Bible Commentaries
Genesis 28

XXVI

ISAAC AND JACOB

Genesis 25:19-28:9

We take up the story of Isaac and Jacob. The closing paragraphs of Isaac’s history are recorded in Genesis 35:28-29, his death and burial. There is an old saying, "Blessed is the nation which has no history." History is devoted to extraordinary events. A thousand years of quiet and peace find no description in the pages of history. A few years of wars, pestilences, and earthquakes receive much attention. Isaac may be called the patriarch without a history.

I wish to refer first to his mother. An examination question will be: What New Testament passages refer favorably to Sarah? The answer in Hebrews 11 says that she is a woman of faith. By faith she was enabled to bear seed. 2 Peter 3:6, places her above the woman of Peter’s time as a model in subjection and obedience to her husband and the laws of maternal relation. The apostle Paul in Galatians 4 makes Sarah the type of the Jerusalem which is above – the mother of us all.

We have considered in previous lectures the things which went before Isaac’s birth. As early as Genesis 12:3, God had promised that in Abraham’s seed all the families of men should be blessed, but Abraham thought that could apply to an adopted child as well as a real child. When the promise is spoken a second time, it is expressly stated that it should be his own child. Then Abraham did not know who the mother would be. But the third statement was that it was not only to be his own child, but by his wife, Sarah. So according to Paul, Isaac comes into the world the child of promise, and by a miraculous birth. In this respect he is the type of all Christians who are regenerated, born of supernatural power.

In contrasting Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we find Isaac unlike his father and son in the following particulars: He was unlike them in age. He lived to be 180 years old; neither of them lived that long. In the matter of travel: Isaac never got out of the sight of the smoke that went up from the tent where he was born. With a compass you might draw a circle with a radius of 100 miles around his birthplace as a center, and he was never beyond that circle. He was never north of the city of Jerusalem; east of the river Jordan; south of the South country where Beersheba was; never west of the Mediterranean Sea. No man of his age and with his wealth traveled so little. Again, he was unlike both father and son in his marriage relations. He had but one wife, and she bore him only two children, both at one birth. He was as pure a man in the marriage relation as ever lived in the world. He was unlike both father and son in his passiveness, i.e., he had no spirit of aggression or self-assertion. He was never in a battle. There were very few stirring events in his history. But when you read the lives of Abraham and Jacob many mighty and thrilling events come up. Unlike father and son, he became blind in his old age and nearly helpless. You might say that Jacob’s life commenced with a struggle, and was under the clouds the early years, but about the middle of his life the sun shines out, and the sunset is unclouded. Isaac commenced life with laughter and ended with sorrow. The record tells of his building only one altar, though he may have built others. He offered only one prayer, the prayer for his wife. God appeared to him only twice, but to Jacob and Abraham many times. He was like Abraham in one fault, duplicity concerning his wife to the king of the Philistines. He was like both father and son in being a prophet of God.

The record passes over the happy years of his life, most of the 120 years. If you have read Thomson’s Land and the Book, or any modern book about the South country, you have a vivid description of the kind of land where he lived. No perennial streams, scarcely any trees, bleak mountains and plains, in the spring a beautiful country of flowers, but they last only a short time. I have seen at least forty varieties of them gathered from the fields where Isaac lived. The water question was a great question in his life, as of all the patriarchs, there being little rain and the streams entirely dry the greater part of the year. So they had to dig for water. And one may imagine the growing up of this boy under favorable and happy circumstances, loved by his father and mother, scarcely any troubles, quietly Jiving his life in a tent, amid flowers and flocks and herds.

The record does tell about his trials. I give you a list. They commenced when he was weaned, at three years old. At that time he wag very much persecuted by his big brother, Ishmael, who was fourteen years older. That strong wild boy, superseded by the coming of Isaac, persecuted the little fellow, and if I had to say under what sense of wrong my soul was most indignant in my youth, it would be in observing rude, big boys, being cruel to timid little fellows at school. Nobody can tell through what horrors a timid soul passes in going out in public life and coming in contact with rougher beings. Especially is this true in schools, and where hazing is permitted, it is perfectly awful. The next sorrow was when he was offered up. He was then about twenty and had lived in perfect peace about seventeen years. Next when his mother died. He could not be consoled for several years, because she was everything to him. He was the child of his mother. There is a legend – I do not call it history – that when Abraham took Isaac to offer him up he told Sarah and broke her heart and caused her death. You don’t get that out of the Bible, however. The next trial is one that a good many children come in touch with, the introducing of a stepmother into the family, but the record does not indicate that there was any trouble between Isaac and his wife and Keturah, the second wife of Abraham. The next, a very great sorrow, was that his wife bore no children. He had been married twenty years, and it troubled him much, knowing the promise of God. But instead of seeking to fulfill the prophecy as Abraham and Sarah had done, he carried the case to God in prayer. The Lord heard him and promised that children should be born to him. The next trial was the death of his father. His twin boys, Jacob and Esau, were about fifteen years old. So the grandfather lived long enough to know the boys thoroughly. The next trouble was when the famine came, and he had to go into the land of the Philistines, and he was afraid that Abimelech or some other ungodly man would kill him in order to get his wife. It does not always follow, however, that other people are as anxious to capture our wives as we think they are. But it nearly happened in this case.

We now come to the culminating period of Isaac’s life, Genesis 26:12-28. He is now in the country of Abimelech: "And Isaac sowed in that land . . . and there Isaac’s servants digged a well." There Abimelech and Phicol made a covenant with him and from now on his sorrows multiply. The next sorrow arises from a little transaction concerning a mess of pottage. You remember the prophecy that the older child of Isaac should serve the younger. The mother was partial to Jacob. Esau, a man of the plains, and a great hunter, was loved by his father. The mother instructed her son to help out God’s prophecy. She watched her chance. The chance came when Esau returned from hunting, tired and hungry, and Jacob had Just made a pot of red pottage. Esau’s own name meant red-headed, and people don’t have red heads for nothing. Esau said to Jacob, "Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage, for I am faint." And Jacob said, "I will give it to you if you will acknowledge that the birthright belongs to me." That was driving a hard bargain, but Esau was so hungry that he sold the birthright. Isaac did not say a word, but in his own mind he determined to bestow the blessing on Esau, because he loved him most. The next trouble comes in Esau’s marriage. Esau married two idolatrous women, and the record states that it was a great grief to Rebekah and Isaac. The next calamity is that Isaac begins to go blind. Next the great deception was practiced on him by his wife and Jacob. Feeling that he might soon pass away he determined as a prophet to bestow the blessing on the firstborn, on Esau. So he told Esau to go out and kill venison and fix him a savory dish. Isaac liked Esau’s venison, somewhat of a sensual man. I am told that it is a characteristic of some preachers these days to like savory dishes, and woe to the preacher who has to preach at night after eating a big dinner of mince pie at twelve o’clock! Rebekah seemed to have a listening ear and heard Isaac talking to Esau. Now she is going to help God out. Isaac willed that Esau should have the birthright. Esau ran to kill the venison. Jacob and Rebekah plotted to defeat him. So she put Esau’s clothing on Jacob, as Esau was a hairy man. Rebekah told him to kill and dress a kid and tell the old man it was venison, and that he was Esau. It was a very villainous transaction. Jacob brought the kid and the father said, "Is this my son Esau?" and Jacob said, "Yes, father." Isaac said, "Come here, let me feel." He felt of the garment and said, "The touch is like Esau, but the voice is like Jacob." Anyhow he ate the dish of kid and pronounced the blessing on Jacob. Here is that blessing in poetic form:

See, the smell of my son

Is as the smell of a field which

Jehovah hath blessed;

And God give thee of the dew of heaven,

And of the fatness of the earth,

And plenty of grain and wine:

Let peoples serve thee,

And nations bow down to thee:

Be lord over thy brethren,

And let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee:

Cursed be every one that curseth thee,

And blessed be every one that blesseth thee.

There Isaac gives Jacob power over his brother, thinking he was giving it to Esau. Now the question arises and Paul argues it in Romans 9, how could God approve such fraud as that? Well, God did not approve it. Paul says, "It is not of him that willeth." Isaac willed to give it to Esau. "It is not of him that runneth." Esau ran to get the venison. It was not of Jacob and his mother, but of the election, God having decreed before the children were born, before either one had done good or evil, that the younger should be the one through whom the Messiah should come.

The most touching thing was when Esau came back: "And it came to pass as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out of the presence of Isaac, his father, that Esau, his brother, came in from his hunting. And he also made savoury food, and brought it unto his father; and he said unto his father, Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac, his father, said, Who art thou? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn, Esau. And Isaac trembled exceedingly, and said, Who then is he that hath taken venison and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou earnest, and have blessed him? Yea, and he shall be blessed. When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried, Bless me, even me, O my father. Jacob hath supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright, and behold he hath taken my blessing." And Isaac answered:

Behold, of the fatness of the earth shall be thy dwelling,

And of the dew of heaven from above;

And by thy sword shalt thou live, and thou shalt

serve thy brother;

And it shall be as thou rovest at will, thou wilt

shake off thine enemy.

In one of the old prophets it is said, "Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated." That refers not to the persons of Jacob and Esau, but to the nationalities. Esau was heathen, and Jacob was Israel. None of this work of election in any particular had anything to do with the character of either. None of it with the wishes of the father and mother. It was God’s sovereign disposition of the case and touched the descendants rather than the two persons. Hebrews 12:16 brings out the character of Esau a little more plainly: "Lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his birthright. For ye know that when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." That used to trouble me. It looked like Esau wanted to repent of his sin and God would not forgive him. I will read it to you according to the true rendering: "For he found no place for a change of mind in the father." It was not Esau’s repentance, but Isaac’s repentance. Don’t ever misapply that scripture. That was a great trouble to Isaac. And as for the rascality of Jacob and Rebekah, they had to bear a heavy burden. Esau determined to kill Jacob and his mother seat him away and never saw him again.

The next thing was the death of his brother Ishmael; then the death of his wife; and afterward the departure of Esau. There he was alone, father, wife, brother dead, one son banished and another gone away. Then Jacob came and comforted him in his last illness. I have given you an outline of the sorrows of Isaac, but there are really two that I have not mentioned, viz.: Jacob had gotten to the Holy Land on his return, but had not reached his father’s house when Rachel died. Isaac was living, but he never got to see Rachel. Joseph was sold into slavery and Isaac never saw him, then comes the death of Isaac.

Let us look at the character of this man. He was intensely religious, domestic and peaceful; passive in his resistance to evil and in one event of his life a type of Christ; when he got to the mountain he carried the wood upon which he was to be offered as Christ bore his own cross until he fainted. A type of the Christian is his miraculous birth. When we come to consider Jacob and Esau further attention will be given to these details. In the grave of Machpelah, by the side of his father Abraham, and mother Sarah, Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried. And to this day the Arabs point to the casket which contains the remains. This is the culminating period of the prosperity in the life of Isaac. So we now pass to the…

HISTORY OF JACOB
In the first of the chapter on Isaac we have necessarily considered somewhat the incidents of Jacob’s life up to the time that he left his father’s home. It was then said that those incidents would be examined more particularly when we studied Jacob’s own life. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in reply to the question, How early should the education of a child begin? replied, "Commence with his grandmother." To a great extent certainly most lives are the mixed results of preceding forces. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, are all in some degree reproduced in Jacob. Oliver Wendell Holmes also says, "A man is an omnibus in which all his ancestors ride." Don’t forget these two quotations. This thought he embodies and illustrates in his book Elsie Venner. The object of that book was to show how conflicting ancestral traits struggled for supremacy in this girl. We might add that every life is a result of many forces, including the following: (1) God; (2) the devil; (3) heredity; (4) individuality; (5) environment; (6) opportunity; (7) education; (8) habits. We will be little prepared to analyze or comprehend Jacob’s life, if we lose sight of any one of these forces. So far in Jacob’s life individuality has bad but limited place, since he has been under the dominion, or domination, of his mother. Individuality comes most into play when we are thrown upon our own resources, and are responsible for our own decisions and have to make our own way. We will find in this history that Jacob appears to much greater advantage when his own individuality comes into play than when he was under the influence of another. We will find the value of his past habits in his taking care of himself and making a support, and that, too, under very adverse conditions, more adverse than that of any of you boys, hard as you think your lot is. We are going to like Jacob a great deal better as we get on in his history than we do at the start. It has been well said that no hunter is a good businessman. This holds good from Esau to Rip Van Winkle. The domestic habits of Jacob, and his training in caring for flocks and herds, serve him well in after life. From his mother and her family comes his shrewd business sense. Woe to the man who expects to get rich trading with Jacob. He is a prototype of all Yankees and modern Jews in driving close bargains. Hunter Esau was the first victim to "cut his eye-teeth" on that fact.

But before we study the individuality as manifested when thrown upon his own resources, we must refresh our minds with a backward glance at his history as given in previous chapters. His parentage, Isaac, son of Abraham, and Rebekah, granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. But a mightier factor than parental influence or heredity touches him. Prophecies and mighty doctrines were on their way toward him before be began to be. God comes before parents. The divine purpose and the divine election touching his life will look far beyond the personal Jacob, and be far above and paramount over affection, will, weakness, or duplicity of parent or child, long after the earthly actors are dead. Yea, into thousands of years of the future the foreknowledge, predestination and election of God will project themselves until the whole human race becomes involved in Jacob, and until eternity and everlasting destiny comes. Deep and wide as may be this shoreless ocean of the divine purpose, we are permitted to look at it, so far as revealed, though it be unnavigable by the human reason. Prophecies: The first prophecy directly affecting. Jacob is God’s answer to the mother’s inquiry concerning the infants in her womb. "Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated therefrom, and one shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger." This prophecy evidently refers not so much to the boys themselves as to their descendants. Indeed in its wider significance it concerns all nations more than the two nations. So referring, it considers neither parental bias, nor character of either child. It is not a divine decree fixing the eternal destiny of either child. For reasons sufficient to himself, God of his own will selects one of these nations to become his people and through whom he will savingly reach all other peoples. The second relevant prophecy appears in Isaac’s blessing on Jacob: "And God give thee of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, plenty of grain and new wine." That is temporal. "Let peoples serve thee and nations bow down to thee." That is national. That refers to the primogeniture. "Cursed be every one that curseth thee and blessed be every one that blesseth thee." That is the prophecy of the twenty-seventh chapter. This prophecy is restated and enlarged in the blessing on Esau, as follows: "And thou shalt serve thy brother, but it shall come to pass, when thou shalt break loose, thou shalt shake his yoke off thy neck" (Genesis 24:40). These two prophecies, like the first, find their real meaning in the descendant nations, rather than in Jacob and Esau personally. Esau himself never served Jacob himself. Their application to the nations rather than to the brothers themselves appears in the last Old Testament book, Malachi 1:2-5: "Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith Jehovah, yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated, and made his mountains a desolation." It is evident that Malachi in his day, thousands of years after Jacob and Esau, is not discussing the two men personally, but Jacob the people, and Edom, Esau’s people. This national application is also evident from Paul’s use of the Genesis and Malachi quotations in Romans 9:10-13. He is there discussing God’s election of Israel to be his people, and how that nation, on account of infidelity, was cast off and the Gentiles took their places. He is proving that doctrine from this quotation from Malachi. All this prophecy, Paul says, illustrates God’s sovereign election. But so far it is the election of a nation. Personal election of an individual Christian is not so far discussed. The personal privilege conferred in this is the primogeniture conferred on Jacob. In what did this right consist? I am sure to ask that question on examination. The answer is: (1) Rule in family and tribe; (2) A double portion of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 2:17); (3) The priesthood of the family and the high priesthood of the tribe. In England the right of primogeniture still prevails to a large extent. The eldest son inherits the father’s estate, and in order to support that property they have the "Law of Entail," that the property cannot be alienated, but must pass down to each first son. The income may be used in providing a portion for the other children, but the principal must remain intact. That is one of the special privileges our forefathers objected to. Jefferson and his colaborers determined to abolish both of these laws as far as they applied to America. The history of Virginia shows various steps of legislation undertaken by Jefferson, and aided particularly by the Baptists, in destroying these laws. A man may bequeath his property by will, but that will is subject to legal investigations. It can be broken if he unjustly deprive any child of a fair share of the inheritance. The original prophecy that the elder should serve the younger was never forgotten by the mother, and through her it was made known to her favorite son, Jacob. In both of them arose a desire to hasten the fulfillment of that prophecy. Like Sarah, their impatience could not wait for God himself to fulfill his word. Now comes another examination question, What was the first step taken to hasten its fulfillment? That mess of pottage business. I will not recite the history, but I will ask you on examination to analyze Jacob’s sin in that transaction, and Esau’s sin. The analysis of Jacob’s sin is: (1) Presumption toward God by human instrumentality to hurry up God’s purpose. (2) Unfilial toward Isaac. (3) Unfraternal and inhuman toward Esau to take advantage of his extremity by a sharp bargain. (4) It was snatching at a promise before it was ripe. The doctrine involved is: You may do evil to bring about a good thing. That is the doctrine of the Jesuits, abhorrent to God’s Word. This evil rather delayed matters. It brought on Jacob the intense hatred of Esau. The analysis of Esau’s sin is: (1) He was sensual; the satisfaction of present desire seemed greater than future blessing. (2) There was profanity in his sin; he despised the sacred primogeniture. How does the Old Testament characterize Esau’s sin? "He despised the birthright." How does the New Testament? "He was guilty of profanity." Any act of irreverence is profanity. There has come a proverb from that transaction: "Don’t sell your birthright." Who has written a book entitled The Mess of Pottage You will find it in the book stores, but I do not recommend it to you. Ben Franklin has a similar proverb. When he was small, a man had a whistle which he made very attractive. Ben Franklin, so intense in his desire to get that whistle, gave the man everything he had. But when he walked off he felt very much dissatisfied; it did not whistle as well as he thought it would. It taught him this: Never pay too much for a whistle. John Bunyan, in Pilgrim’s Progress, has a picture hanging in the interpreter’s house: Two boys, Patience and Passion. Passion rushes up and says, "Father, give me all my goods right now." The father gives him the goods and he soon spends all. But Patience waits for the right time. Many people are so governed by appetite that though they may know that the commission of an offense will wreck their future career, they forget the future in their lust.

What was the second step to hasten the fulfillment of the promise? It consists in the concerted action between Rebekah and Jacob to deceive blind old Isaac and have him bless Jacob, confirming the right of primogeniture. I shall now proceed to analyze the sin of Rebekah in this transaction. Rebekah’s sin consisted in presumption toward God in doing an evil thing and in the overweening power over Jacob’s character, who did.. not want to do it. "Honoring the mother," was carried beyond the legitimate limit. Children ought not to obey their parents in committing a crime. Jacob’s sin consisted in making his mother’s desire greater than the promptings of conscience and regard for God’s will. This did not help the purpose a particle. How does the New Testament show that it did not help the purpose? "It is not to him that willeth, like Isaac, nor to him that runneth, like Esau, but it was of God." It intensified Esau’s hatred against his brother: "He cheated me out of my birthright by trade, and now out of my father’s blessing. I will kill him." Esau was the fellow to do it. He would boil over, and in anger would kill anybody. So to save the favorite child the mother sent him away and never saw him again. She did not make anything, "but it is true that both of these evil steps were overruled by the providence of God for good.

QUESTIONS
1. Why may Isaac be called a "patriarch without a history"?

2. What New Testament passages refer favorably to Sarah?

3. What three revelations to Abraham concerning the "child of promise" and of what is this child in his birth a type?

4. In what respects of life and character did Isaac differ from his father, Abraham, and his son, Jacob?

5. For what does the New Testament commend him? (Hebrews 11:20.)

6. Describe the land where he lived. What was the great problem of his life?

7. Though the most of Isaac’s life was joyful and peaceful, he had some trials and sorrows. Tell them.

8. Cite scripture showing culmination of Isaac’s prosperity.

9. In which one of the trials was he a type of our Lord?

10. What prophecy was Jacob trying to have fulfilled in the "mess of pottage" translation? Was it right to seek its fulfillment in this way?

11. How did Isaac undertake to nullify the trade between Jacob and Esau and how was his plan defeated?

12. Did God approve such transaction and what Paul’s explanation of it?

13. What pathetic incident followed and what was the blessing upon Esau?

14. What is the meaning of the name "Jacob" and from what incident originated?

15. What is the meaning of "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated"?

16. Give the character of Esau as interpreted in the New Testament and what other name had Esau?

17. In Hebrews 12:17, was the blessing that Esau vainly sought salvation? Explain, then, the passage: "He found no place for repentance, though he sought carefully with tears."

18. What two sad events after Jacob’s return to the Holy Land before he reached his father’s house?

19. Describe the character of Isaac and in what was he a type of Christ?

20. With whom, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, must a child’s education begin?

21. What other saying of his bears on heredity?

22. What book did he write on ancestral traits?

23. What forces are factors in every human life?

24. When does individuality come most into play and the application to Jacob?

25. What was the mightiest force that touched Jacob, what was the prophecies concerning him and what is the application of these prophecies?

26. What was Paul’s use of the first of these prophecies together with Malachi 1:2-5?

27. What was the personal privilege conferred on Jacob in these prophecies and blessings?

28. In what did the right of primogeniture consist and what traces of this in history?

29. Analyze Jacob’s and Esau’s sin in the "mess of pottage" transaction and what was the doctrine involved?

30. How does the Old Testament characterize Esau’s sin? The New Testament?

31. What is profanity and what proverb from the transaction? Illustrate.

32. What were the sins of Isaac, Rebekah, Esau, and Jacob, respectively, in the transaction about the blessing?

Verses 10-55

XXVII

JACOB’S CONVERSION AND LIFE IN HARAN

Genesis 28:10-31:55

Now we come to an important event in Jacob’s life, his leaving home to be absent many years, and his conversion. How different his leaving from old Eliezer’s! Eliezer went openly, with a large train and many handsome presents. Jacob had to slip off, without money, an exile and afoot. From this time on the man’s individuality will come out. This chapter gives an account of his conversion, the great event of his life, Genesis 28:10-18. That dream was God’s method of communicating with this lonely man. The ladder in that dream, according to John’s Gospel, represents Jesus Christ, the connecting stairway between earth and heaven, upon which angels descend to earth and ascend to heaven. In that dream Jacob saw a grand sight for any man. Earth and heaven had been separated by sin with earth’s inhabitants under a curse. By grace that chasm was spanned by the coming of the Redeemer. Upon that stairway angels come to earth and carry back their reports. Jesus said (John 1), "Hereafter you shall see the angels of heaven ascending and descending upon the Son of man," showing that he fulfilled the type of Jacob’s ladder. Dr. Richard Fuller has a marvelous sermon on Jacob’s ladder. He was the great orator of the Southern Baptist pulpit, tall, finely formed, handsome, his voice as a silver bell, and as sweet in its melody as the whisper of an Aeolian harp. It is said that no man could interest a crowd following Dr. Fuller in a speech. He is the only man, other than Dr. J. L. Burrows who has preached the Convention Sermon more than once in the Southern Baptist Convention. People were carried away by the man and his personality. He was one of the few rich men who are called a man of great intellectuality. Read his sermon on Jacob’s ladder, and also the one on "The Cross of Christ."

Jacob awakened from his sleep and said, "Surely Jehovah is in this place," and he called the name of that place Bethel. "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, and Jehovah shall be my God, then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." There is the evidence of his conversion, his keen sense of divine presence and realization of the import of divine communication, his recognition, as if for the first time in his hitherto unworthy life, of his relations to God and the fixed purpose that came into his heart from that time on to serve God, and to honor God with the firstfruits. Here we come to the second mention of tithing before the giving of the law on Sinai. We have seen before that Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. This man is changed from this time on. He does not lose his shrewd business sense, but he is godly and prayerful and believes that wherever he goes God is with him. That is the secret of a religious life. The conviction that there is a direct connection between earth and heaven, and that every angel in heaven, to the extent of his power, is pledged to the companionship and protection of every child of God, and that Jesus Christ is the connecting link between earth and heaven, and that through sickness and health, good and evil report, God will be with his people, is a sure basis of a good life. That consciousness brings out the purpose, "I will serve and honour God with everything that I have." I remember, while sitting in the back end of a wagon, I read this passage to my wife. The circumstances were these: At the close of the War Between the States, though crippled with wounds, and bankrupt, I voluntarily assumed an antebellum debt of $4,000, not legally my own, and had finally paid all by selling everything I bad but wife and baby, and was moving to a church on the promise of $500 a year. I said, "Now, wife, here is a time to settle our financial relation to God. We haven’t got a thing, and we are sure to fail if he is not honored by us, and if he is honored we will succeed. Let us enter into a covenant right here that whatever happens we will give God one-tenth of every cent that we ever make." We did from that time on. I have long since passed that limit. For many years I have been giving one-fifth, and some years two-fifths. So here was the event that changed this man’s life. What matters it that he was banished from home and alone, without friends and without money? If God’ was his portion he was rich no matter how poor. If God was with him he had company, no matter how lonely. If God was for him, who could be against him?

The rest of this chapter we devote to Jacob’s life in Haran (Genesis 29-31:55), a period of twenty years. He enters tliat country afoot, with nothing but the clothes he had on and the staff in his hand. He comes out an exceedingly rich man, very much married, with twelve children. Another son was born later. The lesson commences with telling how he arrived at Haran and stopped at the well, perhaps the same at which old Eliezer stopped when he went after a bride for Isaac. Here he meets Rachel, the one woman throughout his life he was to love. She was a little girl about ten or twelve years old, or she would not have bad charge of the flock by herself. But in Oriental countries a girl of twelve is equal in maturity to a girl of seventeen here. It was a case of love at first sight. He never loved another woman while he lived. After they were made known to each other (v. II), "And Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted up his voice and wept." My first question is, Why did he weep after kissing that girl? I leave that for you to find out. When Brother Truett and his wife were here, looking toward each other just about like Jacob and Rachel, and we were passing over this, I gave that same question. Some of the class answered, "He wept because he had not commenced that work sooner." And one ill-natured young preacher said, "He wept because Rachel had been eating onions." But Brother Truett’s wife gave the true answer. See who of you will give it.

The next remark is on the Genesis 29:14: "And Laban, the father of Rachel, said unto him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him a month of days," i.e. he stayed as a guest for a full month. A guest must not stay too long. So naturally Laban raised the question of something to do, and said to Jacob, "Because thou art my brother," which means kinsman, "shouldst thou, therefore, serve me for nothing? Tell me what shall be thy wages." Laban proposes a business transaction. Look at it. Jacob says, referring to the two girls – Leah, the elder, was not beautiful and her eyes were weak, but Rachael was beautiful of form and countenance – "I will serve thee seven years for thy younger daughter. It was the custom for the bridegroom to give presents, and in the Orient today a man in a measure purchases his wife. But Jacob had nothing to give, but he was to serve seven years without other wages. Young men of the present day think if they serve for a girl thirty days that it is a great tax on them, and they begin to think how much they have paid for ice cream, streetcar fare, buggy rides, theater tickets, etc., and begin to bring matters to a focus. They have not the love that Jacob had. And his proposition was accepted. Next, Genesis 29:20, "And Jacob served for Rachel seven years, and they were in his eyes but a few days for the love he had for her." There is a remarkable proof of the genuineness of his love. This is one of the most illustrious cases of deep, personal, lifelong attachment that we have any historical account of, and has become proverbial: "Serve seven years for Rachel." At the end of the seven years he claimed the fulfillment of the contract. Now this young man who had practiced the deception upon his old, blind father, has a deception practiced upon him. Laban is very tricky and unscrupulous. All that crowd up there are shrewd traders and sharp bargainers. Whoever deals with them has to keep both eyes open, and not sleep in the day, and not sleep very sound at any time in the night. They are that way till this day. The manner of consummating the marriage, the betrothal of which had lasted seven years, is very simple: In a formal way the father veils the girl and at night turns her over to the bridegroom. That ends the ceremony. I have seen a letter today from a judge who occupies his seat for the first time, and he says one of the first acts of his administration was to marry a couple and he tells of the ceremony, too simple to repeat, but it does not make much difference about the form, the fact that the transfer has been made and accepted establishes the validity.

Here comes a general question, What ill-natured English poet, in order to illustrate what he calls the disillusions that follow marriage said, "With Rachel we lie down at night; in the morning, behold it is Leah"? I don’t agree with him at all. There have been thousands and thousands of marriages where there was not only no disillusion after the marriage was consummated, but an ever-deepening, lifelong attachment. I expect if some woman had written a couplet she would have put it: "With George Washington we lie down at night, and in the morning, lo I it is Benedict Arnold." It sounds smart, but you ought not to have any respect for any man who reflects upon the sanctity of the marriage relation. I knew a couple who married early, the man about twenty-three, and the girl about eighteen. After twenty-five years had passed the man said, "I have not been anywhere in the world that she has not been with me. Even when I go hunting, fishing, traveling, she is with me. And there has never been an hour since I married her that I had not rather be with her than with anybody else in the world." And the woman said the same thing. I think that kind of testimony is much better than the English poet’s testimony.

Jacob was very indignant at the cheat perpetrated upon him. He did not love Leah, and he did not want her at all. The explanation that Laban made is so thin that it won’t hold water. It is not true that in the East you cannot marry the younger until the older is disposed of. Laban then said, "As soon as the week of wedding festivities is over, I will let you have Rachel, provided you will serve seven more years. You can take her at the end of the week, but you take her on a credit until you have served the seven years." Jacob made that trade. Fourteen years of hard work! I want you to think of that whenever you think of the bad things Jacob did; think also of the good points in the man.

Now we come to the evils of polygamy forced upon Jacob. He never wanted but one woman, but this trickery of his uncle gave him two, and the jealousy of these two wives fastened upon him two more; so that there were two wives and two concubines. For quite a while the strife between the two wives goes on. What kind of a home do you suppose that was? Among the Mormons they do sometimes give a separate house to each wife, but others put a dozen in the same house. Jealousy is certain to develop and cause conflict among the children. A struggle between these two wives is manifested in the names given to the children. Leah, in these seven years, bore Jacob seven children, six sons and one daughter. Rachel bore one son, Joseph, and afterward another. The two maidservants bore two each. That makes twelve sons. I will call the names out in the order in which they were born. Reuben, Leah’s firstborn, means "See, a son." It expresses her pride, that Jacob’s firstborn was a son, and not a daughter. Simeon, her second, means "a hearing": that she asked God, as the love of her husband had not come when Reuben was born as she supposed, to send her another child, but Jacob still did not love her. Levi, her third, means "a Joiner"; "Now I will be joined to my husband." But he did not join them. Judah, her fourth, means "praise"; "Praise Jehovah for the blessing that has come upon me, now that I have borne four sons to my husband." When Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid, bore a son, Rachel named him Dan, meaning "a judge"; "God has judged my side of the case." When Naphtali, the second son, was born to her handmaid, Rachel names him "wrestling." She had wrestled in prayer to God for still additional hold on the husband. Then Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid, bore a son and he is named Gad. The literal Hebrew means "good fortune," but when we come to interpret it in chapter 49, it means "7 troop," i.e., four sons have already been born on the Leah side and here is another. That means there is going to be a troop of them. Her next son is named Asher, which means "happy" – happy in getting the advantage of Rachel. Then Leah herself bears another son, Issachar, which means "reward." Her next son, Zebulun, means "dwelling." "I have borne six sons to my husband. Surely he will dwell with me." When her daughter was born she named her Dinah, which means "vindication": "God is vindicating my side of the marriage relation." At that time Rachel bore her first child and she named him Joseph, "May he add, as I now have a start." Later on, Rachel’s last son is born, and dying she names him Benoni, "the child of my anguish." But the husband steps in and for the first time gets to name one of the children. He names him Benjamin, "the child of my right hand." These are the twelve names bestowed on the sons. When we come to the dying blessing that Jacob pronounces in chapter 49 upon all of the children, we will see some additions to the names and the characteristics there brought out. These titles come from what the mothers thought of the twelve children at the time they were born, but the names from chapter 49 come from the developments of character in the boys themselves. In Deuteronomy 33, where Moses pronounces the blessing on the twelve tribes, calling them by their names, he leaves out one of the twelve altogether, and brings in new titles not based upon what was in the mother’s mind, nor upon the characteristics of the twelve sons, but upon the characteristics of the tribes descended from the sons. In Revelation 12, we will come upon another list of them, where the reference is not at all to the reasons heretofore expressed in their names but to the later tribal characteristics. As we pass along I, will ask you to compare these four lists of the children of Jacob. You know we have four lists of the twelve apostles, and sometimes different names for the same person. Yet more particularly will I call your attention to the birthright man. Reuben, the firstborn, is entitled to the right of primogeniture. You will find out later how he loses it, and how the several elements of the right of primogeniture are distributed among three other sons of Jacob. At the end of the fourteen years Jacob claimed the fulfillment of his contract. Up to this time he had not made anything, except the wife that he wanted. He has a large family, no money or property, but rich in this family. A young man of the present time, encumbered with twelve children in fourteen years of married life, would think himself pretty much hampered, particularly if he had no bank account, cotton field, or big salary. Now the question comes up about a new contract. God had marvelously blessed Laban on account of Jacob. Jacob had attended to his business so well, being competent from habits of earlier life to which I called your attention in a previous chapter, that Laban did not want to lose Jacob. Jacob makes another proposition: "You shall not pay me any salary, but I propose that we leave it for divine providence to designate how much I ought to get. Most of the sheep are white, brown, or black, an unmixed colour. I propose that my part shall be the speckled, striped or ringstreaked." Laban looked over his flocks and found only a little sprinkle in all the multitudes not having a solid color. So he accepted the proposition. He was a very shrewd old man. Before the contract goes into effect he moves every one that is already ring-streaked, striped, or speckled, three days’ journey from Jacob, and puts them in the hands of his sons and says to Jacob, "We will start even." Jacob said nothing, but God was with him, and we have here presented in the history how Jacob got rich, and the expedients that he resorted to in order that the flocks might bear striped, speckled, and ring-streaked. And we learn how God intervened that Jacob, who had been working fourteen years and had been cheated, might have compensation. Through Jacob’s expedient, and particularly through divine providence, Jacob’s flocks increased. Old Laban looked on and it puzzled him. Laban’s children looked on and it puzzled them. The pure white and solid colors began to get fewer and fewer. Jacob’s flock began to multiply beyond all human calculation. What follows? Laban’s sons begin to talk about it: "This stranger has come up here. He did not have a thing when he came to our house. He is managing this business and getting all of our father’s property. After a while there won’t be anything to divide between us." Laban heard the boys talking and he agreed with them. When he would pass Jacob he would look at him sideways and would not speak to him. Jacob saw a storm was brewing. God came to him in a vision and said, "Return to thy native land. It is time to go, twenty years have passed." Jacob did not know how his wives would stand on the matter. So he sent for them to come out to the field. He would not talk to them about it at the house. He stated the case fairly: how badly he had been treated, and wanted to know if the wives would stand by him and would go with him. They told him they would, and he might have known it. A man need never be afraid, if he is a good husband, of her not standing by him. Everybody else in the world may go back on him, but a good wife will be true. Laban was away on a three days’ journey, so they decided to strike out without letting him know. And to add to it, Rachel went into Laban’s house and stole his teraphim, little images of idolatry and divination. Just as Demetrius, the silversmith at Ephesus, made little models of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, so they could tie them around their necks or put them in their pockets and carry them around with them. Wherever they felt like worshiping, they could bow down before this little trinket, or as they now tie crosses around their necks, or when they get up they bow down before that cross or little image of the virgin Mary. Now, the question comes up, Why did Rachel steal the teraphim? That is what I want you to answer. I have my own opinion, but I don’t want to force it on you now. One may answer that she was herself at heart an idolater, at least in part. Now, you may adopt that, if you want to, for your answer. It is not mine. They started at a good time. Laban was gone to that other flock, and they knew he would not be back for three days and that they would have three days the start. So they crossed the Euphrates and set out with many servants, cattle, sheep, goats, and quite a sprinkling of children and only four wives. It was a pretty big caravan. I don’t know just which way Jacob went. He may have gone down to Damascus, and from Damascus to Gilead.

Three days passed before Laban heard of it. He cornea home after shearing his sheep and wanted to find his little gods, but he could not find them. Then he went out to look for his interests in that other herd, and lo, Jacob was gone. So he rallied a party, a flying column, without women or children, flocks, or other hindrances, on swift dromedaries, or horses – suppose dromedaries – and at the end of seven days he caught them near the mountains of Gilead. But the night before he caught up with them old Laban had an experience that he had never had before in his life. In that night Almighty God in a vision comes to him and says, "Laban, don’t you speak either good or evil to Jacob. Keep your hands of." Unquestionably that is the only thing that prevented the killing of Jacob and taking the wives and children and that property – God’s divine intervention. It sobered Laban very much. They had a meeting, and it was one of the most touching incidents in human history. Why some novelist has not brought it out I don’t know. Old Laban said, "You have stolen my goods, my cattle, my teraphim." Jacob knew nothing about these little gods and denied it, and said he had carried off only what was his own. Now comes Jacob’s speech which I would like for you to be able to memorize. "And Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast hotly pursued after me? 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. 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. That which was torn of the beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day or by night. Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from mine eyes. 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. 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 labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight." Old Laban could not say a word to that. The promise that God had made to Jacob that he would be with him had been literally fulfilled. Laban then proposes that a covenant be made between them. They erected and consecrated a pillar, that Laban’s crowd should never pass that pillar toward the Holy Land to do evil to Jacob, and Jacob’s crowd could never pass that pillar going to Laban’s country to do evil to him.

Now open wide your eyes and ears: "And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha; but Jacob called it Galeed." The first is Aramaic, and the second word is Hebrew, and they mean exactly the same thing. Dr. Joseph Parker of England has preached a great sermon on the text entitled "Logomachy," i.e., strife about words. "And Laban said, This heap is witness between me and thee this day," and he called it Mizpah. Here I am going to tell you a fragment of a very touching story. In the first year of the war, just before a young man had started to the army, he paid very pointed attention to a lady, and they became engaged. During the war, the man, in passing the time in absence and with new faces, changed his feelings. His first letters were very loving and glowing. Then they began to lose the glow and diminish in length, and at last he quit writing. One evening just before a terrible battle in which many were killed, I was standing by the side of this man when one of the men who had been on a furlough brought a letter and handed it to him. He looked at the letter and said, "Pshaw! that is from that bothersome woman." He opened it and there wasn’t a thing in it except a piece of colored paper, and on it was written in capital letters: "Mizpah, THE LORD WITNESSETH BETWEEN ME AND THEE."

He turned white as he looked at it. This woman knew the Bible story and knew that, where a covenant had been made in the name of God and God’s name brought in, whoever violated that covenant not only wronged a human being but was guilty of sin toward God. His hand shook as he looked at it. He told me about it, and I said, "If you are a man, you go right to your tent and send her a humble, penitent letter." He said, "I won’t do it." And I said, "Then watch out. That woman has quit appealing to you. She has appealed to God. Mizpah, the Lord witness between me and thee." He says, "I reckon I can take care of myself." The next day we went into battle. He was shot through the heart and fell on me. That saved my life. When the battle was over I went back and found him thoroughly dead, and in going through his pockets to send home to his family, I found that piece of paper and through the center of the word "Mizpah" the Yankee bullet had gone right into his heart.

My reason for calling your attention to this is that he is a profane person who is irreverent toward God in anything. He is profane in the East who breaks an oath, and it is counted an everlasting degradation. Whenever you agree to anything in the name of God, you bring God in as a witness. Then you do what is said in another Old Testament book, "When I swear to my hurt, I will keep my word." Stick to your word. Notice when Jacob meets Laban it is diamond cut diamond, but when Jacob meets Esau, it is rapier meeting hammer.

QUESTIONS
1. What was the great event of Jacob’s life?

2. State the time, place, and circumstances of his conversion.

3. What New Testament passage explains Jacob’s ladder and who preached a great sermon on it?

4. What melting hymn was suggested by this incident?

5. What name did Jacob give to the place of his conversion, and why?

6. What vow did he make?

7. What was the evidence of his conversion?

8. What is the secret of a successful, religious life?

9. What do we find here which was mentioned in the Bible only once before this, and what is the author’s belief respecting that teaching?

10. How long was Jacob in Haran?

11. Contrast his condition when he went in with his condition when he came out.

12. Describe the meeting of Jacob and Rachel.

13. Why did Jacob weep after he kissed Rachel?

14, How did Jacob get Rachel and what evidence that he loved her?

15. What proverb based on this incident?

16. How was the law of lex talionis exemplified in Jacob’s case?

17. What do you think of the English poet’s testimony referred to?

18. Was Laban’s explanation to Jacob plausible and what good points of Jacob here comes out?

19. State some of the evils of polygamy.

20. Who were Jacob’s children by Leah? Rachel? Bilhah? Zilpah?

21. What the meaning of their names?

22. From what were these names derived?

23. What four lists of these names do we have in the Bible?

24. What was Jacob’s condition, at the end of fourteen years?

25. What business contract did he now make with Laban and what do you think of the way he executed his part?

26. How did Jacob get away from Laban and why did Rachel steal Laban’s teraphim?

27. How did Jacob get the start of Laban and where did Laban over-take him?

28. What kept Laban from killing Jacob?

29. What charge did Laban bring against Jacob?

30. What was Jacob’s reply?

31. Cite the passage that shows the hardness of Jacob’s life in Haran.

32. How was it finally settled?

33. What is the meaning of Mizpah and what illustration of this is given by the author?