40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 42

Episode Date: March 10, 2016

Chad and Daniel talk about Jacob bailing out on Laban. Rachel stealing her father's idols and how getting what you don't deserve offends everyone. 

Welcome to episode 42 of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. I am Daniel Henry Price, and I am joined by Chad Bird. Chad, how's it going? Hey, it's great. It's great. Good morning, or good evening, or good day, or whatever time you're listening to this. We've been up a while, haven't we? Yeah, I know.

We were doing this early today. We did it early, and then I gave myself some time to wake up, so I would have maybe something to say. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. It's still early. It's very early for me. But not so early that I will forget to tell you that Christ Will Fast is a project of 1517 Legacy Project.

And you can go over to 1517legacy.com and check out all the great things they have there. You can also go over to ChristWillFast.org and read a bunch of articles, listen to other podcasts, watch some conference media, which is all up on the site now at this point. you can watch all the talks you can watch chad's devotionals uh i've got a talk on there there's a panels and a bunch of other audio and video stuff from the conference and if you have if you didn't go to the conference or you haven't checked that stuff out you should because all of it's really really really good so that being said chad where are we at in genesis well we're we brought up chapter 30 of genesis last time we're gonna we're going to cover chapter 31 today we've been talking about problems with in-laws so if you've if anybody out there's ever had trouble with their

in-laws in any any uh any way then it's not a new problem because jacob was having some major problems with his father-in-law which is what chapter 30 was all about uh if you if you listen last time the deal was that jacob wanted to go back he'd been there 14 years he'd served seven years for each of his wives and he was ready to go home but Laban wasn't ready for him to go home his father-in-law because Laban was getting rich and uh you know Jacob had like the Midas touch everything that that he dealt with turned to gold he was he was enriching Laban more or less and so Laban didn't want to lose him he wanted him to stick around and and uh receive even more blessings from him through him he was basically using his son-in-law jacob so uh they made a deal

and the deal ends up backfiring because what laban does is he gives he gives jacob all the motley sheep and goats all the ones that are speckled and spotted and whatnot and uh we will go back into the whole story but what happens is that even though jacob's only given a small percentage of flocks and the herds these motley motley animals they end up outnumbering lavens over time so the motley animals increase in number and lavens lavens uh herds and flocks decrease which is it which is ironic too i don't think i said this last time because laban's name is uh in hebrew means white laban means white and so laven starts out with all of these white animals uh far out outnumbering Jacob's motley animals, and then he ends up with just a few as Jacob's herds and

flocks begin to decrease. So his name, Laban, or White, Mr. White, I guess we could call him, his name becomes emblematic of his loss of wealth to his son-in-law, son-in-law Jacob. Now, as you would expect, as these years were going by, and it's six years have passed, because he serves 14 years, and now when we pick up with chapter 31, six years have gone by. So he's served a total of 20 years in exile with his father-in-law. And over the course of time, as Laban has lost all this, his anger has increased.

His sons are upset because they see all of their wealth, their inheritance wealth, disappearing. It's falling between their fingers or right into the hand of Jacob. And so it finally reaches a crescendo in chapter 31, and it's time to go. Jacob wanted to leave after 14 years, six more years passed, and now it is definitely time for him to hightail it out of there and to get back into his own country. And so here's how the story starts in the beginning of chapter 31. what happens is that Jacob hears Laban's sons talking, and they're talking about how Jacob has taken away all of their father's wealth. And Jacob sees that the attitude of his father-in-law

is certainly not friendly anymore. I mean, he can't even hide it in his face. It's shown all over his countenance and the way that he treats Jacob that he's getting more and more upset as he sees his herds and flocks decreasing while jacob's increase and not only is that going on but god tells jacob this time that it's that it's time to go uh back in chapter 30 after the 14 years had passed it was jacob's idea he'd served the time that he said he would for his wives and he said he said he's ready to go back home laban commits him to stay but this time it's not jacob's idea. It's God's. So in verse three, God tells Jacob, return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you. So it's definitely time to go because his in-laws

are against him, and God himself has told him that it's time to go. So what happens is that he decides that he's going to, first of all, include his wives in this decision. And so he calls them out to where he's taking care of the flocks and the herds, you know, away from any eavesdroppers that might pick up on their conversation. And it is at this point that we learn something new about Jacob's plight. That's one of the things I love about the scriptures is that like any good body of literature, it doesn't tell us everything right from the get-go. So there is certainly a literary quality to the scriptures where as you read along, you actually learn things that shed light on earlier happenings in the story. And that's what happens here. Because when Jacob calls his wives, Rachel and Leah, he first of all tells them, you know, look, it's obvious that your dad is is upset with me because of everything that's happened.

even though I have served him faithfully. He says, I served your father with all my strength. And here's where we learn something new. This is verse seven of chapter 31. He says, yet, yet your father cheated me and changed my wages 10 times. However, God did not allow him to hurt me. Now we didn't know that before.

So it kind of gives you a little bit of, I guess you might say a little bit of sympathy for Jacob, even though he's not much of a sympathetic character. Laban is a Scrooge. He's a man who is addicted to greed at any expense. And that's what makes this chapter so interesting, is to see how he reacts when his sin is actually called out. And he ends up turning the tables around and blame-shifting and victim-blaming

and making himself out to be this aggrieved party when it's obvious obvious that he is the one who is who is guilty here and he's just mad because because god has blessed jacob so much but we'll get there in a minute anyway so he's he's he's cheated him he's 10 times changed his wages these 10 times and it's also at this point as i mentioned in last uh last week's episode that jacob lets us in on the fact that his uh his little trick by appealing back the branches you know to make the branches spotted and speckled to make them the animals spotted and speckled that was actually god's idea he tells his wives that an angel of god appeared to him in a dream and told him basically what to do so that was all by divine initiative he was he was uh making these uh these sticks

into sacraments, if you will. The word of God told him what to do. So he tells his wives, okay, you know, I've served your dad faithfully. He's been a jerk. He's changed my way just 10 times. God told me what to do to have this reversal of wealth. And then he concludes it by saying, God told him to return to the land of his birth. So that's his argument for his wives. It's kind of funny because, you know, Rachel and Leah have been at each other's throat. They have been having this baby making competition, a lot of jealousy, a lot of a lot of, you know, of animosity between these two wives as they struggle to to have the husband more than the other one does. But here they agree. There's no argument here. After they listen to Jacob, they say more or less, hey, it sounds good to us.

Let's get out of here because our dad, we don't have any inheritance in our father's house anymore. They say he has sold us and has entirely consumed our purchase price. so they see themselves more or less as their father's possessions which he sold to to jacob sold for 14 years worth of uh worth of labor and they conclude by saying surely all the wealth which god has taken away from our father belongs to us and our children so do whatever god has said to you. So it's going well so far. Jacob sees it's time to leave. The wives see that it's time to leave. God has put his stamp of approval on this. And just before we pick up the story, I think it's good to pause here for a minute, just to reflect upon how things have really turned

around. Because Jacob goes into exile. He goes into exile with only the word of God in his pocket. That's all that he had. He leaves empty-handed. He flees from his brother. God appears to him at Bethel in this dream with a whole ladder going from earth to heaven. And all that he gives Jacob is a promise. He promises that he will be with him, that he'll bless him wherever he goes, and that he'll bring him back to the land of his fathers. So Jacob leaves with this word of God in his pocket.

and while he's in exile things go extraordinarily well for him because God blesses him even though he doesn't deserve it God nevertheless is with him God blesses him he now has more or less four wives

if you count the two maidservants he has eleven sons because Benjamin is not born yet and he has a daughter and now he has all these animals he has sheep he has goats he has he has camels so it's it's another great example of uh this unexpected act of god where in a situation in which you would expect to be deprived and impoverished and be lacking

completely in blessings it's in that very context that god blesses his people the most we saw this in the case of Abraham and Sarah, when they were in exile in Egypt, they get enriched by Pharaoh while they're there. It's going to happen again with the Israelites. When they're enslaved in Egypt, they leave their exile in the Exodus, laden with the wealth of Egypt. And Jacob's in the same situation. He's been in exile these 20 years. And when he comes back, he comes back with all this well so god god puts his people into situations where you would think one thing would happen because they are circumstances and yet something entirely different happens it's just it's consistent with god's with god's actions throughout the scriptures he's always he gives his blessings

in those situations in which we at least in which we at least expect them because that's that's just the way he works he's the god who gives to those who seem to be in a situation where they can't receive can't receive anything and he does it because that's who he is he's a good and a gracious god and he gives to those who who don't deserve it when they expect to receive the exact opposite i mean are you saying that that jacob hadn't done a bunch of things to to really uh you know to really bend the hand of god his direction at this point well he had lived yeah he had lived such a such a pious life hadn't he honest upright dude is it yeah dude is a picture of uprightness yeah let's let's see i mean with the exception of lying to his brother and his father and

and stealing and being eaten up with all sorts of envy and and jealousy and yeah besides all that i think he was he's a pretty good guy just waiting for those he's just he's just primed up for those blessings to come he is yeah i god was probably every day god god looked at jacob he thought man what a what a good guy it's a man after my own heart right there man after my own heart right there yeah you know that's a uh as we've talked about several times that's one of the beauties of the scriptures is that it reveals the ugliness of sinners while at the same time revealing the the beauty of god's grace toward those ugly sinners there's nothing that jacob did nothing

whatsoever he did to deserve the blessings that god lavished upon him in fact just the opposite all that jacob did really deserved nothing but punishment and here he goes into exile and this exile is really his completely his own fault because he uh he stole the birthright from his from his brother and while he's there despite everything that he had done god lavishes these gifts upon him and and as we see and i and i'm sure i'm positive that this is only restricted to old testament times but as we see when laban realizes that god has blessed jacob with all of this he is really happy he's really happy for him yeah yeah yeah laban is so happy he's elated he's like man i'm so glad you got that god's giving you some stuff bro that is so good let's rejoice

together yeah what what is that about uh what is that about that kind of labanizing let's make a verb out of it labanizing when when people like laban see that god has blessed someone who is undeserving and yet it just irritates them to the core what do you what's going on there well that doesn't happen now chad oh that's just a that's that's what's restricted that's the old covenant well theoretically if we were living in the old testament yeah it would never happen today nobody would be upset because somebody who you know you know was a sinner uh you know that god blessed them nobody would nobody would have a problem with that i've never seen any examples of that no it is pretty far-fetched uh pretty far-fetched i mean most of the time when someone who

who is a sinner and really messes up. And then God ends up restoring them and blessing them greatly. I mean, most of the time, other people are just, they can't stop clapping. They're so happy. Yeah, yeah. In reality, and obviously we're joking here. In reality, what happens is they say, what are you doing out of exile? That's what happens.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing out of exile? yeah go back what are you doing with all my stuff that's what that's that's what that's how that usually happens what are you doing with all those blessings outside of exile no man that's not how this works you're you you messed up you gotta stay you gotta stay there and you're gonna just and i you have you just gonna sit there in the exile corner and i want you to think about what you've done long and hard yeah it uh it ultimately is is very uh revealing of how we so oftentimes even though talk about grace and write about grace and preach about grace

when grace is shown to someone that we think is undeserving it really gets to us because we are still operating our with our default position of rewards and punishments and we we think if someone has messed up that they should bear that punishment they should sit in a corner and be quiet and think about their sin the rest of their lives and and you know surely yeah they're they're forgiven but uh they certainly don't deserve to receive any kind of good things after after what they've done which is which just goes to show that uh really it's a it's a denial of what god does in his grace it's elder brother syndrome big time where it's all these like hey you can't have that because i've actually worked all these years for that you can't

have it i the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son um is no doubt um like hold up hold up dad let's hear him out i like this slave idea a lot better like all right all right you can come back i mean there's forgiveness and everything but yeah slave is right that's the best sounds about right you come be a slave uh no ring no robe none of that stuff but yeah you want to come back and we'll forgive you and you can be a slave that's what you typically have because what you that person is thinking is you can't have for free what i think i've earned that's what it is that's what it is yeah it's uh it's almost as if we have taken uh the idea of purgatory and we have but we've shifted it to this life where the i were uh the idea is that if someone

has someone has sinned like jacob did or someone sins today uh that uh they've got to be purged of that sin through a period of period of suffering and as often happens we think we think that we're the ones to determine how long that period should be before they're finally finally uh free to enter into the full embrace of of god's god's goodness but until such a time then they need to bear the They need to bear the penalty of purging And then Once they've demonstrated That they've suffered enough

Then we'll welcome them back Common tale Common tale Happens every day So that's where Our friend Laban Is at So let's pick up the story

We're in verse About verse 17 So here's what they come up with here's their plan first of all they picked the perfect opportunity they picked the the time when laban is away shearing his sheep which was a very uh very involved task it took a lot of time it took a lot of people and so laban was distracted by all the activities that in that involves shearing his sheep so they they picked that particular time and jacob and his wives they pack up everything put uh put the kids and the wives on camels they drive away their livestock

everything that they've acquired in exile they get together and they prepare to leave so that no one will realize uh what's going on laban is too distracted at the time to realize what's happening and then we'll pick this up in just a minute but uh one one more detail is added which becomes significant in a few days because it says that Rachel stole the household idols that were her father's. At least that's the English translation that I'm reading from. The Hebrew is teraphim, that phrase household idols. Teraphim occur other places in the scriptures. and we're not told exactly what these what these uh terra theme were but some probably some kind

of small idols that uh that laban had we know they were small because she could hide them under her camel saddle uh and we don't know why he had them i mean did he worship them did he use them for for uh some kind of you know consultation of the gods uh or you know why or maybe they were supposed to be there for uh for household protection who knows what it was but he had these teraphim uh which is probably it's probably a uh a phrase that's uh intended to be an insult against these idols because it either comes from from uh the verb to me that means to be limp or without energy or it comes from a verb that means to decay or become foul we see this a lot of time scriptures the scriptures won't call them gods or won't call them idols they'll call them like

worthless things or shame or pellets of dung or futilities or shameful things that's that's the way the scriptures often speak of of these false gods as in you know in a pejorative sort of way so these teraphim these limping things are these worthless things she stole those now why why well we're not told why she did it uh did she do it to spy at her father because she would make him mad and she was mad at him uh did she you know did he if he used these for some sort of divination then maybe she thought oh if i take his gods he won't be able to tell where we've where we've gone we really don't know but she took them she stole the household idols that belong to her fathers. And as we'll see in just a minute, that ended up being a problem in a few

more days when Laban catches up with them. So they take off. He flees with all he has across the Euphrates River and heads toward the hill country of Gilead. And I just love how we see here, as we see other places too, this Exodus motif pop up again. This is an exile, just like the Israelites were in exile, they leave, they cross the body of water, the Red Sea, and they set their face for the Holy Land. Here, Jacob leaves, he crosses the Euphrates River, and he sets his face toward the hill country of Gilead. So what Jacob experiences, he experiences in his own person,

what his people will experience later on in their exodus from Egypt. but they don't get very far before Laban finds out what's happened they get a three days journey ahead and then Laban hears what's happened and he gathers all his kinsmen together and he sets off in hot pursuit it takes him a few days it takes him seven days to catch up with them but he does in the hill country of Gilead and Laban is mad in fact he's he's so angry that he's ready he's ready to do them physical harm because he has lost not only his his family but he's lost his his moneymaker he's lost jacob i think he was much more upset over jacob leaving than he was over his his uh his daughters uh but he he wants to get back what's his at least what he thinks

what he thinks is his. But God stops him. This is in verse 24. So he overtakes them. I guess he camps for the night. He's going to pursue them. He's going to come face to face with Jacob the next day. But that night, God comes to him in a dream and says, be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad. So right before Laban is ready to attack, right before he's ready to seek revenge against his son-in-law, God stops him, warns him, tells him to be careful about what he's about to say or what he's about to do, because Jacob is under God's protection. So the next day, Laban catches up with Jacob, and he has this speech, and this speech is just priceless because it goes with what we were talking about earlier uh laban is a is a perfect

example of a sinner who is unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions and instead he tries to turn everything around to where jacob is the one to blame and he himself is innocent jacob is the one who has deceived and tricked him and laban is completely innocent in this regard so he tries to switch everything around to where it's Jacob's fault, and he himself becomes out to be the aggrieved party in everything that's happened, so he begins by saying in verse 26, what have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword? Why did you flee secretly and deceive me and didn't tell me so that I might have sent you away with joy and with songs, with temporal and with lyre, and did not allow me to kiss my sons

and my daughters. Now you have done foolishly. So Laban is painting himself as this kind father and grandfather and father-in-law who is just heartbroken over the fact that his family has left him without him being able to just shower this paternal affection upon them. He makes himself appear as if really what he cared about the most was the loss of his family. Even though according to Jacob's own testimony and according to the testimony of Laban's own daughters, he didn't give a crap about them. He had sold them off. He'd gotten rid of them. He'd taken away their inheritance all he cared about was was as well there's something like awesome about laban being like tell you jacob i mean it's all fun and games but when you start playing tricks with family

members it's messed up it's messed up i mean you know sacramental sticks and spotted sheep and everything i mean it's all good but you start like you know we start playing tricks using people like my using my daughter specifically it's low man like i would never do something like that what would you imagine this conversation seriously i mean i just can't believe that you would do this man i would i would never never act deceitfully with my own daughters i've always done right by them you know this man oh man the blindness of like oh man i know my name my name means white but uh i'm about to go pot calling the kettle black here you gotta wonder if laban is one of those people and you've probably met him too

or it is so patently obvious that they're lying but they have lied so long that they've actually convinced themselves that the lie is the truth is is that going on with or is he just is he just a smooth talker you know he just he's just one of those that uh always act as if uh he's got everything under control and he's he's in the right and everybody else is in the is in the wrong being like a being like a pro deceiver as jacob is though but jacob's gotta be like yeah man whatever i'm gonna call bs on all this yeah man all right yeah this is this is really this whole uh this whole story has been like the olympics of deception where you have uh laban and you have jacob both buying for the gold and it goes back and forth

you know jacob will pull into the lead oh then laban he pulls in the lead and jacob pulls into the lead layman's trying real hard to like stick this dismount but i don't think jacob's by it i don't think he is either yeah so he you know he he's got all these complaints he's been deceived you haven't let me send my daughters off like i really wanted to i couldn't i couldn't kiss them and we couldn't have this party this farewell party so uh he's done all that he says all of this but then he saves the best for last so you know he makes himself out to be just heartbroken over all this and he at the very end of his speech to jacob he saves the real zinger and i and i think this is

ultimately what his anger is all about because his final words to jacob in the speech are and why did you steal my gods that's the last thing he says so he makes himself out to be this heartbroken victim and but then at the end you can almost see this change in his countenance where he looks jacob in the eye and says oh and by the way why did you steal my gods he was saving what he thought was his strongest argument for last. Or maybe just the only legitimate complaint.

Or maybe the... He's like, I know all of this stuff is like total baloney and I'm being just the rankest hypocrite ever as I dish out all these accusations, but I'm saving the best for last because in reality it is kind of messed up that you stole my gods.

Yeah. I do have one thing going for me. no matter what you might say about everything else you stole my gods and it is it is so it is so humorous that uh that he says what he says because stealing gods i mean is this god napping yeah uh how can you steal gods if your gods are capable of being stolen then those gods are certainly unable to protect you if they can't even protect themselves from being stolen if your god can be stolen i suggest you just pawn it give what you can out everybody and move on you gotta find some better gods for real can't even can't even protect themselves from being

stolen and stuck under a camel under a camel saddle what uh what pitiful disappointing deities those must be but that's the accusation so uh how does jacob respond well uh jacob first of all says well this is why this is why i left he says i was i was afraid because i said lest you would take my daughters from me by force i don't know i'm not sure about how forthright jacob is being here no because uh he never said before he was afraid and he never said that he was afraid that laban was gonna take his daughters away from him no no jacob is just like a dude that slips away in the night because that's the kind of dude he is kind of dude he is yeah yeah this is like uh matching lie for a lie laban lies and and then jacob jacob responds uh falsely as well

but then he goes on to say uh and and and rachel had to been a little bit nervous when she hold once you heard jacob saying this he says the one with whom you find your gods shall not live so he says in the presence of all of our family i tell you what you point out what is yours and my belongings and take it for yourself and then we have this uh new revelation thrown in that jacob did not know that rachel had stolen the gods so jacob he probably thinks this is a made up accusation too you know because laban was lying about everything else he's lying about the theft of the gods as well because he didn't realize uh that rachel had had indeed stolen these uh these pitiful deities so we have this humorous uh uh search that laban laban does

he goes into everybody's tent he starts with jacob's tent then he moves to his daughter's tent and he goes to the maid servants and he's like feeling around all over in the tent because he's sure he certainly is going to find these gods. And you can just kind of see Jacob and all his family just standing back over there. They got their, they got their arms crossed. They're looking at him. They're looking at each other like, yeah, what a jerk. You know, he's not going to find anything. And then he finally comes to, to Rachel. And this is my favorite part of the story because she says to her father she's sitting on the camel okay she didn't dismount she's sitting on the camel and uh she had taken the gods and she'd put them in the the camel's saddle so that's

where they are and when laban her father comes to her she says she says don't be angry dad let not my lord be angered for i cannot rise before you for the manner of women is upon me in other words i'm on my period so here she is sitting on the camel telling laven that she's on her period and the gods that he's searching for are underneath her now what's what's great about that is whether she was really on her period or not or whether she was just making that up the thought in the Old Testament of gods coming into contact with a woman who was menstruating would have been of the utmost insult to the gods. We know from Leviticus and other parts of scripture that when a woman is on her period,

that she is considered ritually unclean. And so, for instance, she couldn't come into the tabernacle or the temple until her period is over and she cleanses herself. But here is the image of these gods sitting directly beneath Rachel while she tells her father that she is menstruating. So it's like an added insult to the fact that these gods were so inept that they were stolen in the first place. Now they're beneath Rachel while she's on her period. so he searches and of course he doesn't find he doesn't find the the gods and at this point jacob it's gets angry and he goes he goes back over everything that laban has done to him it's verses 36 and following you know he tells him how long he served with him everything that

he suffered, how much Laban has taken away from him, but how God is the one who has stood by his side and has reversed the fortunes and taken from Laban everything that actually now belongs to Jacob. So there's really nothing that Laban can do at this point. It's obvious that he can't find the gods that, uh, his own family has, has, uh, decided, has come to realize that he is, he is not for them and that God is on, God is on their side and is bringing them back from exile. So the, uh, the conclusion of all this is that basically they decide, well, let's at least make a treaty.

And that's what the rest of the rest of the chapter is about. Laban says, well, let's set up this rock. Let's set up this pillar, this heap of stones, and let's make a treaty that I'm not going to cross it to harm you, and you won't cross it to harm me. Jacob says, I'm good with that. Let's do that. They make an oath.

They swear by God's name. They have a meal, a sacrificial meal, and they basically decide that this is going to end it all. Laban's going to go home. we're going to continue on our journey we're not going to be at war with each other uh we're going to we're going to go our our separate ways so that's uh that's the way that the that's the way the chapter ends and it's a it's it's it's a great story like so many of the biblical stories because it gives us such an insight not only into the self-serving aspect of human nature which we

see in Laban. But more importantly, it gives us one more insight into the gracious action of God on behalf of his children. Here you have undeserving, sinful, deceitful Jacob, who is laden with all these blessings that God has given to him, even though he is undeserving. So God goes with him into exile. God protects him in exile. He blesses him in exile, and he's bringing him home and it's all by grace because Jacob has deserved the exact opposite but that's the kind of God we have

he gives to the undeserving that's it that's it and we are we're out of time Chad 40 minutes is up we gotta leave it right there guys hey if you enjoy 40 minutes of the Old Testament you can go over to christholdfast.org and know

that you can make a donation because this is listener supported stuff so you can and we'd appreciate it and if you have thank you very much we will be back next week to see uh i think there's some more of this there's a little bit more of this and we get to this uh very exciting episode of jacob wrestling with the angel yeah rest on out your blessing all right we'll see you then © transcript Emily Beynon