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Bible History of the Old Testament |
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No. 19 Jacob's Vision at Bethel - His Arrival at the House of Laban - Jacob's Double Marriage and Servitude
It had been a long and weary journey that first day when Jacob left his home at Beersheba. He had traveled more than 40 miles over the mountains of what would be Judah, and what would become the land of Benjamin. The sun had set, and its last glow faded out from the gray hills of Ephraim, when he reached "an uneven valley" that was covered by large sheets of bare rock. Some of the rocks looked like gravestones as they stood up all over the valley. Close by one of the wild ridges, there lay a broad summit that was covered by an olive grove. This was the place where Abraham had first rested for some time on entering the land, and also the place where he and Lot had gone to survey the land when they decided they needed to split up because their herds had gotten too large. The distance from Beersheba to Haran was about 400 miles. He had only come 40, so he knew that he had quite a distance and many days of travel to follow. It was a lonely, weird place in the valley of stones for him to make his first night's sleeping quarters. It probably pretty much agreed with his mood, though, as he was probably not very happy about being forced to leave home and to leave his beloved mother for a land that was completely unknown to him. In the Scripture it says that "he lighted upon a certain place", so the selection of the spot was most assuredly already picked out by God. Jacob prepared for rest by piling together some of the stones so he could use them for a pillow. Then, being exhausted, he lay down and went to sleep. It was then that in his dream, it seemed as if these stones of the valley were being put together by an unseen hand. They seemed to look like steps or stairs. As he watched it being built, it rose and rose until it reached the sky, which seemed to welcome it. All along the stairs there were angels "ascending and descending upon it". They shed their light upon it until up at the top stood the glorious Jehovah Himself. He spoke to Jacob and said "I am Jehovah, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac." The angels still passed silently up and down the ladder or stairs from where Jacob lay all the way up to where Jehovah was. The vision and the words which the Lord spoke explain each other, with one being the symbol of the other. On that first night, when Jacob had been cast out from his home because he feared for his life, because he had done something that was deceitful and wrong, Jehovah expressly renewed to him in the fullest manner the promise and blessing that had first been given to Abraham. Then he added to it another comfort by telling him: "I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." In the fearful, unknowing days ahead, Jacob could look back on this dream and know that God had heard his cry and had promised protection and that he would come back to the land again. Even though Jacob may not have understood the total meaning of the dream, he awoke out of his sleep knowing that he had just had an encounter with Jehovah God. He said "How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." At light the next morning, he converted his stony pillow into a memorial pillar, and consecrated it unto God. From now on this valley would not be just an ugly, rocky valley, but would be called Bethel, "the house of God". At this point, also, Jacob vowed that when God fulfilled his promise to him and brought him back home, he would truly dedicated Bethel to God and offer unto the Lord a tenth of all that he should give him while he had been gone. This he did in later years. There is nothing else recorded until Jacob reached the end of his journey and got to Haran. Here he found himself at a "well" where three flocks were already in waiting, long before the usual evening time for watering them. Over most of the cisterns, or wells, there was a broad and thick flat stone laid over them with a round hole cut in the middle. This formed the mouth of the cistern. This smaller hole was also covered with a heavy stone, which would often require two or three men to roll away. This kept animals out of the fresh water. It is not clear whether the flocks were there waiting until sufficient men had come to move the heavy stone, or whether it was the custom to just wait until all the flocks had arrived so that they could all the watered at once and then the stone just moved and replaced once. At any rate, Jacob found out that the flocks were from Haran and the shepherds knew his Uncle Laban. Then the beautiful Rachel, his cousin, came with her flock, When he saw her beauty, he rolled away the stone himself and watered his uncle's sheep. It was so good to be in his temporary home town and he really had good feelings about Rachel. It seems that he was very happy at his good luck in finding his family right away. When Laban, his uncle, came to hear of all the circumstances, he received Jacob as his relative and took him into his family. Laban was a selfish, covetous man, and after a month of seeing Jacob at work he must have been churning things over in his mind as to how he could benefit from any of Jacob's strong points. With much frankness and liberality Laban urged Jacob to name his own "wages". Selfish people often disguise their dishonest purposes by claiming to be the opposite of what they really are. Remember, though, that the deceiver was about to be deceived himself to reap what he had sown. Jacob quickly learned to love Rachel, who was Laban's younger daughter. Without consulting the mind of God in the matter, he now proposed to serve Laban seven years for her hand. This was the period during which a Jewish slave had to serve his master before he could be free. In essence, Jacob proposed to become a bondsman for Rachel. With the same pretended well-meaning, Laban agreed to this bargain. He told Jacob that it would be better to give his daughter to family than a stranger. In essence, Laban bargained with Jacob to sell his daughter. This was not a custom of the time, and they felt degraded by their father that he basically just thought of them as something to sell. Genesis 31: 14,15 - Are we not counted of him strangers? for he has sold us. The period of Jacob's servitude seemed to him to rapidly pass, and at the end of seven years he claimed his bride. But now the deceiver would find out that he had been deceived. Laban took advantage of the eastern custom that a bride was always brought to her husband veiled. He substituted Leah for Rachel at the last minute. Just as God corrects mistakes that we seem to make by our own selfishness, it seems that God corrected the mistake that Jacob was about to make in choosing Rachel over Leah. So far as we can judge, it was Leah that God had chosen for Jacob, even though he had chosen Rachel for her beauty. It was from Leah that Judah was born, in whose line the promise to Abraham was to be fulfilled. Leah feared and served Jehovah, while Rachel was attached to the superstitions of her father. She was also self-willed and had many of the characteristics of her father. Laban was quick to get around his lie by telling Jacob that this was a national custom for the older girl to marry before the younger, and basically he had no choice. He was quick to give Rachel to Jacob also if he would work another seven years for her. Jacob consented to this, anything to have Rachel, and immediately after the close of the first marriage festivities, usually a week, he celebrated another marriage festivity with Rachel. Though Scripture states facts and much of the time and does not comment either way about a thing, it can be surmised that God was not pleased with Jacob's double marriage. He had much lifelong sorrow, disgrace, and trials which followed as the consequence of this double union. The remainder of this chapter will be covered in the next text as to the many problems that the two unions endured. For more information from this book, go to the archives page at my site www.cathydeaton.com There are other articles of interest there also. This text is taken from the book Bible History Old Testament written by Alfred Edersheim. It has been used by permission.
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