One wonders if Jacob would have left Paddan-Aram if Laban and his sons hadn’t grown hostile toward him. God was still not his God, and Jacob was not Abraham, to leave a comfortable place on the word of a God who was not his own and promises that were still far off. Consider some uncomfortable developments or worse in your own life. As previously mentioned, Satan will want to use them to discourage you, undermine your trust in God, and make you turn your back on God. However, God wants to use them for good in your life (reference Romans 8:28), as he used Jacob’s adverse circumstances to move him to a better place, the land of promise and all it meant to live in enjoyment of God’s promises. Can you place your trust in Him today and commit to waiting on Him to work out the good He has planned and to obeying Him as He shows you what He has next for you?
Rachel’s theft of the household gods reveals the condition of her relationship with God. Consider that Laban and Jacob knew God as “the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor (Abraham’s brother and Laban’s grandfather), and the God of their (Abraham’s and Nahor’s) father” (verse 53); He was not their God. Their households demonstrated such in their characters and actions. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and had likely grown up under his influence. Abraham’s influence would have included his example in worshiping God and enjoying relationship with Him, and likely also included teaching about God and His promises to him, for God had set that expectation of Abraham before Isaac was born. In Genesis 18:19 God said of Abraham, “For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” Presumably Jacob had grown up knowing God further as “the fear of his father Isaac.” He had encountered God himself at Bethel and received His promises, had received God’s evident and abundant blessings while living in Paddan-Aram in fulfillment of those promises, and had obeyed His order to return home to the land of promise; but He still did not know God as his God.
Laban’s and Jacob’s households were both characterized by deceit and scheming in service to their own interests, and justification of their actions. Jacob’s only interest in God was in getting his own desires fulfilled. Laban worshiped other gods and taught his children such a devotion to those gods that his daughter stole them from him when she left his household. Doubtless in these conditions, Jacob’s sons learned the worship of these other gods and not the worship of the God of Abraham and the fear of Isaac. The accounts we will read in coming days reveal the consequences of the lack of knowledge of God. One wonders if the people of Israel were ever free of their interest in other gods.
This family’s example demonstrates how important our choices and actions are in teaching our children knowledge of God, or lack thereof. Jesus said in John 17:3, “Now this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” He also teaches in Matthew 7:21-23 that intimate knowledge – true relationship that results in transformation and conformity to the will of God – is the knowledge of which He speaks. Is this the relationship you have with God? Is this what you are modeling for your family and teaching them? Based on this reminder in today’s reading, what choices might you need to make, what actions might you need to take, to strengthen your relationship with God so that its authenticity is evident to your children and perhaps grandchildren, and so that these dear ones are properly taught to love God and have genuine relationship with him?
Jacob’s wrestling bout is a puzzling story, about which we would like to have more details. God has given us the information He wants us to have about this incident. Jacob understood that he had been wrestling with God. He had sought God earlier that day, and then God came to him in human flesh and wrestled with him. In an apparent bestowal of a blessing, He changed Jacob’s name from “Deceiver” to “He who strives with God.” The name change indicates a change of heart.
So the deceiver and manipulator acknowledged his helplessness, sought God’s help in his helpless state, and sought God based on the promises He had made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob himself. Thus humbled before God, he was met by God, who wrestled with him. In the wrestling Jacob had a change of heart significant enough for God to give him a change of name.
What do you learn about your own relationship with God, about God’s dealing with you, through this story? God has a unique relationship with each one of His unique creations. As difficult as it is for us to enjoy and grow a relationship with one whom we can’t see or touch, God gives us lessons from the ways He deals with others, from which we can better understand our own relationships with Him. Of what does Jacob’s experience speak to you?