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4 So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field, to his flock, 5 and said to them, "I see your father’s countenance, that it is not favorable toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me. 6 And you know that with all my might I have served your father. 7 Yet your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me. 8 If he said thus: 'The speckled shall be your wages,' then all the flocks bore speckled. And if he said thus: 'The streaked shall be your wages,' then all the flocks bore streaked. 9 So God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me." ~ Genesis 31:4-9
Today, we return to our study of Genesis 31 where Jacob and his family are preparing to travel to the promised land. They were about to do so because they had chosen to be defined by the God of the Bible and He had told Jacob to travel there. It was in this context that Jacob was dealing with tensions in his broader family. His father-in-law and his sons accused Jacob falsely of stealing from his herd. We view others through the lens of the way we see life. Like Laban, Jacob's father-in-law, if we are deceptive we will think of others as deceptive. This is the on-going context of today's passage.
In v.4-7 of today's passage we read, "4 So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field, to his flock, 5 and said to them, 'I see your father’s countenance, that it is not favorable toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me. 6 And you know that with all my might I have served your father. 7 Yet your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me.'"
Jacob called for Rachel and Leah in that order. Even though she was Jacob's second wife, Rachel was the one beloved most by Jacob. Throughout this narrative Jacob favored Rachel more than Leah. Showing favoritism within our families is a dangerous thing because it is the unfair practice of treating one better than another. Jacob did this because his idea of love was less than it should have been. Jacob's idea was tainted with the self because it was conditioned by what he would get out of the relationship. Jacob's idea of love was less than due to the fact that his ability to evaluate was cheapened by his self life.
The words translated "favoritism" in the Bible literally means "to receive according to the face." To show favoritism is to make judgments about another on the basis of their outward appearance. Of course, given the circumstances and the fact that Laban tricked Jacob into marrying his first daughter Leah, one can understand the difficulty Jacob was in. Having said that, favoritism eventually bites us in the rear end. We tend to put everyone in some kind of category. Most often, it has to do with appearance and status. According to James 2:9 when we show favoritism, we commit sin. Favoritism is not simply disrespectful of people, it is sin against God. It is sin because it is contrary to the character and command of God. Because favoritism is sin, we are wise to hurl it out of our lives.
Over and over Laban deceived Jacob to stay on his homestead for 20 years. Jacob worked so well that Laban received much good work from him. If Jacob had slacked off at any time during those 20 years, Laban never would have kept him around. But he did. When he did, Laban said that the Lord had blessed him because of Jacob’s work. And, the last six years were no different, except that the blessings went to Jacob and not to Laban.
When we live our lives at the level of the world, we will eventually see that this was a very unwise decision. If we waist our time feeding the flesh rather than the Spirit, we will only be miserable at the end of the day. The most exciting way to live is to simply trust and to trust simply. Jacob trusted God and look at what happened, Jacob was blessed abundantly. For the person who truly by faith in the God of the Bible, life is an adventure to be received from the most incredibly creative God. At the end of this life, having trusted the Lord with the outcomes, we will look back with others and marvel. Perhaps with us will be those who came to faith in our God because we trusted Him.
The phrase "ten times" is an idiom indicating fullness of time. In the case of Laban, whenever Jacob’s flock began to grow, Laban would change the rules of his wages. The gracious nature of Jacob's response to Laban's mistreatment revealed the fact that God was changing Jacob from the inside out. We call this sanctification which is different than justification. Justification is what gets us into heaven for we are only justified in the eyes of God through believing in the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross for the forgiveness of our sin. Sanctification is getting heaven in us now so that we might grow in the wisdom of God and that we might be able to be effective witnesses for God while we remain on this earth.
In v.8-9 of today's passage we read, "8 If he said thus: 'The speckled shall be your wages,' then all the flocks bore speckled. And if he said thus: 'The streaked shall be your wages,' then all the flocks bore streaked. 9 So God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me."
The original agreement between Laban and Jacob was that all of the abnormally colored flocks would be Jacob’s. However, it quickly became apparent that the majority of the new births were abnormally colored. So Laban changed it to only a portion of them. Then, the next season, only speckled would be born and so Laban would say, "Ok the speckled will be mine and the spotted will be yours." The next season, they would come out all spotted. There was more than just genetic engineering on Jacob’s part involved in this scenario. With the colors always coming out to Jacob’s advantage, it had to be by the providence of God. Laban was fighting a losing battle because he fought it in the flesh, his weapons of complaining and accusing were losing weapons.
God knows every detail about or us and we can trust Him with every detail of our lives. There are nine planets in our solar system. Each faithfully orbits around the sun every day. The sun is a star in the Milky Way. The Milky Way has 200 billion more stars that are just like the sun. Planets and moons orbit around each of them. God has a name for every one of them. In addition to that, there are 100 trillion galaxies in the universe, each with 200 billion stars. Such vastness! If God can operate such vastness out there then He can navigate the details in our puny lives. Our responsibility is to place our hand in His everyday and resist the urge to pull it out.
