Strife within families is never pleasant. Here there is revelry between 2 sisters married to the one man, Jacob. There is strife with their father Laban, all leading towards returning to Canaan.
Genesis 30:
1 When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!"
2 Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, "Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?"
3 Then she said, "Here is my servant Bilhah; go in to her, so that she may give birth on my behalf, that even I may have children through her."
4 So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.
5 And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.
6 Then Rachel said, "God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son." Therefore she called his name Dan.
7 Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
8 Then Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed." So she called his name Naphtali.
9 When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.
10 Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son.
11 And Leah said, "Good fortune has come!" so she called his name Gad.
12 Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son.
13 And Leah said, "Happy am I! For women have called me happy." So she called his name Asher.
14 In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes."
15 But she said to her, "Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also?" Rachel said, "Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes."
16 When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, "You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes." So he lay with her that night.
17 And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.
18 Leah said, "God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband." So she called his name Issachar.
19 And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son.
20 Then Leah said, "God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons." So she called his name Zebulun.
21 Afterward she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah.
22 Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.
23 She conceived and bore a son and said, "God has taken away my reproach."
24 And she called his name Joseph, saying, "May the LORD add to me another son!"
Jacob's Prosperity
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?"
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.
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..
Genesis 31: Jacob Flees from Laban
1 Now Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, "Jacob has taken all that was our father's, and from what was our father's he has gained all this wealth."
2 And Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favour as before.
3 Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you."
4 So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where his flock was
5 and said to them, "I see that your father does not regard me with favour as he did before. But the God of my father has been with me.
6 You know that I have served your father with all my strength,
7 yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. But God did not permit him to harm me.
8 If he said, 'The spotted shall be your wages,' then all the flock bore spotted; and if he said, 'The striped shall be your wages,' then all the flock bore striped.
9 Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.
10 In the breeding season of the flock I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the goats that mated with the flock were striped, spotted, and mottled.
11 Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob,' and I said, 'Here I am!'
12 And he said, 'Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.
13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred.'"
14 Then Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, "Is there any portion or inheritance left to us in our father's house?
15 Are we not regarded by him as foreigners? For he has sold us, and he has indeed devoured our money.
16 All the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do."
17 So Jacob arose and set his sons and his wives on camels.
18 He drove away all his livestock, all his property that he had gained, the livestock in his possession that he had acquired in Paddan-aram, to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac.
19 Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father's household gods.
20 And Jacob tricked Laban the Aramean, by not telling him that he intended to flee.
21 He fled with all that he had and arose and crossed the Euphrates, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
22 When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled,
23 he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him for seven days and followed close after him into the hill country of Gilead.
24 But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night and said to him, "Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad."
25 And Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched tents in the hill country of Gilead.
26 And Laban said to Jacob, "What have you done, that you have tricked me and driven away my daughters like captives of the sword?
27 Why did you flee secretly and trick me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs, with tambourine and lyre?
28 And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? Now you have done foolishly.
29 It is in my power to do you harm. But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, 'Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.'
30 And now you have gone away because you longed greatly for your father's house, but why did you steal my gods?"
31 Jacob answered and said to Laban, "Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force.
32 Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live. In the presence of our kinsmen point out what I have that is yours, and take it." Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
33 So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find them. And he went out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's.
34 Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle and sat on them. Laban felt all about the tent, but did not find them.
35 And she said to her father, "Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me." So he searched but did not find the household gods.
36 Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. Jacob said to Laban, "What is my offense? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me?
37 For you have felt through all my goods; what have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, that they may decide between us two.
38 These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flocks.
39 What was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.
40 There I was: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.
41 These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.
42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labour of my hands and rebuked you last night."
43 Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, "The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day for these my daughters or for their children whom they have borne?
44 Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I. And let it be a witness between you and me."
45 So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.
46 And Jacob said to his kinsmen, "Gather stones." And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap.
47 Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.
48 Laban said, "This heap is a witness between you and me today." Therefore he named it Galeed,
49 and Mizpah, for he said, "The LORD watch between you and me, when we are out of one another's sight.
50 If you oppress my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us, see, God is witness between you and me."
51 Then Laban said to Jacob, "See this heap and the pillar, which I have set between you and me.
52 This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, to do harm.
53 The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." So Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac,
54 and Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country and called his kinsmen to eat bread. They ate bread and spent the night in the hill country.
55 Early in the morning Laban arose and kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned home.
Things to think about…
1. Genesis 30:1-24 seems like a game the wives of Jacob seem to be playing for who would sleep with him and who would get pregnant – especially with a son. We read such commentary in the scriptures and find it rather amusing, but of course it all comes down to identity and insecurity. Having the family line being carried on by sons was vitally important. Sons were a blessing from the Lord because they ensured the family line would continue. Time and time again we read in the scriptures that having children is a blessing from the Lord, but to have sons was held with the highest honour. These wives of Jacob were fighting for that honour against the shame of not having their line continue, which was considered as a judgement from the Lord. The most dangerous place in the world for a little girl today is in the womb. The second most dangerous place is once she is born. Abortion before birth and abuse afterwards are the tragic reality for many girls in many parts of the world. Dinah was the only daughter that is born to Jacob – note that her name is not given any meaning or reference, unlike the boys. Dinah means ‘judged’ or ‘vindicated’ if you were wondering. Pray that Christians may lead the way for safety and justice for girls and young women, these are the world’s most ‘at risk’ group.
2. The spotted, streaked and speckled goats story in Gen 30:25-43 shows deceit, greed and a little bit of what looks like magic – certainly not genetics. Just because goats’ mate in front of different coloured sticks in the water does not make them produce spotted or streaked offspring. God was clearly in this because he was blessing Jacob and judging Laban for keeping Jacob from returning home and worshipping his God. How do you discern when it is time to move on from an employer? May I suggest that it is only right to move if the Lord is leading you where He alone gets the glory by doing so. I have heard at times when someone is finding it difficult in a marriage that they say it is time to move on. God has called us to peace. If that is not possible where unbelief and destructive behaviours continue this can be reason enough to move away. In our reading, Jacob was unfortunately reaping what he had sown in his own life over the years of deceiving his father and brother.
3. God can turn any situation around and bless even in the midst of a hopeless situation. Consider Gen 30:43. Jacob now has an abundance of flocks, donkeys, camels and even servants. Christ promises to bless His people as they honour him but remember this blessing may come after many years of trial. These are the best blessings to receive and are much sweeter.
4. Laban and his sons knew that the Lord had blessed them because of Jacob and Laban was not going to give him up without a fight, Gen 31:1. Note that Rachel steals the household gods, Gen 31:9. She still does not fully know or trust the God of Jacob. She obviously kept this secret from Jacob otherwise he would not have made such a rash oath in putting Rachel’s life on danger. It is a tragedy when families are divided over belief systems. Fiona and I are still praying for our parents who do not know the Lord.
5. Jacob makes a covenant with Laban that they would separate from each other and keep the peace Gen 31:45-54. Sometimes this is the only answer. They were serving different gods and as such they needed to separate. Sometimes the world will fight to kept a soul in bondage, but the freedom that is found in Christ must have a greater pull. This is only possible through the influence and power of the Holy Spirit.
Vision statement for CBC
CBC’s Vision :- To be a growing biblical church community, significantly influencing our city and beyond, through intentional outreach, fulfilling our mission.
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Prayer Points
1. Pray for those on holidays and about your involvement in hospitality – help keeping the church running.
2. That those who are new to the church are encouraged and settle in well into the church.
3. That we be bold in our witnessing for Christ. Pray for a heart to see those around you saved.
4. Pray for Rosie and Kids@church, pray for continued growth of this ministry.
5. Growth, conversions, joy in the Word and Spirit to remain and increase.
Praise Points
1. Praise God for Ric’s Sunday’s ministry and message. Thankyou to the worship team.
2. Good ministry after the service. Continue to pray for this blessing to increase.
3. Some encouraging signs of those wanting to consider who Jesus was. People asking about baptism.
4. Joy, peace and grace we see at CBC. Thankyou Lord
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Catechism questions for September...
Q. 12. Does God know all things? A. Yes - nothing can be hidden from God.