Lesson 66- Jacob and Rachel Want to move away from Dad Gen. 30:25- 43

Breaking the News to Laban 30:25- 30

English Standard Version (Chapter 30)

25 As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. 26 Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” 27 But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you. 28 Name your wages, and I will give it.” 29 Jacob said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. 30 For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?”

Stuff is going on behind the scenes as God works in Jacob and Rachel’s family/families. They were not only blessed with children but Jacob’s prowess with the animals has caused them to flourish. Jacob is also getting a longing to go back home and show off to the kinfolk back home. It’s a big move, but Rachel seems behind this and they approach Laban.

Jacob says to Laban

”Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. 26 Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 30:25–26.

Jacob wants to show off his brood to his family back home. He wants to grow, and spread out from Laban. It sounds like he is concerned that he can even take his family with him. He who was tricked from the beginning, is concerned about how the departure is going to be handled!

Laban responds back to him that he has “learned by divination” that the Lord has blessed him because of Jacob. Does this mean that he learned by witchcraft, or some unusual supernatural means? Maybe it was his way of saying “I was given a word that I was supernaturally blessed because of you. The king James Version says, “ I have learned from experience.” The new Living translation says I have become wealthy because of you. Three distinct translations that all point us to the Lord who does the blessing. The word divination is a word for the interpretation of signs, dreams and omens, as a sign to learn the will of God! Not necessarily a spiritual statement or proclamation but rather a smooth coating on the words he was giving to a spiritual man. Most people can see through this garbage if they know they are going to get dumped on the other side.

Laban gets down to business and starts talking about wages, and we wonder, was Jacob being paid other than getting the daughters and having children? Laban says, name your wages and I will give it. Jacob, who was kitchen help back home, steps up and tells Laban how much he has increased his flocks and herds( not to mention grandchildren,) and the increase was no small matter: Increased abundantly! And he says in verse 30 “when shall I provide for my own household also?” Good question. Jacob still has not been self supporting? Wow!

In response to”what shall I give,” Jacob replies, “you shall not give me anything!” Say what? He proposes to continue to let him pasture the flocks and pick out the speckled and spotted animals and all black sheep and goats. Laban can keep everything else. It seems like a great offer, but Laban probably has not been out in the pasture lately. Jacob has. The trickster part of the family is coming out. I like to think that Jacob at this point cannot be bought because if so, he may have to pay a second time to remove his family.

Laaa-ban ( this needs to be said like a sheep that goes Baaa) gets to the flocks first and removes the speckled and spotted animals before Jacob can. Crafty and dishonest.Then Laban sends those irregulars with his sons, three days journey into the pastures. That puts quite a distance between what is due Jacob and what Laban has promised. If it wasn’t family, this is fraud. Laban has done it many times before and he does it again.

Here’s the account:

English Standard Version (Chapter 30)

But now when shall I provide for my own household also?” 31 He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: 32 let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages.

33 So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” 34 Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.” 35 But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. 36 And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock.

The trickster Laban gets to the flock first. Jacob even says you can judge me by my honesty, but you will never hear Laban say that. Once back in the flocks, Jacob and the lambing season and little goat season is in full swing. We don’t know how Jacob does it, but he gets selective results, compliments of the Lord Jehovah Here’s how that goes down:

English Standard Version (Chapter 30)

37 Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. 38 He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, 39 the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.

40 And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock. 41 Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks, 42 but for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. 43 Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

What is going on here? Was it selective breeding of animals? No it was the selection of blessing to go with Jacob after working so hard for his family and having nothing but wives and children in return. Jacob is ready. He knows the score in the pastures and he is confidence that his sticks (of poplar, or almond, or hazel, chestnut, or plane,) will do the job and complete the plan. Laban had changed the scenery of his agreements with Jacob through tricks and false promises, but Jacob was ready this time. Two can play this game! The animals bred where they were watered, the very place where he met Rachel. As the flocks bred, they put forth all the dappled flocks he could manage and more. They were not only speckled and spotted, they were the strongest. This practice may have been a custom of the times, as they sought to have animals with different markings. No matter what, God and God’s man comes out on top.

This is how God’s man, Jacob got out of being deceived again. Laaa-ban gets overhauled and gets it done while playing his own game. Success is Jacobs. He winds up with more sheep, goats, male and female servants, camels and donkeys. God added animals to him not mentioned before.

Bringing this down to 2023, we see God’s man outwits the trickster father in law. But sometimes we have no way of recovering that which we have lost, such as lost years and lost wages. But God remembers:

Romans 12:16- 19.

English Standard Version (Chapter 12)

16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Getting even is not a virtue, it is the solitary job of Jesus Christ. The Reformation era pastor Matthew Henry wrote this:

Good men are blessings to the places where they live, even where they live meanly and obscurely, as Jacob in the field, and Joseph in the prison.

Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 67.

Being a good man is never out of style.