that Jacob had met with his own relatives, with his bone and his flesh (Genesis 29:14)? The threefold repetition of this phrase does not prove that Jacob acted in all this purely as a cousin. The phrase is the historian’S, and Jacob had not yet informed Rachel of his name (PCG, 357). According to the practice in Eastern lands, the term brother is extended to include such degrees of relationship as those of uncle, cousin, or nephew. In Genesis 29:12, for instance, brother is equal to nephew: cf. Genesis 14:16; Genesis 24:48).

Rachel’s appearance on the scene stirs Jacob emotionally to the depths of his soul, and so impels him to roll away the stone, water the sheep, and then kiss the young woman and burst into tears, Genesis 29:11. Was this just a cousinly demonstration of affection? We can hardly think so. Allowing for the fact that in those days, among a different people, a kiss of cousins was a proper greeting, there is little doubt that Rachel was taken quite unawares; and may well have been astonished, for as yet she knew nothing of this strong shepherd’s identity. The more natural procedure would have been to explain first who he was, then to give the kiss of greeting. The reverse of the procedure indicates how his glad emotions ran away with him. No man will determine how much of this emotion was plain joy at seeing a cousin and how much incipient love for pretty Rachel, and Jacob himself, perhaps, at the moment would have been least able to make an accurate analysis of what his heart actually felt at the occasion. We can hardly go wrong in claiming to detect a trace of love at first sight (EG, 788). The threefold expression, mother’s brother, Genesis 29:10, shows that he acted thus as cousin (rolling the stone from the well’s mouth, etc.). As such he was allowed to kiss Rachel openly, as a brother his sister (Son 8:1 [Knobel]). Yet his excitement betrays him even here, since he did not make known his relationship with her until afterwards (Lange, CDHCG, 528). Moreover, the strength of his emotion caused him to lift up his voice and weep, that is, to weep openly, to burst into tears, not a dishonorable or unmanly thing for the Oriental then or now, for he is a man inclined to make a greater display of his emotions (EG, 789). Jacob wept, partly for joy at finding his relatives (cf. Genesis 43:30; Genesis 45:2; Genesis 45:14-15); partly in grateful acknowledgement of God’s kindness in conducting him to his mother’s brother’s house (PCG, 357). Note the Jewish traditions concerning this experience of Jacob: and wept. That he had not been fortunate enough to marry her in his youth (Sforno). Because he foresaw through the Holy Spirit that she would not be buried with him. Another reason is, because he came to her destitute, unlike Eliezer who had come for his mother laden with riches. The reason for his state of destitution was, Eliphaz, Esau’s son pursued him to slay him on his father’s orders; but overcome with pity he refrained, yet being unable to disobey his father, he compromised on Jacob’s suggestion, by taking all that he had, since -a poor man is regarded as dead-’ (Rashi) (SC, 169). (These assumptions strike the present writer as hitting a new high in absurdity). We must agree with Skinner that Jacob wept aloud -after the demonstrative fashion of the Orient,-’ tears of joy at the happy termination of his journey (ICCG, 382). The following description of the scene seems to be complete and accurate: The encounter between Jacob and the local shepherds is a model of effective characterization. The traveler is excited and talkative after his long journey, whereas the herdsmen are composed, almost taciturn: they act as if each word were just too much trouble. True to an ageless pattern, the prospective suitor is inspired to a display of superhuman prowess at the very first sight of Rachel. He also appears to be more affectionate than one would think proper under the circumstances. Yet Jacob’s impulsive kissa detail that Calvin attributed to a redactional slip on the part of Moses (cf. von Rad)need not to have been out of tune with the mores of the times. We know from the Nuzi records, which so often mirror conditions in the Har (r) an areaand hence also in the patriarchal circlethat women were subject to fewer formal restraints than was to be the norm later on in the Near East as a whole (ABG, 223). At this point in the story Jacob revealed his identity to Rachel and she ran and told her father. When the identity of Jacob is revealed to Rachel, she makes haste to impart the welcome news to her father, not like Rebekah to her mother. In fact, Rebekah’s mother is not even mentioned in these narratives and may already have been dead (EG, 789).

Review Questions

See Genesis 31:1-16.

Genesis 29:13-30

2. Jacob’s Double Marriage (Genesis 29:13-30).

The Meeting with Laban. When Laban heard of Jacob’s presence, he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. That Jacob made the whole journey on foot might have caused suspicion in the mind of Laban. But he is susceptible of nobler feelings, as is seen from the subsequent narration (Genesis 31:24), although he is generally governed by selfish motives (Lange, CDHCG, 528). Skinner is not so lenient: The effusive display of affection, perhaps not wholly disinterested, is characteristic of Laban, cf. Genesis 24:29 ff. (ICCG, 382). And Jacob told Laban all these things, that is, all the matters related in Chapter s 27 and 28: if Jacob came as a godly man and one repentant of his recent deceit, as we have every reason to believe that he was, then he could not do otherwise than relate the direct and the more remote reasons for his coming (EG, 790). At any rate, the recital conveyed to Laban full proof of the newcomer’s identity, eliciting his response, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. The relation as acknowledged by Laban here could hardly have been anything more than blood relationship (consanguinity). And so Jacob abode with Laban the space of a month. By this time, in all likelihood, Laban had discerned that in Jacob he would have a very competent shepherd. No doubt Jacob began to serve in this capacity at once. His faithfulness and industry were immediately apparent. A measure of selfishness enters into Laban’s proposal without a doubt. But most likely it is a compound of honest and selfish motives. The good features in it are that he wishes to bind a relative to himself, especially as this relative is unusually competent. Besides, he wants to arrive at a definite understanding as soon as possible in order to obviate future misunderstandings. Furthermore, it behooves him as the elder to steer toward a definite agreement, Each of these good motives had an admixture of selfishness, for Laban was basically a selfish and a tricky man. No doubt, he was planning to gain this competent young man as a son-in-law. Laban must have anticipated the proposal that was actually made. Perhaps Laban had noticed that Jacob had fallen violently in love, and now Laban hoped that if he let Jacob set the terms, Jacob’s newborn love would incline to make a generous proposal (EG, 791-792). It must be noted too that Jacob in explaining the cause of his journey (Genesis 29:13) must have explained how it was that his poor appearance had come about, in view of the fact that he was the son of the rich Isaac.

We now discover that Laban had two daughters, the elder named Leah, and the younger Rachel. We are told that Leah’s eyes were weak, that is, lacking the lustre (fire) regarded as the height of beauty in Oriental women. Eyes which are not clear and lustrous: to the Oriental, but especially to the Arabian, black eyes, full of life and fire, clear and expressive, dark eyes, are considered the principal part of female beauty. Such eyes he loves to compare with those of the gazelle (Lange, ibid., p. 528). Leah’s eyes were tender, but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored, beautiful as to her form, and beautiful as to her countenance: thus the passage indirectly says that Leah’s form was beautiful. We are told now unequivocally - that Jacob loved Rachel; hence, not being in a position to pay the purchase price (the customary dowry, or presents), he offered to serve Laban seven years for her. (We must remember also that his situation with respect to Esau compelled him to remain for some time with Laban). The assent on the part of Laban cannot be accounted for from the custom of selling daughters to husbands, for it cannot be shown that the purchase of wives was a general custom at that time; but is to be explained solely on the ground of Laban’s selfishness and avarice, which came out still more plainly afterwards (BCOTP, 285-286). It must be recalled, however, that the bestowing of costly presents on the prospective bride and her parents was a custom of the time (cf. Eliezer and Rebekah and her parents, Genesis 24:53). So it was that Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. The inspired writer tells us that Laban agreed to Jacob’s proposal on the ground that he would rather give Rachel to him (even though this would be giving the younger first?) than to a stranger; a custom, we are told, that still prevails among the Bedouins, the Druses, and other Eastern tribes. A perfectly worthless excuse for if this had really been the custom in Haran as in ancient India and elsewhere, he ought to have told Jacob before (BCOTP, 286). As to the particular term of seven years, it seems to have been regarded in early times as a full and complete period of service (cf. Exodus 21:2). Even after betrothal, the intercourse of the parties is restricted. The Arabs will not allow them to see each other, but the Hebrews were not so stringent, nor, perhaps, the people in Mesopotamia. At all events, with Jacob the time went rapidly away; for even severe and difficult duties become light when love is the spring of action (CECG, 203).

Laban’s Deceit. When the time of service was fulfilled, Jacob asked for his reward, that is, the woman he loved. Now Laban’s character begins to unfold itself as that of a man ostensibly actuated by the most honorable motives, but at heart a selfish schemer, always ready with some plausible pretext for his nefarious conduct (cf. Genesis 29:19; Genesis 29:26). His apparently generous offer proves a well-laid trap for Jacob, whose love for Rachel has not escaped the notice of his shrewd kinsman.. Laban proceeds to the execution of his long meditated coup. He himself arranges the marriage feast (cf. Judges 14:10), inviting all the men of the place, with a view doubtless to his self-exculpation (Genesis 29:26). The substitution of Leah for Rachel was rendered possible by the custom of bringing the bride to the bridegroom veiled (Genesis 24:65). To have thus gotten rid of the unprepossessing Leah for a handsome price, and to retain his nephew’s services for another seven years (Genesis 29:27) was a master-stroke of policy in the eyes of a man like Laban (Skinner, ICCG, 383). (Note again Genesis 24:65. Does this mean that Rebekah set this fashion for brides in the patriarchal households? The law of proper clothing under the Mosaic Law is found in Deuteronomy 22:5). When Jacob protested indignantly this deception which his uncle had perpetrated, the latter hid behind the specious rationalization, To give the younger before the first-born is not done in our place, that is, in our society: a clear case in which that which was legally right was at the same time morally wrong: the wrong was not in the fact but in the deception. (In SC, p. 171, Genesis 29:26 here is explained thus: The people here would not let me keep my word, Rashi). It should be noted, in this connection, that Jacob had been very explicit in this matter Genesis 29:18, but to no avail, Jacob was so very explicit because he knew Laban’s cunning, Therefore he did not say simply, -Rachel,-’ but -Rachel thy daughter.-’ Nor could Laban deceive him by changing Leah’s name to Rachel: it must be -thy younger daughter.-’ But it was of no avail; Laban deceived him after all (SC, 170), But Laban had no scruples about driving even a harder bargain, Genesis 29:27-28: Fulfil the seven days of the wedding festival for Leah, said he, and we will give thee (then the townspeople will agree) the other also, that is, Rachel, with the understanding that you will serve me yet another seven years. For the bridegroom to break up the festivities would, of course, be a gross breach of decorum, and Jacob has no alternative but to fall in with Laban’s new proposal and accept Rachel on his terms (ICCG, 384). To satisfy Jacob he promised to give him Rachel in a week if he would serve him seven years longer. To this Jacob consented, and eight days later Jacob was wedded to the woman he loved (UBG, 638). Laban may have proposed this to satisfy Jacob, but he certainly did not lose anything by the deal. Laban’s success is for the moment complete; but in the alienation of both his daughters, and their fidelity to Jacob at a critical time (Genesis 31:14 ff.), he suffered a just retribution for the unscrupulous assertion of his paternal rights (ICCG, 384).

Vv. 21-30: Jacob is betrayed into marrying Leah, and on consenting to serve another seven years obtains Rachel also. He claims his expected reward when due. 22-24: Made a feast. The feast in the house of the bride’s father seems to have lasted seven days, at the close of which the marriage was completed. But the custom seems to have varied according to the circumstances of the bridegroom. Jacob had no house of his own to which to conduct the bride. In the evening: when it was dark. The bride was also closely veiled, so that it was easy for Laban to practise this piece of deceit. A handmaid. It was customary to give the bride a handmaid, who became her confidential servant (Genesis 24:59; Genesis 24:61). 25-27: In the morning Jacob discovers that Laban has overreached him. This is the first retribution Jacob experiences for the deceitful practices of his former days. He expostulates with Laban, who pleads the custom of the country. It is still the custom not to give the younger in marriage before the older, unless the latter be deformed or in some way defective. It is also not unusual to practise the very same trick that Laban now employed, if the suitor is so simple as to be off his guard. Jacob, however, did not expect this at his relative’s hands, though he had himself taken part in proceedings equally questionable. Fulfil the week of this. If this was the second day of the feast celebrating the nuptials of Leah, Laban requests him to complete the week, and then he will give him Rachel also. If, however, Leah was fraudulently put upon him at the close of the week of feasting, then Laban in these words proposes to give Rachel to Jacob on fulfilling another week of nuptial rejoicing. The latter is in the present instance more likely. In either case the marriage of Rachel is only a week after that of Leah. 28-30: Rather than lose Rachel altogether, Jacob consents to comply with Laban’s terms. Rachel was the wife of Jacob’s affections and intentions. The taking of a second wife in the lifetime of the first was contrary to the law of nature, which designed one man for one woman (Genesis 2:21-25). But the marrying of a sister-in-law was not yet incestuous, because no law had yet been made on the subject. Laban gives a handmaid to each of his daughters. To Rebekah his sister had been given more than one (Genesis 24:61). Bondslaves had been in existence long before Laban’s time (Genesis 16:1). And loved also Rachel more than Leah. This proves that even Leah was not unloved. At the time of his marriage Jacob was eighty-four years of age; which corresponds to half that age according to the present average of human life (Murphy, MG, 393).

Was this a case of what is known as beena marriage, that is, one in which the husband becomes a member of the wife’s kin? Generally speaking, the narrative as a whole does not support the view that it was. Jacob did, of course, attach himself in a way to Laban’s household; however, it does not follow that the former did not set up a house of his own. His remaining with Laban was due to his inability to pay the bridal gift otherwise than by personal service. As soon as the contract expired (by fulfilment) Jacob pleaded his right to provide for his own house (Genesis 30:30). On the other hand, Laban certainly claimed the right to detain his daughters and to continue treating them as members of his own family (Genesis 31:26; Genesis 31:43). It is doubtful, however, that the claim was more than an extreme assertion of the right of a powerful family to protect its female relatives even after marriage. Concerning the dowry (Heb. mohar, price paid for a wife: Genesis 34:12, Exodus 22:17, 1 Samuel 18:25; zebed, a gift, Genesis 30:20): In arranging for marriage, as soon as the parental consent was obtained, the suitor gave the bride a betrothal or bridal gift, as well as presents to her parents and brothers. In more ancient times the bride received a portion only in exceptional cases (Joshua 15:18; Joshua cf., 1 Kik Genesis 9:16). The opinion that the Israelites were required to buy their wives from the parents or relatives seems to be unfounded. The mohar in the Old Testament was not -purchase money,-’ but the bridal gift which the bridegroom, after receiving the bride’s assent, gave to her, not to the parents or kinsfolk (UBD, 274). In early O.T. times wives were selected for sons by the heads of tribes or families, as Abraham for Isaac (Genesis 25:20), Isaac for Jacob (Genesis 28:6). Betrothal was effected by the payment of the mohar (usually 50 shekels) to the father of the prospective bride, not as a purchase price, but as a compensation for the loss of the daughter (Genesis 34:12, 1 Samuel 18:25); by the presentation of substantial gifts to the girl (Genesis 34:12, Exodus 21:7; Exodus 22:15-17; Deuteronomy 22:28 ff.; Rth 4:5; Rth 4:10); or by the groom’s agreeing to serve the bride’s father for a period of time, as Jacob served Laban for Leah and Rachel (Genesis 29:18; Genesis 29:20; Genesis 29:25; Genesis 29:30). The bride often brought considerable means to the new home, e.g., Abigail (1 Samuel 25:42). The recently discovered Eshnunna Law Code current in Babylon probably 3800 years ago (the oldest law code yet known) required the payment of -bride money-’ by the prospective groom, and a refund of the same plus 20% interest in case the bride died (HBD, 421). It should be noted that the marriage of both sisters to Jacob took place about the same time; evidently such a connection was then permissible, although later prohibited (Leviticus 18:18). We find in this narrative, not only bigamy, but polygamy, and polygamy on a larger scale than has hitherto appeared in Genesis, These marriages, however, are not to be judged by the rules of the Christian, or even if the Mosaic, code of morality. For although the will of the Creator was sufficiently indicated by the union of a single pair at first, a clear definite marriage law, specifying the prohibited degrees of consanguinity had not been enacted, and the idea of incest, therefore, must be excluded (CECG, 203).

The Problem of Polygamy. According to Scripture, marriage is a divinely ordained institution, designed to form a permanent union between the male and female, i.e., the conjugal union, which is the basis of all social order. (Genesis 1:27-28; Matthew 5:32; Matthew 19:9). The physiological sex union in marriage has a twofold function: procreative, to reproduce the species, and unitive, to enhance the intimacy of the conjugal union. Because the human infant is the most helpless, and the most helpless for the longest time, by comparison with animal offspring, it stands in greater need of parental protection, affection and training; hence the permanent monogamous relation that provides for the satisfaction of all these essential human needs, both of children and parents, is obviously the divinely ordained relationship, as the Bible clearly teaches. However, at an early period the original law as made known to our first parents was violated, and the familial institution corrupted, by the degeneracy of their descendants, and concubinage and polygamy became rather common (cf. Genesis 4:19-24). The patriarchs themselves took more than one wife. Abraham, at Sarah’s prompting took her maid as his subordinate wife, and later a second wife, Keturah. Jacob was inveigled, through Laban’s duplicity, to take Leah first, and then Rachel, to whom he had been betrothed, as wives; and later, through the rivalry of the two sisters, he took both of their handmaids and begat sons by them. From these facts it has been inferred that polygamy was not wrong in ancient times, nor at all opposed to the divine law as revealed to the Jews. But this is an unwarranted conclusion. It is true, indeed, respect being had to the state of religious knowledge, and the rude condition of society, and the views prevalent in the world, that the practice could not infer, in the case of individuals, the same amount of criminality as would necessarily adhere to it now, amid the clear light of Gospel times. But still all along it was a departure from the divine law.. Christ taught the divine origin and sacredness of this institution. It is more than filial duty; it is unifying; the husband and wife become one through the purity and intensity of mutual love; common interests are necessitated by common affection (Matthew 19:5-6, Ephesians 5:31); only one single ground for divorce is lawful (Matthew 19:9) (UBD, 697-701). That ground is, of course, unfaithfulness to the marriage vow (Matthew 5:32; Matthew 19:9). Departures from the original standard, even under the Old Testament, were tolerated, but never with God’s complete approval (cf. Acts 17:30, Matthew 19:8). The Mosaic law aimed at mitigating, rather than removing evils which were inseparable from the state of society in that day. Its enactments were directed: (1) to the discouragement of polygamy; (2) to obviate the injustice frequently consequent upon the exercise of the rights of a father or a master; (3) to bring divorce under some restriction; and (4) to enforce purity of life during the maintenance of the matrimonial bond (UBG, 697). (For all aspects of the problems of the dowry, marriage, concubinage, divorce, etc., the reader is referred to Unger’s Bible Dictionary, in the opinion of the present writer, one of the most comprehensive and reliable in its field.

Genesis 29:30Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. There can be little doubt that this affection for Rachel was truly love at first sight, and love of the most ardent kind. However, it is not a matter of surprise to learn that Rachel should occupy a place in his affection far above that of her sister, who, after all, must have been a willing accomplice in the treacherous plot to trap him into a marriage with her, Subsequent developments seem to establish the fact that Leah was more than willing to become Jacob’s bride. As a matter of fact, her affection for him seems to have engendered a rivalry between the two sisters to be instrumental in providing for Jacob a numerous progeny. Jacob’s love for Rachel, on the other hand, is rightly described as more like what is read in the pages of romance than what is paralleled in real life.

Jacob Suffers Retributive Justice. We have here an illustration of how a man must reap as he has sown. The deceit which Jacob practiced on Esau was returned to him by Laban, who practiced the same kind of deceit. For all of that, however, Jacob was under the covenant care of God and did not come out a loser in the end. Yet in later years Jacob’s own sons practiced on him a similar form of deceit in connection with Joseph’s abduction (Genesis 37:32-36) (HSB, 48). V. 23Leah being veiled, as ch. Genesis 24:65, and it being dark, Jacob could not discern the fraud. Thus he who beguiled his brother, and imposed on his dimsighted father, was now, in like manner, beguiled himself. Genesis 29:25By bitter experience Jacob was now taught how painful, how harrowing, to the feelings of others, was the cunning and duplicity which he himself had practised on his father and brother. From this moment to the day of his death he continued to be the victim of deception and falsehood. Retributive justice seems to have followed him until, in God’s providence, it completely purified him (SIBG, 262). Laban’s deception in first palming off Leah on Jacob instead of giving him Rachel, whom he wanted to marry, was the first retribution Jacob experienced for the deceitful practises of his former days. He had, through fraud and cunning, secured the place and blessing of Esauhe, the younger, in the place of the elder; now, by the same deceit, the elder is put upon him in the place of the younger. What a man sows that shall he also reap. Sin is often punished with sin (Gosman, BCOTP, 529). (Retributive justice, in Greek thought, was personified by the name of Nemesis. That Nemesis finally overtakes and punishes inordinate human pride and ambition was the thesis of the histories of Herodotus, who is known as the father of history, The same idea is explicit in Scripture: cf. Numbers 32:23, Ezekiel 21:27, Romans 2:5-11, Proverbs 12:14, Galatians 6:7,1 Timothy 5:24, Revelation 20:11-15).

Genesis 29:30Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban yet another seven years for her. A great stone was over the well where the sheep were watered, and the men who were there were waiting for other shepherds to come and help them roll it aside; but Jacob went and rolled it aside himself. Why? Because he had met Rachel; and in contact with Rachel, Jacob from the first moment was a different man. He kissed her first as his kinsman, but quickly he fell in love with her. He said to Laban, her father, that he would serve seven years for her; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. In the light of words like these, Jacob’s remoteness in time and place passes like a shadow, and he is at one with all lovers of every age in the timeless wonder of the meeting of man and maid. Moreover, Jacob showed himself to be an individual to a degree that was notable in that period when family pressure was generally so controlling. His father, Isaac, had his bride picked out for him. Laban tried to foist upon Jacob the daughter he wanted Jacob to take; but in spite of that deception, Jacob would not be turned from the girl to whom his heart went out. He served for her not only the first seven years of his agreement, but seven years more; and Rachel was henceforth the center of his life’s devotion. In the whole story of his career, which sometimes was far from beautiful, this relationship with Rachel shines like a shaft of sunlight, sifting with a lovely radiance through a broken, cloudy sky (IBG, 697).

The nuptial feast generally lasted a week (Judges 14:12, Job 11:19); after this week had passed, Jacob received Rachel also: that is, two wives in eight days. To each of his daughters Laban gave one maid-servant to wait upon her; fewer, it may be noted, than Bethuel gave to his daughter Rebekah (Genesis 24:61). The difference between the house at Haran and Isaac’s house at Beersheba, appears from this, that Laban entangled Jacob in polygamy. And even in this case the evil consequences of polygamy appear: envy, jealousy, contention, and an increased sensuality. Nevertheless, Jacob’s case is not to be judged according to the later Mosaic law, which prohibited the marrying of two sisters at the same time (Leviticus 18:18). Calvin, in his decision, makes no distinction between the times and the economies, a fact which Keil justly appeals to, and insists upon, as bearing against his harsh judgment (that it was a case of incest) (BCOTP, 533). Isaac’s prejudice, that Esau was the chosen one, seems to renew itself somewhat in Jacob’s prejudice that he must gain by Rachel the lawful heir. The more reverent he appears therefore, in being led by the Spirit of God, who taught him, notwithstanding all his preference for Joseph, to recognize in Judah the real line of the promise (ibid., 533; cf. Genesis 49:10). Jacob’s service for Rachel presents us a picture of bridal love equaled only in the same development and its poetic beauty in the Song of Solomon. It is particularly to be noted that Jacob, however, was not indifferent to Rachel’s infirmities (Genesis 30:2), and even treated Leah with patience and indulgence, though having suffered from her the most mortifying deception (ibid., p. 532). This bigamy of Jacob must not be judged directly by the Mosaic law, which prohibits marriage with two sisters at the same time (Leviticus 18:18), or set down as incest, since there was no positive law on the point in existence then. At the same time, it is not to be justified on the ground, that the blessing of God made it the means of the fulfilment of His promise, viz., the multiplication of the seed of Abraham into a great nation. Just as it had arisen from Laban’s deception and Jacob’s love, which regarded outward beauty alone, and therefore from sinful infirmities, so did it become in its results a true school of affliction to Jacob, in which God showed to him, by many a humiliation, that such conduct as his was quite unfitted to accomplish the divine counsels, and thus condemned the ungodliness of such a marriage, and prepared the way for the subsequent prohibition in the law (BCOTP, 287).

Certainly it should be noted here, that it was a son born to Jacob by Leah who became the ancestor of Messiah. That son was Judah; hence Messiah is named the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5,cf. Genesis 49:9-10) Leah’s election is founded upon Jehovah’s grace. Without any doubt, however, she was fitted to become the ancestress of the Messianic Line, not only by her apparent humility, but also by her innate powers of blessing, as well as by her quiet and true love for Jacob. The fulness of her life becomes apparent in the number and in the power of her children; and with these, therefore, a greater strength of the mere natural life predominates. Joseph, on the other hand, the favorite son of the wife loved with a bridal love, is distinguished from his brethren, as the separated (ch. 49) among them, as a child of a nobler spirit, whilst the import of his life is not as rich for the future as that of Judah.. The history of Jacob’s and Leah’s union sheds a softening light upon even the less happy marriages, which may reconcile us to them, for this unpleasant marriage was the cause of his becoming the father of a numerous posterity; for it, indeed, proceeded the Messianic Line; leaving out of view the fact that Leah’s love and humility could not remain without a blessing upon Jacob. The fundamental condition of a normal marriage is doubtless bride love. We notice in our narrative, however, how wonderfully divine grace may change misfortune, even in such instances, into real good. God is especially interested in marriage connections, because He is thus interested in the coming generations (Lange, CDHCG, 533). The fact must not be overlooked, however, that, as we have stated heretofore several times, the manifestations of Divine grace are the products of the Divine foreknowledge of man’s free choices; in this particular case, the foreknowledge of the blessing which Leah’s humility and love would bring into Joseph’s life and to his progeny, no small part of which was the foreknowledge of Judah’s intercession with Joseph for the life of young Benjamin and the well-being of his aged father Jacob: one of the most touching incidents in the lives of the patriarchs (Genesis 44:18-34).

JacobMan of Many Wrestlings. Jacob here appears clearly as the man of the wrestlings of faith and as the patriarch of hope. However prudent, it happens to him as to Oedipus in the Greek tragedy. Oedipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx, yet is blind, and remains blind in relation to the riddle of his own life. Laban cheated him, as his sons did afterward, and he is punished through the same transgression of which he himself was guilty. Jacob is to struggle for everythingfor his birthright, his Rachel, his herds, the security of his life, the rest of his old age, and for his grave. But in these struggles he does not come off without many trangressions, from which, however, as God’s elect, he is liberated by severe discipline. He, therefore, is stamped as a man of hope by the divine providence. As a fugitive he goes to Haran; as a fugitive he returns home. Seven years he hopes for Rachel; twenty years he hopes for a return home; to the very evening of his life he is hoping for the recovery of Joseph, his lost son in Sheol; even whilst he is dying upon Egyptian soil, he hopes for a grave in his native country. His Messianic hope, however, in its full development, rises above all these instances, as is evident in the three chief stages in his life of faith: Bethel, Peniel, and the blessing of his sons upon his death-bed, His life differs from that of his father Isaac in this: that with Isaac the quickening experiences fall more in the earlier part of his life, but with Jacob they occur in the later half; and that Isaac’s life passes on quietly, whilst storms and trials overshadow, in a great measure, the pilgrimage of Jacob. The Messianic suffering, in its typical features, is already seen more plainly in him than in Isaac and Abraham; but the glorious exaltation corresponds also to the deeper humiliation (CDHCG, 532).

Review Questions

See Genesis 31:1-16.

Genesis 29:31-35

3. Jacob’s Family (Genesis 29:31 to Genesis 30:24).

Basic Facts: (1) Jacob became the father of twelve sons and one daughter. The inferior value set on a daughter is displayed in the bare announcement of her birth. (2) The assignment of the names here by the respective mothers themselves is determined by the circumstances. (3) The entire history of the birth of these sons is reflected in their names. (Their names all reappear in Jacob’s Blessing, ch. 49). (4) Most significant of all, in the birth of these twelve sons, we have the basis for the future development of the Old Covenant in the history of the twelve tribes, especially in their organization into the Hebrew theocracy at Sinai and occupancy of the Land of Promise. All this was, of course, prophetic of the strictly spiritual norms and institutions of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews, chs. 7, 8, 9, 10; John 1:17; 2 Cor., ch. 3; Colossians 2:8-16; Galatians 3:15-29; Galatians 4:21-31; Ephesians 2:11-22, etc.). The account of the jealousy and contention between Leah and Rachel (Genesis 29:31; Genesis 30:1-2), and the subsequent sinfulness and jealousy of the sons of Jacob (Genesis 34:25; Genesis 34:30; Genesis 35:22; Genesis 37:8; Genesis 37:18; Genesis 49:5-6) show vividly the fruits of polygamy. For the one man, Adam, God made the one woman, Eve. And why only one? Because He sought a godly seed (Malachi 2:15). Broken and ungodly homes produce ungodly offspring (OTH, 101).

Leah’s first four sons, Genesis 29:31-35. Jacob’s weakness showed itself even after his double marriage in the fact that he loved Rachel more than Leah (hated, in Leah’s case, meant less loved; not so much hated as rejected or unloved: ABG, 230). When Yahweh saw that Leah was thus less loved, He opened her womb. The birth of Leah’s first four sons is specifically referred to Jehovah’s grace; first, because Jehovah works above all human thoughts, and regards that which is despised and of little account (Leah was the despised one, the one loved less, comparatively the one hated, Deuteronomy 21:15); secondly, because among her first four sons were found the natural first-born (Reuben), the legal first-born (Levi), and the Messianic first-born (Judah); even Simeon, like the others, is given by Jehovah in answer to prayer. Jacob’s other sons are referred to Elohim, not only by Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 30:2; Genesis 30:6; Genesis 30:8), but also by Leah (Genesis 29:18; Genesis 29:20) and by the narrator himself (Genesis 29:17), for Jacob’s sons in their totality sustain not only a theocratic but also a universal destination. He opened her womb, that is, God made her fruitful in children, which should attach her husband to her. But theocratic husbands did not esteem their wives only according to their fruitfulness (cf. 1 Sam., ch. 1). Leah named her firstborn Reuben, that is, Behold, a son! Joyful surprise at Jehovah’s compassion. From the inference she makes: now, therefore, my husband will love me, her deep, strong love for Jacob, becomes apparent, which had no doubt, also, induced her to consent to Laban’s deception. Simeon (he has heard), her second son, receives his name from her faith in God as a prayer-answering God. Levi (he will cling, joined, reconciler, etc.). The names of the sons are an expression of her enduring powerful experience, as well as of her gradual resignation. After the birth of the first one, she hopes to win, through her son, Jacob’s love in the strictest sense. After the birth of the second, she hoped to be put on a footing of equality with Rachel, and to be delivered from her disregard. After the birth of the third one she hoped at least for a constant affection. At the birth of the fourth she looks entirely from herself to Jehovah, hence the name of the fourth, Judah (I shall praise, or just praised). (Quotes above are from Lange, CDHCG, 529, 530). The eye of the Lord is upon the sufferer. It is remarkable that both the narrator and Leah employ the proper name of God, which makes the performance of promise a prominent feature of his character. This is appropriate in the mouth of Leah, who is the mother of the promised seed. That Leah was hatedless loved than Rachel. He therefore recompenses her for the want of her husband’s affection by giving her children, while Rachel was barren. Reubenbehold a son. The Lord hath looked on my affliction. Leah had qualities of heart, if not of outward appearance, which commanded esteem. She had learned to acknowledge the Lord in all her ways. Simeonanswer. She had prayed to the Lord, and this was her answer. Leviunion, the reconciler. Her husband could not, according to the prevailing sentiments of those days, fail to be attached to the mother of three sons. Judahpraised. Well may she praise the Lord, for this is the ancestor of the promised seed. It is remarkable that the wife of priority, but not of preference, is the mother of the seed in whom all nations are to be blessed. Levi the reconciler is the father of the priestly tribe. Simeon is attached to Judah. Reuben retires into the background. On the etymology of the proper names of this and of the next chapter it has been remarked: -the popular etymologies attached to. the names are here extremely forced and sometimes unintelligible-’ (Skinner). Such a statement is the result of the critic’s confusion. He acts on the assumption that these etymologies are to be scholarly efforts based on a careful analysis of Hebrew roots according to the Hebrew lexicon. Whereas, in reality, these are not etymologies at all but expressions wrought into the form of proper names, expressing the sentiments or the hopes associated with the birth of these sons, So someone or even the mother may have remarked at the birth of the first-born, -Look, a son,-’ Reu-bhen.-’ What is there -forced-’ or -unintelligible-’ about such a name? The added explanation as to what further thoughts Leah associated with this name -Reuben-’ do, indeed, not grow out of the words, -look, a son,-’ but they lay bare the inmost thoughts of her heart. Leah knows God as -Yahweh,-’ an index of fine spiritual understanding and faith, and ascribes to him her fertility. She sees that Yahweh delights in being compassionate toward them that have -affliction,-’ and hers was a state of affliction; and she anticipates that her husband will love her more. As for the second son Simeon, Yahweh heard (shama), so she calls him -hearing.-’ So in Hebrew the idea becomes more readily apparent. Leah implies that she has asked for this child in prayer. Again she ascribes the son to the graciousness of -Yahweh.-’ She must have been a woman of faith. With respect to the name Levi, here the play on words centers upon the root lawah which in the passive signifies -grow attached to.-’ How poor Leah must have thirsted for the love that was denied her! Leah now stands on pretty firm ground; any man would be grateful for three healthy sons: especially are men in the Orient minded thus. As for the fourth, Judah (Praised), apparently her hopes are by this time realized: she is no longer disregarded or loved but little. But in a sense of true devoutness she lets all praise be given to Yahweh and here contents herself with pure praise (Leupold, EG, 801-803).

Rachel’s adopted sons, Genesis 30:1-8. A rather passionate scene, in which Rachel does not appear to advantage by any means. She even vented her spleen on Jacob: Give me children, or else I die. Certainly not, I will take my life; but rather, I die from humiliation or dejection. Driven by jealousy of her sister, she yields her place to her maid, Bilhah. Her vivid language sounds not only irrational, but even impious, and therefore she rouses also the anger of Jacob (Lange). Her petulant behavior recalls that of Sarah (Genesis 16:5), but Jacob is less patient than Abraham, as he exclaims, in substance: Why ask me to play God? You know that God alone controls the issues of life and death (cf. Deuteronomy 32:39, 1 Samuel 2:6). In Freudian terms, Rachel was projecting her own weakness upon her husband, a favorite avocation of humankind generally (cf. Genesis 3:12-13). (Cf. Genesis 50:19, 2 Kings 5:7). Rachel becomes impatient of her barrenness and jealous of her sister, and unjustly reproaches her husband, who indignantly rebukes her. God, not he, has withheld children from her. She does what Sarah had done before her (Genesis 16:2-3), gives her handmaid to her husband. No express law yet forbade this course, though nature and Scripture by implication did (Genesis 2:23-25) (Murphy, MG, 397). Since Jacob had already sired offspring by Leah, Rachel could hardly have doubted his ability to do so by her, and must have recognized that the fault was with her. But she was unwilling to face the facts and tried to palm off the responsibility for the situation on Jacob. Genesis 29:3that she, Bilhah, may bear upon my knees, and I also may obtain children by her. (cf. Genesis 50:19; Genesis 50:23; 2 Kings 5:7). From the fact that children were taken upon the knees, they were recognized either as adopted children (Genesis 50:23), or as the fruit of their own bodies (Job 3:12) (Lange). An illusion to the primitive ceremony of adoption, which here simply means that Bilhas’s children will be acknowledged by Rachel as her own (Skinner). To place a child on one’s knees is to acknowledge it as one’s own; cf. the Hurro-Hittite tale of Appu.. This act is normally performed by the father. Here, however, it is of primary interest to the adoptive mother who is intent on establishing her legal right to the child (Speiser, ABG, 230). The ceremony may be traced to a widespread custom, according to which, in lawful marriage, the child is actually brought forth on the father’s knees.. Then it became a symbol of the legitimization of a natural child, and finally a form of adoption generally (ICCG, 386). (Cf. Job 3:12; Iliad 9:455ff.; Odyssey 19, 401ff,; Genesis 50:23). In the case before us, the putative mother names the adopted child. Rachel named Bilhah’s first son Dan (judge; dananni, he has done justice to me), i.e., God had procured justice for her, hearkened to her voice and removed the reproach of childlessness. Bilhah’s second son: Rachel named him Naphtali (wrestlings, wrestlings of prayer she had wrestled with Leah). The wrestlings of God could only be in the wrestlings of prayer, as we afterward see from Jacob’s wrestlings, through which he becomes Israel (Lange, 530; cf. Genesis 32:24-25). In reality, however, with God Himself, who seems to have restricted His mercy to Leah alone (Delitzsch). Leah, who had been forced upon Jacob against his inclination, and was put by him in the background, was not only proved by the four sons whom she had bore to him in the first years of their marriage, to be the wife provided for Jacob by Elohim, the ruler of human destiny; but by the fact that these four sons formed the real stem of the promised numerous seed, she was proved still more to be the wife selected by Jehovah, in realization of His promise, to be the tribe-mother of the greater part of the covenant nation. But this required that Leah herself should be fitted for it in heart and mind, that she should feel herself to be the handmaid of Jehovah, and give glory to the covenant God for the blessing of children, or see in her children actual proofs that Jehovah had accepted her and would bring to her the affection of her husband. It was different with Rachel, the favorite and therefore high-minded wife, Jacob should give her what God alone could give. The faithfulness and blessing of the covenant God were still hidden from her. Hence she resorted to such earthly means as procuring children through her maid, and regarded the desired result as the answer of God, and a victory in her contest with her sister. For such a state of mind, the term Elohim, God the sovereign ruler, was the only fitting expression (BCOTP, 288-289). But how can Rachel speak of a victory over her sister rich in children? Leah has left bearing, while Bilhah her maid, begins to bear; at the same time, Rachel includes as much as possible in her words in order to overpersuade herself. [She believes she has overcomeGosman]. Hence, still, at Joseph’s birth, she could say: Now (not before) God has taken away my reproach (Lange, CDHCG, 530; cf. Genesis 30:23-24).

Leah’s adopted sons, Genesis 30:9-13. Leah, however, was not content with the blessing of four sons bestowed on her by Yahweh. The means employed by Rachel to retain the favor of her husband made her jealous, and this jealousy moved her to resort to the same device, viz., that of giving her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob for the begetting of adopted sons. Jacob begat two sons by Zilpah. Leah named the first one Gad (good fortune, or good fortune has come). She named the second Asher (the happy one, or the bringer of happiness). Leah is still less excusable than Rachel, since she could oppose her own four sons to the two adopted sons of Rachel. However, the proud and challenging assertions of Rachel seem to have determined her to a renewed emulation; and Jacob thought that it was due to the equal rights of both to consent to the fourth marriage. That Leah now acts no longer as before, in a pious and humble disposition, the names which she calls her adopted sons clearly prove (Lange, ibid., 530) (It is worth noting that Gad was the name of an Aramean and Phoenician god of Luck (Tyche, cf. Isaiah 65:11. It is possible also that the name Asher is historically related to the Canaanite goddess Asherah, consort of El in Ras Shamra texts,)

Leah’s last two sons, Genesis 30:14-20. We have here what might be called a primitive tradition. These occur in Scripture, simply as matters of fact, historically; even though they may savor of magic they serve to give us the background against which the careers of the patriarchs are portrayed. It must be understood that the mere recording of magical theories and practices, and popular superstitions, of any period, as historical facts, does not mean that they are Biblically sanctioned. According to the story of Gen 30:14-16, Reuben, when a boy of some four or five years of age, brought to his mother a plant found in the fields, of the kind known as Mandragora officinarum. This is described as a narcotic, laxative perennial of the nightshade family, related to the potato and the tomato. Out of the small white-and green flowers of this plant, according to the Son 7:13, there grows at the time of the wheat harvest, yellow, strong, but sweet-smelling apples, of the size of a nutmeg. These were thought to promote fruitfulness. The fruit of the plant is still considered in the East to have aphrodisiac properties (ABG, 231), hence the common designation, love-apples. Theophrastus (who took over the Lyceum after the death of Aristotle) tells us that love-potions were prepared from the plant’s roots. It was held in such high esteem by the ancients that the goddess of love, in some areas, was known as Mandragoritis. Mandrakes are still used by Arabs as a means of promoting child-bearing. As for mandrakes themselves something may be said. Reuben gathered them in wheat-harvest, and it is then that they are still found ripe and eatable on the lower ranges of Lebanon and Hermon, where I have most frequently seen them. The apple becomes of a very pale yellow color, partially soft, and of an insipid, sickish taste. They are said to produce dizziness; but I have seen people eat them without experiencing any such effect. The Arabs, however, believe them to be exhilarating and stimulating, even to insanity, and hence the name tuffah el jan-apples of the jan-’ (Thomson, LB, 577).

The incident of the mandrakes shows how thoroughly-the two wives were carried away by constant jealousy of the love and attachment of their husband. When Rachel requested that Leah give her some of the mandrakes, the latter bitterly upbraided her with not being content to have withdrawn (alienated?) her husband from her, but now wanting to get possession of the mandrakes which her little son had brought in from the field. It would seem that peculiar, even paradoxical, emotions are involved in the actions of these two women. It should be remembered that Leah is said to have left off bearing, after the birth of Judah (Genesis 29:35). Was she now fearful that Rachel might now, with the help of the mandrakes, excel her in prolificness? It is obviously the design [of the narrator] to bring out into prominence the fact that Leah became pregnant again without mandrakes, and that they were of no avail to Rachel.. Moreover, it could not be the intention of Rachel to prepare from these mandrakes a so-called love-potion for Jacob, but only to attain fruit-fulness by their effects upon herself. Just as now, for the same purpose perhaps, unfruitful women visit or are sent to certain watering-places. From this standpoint, truly, the assumed remedy of nature may appear as a premature, eager self-help (Lange, ibid., 530-531). It should be noted that Rachel asked only for some of the mandrakes: it seems that there was no thought in her mind of depriving Leah of all these potent means of fruitfulness, nor is there any evidence that she thought of her sister as having left off bearing (a statement of the author of the narrative). Reuben, as little children will, presents the mandrakes to his mother. Rachel, present at the time, and much concerned as usual about her sterility, thinks to resort to this traditional means of relieving the disability and asks for -some of the mandrakes-’ (min, -some of-’) of Reuben. She had hardly thought that this harmless request would provoke such an outbreak on her sister’s part. For Leah bitterly upbraids her with not being content to have withdrawn her husband from her, but, she petulantly adds, Rachel even wants to get the mandrakes of her son Reuben. Apparently, her hope that her husband would love her after she had born several sons (Genesis 29:32) had not been fully realized. Childless Rachel still had the major part of his affection. Quite unjustly Leah charges Rachel with alienation of affection where such affection had perhaps never really existed. Leah was still being treated with more or less tolerance. So Leah certainly begrudges her sister the mandrakes, lest they prove effective and so give her sister a still more decided advantage.. Rachel desires to preserve peace in the household, and so concedes to yield the husband to her sister for the night, in return for the mandrakes which she nevertheless purposes to eat. The frank narrative of the Scriptures on this point makes us blush with shame at the indelicate bargaining of the sistersone of the fruits of a bigamous connection (EG, 812). A bitter and intense rivalry existed between Leah and Rachel, all the more from their close relationship as sisters; and although they occupied separate apartments with their respective families, as is the uniform custom where a plurality of wives obtains, and the husband and father spends a day with each in regular succession, this arrangement did not, it seems, allay the mutual jealousies of Laban’s daughters. The evil lies in the system, which, being a violation of God’s original ordinance, cannot yield happiness. Experience in polygamous countries has shown that those run great risk who marry two members of one family, or even two girls from the same town or village. The disadvantages of such unions are well understood (Jamieson, CECG, 205). Matthew Henry suggests a somewhat different interpretation of sisterly motivation in the case before us, one which is certainly well worth considering: Whatever these mandrakes were, Rachel could not see them in Leah’s hands, where the child had placed them, but she must covet them. The learned Bishop Patrick very well suggests here that the true reason of this contest between Jacob’s wives for his company, and their giving him their maids to be his wives, was the earnest desire they had to fulfil the promise made to Abraham that his seed should be as the stars of heaven in multitude. And he thinks it would have been below the dignity of the sacred history to take such particular notice of these things if there had not been some such great consideration in them (CWB, 50). (However, certain objections to this view would be the following: (1) Rachel asked for only somenot allof the mandrakes: this would seem to indicate she was seeking only to put an end to her own sterility; (2) implicit in this view is the assumption that the sisters were fully cognizant of the details of the Abrahamic Promises, but we find no sure evidence that this was the fact; (3) implicit in this view also is the failure to apprehend fully the stark realism of the Biblical narratives; the Bible is one book that pictures life as men and women live it, never turning aside from truth even to hide the faults of men of great faith. The Bible is pre-eminently the Book of Life. It makes us fully aware of human character and its weaknesses.)

Leah parted with the mandrakes on condition that Rachel would permit Jacob to sleep with her that night. After relating how Leah conceived again, and Rachel continued barren in spite of the mandrakes, the writer justly observes (Genesis 29:17), -Elohim hearkened unto Leah,-’ to show that it was not from such natural means as love-apples, but from God the Author of life, that she had received such fruitfulness (BCOTP, 290). Leah then bore Jacob two more sons: (1) the first she named Issachar (hire, reward), that is to say, there is reward or he brings reward. (2) The second she named Zebulun (dwelling). The import of the first name is, either that she had hired her husband, or that she had received her hirei.e., a happy resultfrom God. The name of the second signified she hoped that now, after God had endowed her with a good portion, her husband to whom she had borne six sons, would dwell with her, i.e., become more warmly attached to her (Delitzsch). The birth of a son is hailed with demonstrations of joy, and the possession of several sons confers upon the mother an honor and respectability proportioned to their number. The husband attaches a similar importance to the possession, and it forms a bond of union which renders it impossible for him ever to forsake or to be cold to a wife who has borne him sons. This explains the happy anticipations Leah founded on the possession of her six sons (Jamieson). It is to be noted that in connection with these two births, Leah mentions Elohim only, the supernatural Giver, and not Yahweh, the covenant God, whose grace has been forced out of her heart by jealousy (Delitzsch). It should be noted that the reference here to the wheat harvest (Genesis 29:14) has prompted the critics to affirm that the agricultural background shows the episode here to be out of place in its nomadic setting. But the text does not say that the nomads did the harvesting. Besides, no one would deny the possibility of their using the expression -wheat harvest-’ to specify a definite season of the year even if they themselves did no harvesting. Moreover, this may be only the author’s remark, used to specify the particular season when, as his readers would know, mandrakes usually ripened. In addition to all these considerations, there is the explicit information that the patriarchs on occasion sowed and reaped in their homeland (cf. Genesis 26:12) and perhaps their relatives did so in Mesopotamia. It is quite possible, too, that the lad Reuben might have wandered into the fields where some of his farmer-neighbors were harvesting, and gathered his mandrakes there. We see no reason for accepting the critical view stated above as the only explanation of the milieu of this incident. (Cf. Exodus 9:32, Deuteronomy 8:8, Judges 6:11, Rth 2:23; 1 Samuel 6:13; 1 Samuel 12:17; 1 Chronicles 21:20; 2 Chronicles 2:10-15; 2 Chronicles 27:5; Ezra 6:9; Ezra 7:22; Matthew 13:25; Matthew 13:29; Luke 3:17; John 12:24).

Leah’s daughter, Genesis 29:21. The name Dinah, about the same in meaning as Dan, could signify Vindication. However, the etymology is not indicated in the text. Moreover, Dinah is not included in Genesis 32:22, where Jacob’s household is said to have consisted of his two wives, his two handmaids, and his eleven children. Later Scriptures would seem to indicate that Dinah was not Jacob’s only daughter (cf. Genesis 37:35; Genesis 46:7). It is likely that Dinah is specifically mentioned here in passing, as preparatory to the incident in her historythat of her defilementrelated in ch. 34. The fact that Dinah is given only passing mention here is ample evidence of the subordinate place of the daughter in the patriarchal household.

Rachel’s first son, Genesis 30:22-24. God remembered Rachel and hearkened to her (prayers) and opened her womb. The expression used here denotes a turning-point after a long trial (cf. Genesis 8:1) and in the matter of removing unfruitfulness (1 Samuel 1:19-20). God gave Rachel a son, whom she named Joseph, one that takes away, or he may add: because his birth not only furnished an actual proof that God had removed the reproach of her childlessness, but also excited the wish, that Jehovah might add another son. The fulfilment of this wish is recorded in chap. Genesis 35:16 ff. The double derivation of the name, and the exchange of Elohim for Jehovah, may be explained, without the hypothesis of a double source, on the simple ground, that Rachel first of all looked back at the past, and, thinking of the earthly means that had been applied in vain for the purpose of obtaining a child, regarded the son as a gift of God. At the same time, the good fortune which had now come to her banished from her heart her envy of her sister (Genesis 29:1), and aroused belief in that God, who, as she had no doubt heard from her husband, had given Jacob such great promises; so that in giving the name, probably at the circumcision, she remembered Jehovah and prayed for another son from His covenant faithfulness (BCOTP, 290). According to Lange, the text allows only one derivation: he may add: to take away and to add are too strongly opposed to be traced back to one etymological source. Rachel, it is true, might have revealed the sentiments of her heart by the expression, God hath taken away my reproach; but she was not able to give to her own sons names that would have neutralized the significance and force of the names of her adopted sons, Dan and Naphthali. That she is indebted to God’s kindness for Joseph, while at the same time she asks Jehovah for another son, and thereupon names Joseph, does not furnish any sufficient occasion for the admission of an addition to the sources of scripture, as Delitzsch assumes. The number of Jacob’s sons, who began with Jehovah, was also closed by Jehovah. For, according to the number of twelve tribes, Israel is Jehovah’s covenant people (CDHCG, 531). The majority of Old Testament commentators seem to agree that the meaning of Joseph’s name is more literally, add; that is to say, May Yahweh add to me another son. At last Rachel bears a son, long hoped for and therefore marked out for a brilliant destiny (ICCG, 389). A double thought plays into the name Joseph: it incorporates both of Rachel’s remarks. For yoseph may count as an imperfect of -asaph-’, -to take away.-’ Or it may also count more definitely as imperfect (Hifil) of the verb yasaph, -to add.-’ We must admit this to be very ingenious. But why deny to a mother a happy ingenuity on the occasion of her greatest joy? Why try to inject the thought of a confusion of two sources? (EG, 816). We are disposed to conclude this phase of our study with the pertinent and (one might well say) almost facetious remarks of Dr. Leupold in relation to Leah’s action, Genesis 29:16: Jacob’s lot cannot have been a very happy one. To an extent he was shuttled back and forth between two wives and even their handmaids. Almost a certain shamelessness has taken possession of Jacob’s wives in their intense rivalry. Leah almost triumphantly claims him as a result of her bargain, as he comes in from the field (EG, 813). We are glad to note that with the birth of Joseph, the shuttling back and forth on Jacob’s part seems to come to an end and the dove of peace settles down over his household, as evidenced especially by the loyalty of both daughters to their husband in the continued contest with their father Laban (cf. Genesis 31:4-16).

Review Questions

See Genesis 31:1-16.