Cunning and Faith Intersect || Genesis 30:25-31:3 || Session 50 || Verse by Verse Bible Study

Ever wondered how the age-old story of Jacob and Laban reveals the timeless truths about human nature and divine intervention? Join us in this verse by verse Bible study, as we dissect Genesis 30, examining the tangled family dynamics and underhanded tactics between Jacob and his uncle Laban. We’ll uncover how Jacob’s yearning to return home clashes with Laban’s manipulative schemes to exploit his labor and blessings from God. This episode connects these ancient stories to New Testament principles, spotlighting the persistent presence of sin and the universal need for redemption. Join us on Reasoning Through the Bible for a thought-provoking journey through one of Scripture's most intriguing episodes.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:18

Hello and welcome. We have a ministry we call Reasoning Through the Bible. We do verse-by-verse Bible study through the Word of God. My name's Glenn and I'm here with Steve. We've been reasoning our way through the book of Genesis. We're in chapter 30. We're following Jacob. He has two wives. He's had 11 sons. These sons are going to ultimately be the 12 tribes of Israel. He's going to have a 12th son. As we read it here, jacob has been working for his uncle Laban. He's been here quite a while. Jacob, of course, originally cheated his father and his brother and ended up having to run off to uncle Laban's territory. As we pick it up here, laban's not been very honest either. He defrauded Jacob with his two daughters. We're going to see here how both Jacob and Laban in today's story are going to be less than honest with each other and Steve. As we go through here, it seems like nobody in the entire family is honest with each other.

Speaker 2 1:22

They're scheming against each other, trying to bring the best of the situation to themselves. Now, when I say that it does seem that Laban is an instigator in a lot of this, we'll see Jacob do some things here to try and hedge his bets to his benefit. But it begs the question if Laban hadn't been pushing these items, would Jacob be doing that? I mean, it seems out of this that at least Jacob is trying to do the best thing, but Laban and his antics keep driving Jacob to do what he's going to do here in these next verses.

Speaker 1 2:01

Both Jacob and Laban can be accused of being scoundrels and less than honest with each other. Let's go ahead and start reading, if you have your Bibles. Turn to Genesis, chapter 30, and we'll start in verse 25. It says this. Now, it came about when Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban Send me away, that I may go to my own place, into my own country, give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, and let me depart, for you yourself know my service, which I have rendered you. But Laban said to him if now it pleases you, stay with me. I have divined that the Lord has blessed me on your account. He continued shall I provide for my own household also? So he said what shall I give you? And Jacob said you shall not give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flock. Let me pass through your entire flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted sheep and every black one amongst the lambs and the spotted and speckled amongst the goats, and such shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come, concerning my wages Everyone that is not speckled and spotted amongst the goats and black amongst the lambs, if found with me, will be considered stolen. Laban said good, let it be according to your word.

Speaker 1 3:44

So at the beginning of this passage, jacob has this large family. He wants to leave Laban and set out on his own. And in verse 27, laban wants Jacob to stay because he's gotten richer while Jacob has been working for him. It's easier for Laban to prosper when he's had free labor him. It's easier for Laban to prosper when he's had free labor. And that seems to be the first thing Laban thinks about is stay here because I got rich under you. He's very self-centered Laban is. He's not really worried about Jacob and his family very much. He's worried about his own pocketbook, wouldn't you think, steve?

Speaker 2 4:20

Yeah, laban wants to keep Jacob around because he sees that he's getting blessed. But you know, glenn, the thing is, he's acknowledging that he is being blessed, but it's by proxy, through Jacob. We don't see Laban acknowledging or going to God directly. He's manipulating the situation to keep Jacob around in order to still be blessed, like I said, by proxy, rather than acknowledging God and starting to worship God. Yeah, he wants to continue that trend of being blessed. I just find that interesting.

Speaker 1 4:57

What's interesting to me is that way back here in these stories in the Old Testament, it brings out and brings to the surface in these stories, new Testament doctrine. Because what does the New Testament tell us? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No one seeks after God. No, not one. It says in Romans 3. And what do we have here? You just pointed out correctly none of these people are seeking God. They're all trying to do what's selfish and best for themselves. They've all sinned.

Speaker 1 5:27

If we were to summarize this family and the sin that's occurred in this family, start back with Abraham. Abraham lied about his wife and did that twice. Sarah offered her maid and then got jealous when the maid had children and got mad. Isaac also lied about his wife being his sister. Esau sold his birthright and married a Hittite woman, rebekah. And Jacob deceived his father to get a blessing. Laban cheated Jacob about giving him his daughter. Remember he sent the older one in when he had agreed to let Mary the younger. Leah was ridiculing her sister about their marriage to Jacob. Rachel was jealous of the older sister. Has anyone in the story been righteous so far?

Speaker 2 6:20

No, there's just all of this drama that's going on amongst the family, of all of these dynamics. It is a large family, but still Jacob is there, away from his home. He's kind of being held up because he's not in his home area with his immediate family. You see him kind of getting tossed about, but it's affecting his family as the story progresses.

Speaker 1 6:46

Well, jacob's not innocent because he's still as we're going to see in the next passage, he's still going to be trying to manipulate and scheme. Jacob was kind of a schemer, yet what do we see? God's hand through all of this is bringing about his nation. What did he tell Abraham back in chapter 12 and chapter 15 and chapter 17? I will work through you to build a nation. It wasn't because of any of these people's righteousness. None of these people were upstanding citizens. They were all jealous and sinful and cheating and defrauding entirely through and through. There's no righteousness in any of them, except what Abraham believed God, and it was counted as righteousness. That's what the New Testament teaches us. Is that none of us are righteous no, not one. But we have faith in God and Christ's righteousness is credited to our account. Faith in God and Christ's righteousness is credited to our account. God didn't pick Abraham and his descendants because there was anything good about any of them.

Speaker 1 7:51

He didn't pick us because there's anything good in any of us. All he asked for is a relationship that's based on trust and love, that's based on faith. That's why there's nothing in Israel, from Abraham on down, that was worth choosing them. They're all sinful, but yet God says I'm going to bring about my purposes through these people. How can God work through such flawed people? Can God work through flawed people today?

Speaker 2 8:20

Yeah, I've got my hand raised. I'm a flawed person. We're all flawed in some way. But you know, glenn, because I'm a changed person, I'm a new creature, new creation. I would like to think I'm not as flawed as I was originally, before I became a believer and before I became in Christ. So, yes, but yet I'm still flawed. We still have this fleshly nature that ties us to this world because of our connection to it. But God works through flawed people. We're all flawed.

Speaker 1 8:56

The New Testament says that while we were still sinners, christ died for us. He reached out to us while we were very unlovable but nevertheless died for us anyway. Take the Apostle Paul. He was out killing Christians, persecuting the church, trying to fight against the church and the scriptures. And God reached out to him At the end of his life, after he had worked for many years for Christianity. He said this to Timothy many years for Christianity. He said this to Timothy Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. That's in 1 Timothy 1.15. He used a present tense, verb I am chief. He didn't say I was chief, he was still calling himself the chief of sinners at the end of his life.

Speaker 1 9:40

I think God works through flawed people. He works through cracked pots, as one author said. Then in verse 33, jacob is claiming to be honest Verse 33,. So my honesty will answer for me later. Jacob makes this deal to take only the spotted sheep. And then in verse 36 through 43, laban is still scheming and cheating. He promises to give Jacob the spotted sheep, but instead takes the spotted sheep, gives them to his sons and sends them away on a three-day journey. He's doing that to try to. He had made an agreement to give those sheep to Jacob, but now he's. One more scheme, one more deception, one more fraud, because he had promised them to Jacob. Then he takes them and hides them so that Jacob wouldn't get them.

Speaker 2 10:34

Laban is a schemer, he's a character all the way through this were the ones that were promised, but those sheep had the genetics that would produce more. By taking the initial flock away from Jacob, it's a double thing that he's done.

Speaker 1 10:52

Do people today get into similar situations where they make agreements and then plan on cheating in the agreements? I'll say yeah. That's why we have contracts with a lot of fine print and a lot of lawyers and attorneys is because people are so dishonest that their word is not good enough anymore. We had seen this back then and we've seen it throughout history, and we see it today because the character of mankind has not changed. What can change is when God's Spirit comes into us. Now we have a desire to be an honest person. We have a desire to be above board that we didn't have before. What had God promised to Abraham Isaac and Jacob? What did he promise them in the Abrahamic covenant?

Speaker 2 11:40

He promised them many descendants that would be countless. He promised them land in which they traveled in and a land which he would show them. And he promised them also that, through their descendants, that all the other nations would be blessed.

Speaker 1 11:56

Jacob had God appear to him in the vision of Jacob's ladder and repeat all of that. Jacob knew that God was going to work through him to build this great nation, but yet he's still scheming. He's still trying to manipulate things for his own benefit, instead of just relaxing and letting God work. And let God work things out. Jacob is still scheming, as we're going to see in this next passage. What does it tell us when Jacob starts to do these schemes, when he should have known he should have had faith in God that God's going to work this out. You don't have to manipulate other people to try to build a great nation, because God's going to bring it about anyway. What does that tell us about Jacob's faith, or lack thereof?

Scheming and Prosperity

Speaker 2 12:47

It's another natural tendency for us as humans. You know, while, yes, we should have trust in our Lord that he's going to bring things that he's promised to us about, at the same time you don't necessarily just go and sit on your front porch and wait for it to come in. You also still need to operate in the world. But there's sometimes a fine line between going out trusting the Lord on where he's led you, that he's going to open doors, versus taking it upon yourself to make it happen. That's what Sarah did with Abraham on her maid. That's what Rachel has done with Jacob on her maid. This is what Jacob is doing now in this deal with Laban. I think we should always guard against all right, yeah, lord has promised us something. There's this fine line we need to make sure that we're not doing something and coming up with our schemes in our own self to try and bring it about, because that's going to take the striped and spotted sheep.

Speaker 1 13:56

Laban responds by taking the striped and spotted sheep and hiding them three days journey away with the sons. Let's start in verse 35 and see how Jacob responds. Steve, start in verse 35 and read down through verse 43.

Speaker 2 14:18

So he removed on that day the striped and spotted male goats and all the speckled and spotted female goats, every one with white in it, and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave them into the care of his sons. And he put a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks. Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plain trees and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the gutters, even in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, and they mated when they came to drink. So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth stripes speckled and spotted.

Speaker 2 15:03

Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban, and he put his own herds apart and did not put them with Laban's flock. Moreover, whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the gutters so that they might mate by the rods. But when the flock was feeble he did not put them in. So the feebler were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. So the man became exceedingly prosperous and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys.

Speaker 1 15:39

We have these two men, jacob and Laban, and they had made this agreement about these sheep and they're both scheming against each other. Jacob tries to manipulate the sheep's birth with these striped sticks. Of course, nowadays genetics we know that's not going to work, but nevertheless he's still trying to and he does it to the stronger sheep and leaves the weaker sheep for Laban. Both these men are scheming to each other. I just find this flabbergasting that they would both be so sinful, but then, when I think about it, we're all so sinful.

Speaker 2 16:16

This is what I mean, what I talked about before. Jacob is trusting the Lord from the standpoint that he's doing all this manipulation in spite of Laban. That's what I'm talking about. He should just trust the Lord and let the Lord make him prosperous out of the things that would come about on a natural basis. But Jacob is taking the wrong approach and trying to manipulate it, and it's clear that he's doing it in spite of Laban, because Laban keeps changing the rules on him and keeps trying to cheat him out of stuff. Jacob says, okay, well, I'll show him. And he's doing all this manipulation. That's what I was talking about before. He's not letting God. He's working in his own emotions into the whole thing.

Speaker 1 17:04

Working in his own emotions, his own human strength, trying to bring about something that God had already told him he was going to do. That's really the lesson. Let's ask the apologetic question, though, here Steve Is it possible to cause a color change in sheep based on what they look at while they're mating? Well, obviously not. Was there an issue here in the Word of God with something like that, or what's the explanation?

Speaker 2 17:30

Well, we know that genetically that doesn't work. He's going off of a superstition that's saying that during the mating process, whatever the livestock are looking at is going to produce some sort of a feature that they put in front of them while they're mating. So no, we know that that's not going to happen. But we also know later on in the story that God circles back around and tells Jacob, I'm the one that's blessed you. Circles back around and tells Jacob, I'm the one that's blessed you, I'm the one that made things prosperous. We know later on that it's God that is actually prospering Jacob, not Jacob going through these types of shenanigans to try and bring out the prosperity.

Speaker 1 18:14

And specifically chapter 31, verses 10 to 12,. We find out there that God had already appeared to Jacob and God had told him that he was. God was going to prosper Jacob through the spotted and striped sheep. The whole reason why Jacob had asked for the spotted striped sheep in the first place was because, by that point, god had appeared to him in a vision and told him that's what is going to happen. That's really the answer to the question. But it's also the case that just because Jacob tried it doesn't mean that that caused it right. Just it doesn't mean it worked. What actually happened is what you just said, steve. God was already working through this. But it's still to me showing that Jacob, even God, was already working through this. But it's still to me showing that Jacob, even though God had told him this was going to be the case, he's still a schemer, he's still trying to manipulate, he's still trying to push things around of his own working and his own strength instead of just allowing God to work. But in the end, as chapter 30 closes, we have here Jacob being exceedingly prosperous. He's got a lot of livestock and he's got a big family and he's quite wealthy at this point in the story.

Speaker 1 19:32

Now, moving on to chapter 31,. The first three verses of chapter 31 says this. Now Jacob heard the words of Laban's sons saying Jacob has taken away all that was our father's and from what belonged to our father he has made all this wealth. Jacob saw the attitude of Laban and, behold, it was not friendly toward him as formerly. Then the Lord said to Jacob Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you. Laban and his sons are angry with Jacob and Laban was frustrated because Jacob was working for free and he was making a lot of money off of Jacob. Now Jacob's threatening to leave. Laban's sons are angry because they thought Jacob had gotten wealthy off of their family.

Speaker 1 20:20

But the sons likely knew those Laban sons. They probably knew that Laban had cheated them. I mean, why else would he send them and all the spotted sheep? Three days away, the dominoes of all the jealousy and the strife because of the sin just keep continuing. Verse 3, god tells Jacob to go back to the land that he had promised him in the first place. This land, of course, is the key to part of God's promise to the Jewish people. Whenever they are outside of that land, problems happen, sin happens, they're disobedient. Whenever they go back to the land, they tend to be blessed by God and closer to God's will. What else do we see in these first few verses, steve?

Speaker 2 21:05

We remember the backstory. In verse two it says Jacob saw the attitude of Laban and behold, it was not friendly toward him as formerly. If we go back 20 years before, when Jacob first shows up and he's brought there to Laban, Laban runs out and kisses him, greets him and says you're part of our family. Now we are 20 years later, they're still family. Jacob is still Laban's nephew. Yet the way that Laban's affection towards Jacob had taken a 180 degree turn, Laban's affection towards Jacob had taken a 180 degree turn. He is now envious or jealous of Jacob.

Jacob's Departure Dilemma

Speaker 1 21:50

He's no longer treating Jacob like he did when he first showed up 20 years ago. The family dynamics have changed because of all of the sin. I don't see anyone in the entire family trying to reconcile. All we see is scheming against each other. If one of them would have gone to the other and said I am following God's advice, god's will be done and I'll take whatever God gives me, and tried to reconcile, or even prayed and said, god, what should I do next? But we don't see any of that. What we see is human desires and sin and trying to manipulate With this. We probably should stop here for today. We are at a kind of precarious situation. Our man, jacob, is still in and around and working with Laban, but now both Laban and his sons are angry. Jacob wants to leave, but now there's some tension. What's going to happen next time, steve? We'll have to tune in to find out.

Speaker 2 22:46

It just gets deeper and deeper. I'm afraid Before it gets better, it's going to get a little bit worse.

Speaker 1 22:51

We'll be back here next time. We're going to see how Jacob tries to leave and we'll reason through that next time on Reasoning Through the Bible.

Speaker 2 22:59

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.