Genesis 31.31-35-Jacob's Defense Before Laban and Rachel's Deception
Wednesday July 26, 2006
Genesis: Genesis 31:31-35-Jacob’s Defense Before Laban and Rachel’s Deception
Lesson # 185
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 31:1.
This evening we will continue with our study of Genesis 31.
Thus far in our study of this chapter, we have noted the following:
In Genesis 31:1-2, we saw that Jacob hears of Laban’s sons’ antagonism towards him and also sees a change of attitude by Laban towards him.
In Genesis 31:3 we noted the Lord commanding Jacob to return home and promising him protection.
In Genesis 31:4-16, we saw Jacob informing his wives that the Lord has commanded him to leave Laban and his wives agree to leave with him.
Then, in Genesis 31:17-21 we saw Jacob departing from Paddan Aram and heading towards Canaan.
Genesis 31:22-24 records God protecting Jacob by warning Laban in a dream to not stop Jacob from returning home to Canaan.
In Genesis 31:25-31 we studied that Jacob left Laban secretly out of fear that Laban would take his wives and children from him.
This fear was due to a lack of faith in the Lord to honor His promise to protect him from Laban.
Then, we studied Genesis 31:25-30 where Laban confronts Jacob and makes three accusations against him.
This evening we will see in Genesis 31:31-35 Jacob’s response to Laban’s accusations as well as Rachel’s deceiving her father Laban.
Genesis 31:1, “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.’”
Genesis 31:2, “Jacob saw the attitude of Laban, and behold, it was not friendly toward him as formerly.”
Genesis 31:3, “Then the LORD said to Jacob, ‘Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.’”
Genesis 31:4-5, “So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to his flock in the field, and said to them, ‘I see your father's attitude, that it is not friendly toward me as formerly, but the God of my father has been with me.’”
Genesis 31:6, “You know that I have served your father with all my strength.”
Genesis 31:7, “Yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times; however, God did not allow him to hurt me.”
Genesis 31:8, “If he spoke thus, ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flock brought forth speckled; and if he spoke thus, ‘The striped shall be your wages,' then all the flock brought forth striped.’”
Genesis 31:9, “Thus God has taken away your father's livestock and given them to me.”
Genesis 31:10, “And it came about at the time when the flock were mating that I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the male goats which were mating were striped, speckled, and mottled.”
Genesis 31:11, “Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’”
Genesis 31:12, “He said, ‘Lift up now your eyes and see that all the male goats which are mating are striped, speckled, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you.’”
Genesis 31:13, “I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.”
Genesis 31:14, “Rachel and Leah said to him, ‘Do we still have any portion or inheritance in our father's house?’”
Genesis 31:15, “Are we not reckoned by him as foreigners? For he has sold us, and has also entirely consumed our purchase price.”
Genesis 31:16, “Surely all the wealth which God has taken away from our father belongs to us and our children; now then, do whatever God has said to you.”
Genesis 31:17-18, “Then Jacob arose and put his children and his wives upon camels; and he drove away all his livestock and all his property which he had gathered, his acquired livestock which he had gathered in Paddan-aram, to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac.”
Genesis 31:19, “When Laban had gone to shear his flock, then Rachel stole the household idols that were her father's.”
Genesis 31:20, “And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing.”
Genesis 31:21, “So he fled with all that he had; and he arose and crossed the Euphrates River, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.”
Genesis 31:22-23, “When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled, then he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him a distance of seven days' journey, and he overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.”
Genesis 31:24, “God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream of the night and said to him, ‘Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.’”
Genesis 31:25, “Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen camped in the hill country of Gilead.”
Genesis 31:26, “Then Laban said to Jacob, ‘What have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword?’”
Genesis 31:27-28, “Why did you flee secretly and deceive me, and did not tell me so that I might have sent you away with joy and with songs, with timbrel and with lyre; and did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have done foolishly.”
Genesis 31:29, “It is in my power to do you (plural form of pronominal suffix meaning, “every one of you”) harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful not to speak either good or bad to Jacob.’”
Genesis 31:30, “Now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father's house; but why did you steal my gods?”
Genesis 31:31, “Then Jacob replied to Laban, ‘Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force.’”
Jacob responds to Laban’s first two accusations: (1) Genesis 31:26: “Why did you flee secretly and steal away from me?” (2) Genesis 31:27: “What have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword?”
He does not respond immediately to Laban’s third accusation that appears in Genesis 31:30, “Why did you steal my gods?”
Jacob does not immediately answer Laban’s charge of stealing his household idols in order that he might set the record straight before both Laban’s men and his own household exactly why he had left suddenly and secretly.
He states to everyone that if he had attempted to leave openly that he was afraid and for good reason that Laban would have tried to take his daughters and their children back from him by force.
This statement reveals that Jacob’s sin was not that he left Laban secretly but that he left secretly out fear of Laban, and which fear was a sin because it was due to a lack of faith in God’s promise to him that he would protect him (See Genesis 28:15) and would be with him (See Genesis 28:15 31:3).
If Laban attempted to take back his daughters and his grandchildren, Jacob would have fought.
Undoubtedly, the Lord also would have fought for him as well and given him the victory over Laban and his men since Jacob’s boys were the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Therefore, we see that Jacob answers Laban’s first two accusations by revealing that he left secretly out of fear of Laban, and which fear was due to a lack of faith in the Lord’s promise to protect him.
Genesis 31:32, “The one with whom you find your gods shall not live; in the presence of our kinsmen point out what is yours among my belongings and take it for yourself. For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.”
Jacob makes the statement “the one with whom you find your gods shall not live” because he could not believe that anyone in his family would do such a thing, much less his wife Rachel.
The fact that his wife Rachel was guilty would have greatly embarrassed Jacob and would have made Laban look justified before everyone in chasing down Jacob.
In the days of Laban and Jacob, the theft of household idols was a capital crime and guilty of death, which is indicated by Jacob’s statement that the one found with the stolen household gods would be put to death.
So unknowingly, Jacob pronounces a death sentence upon Rachel his wife.
So the suspense heightens for the reader since unlike Jacob, the reader knows that Rachel is the thief in the family.
The prepositional phrase “in the presence of our kinsmen” indicates that Jacob is calling the family of Laban and Jacob to be witnesses in this dispute between Jacob and Laban and to prevent Laban from making any accusations of a cover-up.
Jacob proposes that if anything of Laban’s has been found stolen, then it shall be returned to its owner.
Genesis 31:33, “So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's tent.”
The search for the teraphim was focused upon the tents of Leah and Rachel and their maids, Zilpah and Bilhah since they were the ones who would have had access to the room in their father’s tent where the teraphim were kept.
Laban goes to Rachel’s tent last because he suspected her least of all and yet she was the guilty party.
Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the narrator Moses keeps the reader in suspense revealing that Laban searched all the tents in which the reader already knows the teraphim will not be found so that subsequently, the discovering in Rachel’s tent seems inevitable.
Genesis 31:34, “Now Rachel had taken the household idols and put them in the camel's saddle, and she sat on them. And Laban felt through all the tent but did not find them.”
“Household idols” is the noun teraphim (<yt!u*r+T!) (ter-aw-feme), which were small idols like figurines and were considered the family gods, which gave the family protection and were kept on a god-shelf and were outlawed in Israel (See 1 Samuel 15:23; 19:13; 2 Kings 23:24; Zechariah 10:2f.).
To add further suspense to the story, Moses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit avoids telling the reader until the last possible moment that Rachel had hidden the teraphim in her camel’s saddle to prevent their discovery by Laban.
Bruce K. Waltke commenting on the camel’s saddle, writes, “A relief from Tell Halif in northern Syria (900 B.C.) shows a camel driver with a stick in his right hand, fully and securely seated on a boxlike saddle. The box, about 18 inches long and 14 inches high, is bound by straps to the camel and serves as both a riding saddle and a pack saddle” (Genesis, A Commentary, page 430, Zondervan).
The fact that Rachel sat on the household idols demonstrates her contempt for her father’s household idols and that she did not steal them for herself.
Why did Rachel steal the household idols?
The obvious reason is that by taking away her father’s household idols, she was taking away his protection from his perspective, which the idols were thought to give.
Another explanation supported by the text and archaeology relates her theft to a practice during the days of the patriarchs that is mentioned Hurrian texts found in a place called “Nuzi,” which is about 10 miles southwest of modern Kirkuk in northeastern Iraq.
These Hurrian texts included about 5,000 tables from family archives from approximately 1500 B.C. and they give us insight into life in the days of the patriarchs.
According to these documents from Nuzi, possession of the household gods was connected to inheritance and property rights of their owner.
Therefore, Rachel stole the household gods in order to establish a future claim on Laban’s family inheritance.
She thought by possessing them would somehow help validate the legitimacy of her husband’s title to the flocks he had acquired while serving Laban and represent the inheritance she had a right to expect.
The household gods were a token of rightful claim to the possessions and the head¬ship of the family.
Rachel must have felt justified in stealing these gods and in expecting to share in the family inheritance.
After all, this is what she and Leah had just affirmed to Jacob: Genesis 31:14, “Rachel and Leah said to him, ‘Do we still have any portion or inheritance in our father's house?’”
From Rachel’s perspective, getting Laban’s wealth was God’s will and if that was the case with the matter of the flocks which Jacob had been tending, why should it not be true of the estate at Laban’s death?
Genesis 31:35, “She said to her father, ‘Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is upon me.’ So he searched but did not find the household idols.”
Rachel’s statement “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you for the manner of women is upon me” means that she was having her monthly period.
Whether she was or not, the Scriptures do not reveal.
Under the Mosaic Law, women who were having their period were ceremonially unclean (See Leviticus 15:19-30).
This statement was Rachel’s final act of retribution for the fraud Laban perpetrated on her and Jacob on what was to have been their wedding day and it was also retribution for Laban taking her bride price.
So Rachel deceives her father, thus Laban reaped what he sowed.
Laban sowed the seeds of deception by sending Leah into Jacob’s tent rather than Rachel and thus he reaped deception when Rachel deceived him into thinking that she did not have the teraphim.
Rachel’s deception of her father reveals that the fruit does not fall too far from the tree.
Laban does not ask her to get off the camel for a couple of reasons.
Nahum Sarna, writes, “He cannot approach Rachel and he cannot possibly imagine that she would sit on his “gods” in a state of menstrual impurity. The ancients widely regarded menstrual flow as a potently contaminating substance and the menstruant was thought to be possessed by evil spirits, thus requiring her separation from other persons” (Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary, page 219, The Jewish Publication Society).
According to ancient law, the futility of Laban’s search for his property constitutes presumptive proof of Jacob’s innocence (Nahum Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary, page 219, The Jewish Publication Society).
