Genesis 31

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 31:1-16

5. Jacob’s Preparation for Flight (Genesis 31:1-16).

The complete success that Jacob achieved excited the envy and jealousy of Laban’s sons, who were evidently old enough to be entrusted with the care of their father’s flocks (cf. Genesis 30:35), whose conduct as described here shows that the selfish disposition peculiar to this family was as fully developed in them as in Laban himself. It must have been from rumor that Jacob obtained knowledge of the invidious reflections cast on him by these cousins (Genesis 31:1), as evident from the fact that they were separated from him at a distance of three days-’ journey (a journey measured obviously by the movement of the animals involved). Jacob had also sensed a growing change in Laban’s feelings toward him (Genesis 31:2). Inwardly he was prepared for the termination of all his connections with his father-in-law; at the same time he received instructions from Yahweh in a dream to return to his homeland with an accompanying promise of Divine protection (Genesis 31:10-13). (No matter to what extent we may be disposed to inveigh against Jacob’s trickery, we must never lose sight of the fact that Laban had deceived and exploited him for fourteen years or more. And we must realize also that God is often compelled to achieve his purposes through very weak and selfish human vessels. Such was undoubtedly the case here.) Genesis 31:2the countenance of Laban was not toward him as before: lit., was not the same as yesterday and the day before: a common Oriental form of speech. The insinuations against Jacob’s fidelity by Laban’s sons, and the sullen reserve, the churlish conduct, of Laban himself, had made Jacob’s situation, in his uncle’s establishment, most trying and painful. It is always one of the vexations attendant to worldly prosperity, that it excites the envy of others (Ecclesiastes 4:4); and that, however careful a man is to maintain a good conscience, he cannot always reckon on maintaining a good name in a censorious world. This Jacob experienced; and it is probable that, like a good man, he had asked direction and relief in prayer. Notwithstanding the ill usage he had received, Jacob might not have deemed himself at liberty to quit his present sphere under the impulse of passionate fretfulness and discontent. Having been conducted to Haran by God (cf. Genesis 28:15), and having got a promise that the same heavenly Guardian would bring him again into the land of Canaanhe might have thought he ought not to leave it, without being clearly persuaded as to the path of duty. So ought we to set the Lord before us, and to acknowledge him in all our ways, our journeys, our settlements and plans in life. Jacob did receive an answer, which decided his entrance upon the homeward journey to Canaan, with a re-assurance of the Divine presence and protection by the way, But he himself alone was responsible for making his departure a hurried and clandestine flight (CECG, 208). So Jacob called Rachel and Leah to him, evidently to the field where he was watching his flocks, in order to communicate to them his intentions and the reasons for them. Note that Rachel and Leah only were called; the other two women were still in a state of servitude and hence not entitled to be taken into account. Having stated his strong grounds of dissatisfaction with their father’s conduct, and the ill requital he had gotten for all his faithful services, he informed them of the blessing of God, that had made him rich notwithstanding Laban’s design to ruin him; and, finally, of the command from God he had received to return to his own country, that they might not accuse him of caprice, or disaffection to their family, but be convinced that, in resolving to depart, he acted from a principle of religious obedience (CECG, 209).

Note the sequence of names here: Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah: Rachel first, because she was the principal stay of his household, it having been for her sake that he entered into relations with Laban. Leah’s descendants admitted Rachel’s precedence inasmuch as Boaz, a member of the tribe of Judah, Leah’s son, and his kinsmen said, The LORD make the woman … like Rachel and like Leah, Rth 4:11 (Rashi, SC, 179).

Note also Jacob’s charge, that Laban had deceived him and had changed his wages ten times, i.e., many times: ten, besides signifying a definite number, frequently stands in Scripture for many (cf. Leviticus 26:26, 1 Samuel 1:8, Ecclesiastes 7:9,Dan. 1:26, Amos 6:9,Zechariah 8:23). Note that the Angel of God who spoke to Jacob in a dream was the Divine Being who identified Himself as the God of Bethel (Genesis 31:13; cf. Genesis 32:24-32; Genesis 35:9-15; Genesis 48:15-16). That is to say, he was not one of the angels who were seen ascending and descending on the symbolic ladder of Jacob’s dream-vision at Bethel (Genesis 28:12-15): He identified Himself with God. (See art., Angel of Jehovah, in my Genesis textbook, Vol. III, pp. 216-220, 496-500). Genesis 31:11-13, The Angel of God specially draws Jacob’s attention to what he sees. Jacob is not to regard the thing seen as trivial but as indicative of the fact that God -had taken note of all that Laban had done-’ to him and was, of course, Himself taking measures to safeguard Jacob in what seemed like an unequal contest. Very definitely God identifies Himself to Jacob as the one who formerly had appeared at Bethel and to whom Jacob had appointed a pillar and vowed a vow. This is another way of saying that what He had then promised to do for Jacob is now actually being done. For assuredly, but for divine interference Jacob would have suffered irreparable loss (EG, 835).

It should be noted that the two wives were of one mind and were in complete agreement with their husband (Genesis 31:14-16). In fact, they say, their father has treated them as if they were foreigners, and not of his own flesh and blood. Proof of this, said they, was in the fact that he had, to all intents and purposes sold them as servants would be sold: seven (or fourteen) years of service had been the price paid. Besides, whereas a less greedy father would have used the gift from his prospective son-in-law to provide a dowry for his daughters, Laban had entirely used it up, most likely by investing it directly in flocks and herds until it was completely absorbed. Now therefore, said they, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do (Genesis 31:16). From one point of view the wives are correct when they assert that all the present wealth of their father belongs to them and to their children, because he apparently had been wealthy before Jacob came, who by his assiduous and skillful management increased his father-in-law’s -riches-’ enormously. By all canons of right Jacob’s family ought to have been adjudged as deserving of a good share of these riches. But the wives saw that their father was not minded to give them or their husband anything at all. Apparently, the long pent-up grievances find expression in these words. Ultimately, then, the wives arrive at the conclusion that the best thing Jacob can do is to obey God’s command and depart. Their mode of arriving at this conclusion is not the most desirable: they finally conclude to consent to what God commands because their best material interests are not being served by the present arrangement. Jacob, no doubt, approached the problem on a higher plane: he was obeying the God of his fathers, who had made promises to Jacob previously and was now fulfilling these promises. So in Jacob’s case we have fidelity to God; in the case of his wives a greater measure of interest in material advantage. For that reason, too, Jacob’s wives refer to Him only as Elohim (EG, 836).

Genesis 31:17-21. So the father rose up and set the members of his family on camels, and with all his cattle and his substance which he had accumulated, and while Laban was engaged in shearing sheep, he stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian. That is to say, he fled posthaste. He took about the only course he could to liberate himself from the clutches of his father-in-law.

The following summarizations of Jacob’s experiences in Paddan-Aram are excellent: After the birth of Joseph, Jacob wished to become his own master; but Laban prevailed on him to serve him still, for a part of the produce of his flocks, to be distinguished by certain marks. Jacob’s artifice to make the most of his bargain may be regarded as another example of the defective morality of those times; but, as far as Laban was concerned, it was a fair retribution for his attempt to secure a contrary result. Jacob was now commanded in a vision by -the God of Bethel-’ to return to the land of his birth; and he fled secretly from Laban, who had not concealed his envy, to go back to his father Isaac, after twenty years spent in Laban’s servicefourteen for his wives, and six for his cattle. Jacob, having passed the Euphrates, struck across the desert by the great fountain at Palmyra; then traversed the eastern part of the plain of Damascus and the plateau of Bashan, and entered Gilead, which is the range of mountains east of Jordan, forming the frontier between Palestine and the Syrian desert (OTH, 102. Italics mineC.C.).

In those days, getting the better of the other man was a sign of cleverness, and the Nuzi contracts also reflect this attitude. Jacob came under Laban’s jurisdiction, and on condition that he would work for Laban a further seven years, he could finally marry his beloved Rachel. Then he agreed to work another seven years to acquire flocks of his own. He managed by skill to acquire the best portion of Laban’s flock of sheep and goats. Black sheep, or goats other than black or brown, were rarities, and those Jacob was to have. According to the story he employed an ingenious breeding device to use maternal impression on the unborn of the flocks, He set peeled rods in the watering-troughs, where flocks came to breed, to impress the mothers of the -stronger of the flocks.-’ Thus he managed to breed an ample supply of the new varieties.. Jacob came besides into possession of great wealth: two wives, two handmaids brought in by his wives as marriage gifts, in accordance with Mesopotamian custom (they were also his concubines who gave him children), and a large retinue of servants and followers, and also children, of whom he had eleven. But after twenty years of hard work Jacob’s hopes were dashed. Laban had had sons born to him after their contract had been made: sons who, according to local usage, would become Laban’s chief heirs rather than the adopted son. They were younger men who resented the position he had attained. The whole picture presented is of crafty tribesmen, each partly in the right, seeking loopholes in the laws. And Laban insisted on one item in the original contract: that Jacob would not be permitted to take another wife in addition to the two daughters of Laban. The narrator of the story makes it clear that Jacob could only extricate himself from Laban’s control by flight in the spring; and the two wives sided with their husband, agreeing that home was no longer the place for them (Cornfeld, AtD, 86).

FOR MEDITATION AND SERMONIZING

Reflections

Sinful marriages have sad consequences. Wives chosen for their beauty often bring a troublesome temper along with them. Envious discontentment and disappointed pride make multitudes miserable! Immoderate desire of children, or other created enjoyments, hurry many into fearful disorders! But it is vain ever to expect that happiness from creatures which can be had only in and from God himself. No love to persons should hinder our detestation and reproof of their sins. Even the godly are apt to fall into snares laid for them by their near relatives. And bad examples are more readily imitated than good ones. If we are once overcome by sin, we are apt to yield to it more easily afterward. Many are more governed by the estimation of the world than by reason or religion. It is very wicked for parents to transmit their quarrels to their children. It is no lessening of our guilt that God brings good out of our evil. People often promise themselves happiness in that which will be their death or ruin. Saints have need to trust their God, as all others may deceive them; and reason to desire their heavenly home, as this world is not their rest. What an advantage to families are servants remarkably pious! How criminal for covetous masters to defraud them of their wages! What good words worldly men can give to serve their own ends, and how wise they are for their own carnal interests! But their caution is vain when God designs to frustrate their purposes; and they often outwit themselves who intend to impose upon others. All agreements ought to be made with great clearness and accuracy, that no stain be thereby occasioned to our character; and in the use of lawful means to promote our wealth, our trust should be fixed on the promised providence of God. His blessing can quickly increase a little, and make it a great store. Again, on ch. 31, Genesis 31:13: This is a simple statement, but there is most cheering truth embodied in it. He had vowed prospectively to dedicate a tenth of his property to the Lord, and thus in the ordinary affairs of life to testify to his complete dependence on the divine will. Now after a long and hard struggle, when wealth was acquired, and by the envy of an unjust master was placed in peril, the Lord graciously reminds him of the vision at Bethel (SIBG, 263, 264).

Jacob’s Vision of the Eternal

Genesis 28:11-22; John 14:1-9

Jacob was now fleeing from the face of Esau, and was on his way to Paddan-Aram. The first day he journeyed about forty-eight miles, and arrived at a place originally called Luz, but which, on account of the vision he had there, he afterwards called Beth-el. There never was a scene more truly solemn and interesting, than that with which the patriarch was favored on this memorable occasion. It was designed for his instruction and support; and the devout Christian, in reviewing it in the spirit of devout contemplation, cannot fail to receive both information and comfort from it. Let us, then, notice,

1. What Jacob saw on this Occasion. Overcome with the fatigue of the journey, he had selected a spot of ground for his couch, a stone for his pillow, and the outstretched canopy of heaven for his only covering. Wearied nature was recruiting her energies by balmy sleep, when God was pleased to manifest himself to his servant, through the medium of a striking vision or dream.

(1) The object presented to his notice was a ladder. (2) Its positionbetween heaven and earth, filling the whole of the vast space between the two. (3) Its baserested on the earth, close to the spot where he lay. (4) The top of itreached to heaven, the place of Deity. (5) Above itwatching it, and viewing it with complacency and delight, stood the Lord, Jehovah of Hosts. (6) Upon itwere angels, the spiritual host of God, and they were ascending and descending as messengers, bearing tidings from heaven to earth, from God to man. The appearance of the ladder might be intended to illustrate, (1) The doctrine of divine providence. Both heaven and earth are under the divine government. Both worlds connected. God’s eye constantly directed to the concerns of men. Angels minister to the necessities of the saints. This was eminently calculated to console the mind of Jacob in his present circumstances. It might be intended to prefigure,

(2) The mediatorial work of Christ. Jesus is, emphatically, the sinner’s ladder or way to heaven, None can come to God but by him. He has reconciled heaven to earth. The father looks upon men, through the work of his Son, with pleasure and delight. Angels, too, are now incorporated with believers, form a distinguished branch of this one family, and are all ministering spirits to those who shall be heirs of salvation: John 14:6, Hebrews 1:14. Notice,

2. What Jacob heard. And the Lord said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, etc. Here Deity, (1) Proclaimed himself the God of his fathers. God of Abraham and Isaac, etc. He who made them a separate people, distinguished them, blessed them, etc. Him whom they had worshiped, trusted, etc. (2) He promised him the possession of the country where he then was. The land whereon thou liest, etc., Genesis 31:15. (3) He promised him a numerous progeny, and that of him should come the illustrious Messiah, in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed. (4) He promised him his divine presence and protection. I am with thee, and will keep thee, etc. This promise extended to all times and to all places, and to the end of life. I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken, etc., Genesis 31:15. How condescending and gracious on the part of Deity! What comfort for Jacob! Yet how infinitely short of those rich promises given to believers in the gospel. Notice,

3. What Jacob felt. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, Genesis 31:16. (1) He felt the influence of the Divine Presence. The Lord is in this place. (2) He felt a sacred and solemn fear. And he was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place! Where God is, how solemn! Angels prostrate themselves before him, etc. (Religious Dread. When Jacob woke from his vision and felt that he had stood at the gate of heaven, there was first the sense of wonder and thanksgiving at the revelation of God’s mercy; but then there swept over him an overwhelming awe. How dreadful is this place! he cried. When a man is made to know that God has not forgotten him, even though he has been a moral failure, there is the moment of rapturous exaltation such as Jacob had when he saw the shining ladder and the angels; but when he remembers the holiness of God, he turns his face away from its intolerable light. The vision must be more than the immediate emotion: it calls him to account. Who can contemplate the distance between him and God, even when the angels of God’s forgiveness throw a bridge across it, and not bow down in agonized unworthiness? So it was with Jacob. The consciousness of guilt in him made him shrink from the revelation of God even when he craved it, He had done wrong, and he was trying to escape its consequences. His brother’s anger was formidable enough: but there was something more formidable which he wanted to forget but which confronted him. His conscience was shocked into the certainty that he could not get away from God. The dread of that perception was on him now. Before he could ever be at peace with himself and with his world, he would have to come to grips with the facts ofhis past experienceand with the invisible power of the righteousness he had violatedand wrestle with them for his life, as he would one day at Peniel. It was well for Jacob that his awareness of God did not end with the vision of the ladder, but went on to realize the purification through which he must go before he could take the blessings which the angels of the ladder might bring to him. For Jacob, and for all men, there can be no flippant self-assurance. In relation to their sins the inexorable love of God must first seem dreadful before it can be redeeming [IBG, 691, 692].) (3) He felt himself on the precincts of the heavenly world, This is none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven. Where God reveals his glory, is heaven. He might well exclaim thus; for here he was surrounded with heavenly intelligenceshad a vision of Jehovah, etc. Notice,

4. What Jacob did. (1) He expressed his solemn sense of the Divine Presence, Genesis 31:16-17. (2) He erected and consecrated a memorial of the events of that eventful night. Took the stonemade a pillowpoured oil upon itcalled the place Beth-el. How pious! God had honored him, and he now desired to erect a monument to His glory. How necessary to keep up in his mind a remembrance of God’s gracious manifestation! How proper to give God a public profession of our love, and fear, and obedience! (3) He vowed obedience to the Lord. Seeing that God had thus engaged to bless and keep him, he now resolved, and publicly avowed his resolution to love God, and to serve him with all his life and substance, Genesis 31:22. (4) He went on his way in peace and safety. How could he fail to proceed in peace and safety, when the Omniscient God guided, and the Almighty God protected him! Yet, this privilege have all his saints.

Application. Learn, 1. The privileges of piety. Divine manifestations, promises, etc. In all thy ways acknowledge him, etc. 2. The duties of piety. God distinguishes his people, that they may be brought to holy obedience, and conformity to himself. I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, etc., Romans 12:1. 3. The delights of public worship. God’s house is indeed the gate of heaven, the way to heaven is through his house. 4. How glorious a place is heaven, where the pure in heart shall see God and dwell in his presence forever! (The foregoing is taken verbatim [with the bracketed exception] from the volume, Five Hundred Sketches and Skeletons of Sermons, Appleton Edition, New York and London, 1913).

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART FORTY-ONE

Where was Paddan-aram? Why did Jacob go there? Whom would he find there?

How had this area figured in patriarchal history prior to that time?

What was the first scene which Jacob encountered on arriving there?

Summarize Thomson’s description of Mesopotamian wells, cisterns, and stone coverings.

What conversation took place between Jacob and the shepherds?

Explain the phrase, Rachel the Shepherdess as indicated in ch. Genesis 29:9.

What was Jacob’s reaction on seeing Rachel the first time?

How was Jacob related to Rachel? Who was her father? Her sister?

In what rather unusual ways did Jacob react on seeing Rachel the first time?

Explain how the story of Jacob and Rachel parallels that of Eliezer, Rebekah and Isaac, In what respects do they differ? Why are they frequently referred to as idylls?

How is Jacob’s weeping at his meeting Rachel the first time to be explained?

What are some of the rabbinical explanations of his show of emotion?

State the circumstances of Jacob’s meeting with Laban. Where have we met Laban before?

Explain what is meant by Leah’s weak eyes.

What was the first deception which Laban perpetrated on Jacob? What circumstance made it easy for him to do this?

How did Laban try to rationalize this deception?

To what additional service did Jacob commit himself in order to get Rachel as his wife? Is this service to be regarded as a kind of dowry to offset his coming to Laban without material gifts of any kind?

In what respects did Laban reveal himself as a selfish schemer?

What was the prevailing custom with respect to the giving of the younger daughter in marriage before giving the older?

What service did Jacob accept to obtain Rachel in marriage?

Are we right in saying that Jacob remained with Laban all these years as a result of his inability to pay the bridal gift otherwise than by personal service?

What is the full significance of the statement that the seven years of service for Rachel seemed unto Jacob but a few days, for the love that he had to her?

Explain how Laban by his sharp practices inveigled Jacob into bigamy directly and indirectly into polygamy.

What was the mohar in the patriarchal culture?

Explain how bigamy and polygamy violate the will of God with respect to the conjugal union. Relate Acts 17:30 to these Old Testament practices.

Explain the circumstances of Jacob’s double wedding.

Was the bigamous relationship here a case of incest? Explain your answer?

When was such a relationship as that which Jacob had with the two sisters prohibited by the Mosaic Law? In what Scripture is this prohibition found?

Explain why we say that in these various incidents Jacob was suffering what is called Retributive Justice? What name did the Greeks give to the personification of Retributive Justice?

Which of Jacob’s sons became the ancestor of Messiah? What was his name? Who was his mother?

Why do we call Jacob a man of many wrestlings?

What do we learn about Jacob’s feeling for Leah as compared with his feeling for Rachel?

Write from memory the names of Jacob’s thirteen children and the names of their mothers respectively?

Are we justified in thinking that the Divine promise that Abraham’s seed should be as the stars of the heavens in multitude was involved in any way with the motivation that produced Jacob’s numerous progeny?

Show how the jealousy between Rachel and Leah continued to produce unpleasant consequences.

Explain why we speak of the sons of the two handmaids as adopted sons.

What is the import of Rachel’s cry, Give me children, or else I die?

What was Jacob’s rather harsh reply to Rachel’s complaints? Was it justified?

What, later, caused Leah to become discontented with being the mother of only four sons? What did she do about it?

Explain fully the story of the mandrakes. Was this pure superstition, or did it have some basis in fact?

How was the lad Reuben innocently involved in this?

How would you answer the criticism that the agricultural background shows the episode to be out of place in a nomadic setting? How does the reference to the wheat harvest figure in this discussion?

What step did Jacob take after his fourteen years of service for Leah and Rachel?

What is the probable explanation of Laban’s statement that he had divined that Yahweh was blessing Jacob’s endeavors?

What was the new contract into which Jacob entered at this time with Laban? What was the purpose of each in entering into this contract?

What three artifices did Jacob use to increase his wealth at Laban’s expense?

Do we know of any real scientific evidence to support the principle of selective breeding which Jacob employed here?

On what grounds can we justify Jacob in resorting to such methods, if at all?

What was the result, in so far as Jacob was concerned, of his strategy in this selective breeding?

What does Scripture tell us with regard to Jacob’s wealth?

For how long a time did Jacob continue in service for Laban? What was he doing through the last six years of this service?

What caused him to decide to break away from Laban and return home?

What attitude did his two wives take with reference to this decision, and why?

What caused Jacob to depart hastily? What route did he take? Of what did his retinue consist?

Summarize your final evaluation of the characters of Jacob and Laban. Would you say that Laban was the more deceptive of the two? Would you justify Jacob’s acts with reference to Laban? Explain your answer.

Genesis 31:17-55

**PART FORTY-TWO

THE STORY OF JACOB: HIS RETURN TO CANAAN**

(Genesis 31:17 to Genesis 33:20)

1. The Covenant in Gilead: The Biblical Account (Genesis 31:17-55)*.

17 Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon the camels; 18 and he carried away all his cattle, and all his substance which he had gathered, the cattle of his getting, which he had gathered in Paddan-aram, to go to Isaac his father unto the land of Canaan. 19 Now Laban was gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’S. 20 And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. 21 So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the River, and set his face toward the mountain of Gilead.

22 And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled. 23 And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days-’ journey; and he overtook him in the mountain of Gilead. 24 And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream of the night, and said unto him, Take heed to thyself that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad. 25 And Laban came up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain: and Laban with his brethren encamped in the mountain of Gilead. 26 And Laban said to Jacob, What hast thou done, that thou hast stolen away unawares to me, and carried away my daughters as captives of the sword? 27 Wherefore didst thou flee secretly, and steal away from me, and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp; 28 and didst not suffer me to kiss my sons and my daughters? now hast thou done foolishly. 29 It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take heed to thyself that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad. 30 And now, though thou wouldest needs be gone, because. thou sore longest after thy father’s house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods? 31 And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid: for I said, Lest thou shouldest take thy daughters from me by force. 32 With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, he shall not live: before our brethren discern thou what is thine with me, and take it to thee. For Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them.

33 And Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two maid-servants; but he found them not. And he went out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent. 34 Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, and put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat upon them. And Laban felt about all the tent, but found them not. 35 And she said to her father, Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise up before thee; for the manner of women is upon me. And he searched, but found not the teraphim. 36 And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban: and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast hotly pursued after me? 37 Whereas thou hast felt about all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy household stuff? Set it here before my brethren and thy brethren, that they may judge betwixt us two. 38 These twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flocks have I not eaten. 39 That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. 40 Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from mine eyes. 41 These twenty years have I been in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy flock: and thou hast changed my wages ten times. 42 Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now hadst thou sent me away empty, God hath seen mine affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight. 43 And Laban answered and said unto Jacob, The daughters are my daughters, and the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and all that thou seest is mine: and what can I do this day unto these daughters, or unto their children whom they have borne? 44 And now come, let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee, 45 And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. 46 And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made a heap: and they did eat there by the heap. 47 And Laban called it Jegar-saha-dutha: but Jacob called it Galeed. 48 And Laban said, This heap is witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed: 49 and Mizpah, for he said, Jehovah watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. 50 If thou shalt afflict my daughters, and if thou shalt take wives besides my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee. 51 And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold the pillar, which I have set betwixt me and thee. 52 This heap be witness, and the pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. 53 The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the Fear of his father Isaac. 54 And Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mountain. 55 And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed and returned unto his place.*

(1) Flight and Pursuit (Genesis 31:17-25). It seems to have become obvious to Jacob that flight was his only way of extricating himself and his household from Laban’s shiftiness. Jacob’s words to his wives will be recalled here: Your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times, Genesis 31:7; that is, a round number signifying just as often as he could (Leupold, EG, 832). The daughters themselves joined in affirming their father’s acts of exploitationhis efforts to fleece their husbandand even his avarice in his dealings with them (as if they were as of little concern to him as foreigners to be bought and sold at his will), Genesis 31:14-16: It was considered miserly if a father-in-law did not return to his daughter a part of the sum paid over by the husband at the time of marriage (JB, 51, n.). The point in this instance, is elucidated by tablets from Hurrian centers, is that part of the bride payment was normally reserved for the woman as her inalienable dowry. Rachel and Leah accuse their father of violating the family laws of their country. Significantly enough, the pertinent records antedate Moses by centuries (Speiser, ABG, 245). Rachel and Leah mean to say that what Jacob had acquired by his six years of service with their father was no more than would naturally have belonged to him had they obtained their portions at the first (PCG, 376). The wives were already alienated from their father and willingly espoused their husband’s cause. Encouraged, in addition, by the assurance of the God of Bethel that his vow had been accepted (Genesis 28:20-22) and the accompanying Divine authorization to get out of the land where he was and return to the land of his nativity, Jacob gathered all his possessions and departed at a most opportune time, namely, when Laban was away on a sheep-shearing mission, (Sheep-shearing, we are told, was the occasion of an important festival in ancient Israel [cf, Genesis 38:12 ff., 1 Samuel 25:2 ff., 2 Samuel 13:23]). Jacob with his retinue (all he hadcf. Genesis 30:43, sheep, goats, camels, asses, maidservants, men-servants, wives, and offspring) rose up and drove away, not leisurely, but with all possible haste; flocks, of course, had to be driven carefully lest they perish from over-exertion. (Note that he set the members of his family upon camels, Genesis 31:17). Crossing the River (the Euphrates, cf. 1 Kings 4:21, Ezra 4:10; Ezra 4:16), probably at the ancient ford at Thapsacus, the procession (one might well call it that) struck across the Damascus plain, and then the plateau of Bashan, thus finally entering the region known as Gilead, the area east of the Jordan that formed the frontier between Palestine and the Syrian desert. Gilead was a mountainous region, some sixty miles long and twenty miles wide, bounded on the north by Bashan and on the south by Moab and Ammon (Genesis 31:21, Deuteronomy 3:12-17). (Cf. the cities of refuge, Deuteronomy 4:41-43, namely, Bezer in the table-land, Ramoth in Gilead, and Golan in Bashan). From the crossing of the Euphrates at Thapsacus, the next objective naturally had to be the mountain of Gilead or Mount Gilead.

Jacob had not been, and was not intending to be after his return, a nomad. Genesis 31:18In addition to the cattle there were other possessions of Jacob that he had acquired in Paddan-aram or Mesopotamia.. By a repetition of miqneh, cattle, this part of his possessions is reverted to as -constituting-’ the major part of his -property,-’ quinyano, as K.W. well translates: der Viehbesitz, der sein Vermoegen bildete. The statement is rounded out by a double statement of the objective of his journey: on the one hand, he was going back -to Isaac, his father,-’ under whose authority he felt he still belonged, and -to the land of Canaan,-’ which according to divine decree was ultimately destined to be the possession of his posterity. Such precise formal statements including all the major facts are wont to be made by Moses when he records a particularly momentous act. The very circumstantiality of its form makes one feel its importancea device, by the way, quite naturally employed for similar purposes to this day. Critics miss all these finer points of style, for the supposed authors that the critics imagine have wrought out parts of Genesis (E, J, P, D) are poor fellows with one-track minds, not one of whom has the least adaptability of style, but all of whom write in a stiff, stilted fashion after one pattern only (EG, 838-839).

Perhaps we should give more careful attention here, in passing, to Jacob’s conversation with his wives prior to the flight, Genesis 31:7-13. This section is clarified greatly by Keil and Delitzsch as follows: From the statement that Laban had changed his wages ten times, it is evident that when Laban observed, that among his sheep and goats, of one color only, a large number of mottled young were born, he made repeated attempts to limit the original stipulation by changing the rule as to the colors of the young, and so diminishing Jacob’s wages. But when Jacob passes over his own stratagem in silence, and represents all that he aimed at and secured by crafty means as the fruit of God’s blessing, this differs no doubt from the account in chapter 30. It is not a contradiction, however, pointing to a difference in the sources of the two Chapter s, but merely a difference founded on actual fact, viz., that Jacob did not tell the whole truth to his wives. Moreover, self-help and divine help do not exclude one another. Hence, his account of the dream, in which he saw that the rams that leaped upon the cattle were all of various colors, and heard the voice of the angel of God calling his attention to what had been seen, in the words, -I have seen all that Laban hath done to thee,-’ may contain actual truth; and the dream may be regarded as a divine revelation, which was either sent to explain to him now, at the end of the sixth year, -that it was not his stratagem, but the providence of God which had prevented him from falling a victim to Laban’s avarice, and had brought him such wealth-’ (Delitzsch); or, if the dream occurred at an earlier period, was meant to teach him, that -the help of God, without any such self-help, could procure him justice and safety in spite of Laban’s covetousness-’ (Kurtz).It is very difficult to decide between these two interpretations. As Jehovah’s instructions to him to return were not given till the end of his period of service, and Jacob connects them so closely with the vision of the rams that they seem contemporaneous, Delitzsch’s view appears to deserve the preference. But the participial form in Genesis 31:12, all that Laban is doing to thee-’ does not exactly suit this meaning.. The participle rather favors Kurtz’s view, that Jacob had the vision of the rams and the explanation from the angel at the beginning of the last six years of service, but that in his communication to his wives, in which there was no necessity to preserve a strict continuity or distinction of time, he connected it with the divine instructions to return to his home, which he received at the end of his time of service. But if we decide in favor of this view, we have no further guarantee for the objective reality of the vision of the rams, since nothing is said about it in the historical account, and it is nowhere stated that the wealth obtained by Jacob’s craftiness was the result of the divine blessing. The attempt so unmistakably apparent in Jacob’s whole conversation with his wives, to place his dealings with Laban in the most favorable light for himself, excites the suspicion, that the vision of which he spoke was nothing more than a natural dream, the materials being supplied by the three thoughts that were most frequently in his mind, by night as well as by day, viz., (1) his own schemes and their success; (2) the promise received at Bethel; (3) the wish to justify his actions to his own conscience; and that these were wrought up by an excited imagination into a visionary dream, of the divine origin of which Jacob himself may not have had the slightest doubt (BCOTP, 295, 296).

We pause to say here, that Jacob did outwit Laban. Moreover, it is expressly emphasized that he outwitted Laban the Syrian (Hebrew, Aramean: Genesis 31:20; Genesis 31:24). We are compelled to wonder whether this specific designation is designed to point up the fact of Laban’s ingrained trickery, an art which he practised on Jacob at every turn. History seems to show that from most ancient times to the present the Syrians were, and are, the prime trouble-makers in the Near East. Bowie rightly suggests that the chronicler must have set down this account with a very human and perhaps unregenerate pleasure. Here was Jacob, the progenitor of Israel, outsmarting the uncovenanted Laban. From a natural point of view that seemed eminently appropriate. More than once Laban had deliberately cheated Jacob. He had promised him Rachel to wife, and after Jacob had served seven years for her he withheld Rachel and gave him Leah instead. According to Jacob, Laban had also changed his wages ten times (Genesis 31:7). Jacob had good reason therefore to be suspicious when Laban tried to persuade him to stay and work for him further (Genesis 31:27), and all the more so when Laban had added unctuously, for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake. Anybody would have said that if Laban could now be cheated in his turn, it would be what he thoroughly deserved. As a matter of fact, Jacob does not cheat him. He carries through exactly the terms of an agreement which he had proposed to Laban, and which Laban explicitly accepted. He was not false like Laban: he was more inventive and adroit. When he had proposed to Laban that all he asked in the way of wages was that little fraction of the flock which might be odd in color, that seemed to Laban a highly desirable bargain, especially since he, Laban, took the opportunity then and there to remove from the flock all the sheep and goats that might breed the type that would belong to Jacob, The trouble was that he did not foresee the extraordinary device by which Jacob would be able to make the flock breed according to his interesta device not ruled out by the bargain. So by every secular standard Jacob was entitled to his triumph. However, Dr. Bowie goes on to say, the interest of the story lies in the fact that the narrator was not judging by secular standards, He believed that Jacob’s triumph was directly linked to his religion, He describes Jacob as saying to Rachel and Leah, -God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me-’ (Genesis 31:9). Moreover, an angel appears to Jacob and gives him God’s message thus: -I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. I am the God of Bethel. where thou vowedst a vow unto me-’ (Genesis 31:12-13). In other words, Jacob’s clever stratagem and the success it brought him are the result of the commitment which he believed God had given to him at Bethel to make him prosperous. A curious blending of the earthy and the heavenlya blending which one must recognize to exist in part of the O.T. and in influences which have flowed from it! The people of Israel were convinced that there is an intimate relationship between favor with heaven and material well-being in this world. The positive aspect of that was to give powerful sanction to keen-wittedness and commercial sagacity, so that the Jew in many practical matters has exhibited an intelligence greater than that of his non-Jewish rival. As with Jacob in his contest with Laban, he can show that he deserves to win. The negative aspect is of course the implication that prosperity ought to be the concomitant of religion. That is not confined to Judaism: John Calvin, who was greatly influenced by the O.T., tended to make it appear that the Christian citizen, sturdy and reliant, would be more evidently a man of God if he was a success in business. It is true that there are qualities inspired by religionintegrity, diligence, faithfulness in familiar dutieswhich may bring this world’s goods as their result. But to look toward these as a necessary reward of religion is to dishonor the love of God, which must be sought for itself, by trying to make it an instrument of our selfishness. It is not in Jacob’s outwitting Laban that we see the true end of worship, It is rather in Jesus, who, -though he was rich, yet for your sakes. became poor-’ (2 Corinthians 8:9) (IBG, 707-710). (We must agree wholeheartedly with this expositor’s thesis that an abundance of material goods is not a necessary reward of religion, least of all of the Christian religion. We know of no Scriptures, either in the Old Testament or in the New, that would ascribe either unusual material wealth or poverty to God’s special providence, i.e., outside the general operation of economic cause-and-effect relationships, and these in relation to individual human character and effort. The divine ordinance that man shall earn his livelihood by honest labor, mental or physical or both (Genesis 3:19) has never been rescinded. Why, then, ascribe the notion of this correlation of material goods with religious commitment to the chronicler’s attitude in the case before us, when as a matter of fact the whole affair is presented as a series of Jacob’s own assumptions (or presumptions). As a matter of fact, all that is implicit in the account given in ch. Genesis 28:20-22, in the matter of material possessions, is simply bread to eat and raiment to put on. These simple needs of everyday life are certainly a far cry from the contest waged between Jacob and Laban for this world’s goods. Cf. John 5:40; John 10:10; Matthew 6:19-34; Luke 8:14; Luke 18:24; Mark 14:7; John 16:33; Colossians 3:5; 1 Timothy 6:10; James 5:1-6, etc.).

The following evaluation of Jacob’s conduct seems to be unbiased and just: 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, n.).

(2) The Teraphim (Genesis 31:19).

Jacob’s flight with all his substance occurred at a time when the important task of sheep-shearing was engrossing Laban’s attention. This means that the latter was at some distance from Jacob’s flocks (Genesis 30:36), and since all hands would be kept quite busy for a few days, no time could have been more opportune. Moreover, because her father was away from home, Rachel had a chance to carry out a special project of her own: she stole the teraphim that were her father’S. Evidently these were her household gods. The plural may be a plural of excellence after the pattern of the name Elohim, and so only one image may have been involved. Whether these were larger, almost man-sized as 1 Samuel 19:13; 1 Samuel 19:16 seems to suggest, or actually were only the small figurines yielded by excavations in Palestine matters little, as both types may have been in use. Apparently they were regarded as promoting domestic prosperity, and thus were a kind of gods of the hearth like the Roman Penates, The teraphim was a god (Genesis 31:30); its form and size were those of a man (1 Samuel 19:13; 1 Samuel 19:16); it was used in private houses as well as in temples (Judges 17:5; Judges 18:14 ff., Hosea 3:4), and was an implement of divination (Ezek. 2:21, Zechariah 10:2). The indications point to its being an emblem of ancestor-worship which survived in Israel as a private superstition, condemned by the enlightened conscience of the nation (Genesis 35:2, 1 Samuel 15:23, 2 Kings 23:24). It seems implied by the present narrative that the cult was borrowed from the Arameans, or perhaps rather that it had existed before the separation of Hebrews and Arameans (ICCG, 396). These were household gods, idols of clay or metal (HSB, 51, n.). It will be noted that in the narrative before us, Laban calls these objects gods; when Jacob does the same, he is probably only quoting Laban, Genesis 31:30; Genesis 31:32). The teraphim were the family or household gods represented in the form of idols. They varied in size. Those of Laban were small enough to be put in the pack-saddle of a camel upon which Rachel sat. 1 Samuel 19:13 speaks of such an image in the house of David, approximately of human size and shape. In ancient Israel the use of the teraphim seems to have been common, and not at all inconsistent with the pure worship of Israel’s God: Judg. ch. 17, Genesis 18:14; Genesis 18:17-18; Genesis 18:20; 1 Samuel 19:13; Hosea 3:4 (Morganstern, JIBG, in loco). It seems hardly fair to assume that the Israelites carelessly carried these household divinities over from the time of these early Mesopotamian contacts and continued to use them almost uninterruptedly. When Michal happens to have such a figure handy (1 Samuel 19), that is not as yet proof that from Rachel’s day to Michal’s Israel had quite carelessly tolerated them. We should rather say that whenever Israel lapsed into idolatry, especially in Canaan, then the backsliders would also adapt themselves to the teraphim cult. Hosea 3:4 by no means lists them as legitimate objects of worship (EG, 840).

Of greater significance to us, however, is the question, Why did Rachel steal this teraphim? To be rejected are such conjectures as merely to play her father a prank; or to take them for their intrinsic worth, supposing that they were gold or silver figurines; or to employ a drastic or almost fanatical mode of seeking to break her father’s idolatryviews current among Jewish commentators and early church fathers and to some extent to this day. More nearly correct might seem to be the opinion which suggests that she aimed to deprive her father of the blessings which might have been conferred by them, Most reasonable of all, though it does not exclude the last-mentioned view, is the supposition that Rachel took them along for her own use, being herself somewhat given to superstitious or idolatrous practices. For though Genesis 30:23-24 suggest a measure of faith and of knowledge of the true God, even as Jehovah, yet it would seem that as a true daughter of her father she had been addicted to his religion and now had a kind of divided allegiance, trusting in Jehovah and not wanting to be deprived of the good luck teraphim might confer. In any case, since she took what did not belong to her, she is guilty of theftshe -stole-’ (EG, 840). The rabbis sought to excuse Rachel’s theft by saying she took the teraphim because she feared they might disclose Jacob’s whereabouts to Laban. Actually, the story gives no motive for her theft, unless it be that suggested, in the lesson, to prove the superiority of Jacob’s God over the gods of Laban. For this reason probably the story told with considerable gusto not only that Rachel stole these gods, which were powerless to defend themselves, but also that she subjected them to greater indignity by sitting on them (Genesis 31:34). Use of teraphim became regarded as inconsistent with the pure worship of God and was prohibited: 2 Kings 23:24; cf. 1 Samuel 15:23 (Morganstern, ibid.). They were used for divination; hence she stole them that they should not reveal to Laban that Jacob had fled [Rashbam]. They were idols, and she stole them in order to keep Laban from idolatry [Rashi]. E [Abraham Ibn Ezra] inclines to the former reason, for if the latter were her purpose, she should have hidden them and not taken them with her. As for the teraphim, E mentions two views: that it was a kind of clock, or an image which was so made that at certain times it spoke. His own opinion is that it was a kind of dummy which could be mistaken for a human being, the proof being that Michal deceived David’s pursuers by putting teraphim in the bed, which they mistook for David (1 Samuel 19:13 ff.). N [Nachmanides] also quotes the story of Michal, from which he deduced that not all teraphim were worshipped as idols, for in that case David would certainly not have possessed them. He conjectures that it was an object used to foretell the future (apparently a kind of fortune-telling clock). Men of little faith therefore worshipped it as an idol (SC, 182). Probably it is true. that the main purpose for the mention of the images is to disparage Laban for the superstitious value he put on them, and by contrast to indicate that Jacob was superior to such things. In that case, Rachel’s sitting upon them would be only another stroke in the picture of the idols-’ degradation. But there is another road on which imagination travels. Suppose that Rachel sat upon the images not to make her father’s search for them ridiculous, but because she craved to keep them for herself. Then that might be taken as evidence simply of pathetic superstition on her part; but it is possible to see in it something more than that. Suppose that on her way to an unfamiliar country and to a strange new relationship, Rachel wanted to carry with her what had been significant at home. That can be a wholesome human instinct. None of us is isolated and self-sufficient. The meaning of life is bound up with the complex of associations of the family or the group. If these are altogether left behind, the human being will be lonely and lost (IBG, 713).

Lange: Literally, Teraphim, Penates, small figures, probably resembling the human form, which were honored as guardians of the household property, and as oracles. But as we must distinguish the symbolic adoration of religious images (statuettes) among ancients, from the true and proper mythological worship, so we must distinguish between a gentler and severe censure of the use of such images upon Shemitic ground. Doubtless the symbolic usage prevailed in the house of Laban and Nahor. It is hardly probable that Rachel intended, by a pious and fanatical theft, to free her father from idolatry (Gregory Nazianzen, Basil), for then she would have thrown the images away, She appears to have stolen them with the superstitious idea that she would prevent her father from consulting them as oracles, and under their guidance, as the pursuer of Jacob, from overtaking him and destroying him (Ibn Ezra). The supposition of a condition of war, with its necessity and strategy, enters here with apologetic force. This, however, does not exclude the idea, that she attributed to the images a certain magical, though not religious, power (perhaps, as oracles. Chrysostom). The very lowest and most degrading supposition, is that she took the images, often overlaid with silver, or precious metals, from mercenary motives (Peirerius). Jacob himself had at first a lax rather than a strict conscience in regard to these images (see ch. Genesis 35:2), but the stricter view prevails since the time of Moses (Exodus 20, Joshua 24:2; Joshua 24:14 f.) The derivation of the Hebrew word teraphim, always used in the plural, is doubtful. Some derive it from taraph, to rejoicethus dispensers of good; others, from a like root, to inquirethus they are oracles; and others, like Kurtz and Hofmann, make it another form of Seraphim. They were regarded and used as oracles (Judges 17:5-6, Ezekiel 21:21, Zechariah 10:2). They were not idols in the worst sense of the word, and were sometimes used by those who professed the worship of the true god (1 Samuel 19:13). The tendency was always hurtful, and they were ultimately rooted out from Israel. Laban had lapsed into a more corrupt form of religion, and his daughters had not escaped the infection. We may modify our views of Rachel’s sin, but it cannot be excused or justified (CDHCG, 542). With the last statement in the foregoing we must agree. However, Rachel’s theft of Laban’s teraphim (which undoubtedly were figurines or images in human form) is much better understood today, in the light of the documents from Nuzi, not far from modern Kirkuk, excavated 1925-1934. In Hebrew teraphim, small domestic idols; possession of these could constitute a claim to inheritance (JB, 51, n.). The teraphim, which Rachel successfully hid while Laban searched all of Jacob’s possessions, may have had more legal than religious significance for Laban. According to Nuzu law, a son-in-law who possessed the household idols might claim the family inheritance in court. Thus Rachel was trying to obtain some advantage for her husband by stealing the idols. But Laban nullified any such benefit by a covenant with Jacob before they separated (Schultz, OTS, 36). Then Rachel did an extraordinary thing without Jacob’s knowledge. She stole the -teraphim,-’ Laban’s family gods, or household idols. The custom was that Laban’s true son would share inheritance, and receive the teraphim, symbol of his rights. Only if there were no son would Jacob possess them. Rachel’s act was therefore designed to secure an advantage for her husband and children. It is not likely in this case that the teraphim conveyed ownership of valuable property as Rachel was leaving the territory of her father. They may have betokened clan-leadership in the -land of the people of the east,-’ or spiritual power, so that possessing them was of paramount importance (Cornfeld, AtD, 87). Genesis 31:19Rachel stole the teraphim. Appropriated, also Genesis 31:32. Heb. stem gnb, which usually means -to steal.-’ But it also has other shadings in idiomatic usage. Thus the very next clause employs the same verb, no doubt deliberately and with telling effect, in the phrase -lulling the mind,-’ i.e., stealing the heart; the phrase is repeated in 26; in 27, with Laban speaking, the verb is used by itself in the sense of -to dupe.-’ Finally, in Genesis 31:29, the passive participle occurs (twice) to designate animals snatched by wild beasts. The range of gnb is thus much broader, in Heb. in general, and in the present narrative in particular, than our -to steal-’ would indicate. A reasonably precise translation is especially important in this instance, The issue is bound up with the purpose of Rachel’s act. If it was inspired by no more than a whim, or resentment, or greed, then Rachel stole the images. But if she meant thereby to undo what she regarded as a wrong, and thus took the law, as she saw it, into her own hands, the translation -stole-’ would be not only inadequate but misleading. On the other hand, when Laban refers to the same act further down (Genesis 31:30), he clearly meant -steal-’ (Speiser, ABG, 245).

Whitelaw summarizes fully, as follows: The teraphim, from an unused root, taraph, signifying to live comfortably, like the Sanscrit trip, Greek trephein, Arabic tarafa (Gesenius, Furst) appear to have been small human figures (cf. Genesis 31:34), though the image in 1 Samuel 19:13 must have been nearly life-sized, or a full-sized bust, sometimes made of silver (Judges 17:4), though commonly constructed of wood (1 Samuel 19:13-16); they were worshipped as gods (eidola, LXX; idola, Vulgate, cf. ch. Genesis 31:30), consulted for oracles (Ezekiel 21:21, Zechariah 10:2), and believed to be the custodians and promoters of human happiness (Judges 18:24). Probably derived from the Arameans (Furst, Kurtz), or the Chaldeans (Ezekiel 21:21, Kalisch, Wordsworth), the worship of teraphim was subsequently denounced as idolatrous (1 Samuel 15:23, 2 Kings 13:24). (Compare Rachel’s act with that ascribed to Aeneas, in Virgil, Aeneid, III, 148-150). Rachel’s motive for abstracting her father’s teraphim has been variously attributed to a desire to prevent her father from discovering, by inquiring at his gods, the direction of their flight (Aben Ezra, Rosenmuller), to protect herself, in case of being overtaken, by an appeal to her father’s gods (Josephus), to draw her father from the practice of idolatry (Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Theodoret), to obtain children for herself through their assistance (Lengerke, Gerlach), to preserve a memorial of her ancestors, whose pictures these teraphim were (Lightfoot); but was probably due to avarice, if the images were made of precious metals (Peirerius), or to a taint of superstition which still adhered to her otherwise religious nature (Chrysostom, Calvin), causing her to look to these idols for protection (Kalisch, Murphy) or consultation (Wordsworth) on her journey (PCG, 376).

We have presented these various theories as to the nature of the teraphim and Rachel’s motives in stealing them to show how great is the scope of speculation on these subjects. We terminate this study with what we consider to be the sanest and most thoroughgoing presentation of it, as follows: The teraphim were figurines or images in human form. Rachel’s theft of Laban’s teraphim (Genesis 31:34) is much better understood in the light of the documents from Nuzu, not far from modern Kirkuk, excavated 1925-1934. The possession of these household gods apparently implied leadership of the family and, in the case of a married daughter, assured her husband the right to the property of her father. Since Laban evidently had sons of his own when Jacob left for Canaan, they alone had the right to their father’s gods, and the theft of these household idols by Rachel was a serious offense (Genesis 31:19; Genesis 31:31; Genesis 31:35) aimed at preserving for her husband the first title to her father’s estate. Albright construes the teraphim as meaning -vile things,-’ but the images were not necessarily cultic or lewd, as frequently the depictions of Astarte were. Micah’s teraphim (Judges 17:5) were used for purposes of securing an oracle (cf. 1 Samuel 15:23, Hosea 3:4; Zechariah 10:2). Babylonian kings oracularly consulted the teraphim (Ezekiel 21:21). Josiah abolished the teraphim (2 Kings 23:24), but these images had a strange hold on the Hebrew people even until after the Exilic. Period (Unger, UBD, 1085). The present writer finds it difficult to disassociate these objects from some aspect of the Cult of Fertilitythe worship of the Earth-mother and the Sun-fatherwhich was so widespread throughout the ancient pagan world; cf. the Apostle’s description, Romans 1:18-32. Every phase of this Cult of Fertility reeked with sex perversions of every kind, including ritual prostitution and phallic worship: remains of this cult have been brought to light in recent years by the discovery of hundreds of figurines of pregnant women throughout the Mediterranean world. Crete seems to have been the center from which this cult became diffused throughout the ancient world. The Children of Israel had to battle this cult from the time of their origin as a people, and apparently were always influenced to it by some extent: cf. the moral struggle of the prophet Elijah with the wicked queen Jezebel. It is our conviction that Rachel appropriated these (surely more likely than this) teraphim with the intention of using them for whatever ends they were supposed by her paternal household to serve. That the legal aspect, as indicated by the Nuzi records, could have been a very important part of her objective seems to be both historical and reasonable. However, we cannot get away from the basic conviction that Rachel was imbued with the spirit of paganism which seems to have characterized her people generally. Even Jacob himself and his people were not immunized against this cultism (cf. Genesis 35:2-4; Joshua 24:2; Joshua 24:14 f.; Judges 10:16). Again quoting Lange: Laban had lapsed into a more corrupt form of religion, and his daughters had not escaped the infection. We may modify our views of Rachel’s sin, but it cannot be excused or justified.

(3) Laban the Syrian (Genesis 31:24), in Hebrew, Aramean. The Arameans were an important branch of the Semitic race, and closely akin to the Israelites. The kingdom of Damascus or Syria, during the ninth and eighth centuries B.C., the most powerful and dangerous rival of the northern kingdom of Israel, was the leading Aramean state. The language of the Aramean tribes and states consisted of several closely related dialects. After the Exile, Aramean gradually supplanted Hebrew as the vernacular of the Jewish people. Certain portions of the Bible (Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4 to Daniel 7:28, Ezra 4:8 to Ezra 6:18, Ezra 7:12-26) are written in Aramaic, as are considerable portions of rabbinic literature (Morganstern, JIBG). (Our Lord Himself spoke Galilean Aramaic, cf. Matthew 27:46). The progenitor of the Aramean peoples was Aram, the son of Shem (Genesis 10:22-23). These peoples spread widely through Syria and Mesopotamia from the Lebanon Mountains on the west to the Euphrates River on the east, and from the Taurus Range on the north to Damascus and northern Palestine on the south. Contacts of the Arameans with the Hebrews began in the patriarchal age, if not earlier (cf. Paddan-aram, the plain of Aram, Genesis 24:10; Genesis 28:5; Genesis 31:47). The maternal ancestry of Jacob’s children was Aramaic (Deuteronomy 26:5). During the long period of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt, that of the wanderings in the Sinaitic Wilderness, and the extended period of the Judges in Canaan, the Arameans were spreading in every direction, particularly southward. By the time of the reign of Saul (c. 1000 B.C.), this expansion was beginning to clash with Israelite strength and several Aramaic districts appear prominently in the Old Testament Scriptures. (See UBG, s.v. Aram, Aramaic). The Greeks called Aram, Syria; consequently the language is called Syriac (Daniel 2:4). David conquered these Aramean kingdoms at his very back door and incorporated them into his kingdom, thus laying the foundation of Solomon’s empire. (Aram-Naharaim, Aram of the Two Rivers, was the name by which the territory around Haran was known; the region where the Arameans had settled in patriarchal times, where Abraham sojourned for a time, and from which Aramean power spread. Aram-Damascus was a south Syrian state which became the inveterate foe of the Northern Kingdom of Israel for more than a century and a half (1 Kings 11:23-25). Aram-Zobah, a powerful kingdom which flourished north of Hamath, was conquered by David and incorporated into his realm (2 Sam., ch. 8). Aram-Maachah was a principality east of the Jordan near Mount Hermon (Joshua 12:5; Joshua 13:11). Aram-Beth-Rehob in the general vicinity of Geshur, probably near Maacah and Dan (Numbers 13:21, Judges 18:28). Geshur was a small principality east of the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee (Deuteronomy 3:14, 2 Samuel 15:8; 2 Samuel 13:37). Tob was also a small Aramaic principality east of the Jordan, some ten miles south of Gadara, (the region from which the Ammonite king drew soldiers to war against David. A battle ensued in which the Syrians were routed (2 Samuel 10:8-19). Genesis 31:20; Genesis 31:24Laban the Aramean: The reason for this apposition is puzzling. It hardly grows out of the Hebrew national consciousness which here proudly asserts itself. Perhaps the opinion advanced by Clericus still deserves most consideration. He believes Laban’s nationality is mentioned because the Syrians were known from of old as the trickiest people; here one of this people in a kind of just retribution meets one trickier than himself. Yet this is not written to glorify trickery (EG, 841).

Three days after Jacob’s flight, the news of it reached Laban, who was already three days removed from Jacob and his retinue at the time the latter set out on his journey homeward. Laban set out after himpursued after him seven days-’ journey (Genesis 31:23) and overtook him in the mountain of Gilead. Skinner contends that the distance of Gilead from Harran (c. 350 miles as the crow flies) is much too great to be traversed in that time (ICCG, 397). Speiser writes: -a distance of seven days.-’ This is meant as a general figure indicating a distance of considerable length: cf. 2 Kings 3:9. Actually, Gilead could scarcely have been reached from Har (r) an in seven days, especially at the pace of Jacob’s livestock (ABG, 246). Leupold suggests as follows: Some have computed that the distance involved is about 350 miles as the crow flies. This need not necessarily be assumed. We have accurate maps that represent it to be no more than about 275 miles to the fringes of Mount Gilead. Besides, in shifting his grazing ground Jacob may have so arranged things before he took his flight in hand as to gravitate some three day’s journey to the south of Harancertainly not an impose sibility. If only fifteen miles constituted an average day’s journey, the total distance would be cut down to almost 200 miles. Now, certainly, Jacob will have pressed on faster than the average day’s journey, perhaps at the cost of the loss of a bit of cattle. The cooler part of the day and portions of the night may have been utilized in order to spare the cattle. Then, too, the boundaries of Gilead may originally have extended nearer to Damascus.. K.C. (Koenig’s Commentary on Genesis) shows that -Gilead-’ is used for the country east of the Jordan in general (EG, 843). We see no valid reason for the assumption that the distance specified was too great to fit the time period specified. The following quotes seem to make this clear. -It was told Laban on the third day,-’ etc., i.e., the third after Jacob’s departure, the distance between the two sheep-stations being a three days-’ journey, cf. Genesis 30:36.. The distance between Padan-aram and mount Gilead was a little over 300 miles, to perform which Jacob must at least have taken ten days, though Laban, who was less encumbered than his son-in-law, accomplished it in seven, which might easily be done by traveling from forty to forty-five miles a day, by no means a great feat for a camel (PCG, 379). The following seems to clarify the situation beyond any reasonable doubt: A three days-’ distance separated them in the first place, and another three days were required for a messenger to go and inform Laban. At the time of the messenger’s arrival Jacob was six days-’ journey distant. Since Laban caught up with him on the next day, he covered in one day what took Jacob seven days (Rashi). Sh (Rashbam) points out that this was natural since Jacob would be traveling slowly on account of the flocks (SC, 182). Murphy suggests the following explanation: On the third day after the arrival of the messenger, Laban might return to the spot whence Jacob had taken his flight. In this case, Jacob would have at least five days of a start; which, added to the seven days of pursuit, would give him twelve days to travel three hundred English miles. To those accustomed to the pastoral life this was a possible achievement (MG, 406). Lange writes: As Jacob, with his herds, moved slower than Laban, he lost his start of three days in the course of seven days (CDHCG, 542). At any rate, no sooner did the information reach Laban that Jacob had fled than he set out in pursuit, and, being unencumbered, he advanced rapidly; whereas Jacob, with a young family and numerous flocks, had to move rather slowly, so that Laban overtook the fugitives after seven days-’ journey, as they lay encamped on brow of mount Gilead, an extensive range of mountains that formed the eastern boundary of Canaan. The mountains constituting the northern portion of the land of Gilead, which lay between the Yarmuk on the north and the Arnon on the south, was divided at about one-third of the distance by the deep valley of the Jabbok, which cleaves the mountains to their base. This territory, in its whole length, is often spoken of as the land of Gilead, but rarely as Mount Gilead. The portions north and south of the Jabbok are each spoken of as half Gilead (Joshua 12:2; Joshua 12:5; Joshua 13:31; Deuteronomy 3:12). Evidently is was in this mount Gilead that Laban overtook Jacob.

(4) The Altercation, (Genesis 31:26-42). Laban evidently reached the mount of Gilead toward the end of the seventh day, and seeing Jacob’s tents not too far away, he lodged over night where he had halted. It was during the night that Laban had the dream, Genesis 31:29. Evidently the idea suggested is that Jacob and Laban were encamped, each on a different foothill. In the case of Laban the specific statement that it was -Mount Gilead-’ where the tents were pitched makes it entirely plain that both had pitched on the same mountain though over against one another. The critical correction, which tries to put Jacob on Mount Mizpah, grows out of the desire to prove that two threads of narrative intertwine. Critics are continually, though often unwittingly, -doctoring up-’ the evidence (EG, 844). When the two men came face to face the next morning, Laban, blustering and simulating righteous indignation, demands to know way Jacob has so deceived him, trying to present the latter’s action in the most unfavorable light. Laban is as much aware of the extent of his exaggeration as are all others who hear him. At the same time he himself knows best why Jacob fled secretly and without announcement (EG, 845). Laban claims that he could do Jacob hurt, when he knows he has no intention of doing so after having received a direct warning from God against that very thing. He is merely boasting. Being accompanied by a number of his people, Laban might have used violence, had he not been Divinely warned in a dream to give no interruption to his nephew’s journey. Josephus says that he reached the neighborhood of mount Gilead -at eventide.-’ And having resolved not to disturb Jacob’s encampment till the morning, it was during the intervening night that he had the warning dream, in which God told him, that if he (Laban) despised their small number, and attacked them in a hostile manner, He would Himself assist them (Antiquities, I, 19, 10). How striking and sudden a change! For several days he had been full of rage, and was now in eager anticipation that his vengeance would be fully wreaked, when lo! his hands are tied by invisible power (Psalms 76:10). He dared not touch Jacob, but there was a war of words (CECG, 210). God’s warning had been explicit: he was to speak to Jacob neither good or bad, that is, nothing at all (JB), not pass from peaceful greetings to acrimonious (Lange), not say anything acrimonious or violent against Jacob (Murphy). Or, perhaps the expression was simply a proverbial phrase for opposition or interference of any kind (Kalisch). At any rate, Laban plays the role of an outraged parent and grandparent. Smooth hypocrite that he is, he offers a sentimental pretext for his warlike demonstration, that is, his slighted affection for his offspring and his desire to honor a parting guest (Skinner). Incidentally, this manner of speeding a parting guest (i.e., with mirth, songs, tabret, and harp) is not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament; in New Testament terms it would be designated revelings (Galatians 5:21). Laban’s recriminations are threefold: the secret flight, the carrying off of his daughters, and the theft of his gods. Obviously, the last-named charge was a very serious matter to Laban; hence it led to the chief scene of the altercation. We cannot avoid the impression that he was far more concerned about his gods than about the welfare of his daughters. The meaning is this: even if thy secret departure can be explained, the stealing of my gods cannot. To Laban’s hypocritical approach, Jacob replied with bluntness, specifying the hardships of his twenty years-’ service and the attempts to defraud him of his hire. Knowing nothing of Rachel’s theft of the teraphim, Jacob proved to be so sure of the innocence of his household that he offered to give up the culprit to death if the theft could be proved. (As we have noted heretofore, for Laban these gods had more legal than religious import: according to Nuzi law, a son-in-law who possessed the household idols might claim the family inheritance in court. Laban intended to have nothing of that kind to happen.) Jacob admitted bluntly that he had resorted to flight because he feared that his father-in-law would take the daughters away from him by force. Whereupon, Laban, with Jacob’s permission, proceeded to search the tents of his son-in-law, his two daughters, and the two maid-servants. He searched Rachel’s tent last. Rachel, too, resorted to a stratagem: she had taken the teraphim and concealed them in the camel’s litter (pack-saddle), on which she apparently was resting within her tent. When her father entered, she apologized for not rising, pleading the manner of women that was upon her, which made her ceremonially unclean (cf. Leviticus 15:19-23). Of course Laban’s search was all in vain. Since Jacob’s cause was just and since he had just been charged with theft, Jacob feels the necessity of answering the last question or charge. He is so sure that no one would have been guilty of such a deed that he boldly asserts that the thief shall die, should he be found. Such a punishment for such a crime may have been suggested by the prevalent attitude of the times reflected in the Code of Hammurabia few centuries old by this timethat they who stole the property of a god (or temple) should die. Yet, though in himself entirely certain of his ground, Jacob ought never to have made such an assertion. Seemingly Jacob feels this, for as he invites the search, he merely asks Laban to take whatever he thinks Jacob or his retinue have taken wrongfully; he does not again threaten the death of the idol thief. That nothing be covered up Jacob asks that the search be made -in the presence of our kinsmen.-’ Finally the necessary explanation that Jacob had never for a moment thought Rachel capable of such a deed (EG, 848). Laban then proceeded to search Jacob’s tent, and Leah’S, and the tent of the two maid-servants, but he did not find the teraphim. Again: The two maid-servants are inserted parenthetically for completeness-’ sake. Separate tents for the husband and the wives and the handmaidens apparently were the rule in those days. Disregarding the parenthesis, the writer goes on, working up to the climax of the search: he (Laban) came out of Leah’s tent and entered into Rachel’S. Rachel is a match for her father in craftiness. She has taken the teraphim and put them into the -camel’s litter,-’ a capacious saddle with wicker basket attachments on either side. Some describe it as a palanquin. Apparently it was so constructed that even when it was removed from the camel it offered a convenient seat for travelers. Laban feels over everything in the tent, The litter is all that remains. Had Rachel raised her protestation or excuse before this time she would have aroused suspicion. By waiting to the last critical moment she diverts attention from the fact that she might be sitting upon the teraphim. For who would care to trouble a menstruating woman suffering pain? Because, it may have actually been true what she was asserting. Nothing appears here of the taboo that some tribes and races associated with women in this condition, taboos which temporarily rendered such women untouchable. So Jacob appeared satisfied, for a painstaking search revealed no theft. We may well wonder what he would have done if Rachel’s theft had come to light (EG, 848). Jamieson disagrees to some extent: Tents are of two descriptionsthe family tent and the single tent. With the patriarchs the latter seem to have been the kind used (see Genesis 18:9-10), especially in traveling, as recommended by its convenience, and formed in the manner described in the passage just referred to. The patriarch had the principal tent, and each of his wives, even the married handmaids and concubines, had their separate tents also. A personal scrutiny was made by Laban, who examined every tent; and having entered Rachel’s last, would have infallibly discovered the stolen images, had not Rachel made an appeal to him which prevented further search.. She availed herself of a notion which seems to have obtained in patriarchal times, and which was afterwards enacted in the Mosaic Code as a law, that a woman in the alleged circumstances was unclean, and communicated a taint to everything with which she came into contact. It was a mere pretext, however, on the part of Rachel, to avoid the further researches of her father (CECG, 211). The fact that Laban passed over Rachel’s seat because of her pretended condition, does not presuppose the Levitical law in Leviticus 15:9 ff., according to which, any one who touched the couch or seat of such a woman was rendered unclean. For, in the first place, the view which lies at the foundation of this law was much older than the laws of Moses, and is; met with among many other nations; consequently Laban might refrain from making further examinations, less from fear of defilement, than because he regarded it as impossible that any one with the custom of women upon her should sit upon his gods (BCOTP, 298. To Jacob, undoubtedly, this minute search of Rachel’s tent was the crowning indignity. (It should be noted, in passing that Rachel, by covering her theft by subtlety and untruth, Genesis 31:35, proved herself a true daughter of Laban, and showed with how much imperfection her religious character was tainted. I cannot rise up before thee; although Oriental politeness required children to rise up in the presence of their parents (cf. Leviticus 19:32, 1 Kings 2:19), in this case the apology was unnecessary: the plea of the manner of women (Genesis 18:11) made her ceremonially unclean, and indeed separate (or untouchable, Leviticus 15:19). Some hold that this was a mere pretext on Rachel’s part to prevent further searching by her father: she was indeed a match for her father in craftiness.)

Jacob’s pent-up emotions for years now breaks forth boldly and bluntly with mounting wrath. He challenges Laban to set forth before all their kinsmen whatsoever of his own he may have found in the course of his search. The kinsmen could serve as arbiters to render a fair public verdict in the presence of representatives of both parties to the altercation. This challenge must have embarrassed even thick-skinned old Laban. Although he [Jacob] had given Laban permission to make the search, it was because he thought that one of the servants might have stolen the teraphim. Now that they were not found, he suspected that the story of the theft was merely a pretext to enable him to make a general search (SC, 184), Jacob pours out his own recriminations: (1) the hardships of his twenty years-’ service, and (2) the attempts to defraud him of his hire. All the submerged suffering and frustration for twenty years now comes to the surface. First of all he was deceived about Leah and Rachel. He had not been in the home of his uncle Laban a month before he was put to work (Genesis 29:15). His industriousness had been unfaltering. His wages had been changed ten times, and we may be sure they were not raised each time. Jacob’s twenty years with Laban had taught him that God’s man cannot live by cleverness. The children of this world are. wiser than the children of light (Luke 16:8). Note especially Genesis 31:38-39: A custom of the East provided that as long as the shepherd could lay before the owner the torn beast, that was accounted sufficient evidence that the shepherd had driven off the predatory animal. But Jacob was accorded no such consideration: he was held accountable. The particular law in the Code of Hammurabi (par. 266) reads: If there occurs in the fold an act of god, or a lion takes a life, the shepherd shall clear himself before the deity; the owner of the fold must then accept the loss incurred. Thus Laban is accused of disregarding the explicit legal provisions for such contingencies: cf. Exodus 22:13 (ABG, 247). That which was torn of wild beasts through my neglect I made good of my own accord; but even where I could not be held responsible, you still demanded restitution (SC, 185). Genesis 31:40It is well known that in the East the cold by night corresponds to the heat by day: the hotter the day, the colder the night, as a rule. Genesis 31:42: By the warning given to Laban, God pronounced sentence upon the matter between Jacob and Laban, condemning the course which Laban had pursued, and still intended to pursue, towards Jacob; but not on that account sanctioning all that Jacob had done to increase his own possessions, still less confirming Jacob’s assertion that the vision mentioned by Jacob (Genesis 31:11-12) was a revelation from God. But as Jacob had only met cunning with cunning, deceit with deceit, Laban had no right to punish him for what he had done. Some excuse may be found for Jacob’s conduct in the heartless treatment he received from Laban, but the fact that God defended him from Laban’s revenge did not prove it to be right. He had not acted upon the rule laid down in Proverbs 20:22: cf. Romans 12:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:15 (BCOTP, 299). The Fear of Isaac: that is, the deity feared and worshiped by Isaac (Skinner); the Awesome One of Isaac (Speiser; cf. Genesis 28:17); the God of Isaac: Jacob avoided this latter designation because Isaac was still alive, although God had referred to Himself by that name (see Genesis 28:13), as Jacob intended to say, the merit of Isaac’s fear of the Lord had stood me in good stead, and He has protected me as a reward (SC, 185). The God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Dread of Isaac, proved to be mine (Rotherham, EB, 63); a term used for Israel’s God, object of Isaac’s reverence (HSB, 52); the God whom Isaac fears (Murphy, MG, 406). If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, the Kinsman of Isaac, etc.: a name for God that appears only here and in Genesis 31:53; Arabic and Palmyrene Aramaic justify this translation; hitherto the phrase has been rendered -the fear of Isaac-’ (JB, 53, n.)

(5) Laban’s response (Genesis 31:43-44) has been variously interpreted, that is, as to motivation. These words of Jacob’s -cut Laban to the heart with their truth, so that he turned round, offered his hand, and proposed a covenant-’ (K-D, 299). Neither receiving Jacob’s torrent of invective with affected meekness, nor proving himself to be completely reformed by the angry recriminations of his -callous and hardened-’ son-in-law (Kalisch); but perhaps simply owning the truth of Jacob’s words, and recognizing that he had no just ground of complaint (Calvin), as well as touched in his paternal affections by the sight of his daughters, from whom he felt he was about to part for ever. not as reminding Jacob that he had still a legal claim to his (Jacob’S) wives and possessions, or at least possessions, though prepared to waive it, but rather as acknowledging that in doing injury to Jacob he would only be proceeding against his own flesh and blood (Whitelaw, PCG, 384). Laban maintains his right, but speedily adopts a more pathetic tone, leading to the pacific proposal of Gen 31:44, what last kindness can I do them [his daughters] (Skinner, ICCG, 399). These two relatives, after having given utterance to their pent-up feelings, came at length to a mutual understanding. Laban was so cut by the severe and well-founded reproaches of Jacob, that he saw the necessity of an immediate surrender, or, rather, God influenced him to make reconciliation with his injured nephew, Proverbs 16:7 (Jamieson, CECG, 212). Leupold has a different view: Laban skillfully avoids the issue, which centers on the question whether Jacob has ever treated him unfairly, and substitutes another, namely, whether there is any likelihood of his avenging himself on Jacob and his family. In a rather grandiose fashion he claims all that Jacob hashousehold and cattleis his own. The only use he makes of this strong claim is that, naturally, these being his own family, he would not harm them. It hardly seems that he has been -cut to the quick-’ by the justice of Jacob’s defense. He is merely bluffing through a contention in which he is being worsted. But being a suspicious character, he fears that Jacob might eventually do what he apparently would have done under like circumstances, namely, after arriving home and having grown strong, he may come with an armed band to avenge all the wrongs of the past. To forestall this he suggests a -covenant.-’ This covenant might serve to deter Jacob, of-’ whose justice and fairness he is convinced, and who, Laban trusts, will keep a covenant inviolate (EG, 852).

Again, however, we turn to the Nuzi records for what seems to be the most important aspect of this whole case, namely, the part played by the teraphim and the theft thereof. The author handles the entire episode with outstanding skill. When he speaks of the figurines on his own (19, 34f.), he uses the secular, and sometimes irreverent term (teraphim, perhaps -inert things-’); but Laban refers to them as -my gods-’ (Genesis 31:30). The search is suspensefully depicted, as Laban combs through one tent after another until he gets to the tent of Rachel, where they have been hidden. Rachel’s pretense of female incapacitation is a literary gem in itself. The crowning touch of drama and irony is Jacob’s total unawareness of the truththe grim danger implicit in his innocent assurance that the guilty party would be put to death. But the basic significance of the incident now transcends all such considerations of human interest or literary presentation. It derives from underlying social practices as they bear on the nature of the patriarchal narratives in general. According to the Nuzi documents, which have been found to reflect time and again the social customs of Haran, possession of the house gods could signify legal title to a given estate, particularly in cases out of the ordinary, involving daughters, sons-in-law, or adopted sons. This peculiar practice of Rachel’s homeland supplies at last the motive, sought so long but in vain, for her seemingly incomprehensible conduct. Rachel was in a position to know, or at least to suspect, that in conformance with local law her husband was entitled to a specified share in Laban’s estate. But she also had ample reason to doubt that her father would voluntarily transfer the images as formal proof of property release; the ultimate status of Laban’s daughters and their maidservants could well have been involved as well. In other words, tradition remembered Rachel as a resolute woman who did not shrink from taking the lawor what she believed to be the lawinto her own hands. The above technical detail would help to explain why Laban was more concerned about the disappearance of the images than about anything else (Genesis 31:30). For under Hurrian law, Jacob’s status in Laban’s household would normally be tantamount to self-enslavement. That position, however, would be altered if Jacob was recognized as an adopted son who married the master’s daughter. Possession of the house gods might well have made the difference. Laban knew that he did not have them, but chose to act as though he did, at least to save face. Thus his seeming magnanimity in the end (43f.) would no longer be out of character. He keeps up the pretense that he is the legal owner of everything in Jacob’s possession; yet he must have been aware that, with the images gone, he could not press such a claim in a court of law (Speiser, ABG, 250-251).

(6) The Treaty (Genesis 31:45-55). Two traditions appear to have been combined here: 1. A formal pact regulating the frontier between Laban and Jacob i.e., between Aram and Israel, Genesis 31:52, together with an explanation of the name Gilead (Galed). 2. A private agreement concerning Laban’s daughters, wives of Jacob, Genesis 31:50, together with an explanation of the name Mizpah, -watch-post,-’ where a stele is erected. On the other hand it is possible that we have not here two traditions but simply explanations of the traditional composite name Mizpah of Gilead, -watch-post of Gilead-’; the place is known from Judges 11:29 and lies south of the Jabbok in Transjordania (JB, 53 n.). Laban proposed that they cut a covenant and let it be for a witness between them (Genesis 31:44). Jacob assented to the proposal at once, and the two proceeded to ratify the covenant. (7) The Cairn of Witness. The way in which this covenant was ratified was by a heap of stones being laid in a circular pile, to serve as seats, and in the center of this circle a large one was set up perpendicularly for an altar. It is probable that a sacrifice was first offered, and then that the feast of reconciliation was partaken of by both parties, seated on the stones around it (cf. Genesis 31:54). To this day heaps of stones, which have been used as memorials, are found abundantly in the region where this transaction took place (CECG, 212). Jacob proceeded at once to furnish a practical proof of his assent to his father-in-law’s proposal, by erecting a stone as a memorial and calling on his relatives also (-his brethren,-’ as in Genesis 31:23, by whom Laban and the kinsmen who came with him are indicated, as Genesis 31:54 shows) to gather stones into a heap, thus forming a table, as is briefly related in Genesis 31:46 b, for the covenant meal (Genesis 31:54). This stone-heap (cairn) was called Jegar-Sahadutha by Laban, and Galeed by Jacob (Genesis 31:47). Jegar-sahadutha is the exact Aramaic equivalent of Galeed, -cairn of witness-’ (JB, 53, n.): this incident, of course gave occasion to the name Gilead, the name applied to the mountainous region eastward of Argob (see Josephus, Antiquities, I, 19, 11). (It should be understood that the setting up of the stone-pillar by Jacob as a witness of the covenant about to be formed (Genesis 31:52) was a different transaction from the piling up of the stone-heap next referred to: cf. Genesis 28:18, Joshua 24:26-27). Very strangely the critics, who are intent upon proving that two documents giving two recensions of the event are woven together, here hit upon the pillar or monolith, and the heap or cairn, and claim these two as one of the things that prove their point. Instead of pointing to a double recension or to two authors this merely points to the fact that Jacob was willing to go the limit to keep peace and harmony, as he had always been doing. The critics-’ argument is a non sequitur. All the rest of their so-called proof is of the same sort and too flimsy to refute, Genesis 31:47. Here Moses inserts a notice to the effect that Laban and Jacob each gave a name to the cairn, and each man in his native tongue, that of Laban being Aramaic and that of Jacob Hebrew. Nothing indicates that this was a later insertion. Why might not Moses consider it a matter worthy of record that in Mesopotamia Aramaic prevailed, whereas in Canaan Hebrew, perhaps the ancient Canaanite language, was spoken? The exactness of his observation is established by this definite bit of historical information. The two names are not absolutely identical, as is usually claimed, though the difference is slight. Jegar-sahadhutha means -heap of testimony,-’ gal-’ed means -heap of witness-’ or witnessing heap. For -testimony-’ is an abstract noun, -witness-’ is a personal noun or name of a person. We observe, therefore, that at the beginning of their history the nation Israel came of a stock that spoke Aramaic but abandoned the Aramaic for the Hebrew. After the Captivity the nation, strange to say, veered from Hebrew back to Aramaic (EG, 853, 854).

(8) The Purport of the Covenant, Genesis 31:50-52, was twofold: (1) Jacob swears that he will not maltreat Laban’s daughters, nor even marry other wives besides these (i.e., Leah and Rachel). The stipulation against taking other wives is basic to many cuneiform marriage documents (ABG, 248). Leupold thinks that both these cases mentioned by Laban are in themselves harsh and unjust slanders. Jacob had never given the least indication of being inclined to treat his wives harshly. Gentleness and goodness are characteristic of Jacob. Besides, as the account reads, Jacob had more wives already than he had ever desired. He apparently recognized the evils of bigamy sufficiently in his own home (EG, 856). (2) Neither of the two was to pass the stone-heap and memorial-stone with a hostile intention towards the other. (But they may pass over it for purposes of trade (SC, 187). Note Genesis 31:52The heap was Jacob’s idea, now Laban appropriates what Jacob had proposed as if the entire transaction had been his very own. Moreover, Laban bound himself never to pass over the heap which he had erected as his witness, whereas Jacob was required to swear that he would never cross the pillar and the pile, both of which were witnesses on his part. (Laban was undoubtedly even yet a very suspicious person). That I will not passover. Here this covenant thought is purely negative, growing out of a suspicious nature, and securing a safeguard against mutual injuries; properly a theocratic separation (Lange, 544). This treaty seems to have had even more extensive significance, however: as Morgenstern writes: Mizpah, a secondary name for this heap of stones, meaning -watchpost,-’ -place of lookout.-’ Actually the district was called Gilead, while Mizpah (Mizpeh) was probably the name of the particular spot where the covenant was thought to have been made. It probably lay close to the boundary line between Syria and Gilead. It was the site of the covenant between Laban the Aramean and Jacob the Israelite by which the boundary line between the two peoples was fixed. Note the compact entered into between Syria and Israel, probably in Ahab’s time; the hegemony of Israel in the affairs of the several little states of Western Asia seems to have been nominally acknowledged by Syria, 1 Ki., ch. 20 (JIBG, in loco). Concerning the location of the site of Gilead and Mizpah, it seems evident that we are not to understand this to be the mountain range to the south of the Jabbok, the present Jebel Jelaad, or Jebel es Salt. The name Gilead has a much more comprehensive signification in the Old Testament; and the mountains to the south of the Jabbok are called in Deuteronomy 3:12 the half of Mount Gilead; the mountains to the north of the Jabbok, the Jebel-Ajlun, forming the other half. In this chapter the name is used in the broader sense, and refers primarily to the northern half of the mountains (above the Jabbok); for Jacob did not cross the Jabbok till afterwards, Genesis 32:23-24 (K-D, 300). It is held by some that the words, and Mizpah, for he said, etc., are a later explanatory interpolation. But there is not sufficient ground even for this, since Galeed and Mizpah are here identical in fact, both referring to the stone heap as well as to the pillar. Laban prays specifically to Jehovah, to watch that Jacob should not afflict his daughters; especially that he should not deprive them of their acquired rights, of being the ancestress of Jehovah’s covenant people. From this hour, according to the prayer, Jehovah looks down from the heights of Gilead, as the representative of his rights, and watches that Jacob should keep his word to his daughters, even when across the Jordan. But now, as the name Gilead has its origin in some old sacred tradition, so has the name Mizpah also. It is not to be identified with the later cities bearing that name, with the Mizpah of Jephthah (Judges 11:11; Judges 11:34), or the Mizpah of Gilead (Judges 11:29), or Ramoth-Mizpah (Joshua 13:26), but must be viewed as the family name which has spread itself through many daughters all over Canaan (Lange, CDHCG, 544). (Note disagreement with K-D quoted above). Laban, forewarned by God not to injure Jacob, made a covenant with his son-in-law; and a heap of stones was erected as a boundary between them, and called Galeed (the heap of witness) and Mizpah (watch-tower). As in later times, the fortress on these heights of Gilead became the frontier post of Israel against the Aramaic tribe that occupied Damascus, so now the same line of heights became the frontier between the nation in its youth and the older Aramaic tribe of Mesopotamia. As now, the confines of two Arab tribes are marked by the rude cairn or pile of stones erected at the boundary of their respective territories, so the pile of stones and the tower or pillar, erected by the two tribes of Jacob and Laban, marked that the natural limit of the range of Gilead should be their natural limit also (OTH, 102). (Cf. the various Mizpahs, or Mizpehs, mentioned in the O.T., e.g., Joshua 11:3; Joshua 15:38; Judges 10:17; Judges 20:1; 1 Samuel 22:3: it seems that the name might have been given to any high point.) Skinner’s treatment of the Gilead geographical problem is based on the presupposition that the account embodies ethnographic reminiscences in which Jacob and Laban were not private individuals, but represented Hebrews and Arameans respectively. He goes on to say: The theory mostly favored by critical historians is that the Arameans are those of Damascus, and that the situation reflected is that of the Syrian wars which raged from c. 860 to c 770 B.C. Gunkel has, however, pointed out objections to this assumption; and has given strong reasons for believing that the narratives refer to an earlier date than 860. The story reads more like the record of a loose understanding between neighboring and on the whole friendly tribes, than of a formal treaty between two highly organized states like Israel and Damascus; and it exhibits no trace of the intense national animosity which was generated during the Syrian wars. In this connexion, Meyer’s hypothesis that in the original tradition Laban represented the early unsettled nomads of the eastern desert acquires a new interest. Considering the tenacity with which such legends cling to a locality, there is no difficulty in supposing that in this case the tradition goes back to some prehistoric settlement of territorial claims between Hebrews and migratory Arameans (ICCG, 403, 404). It should be noted here that the critical tendency so prevalent soon after the turn of the present century to interpret the outstanding personal names occurring in the patriarchal narratives as tribal rather than individual names has been all but abandoned in recent years. On the whole, this supposition (largely a priori on the part of the critics) has been pretty thoroughly exploded by archaeological discoveries. There is no longer any doubt that the patriarchs were real historical personages, (The student who wishes to delve into the irreconcilable analysis of the early twentieth-century critics should make a study of the classic work on this subject, The Unity of the Book of Genesis, by William Henry Green, onetime Professor of Oriental and Old Testament Literature in Princeton Theological Seminary. This book, first published in 1895, is now out of print, of course. Hence it goes unnoticed and even unknown, either through ignorance or by design, in present-day theological seminaries. It may be procured, however, from secondhand book stores, or rescued from out-of-the-way places on the dusty shelves of these same seminary libraries.) We now close this phase of our subject with the following quotation from Leupold: We have nothing certain as to the location of the heap called -Galed-’ or -Mizpah-’ in Mount Gilead. -Mizpah-’ itself is a rather general term: there were many points of eminence in the land which could serve as -watch-stations.-’ We personally do not believe that the Mizpah located in Jebel Ajlun is far enough to the north. We can only be sure of this, that according to chapter 32 it must have lain to the north of the River Jabbok (EG, 859).

(9) The Mizpah Benediction, Genesis 31:49. Mizpah (Mizpeh), watchtower,-’. an unknown site in the N. highlands of the Jordan overlooking the Jabbok, where Jacob and Laban witnessed their covenant by erecting a cairn and pronouncing words now known as -the Mizpah benediction,-’ Genesis 31:45-52 (HBD, 450). J. Vernon McGee (Going Through Genesis, 42) has an interesting comment on this point, as follows: Verse 49 has been made into a benediction which many church groups use habitually. This is unfortunate for it does not have that sort of derivation. It actually is a truce between two crooks that each will no longer try to get the better of the other. The pile of stones at Mizpah was a boundary line between Laban and Jacob. Each promised not to cross over on the other’s side. In other words Jacob would work one side of the street and Laban would take the other. Each had but little confidence in the other. Surely the Mizpah benediction has been misplaced and misapplied. Certainly these statements deserve serious consideration.

(10) The Covenant Oath, Genesis 31:53. Although Laban proposed to swear by the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the latter might include idols, so Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac, viz., the true God (SC, 187). On Genesis 31:49, God is called as a witness so that if either Jacob or Laban breaks the agreement the LORD will enforce the covenant (HSB, 53). Genesis 31:50no man is with usi.e., no one but God only can be judge and witness between us, since we are to be so widely separated (Lange, 544). Of the terms of the covenant the memorial was to serve as a witness, and the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father (Terah), would be umpire between them. To this covenant, in which Laban, according to his polytheistic views, placed the God of Abraham upon the same level with the God of Nahor and Terah, Jacob swore by -the Fear of Isaac-’ (Genesis 31:42), the God who was worshipped by his father with sacred awe (K-D, 300). The verb judge, Genesis 31:53, is plural, either because Laban regarded the Elohim of Nahor as different from the Elohim of Abraham, or because, though acknowledging only one Elohim, he viewed him as maintaining several and distinct relations to the persons named. Laban here invokes his own hereditary Elohim, the Elohim of Abraham’s father, to guard his rights and interests under the newly-formed covenant; while Jacob in his adjuration appeals to the Elohim of Abraham’s son (PCG, 387). In conclusion Laban offers his most solemn adjuration, stronger than Genesis 31:50 b; for God is called upon not only to -witness-’ but to -judge.-’ Besides, he is called by the solemn title, -God of Abraham.-’ In fact, another god is invoked, -the god of Nahor.-’ If Genesis 31:29 and Genesis 31:42 are compared, it seems most likely that two different deities are under consideration; the true God, and Nahor’S, that is also Laban’s idol. The plural of the verb -judge-’ therefore points to two different gods, So the polytheist Laban speaks. The more gods to help bind the pact, the better it is sealed, thinks Laban. Without directly correcting Laban or his statement of the case, Jacob swears by the true God under the same as that used in Genesis 31:42, the Fear (i.e., the object of fear, or reverence) of his father Isaac. Had the renegade Laban perhaps meant to identify his own god with the true God of Abraham? And is Jacob’s statement of His name an attempt to ward off such an identification? This is not impossible (Leupold, EG, 857, 858). Skinner writes: Whether a polytheistic differentiation of the two gods is attributed to Laban can hardly be determined. Genesis 31:52this heap be witness. Objects of nature were frequently thus spoken of. But over and above there was a solemn appeal to God; and it is observable that there was a marked difference in the religious sentiments of the two. Laban spake of the God of Abraham and Nahor, their common ancestors; but Jacob, knowing that idolatry had crept into that branch of the family, swore by the Fear of Isaac. It is thought by many that Laban comprehended, under the peculiar phraseology that he employed, all the objects of worship in Terah’s family, in Mesopotamia; and in that view we can discern a very intelligible reason for Jacob’s omission of the name of Abraham, and swearing only by -the Fear of his father Isaac,-’ who had never acknowledged any deity but -the Lord.-’ They who have one God should have one heart; they who are agreed in religion should endeavor to agree in everything else (Jamieson, CECG, 212). The monotheism of Laban seems gliding into dualism; they may judge, or -judge.-’ He corrects himself by adding the name of their common father, i.e., Terah. From his alien and wavering point of view he seeks for sacredness in the abundance of words. But Jacob swears simply and distinctly by the God whom Isaac feared, and whom even his father-in-law, Laban, should reverence and fear. Laban, indeed, also adheres to the communion with Jacob in his monotheism, and intimates that the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor designate two different religious directions from a common source or ground (Lange, 544). The erection of the pillar was a joint act of the two parties, in which Laban proposes, Jacob performs, and all take part. The God of Abraham, Nahor, and Terah. This is an interesting acknowledgement that their common ancestor Terah and his descendants down to Laban still acknowledged the true God, even in their idolatry. Jacob swears by the Fear of Isaac, perhaps to rid himself of any error that had crept into Laban’s notions of God and his worship (Murphy, MG, 407).

(11) The Covenant of Reconciliation, Genesis 31:54-55, was now ratified by the common sacrifice and the common meal. Jacob then offered sacrifices upon the mountain, and invited his relatives to eat, i.e., to partake of a sacrificial meal, and seal the covenant by a feast of love (K-D, 300). We view Jacob’s sacrifice as one of thanksgiving that this last serious danger that threatened from Laban is removed. We cannot conceive of Jacob as joining with the idolater Laban in worship and sacrifice. Consequently, we hesitate to identify -the eating of bread-’ with the partaking of the sacrificial feast, unless the -kinsmen-’ here are to be regarded only as the men on Jacob’s side.. In that event the kinsmen are to be thought of as having the same mind as Jacob on questions of religious practices. But the summons to eat bread might also signalize that the transactions between Jacob and Laban are concluded. The events may well have consumed an entire day, and so the night had to be spent in the same place (Leupold, EG, 858). According to Rashi, Jacob slaughtered animals for the feast; however, Rashi apparently insists that it was not a sacrificial meal (SC, 187). Whitelaw holds that brethren here referred to Laban’s followers, who may have withdrawn to a distance during the interview, and hence had to be called to eat bread (PCG, 887). The sacrificial meal later became an integral part of the Hebrew ritual (cf. Exodus 24:3-8; Exodus 29:27-28; Leviticus 10:14-15). At all events, the covenant-meal forms a thorough and final conciliation. Laban’s reverence for the God of his fathers, and his love for his daughters and grandsons, present him once more in the most favorable aspect of his character, and thus we take our leave of him. We must notice, however, that before the entrance of Jacob he had made little progress in his business. Close, narrow-hearted views, are as really the cause of the curse, as its fruits (Lange, 545). The following morning Laban and his retinue departed and returned to his place, that is, Paddan-aram (Genesis 28:2).

The following summarization of this section, by Cornfeld (AtD, 87-88), is excellent: Laban pursued Jacob for seven days and caught up with him in the highlands of Gilead, east of Jordan. What troubled him more than the loss of his daughters, their husband and livestock, was the loss of the teraphim. He demanded indignantly, -But why did you steal my gods?-’ As Rachel was unwell, religious custom prevented her father from forcing her off the saddle, and the theft remained unexposed. Laban and Jacob apparently agreed to maintain an amicable relationship on the basis of a new covenant. They exchanged blessings, made the covenant and set up a cairn and pillar (-matzeba-’) as a witness to their sincerity; the inanimate object was naively thought to -oversee-’ the covenant. They swore that neither would transgress the boundary to harm the other. This patriarchal clan covenant seems to reflect either a remote separation ofthe clans, or the story may serve to justify territorial status of later times, when the Israelite and Aramean peoples upheld a treaty of amity and marked the boundary between them.. They invoked their respective ancestral gods to judge between them: -The God of Abraham-’ and -The God of Nahor.-’ Jacob also swore by a special epithet of God: the -Fear of his father Isaac-’ (meaning, according to the interpretation, -The Kinsman of Isaac-’). This devotion to the God of one’s father is one of the features of patriarchal religion that stemmed from the pre-Hebraic Semitic past.. An especially impressive conclusion of the compact was the animal sacrifice offered, and a meal at which the solemn covenant act was performed: to -cut a covenant-’ (the rite of sacrifice) and to -eat bread-’ remained a familiar idiom of Israelite religious symbols. In eating and drinking, life is perfectly symbolized, and gains profound religious connotation. This is the root of the Jewish and Christian practice of grace before meals, for eating is the epitome of man’s dependence upon God and other men. The central ceremonies of Judaism, such as the Passover, and the Eucharist of Christianity, are reminiscent of such very ancient Hebrew cultic practices. The covenant between Jacob and Laban was of course a parity treaty made between equals, unlike the covenants between God as Lord and the Patriarchs, His servants. Thus we can readily grasp the idea of the relation of the eating of the bread and the drinking of the fruit of the vine of the Lord’s Supper to the spiritual life of the participant. Through the ministry of thanksgiving, commemoration, meditation, and prayer, the Christian does actuallyand not in any magical way, eithereffect the deepening of his spiritual life (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:16-21; 1 Corinthians 11:20-30; Matthew 26:26-29).

Concerning the alleged sources of the account of the Covenant of Gilead, we suggest the following: There can be no doubt that Genesis 31:49-50 bear the marks of a subsequent insertion. But there is nothing in the nature of his interpolation to indicate a compilation of the history from different sources, That Laban, when making this covenant, should have spoken of the future treatment of his daughters, is a thing so natural, that there would have been something strange in the omission. And it is not less suitable to the circumstances, that he calls upon the God of Jacob, i.e., Jehovah, to watch in this affair [Genesis 31:49]. And apart from the use of the name Jehovah, which is perfectly suitable here, there is nothing whatever to point to a different source; to say nothing of the fact that the critics themselves cannot agree as to the nature of the source supposed (K-D, 300, n.).

Stones were used for different purposes in ancient times. (1) Large stones were set up as memorials, that is, to commemorate some especially significant event (Genesis 28:18; Genesis 31:45; Genesis 35:14; Joshua 4:9; 1 Samuel 7:12). Such stones were usually consecrated by anointing with-’ oil (Genesis 28:18). A similar practice existed in heathen countries, and by a singular coincidence these stones were described in Phoenicia by a name very similar to Beth-el, viz., baetylia. The only point of resemblance between the two consists in the custom of anointing (UBD, 1047). (2) Heaps of stones were piled up on various occasions; e.g., the making of a treaty (Genesis 31:46), or over the grave of a notorious offender (Joshua 7:26; Joshua 8:29; 2 Samuel 18:17); such heaps often attained a great size from the custom of each passer-by’s adding a stone. (3) That the worship of stones prevailed among the heathen nations surrounding Palestine, and was from them borrowed by apostate Israelites, appears from Isaiah 57:6(comp. Leviticus 26:1). -The smooth stones of the stream-’ are those which the stream has washed smooth with time, and rounded into a pleasing shape. -In Carthage such stones were called abbadires; and among the ancient Arabs the asnam, or idols, consisted for the most part of rude blocks of stone of this description.. Stone worship of this kind had been practiced by the Israelites before the Captivity, and their heathenish practices had been transmitted to the exiles in Babylon-’ (Delitzsch, Com. in loc.)-’ (UBD, 1047). The notion expressed above that the pillar (matzeba) was per se naively thought to oversee the covenant (Genesis 31:52) in Gilead is surely proved erroneous by the fact that the true God and other ancestral gods were immediately invoked to do this witnessing (Genesis 31:53). We can see no reason for assuming animism or personification in this incident.

Hurrian evidences. We have already made note of different details of the transactions between Jacob and Laban which reflect details of Hurrian law. There are many instances of such correspondences. The following is a summary of many of these. Hurrian customs are particularly in evidence in the record of Jacob.Genesis 29:18-19, gaining a wife in return for service: in Nuzu a man became a slave to gain a slave wife, though Jacob was no slave, Genesis 31:15 to Genesis 31:15, Laban’s daughters objected to being -reckoned as foreign women,-’ for native women had a higher standing.Genesis 31:38cf. how in Nuzu shepherds were tried for illegally slaughtering the sheep. Particularly, Jacob’s whole relation to Laban suggests a Hurrian -adoption-’ contract: Genesis 29:18, Jacob got daughters in return for work, becoming a -son-’; Genesis 31:50, he was to marry no other wives, as in Nuzu adoptions; Genesis 31:43, Laban had a claim over Jacob’s children, though God intervened to abrogate the custom, Genesis 31:24; Genesis 31:1, Laban’s sons were worried about heirship, while Genesis 31:31, Jacob claimed his wages were changed, perhaps a problem of heirs born after Jacob’s adoption, who were supposed to receive their percentage; and Genesis 31:15, Rachel stole the teraphim (household idols, Genesis 31:30, cf. 1 Samuel 19:13, Zechariah 10:2, though she served God too, Genesis 30:24, and Jacob knew nothing of them, Genesis 31:32, and opposed idolatry, Genesis 35:2), which in Nuzu meant a legal claim on the property and which Laban was justified in demanding back for his own sons, Genesis 31:30. Knowledge of such Hurrian parallels is valuable to explain (though not necessarily excuse) the patriarchal actions, and to confirm the accuracy of the Biblical records (OHH, 45).

Here the first phase of Jacob’s return to the land of his father comes to an end. Early in the morning of the day which followed the establishing of the Covenant in Gilead, Laban, after kissing his daughters-’ sons and the daughters themselves, and blessing them (cf. Genesis 24:60, Genesis 28:1), set out on his journey unto his place, that is, his home, Paddan-aram (cf. Genesis 18:33, Genesis 30:25), and Jacob with his household went on his way to his home, Beersheba. (It is interesting to note that apparently Laban did not kiss Jacob on taking final leave of him as he did on first meeting him, cf. Genesis 29:13).