Genesis: Jacob and Laban

Jacob and Laban

text: Genesis 28-31

Outline:

A. 28:10-22, Jacob's Dream.

B. 29:1-30, Jacob's Marriage.

C. 29:31-30:24, Jacob's Children.

D. 30:25-43, Jacob's Wealth.

E. 31, Jacob flees from Laban.

Comments: Jacob leaves mom and dad, getting father's blessing the right way (Genesis 28:1). The main “task” is to reach uncle Laban – Rebekah's brother. He gets there, and gets married. In his 20 years his wives bear him 11 sons and at least one daughter. Then, the time to return home came, Jacob flees Laban.

A. Jacob's Dream. Jacob leaves home. And somewhere on the way Jacob goes to sleep and has a dream. He sees a stairway to heaven – or stairway from heaven. Notice the direction of angels movement. First, they are ascending, and then it is mentioned that they are descending (Genesis 28:12). What does it mean? It means that the angels are on the earth. Some of them have completed their mission – going up. Some just received the task – going down.

The image of the ladder might be misleading – it is not A-frame or a ladder that can be leaned against the wall. It is a tower – a true Tower that reaches heaven, not a man-made Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). All of the towers are built in a similar way – like a stepped pyramid. What he sees is a tower that connects heaven and earth – what later will be seen in Tabernacle, Temple, and the Cross of Jesus.

There is also an exchange of statements from the LORD and Jacob's promise of faithfulness to the LORD (Genesis 28:13-22). The stone is raised as a memorial pillar – oil on the top makes the stone shiny/glorious, becoming a marker of direction of the way – an ancient tradition to receive a proper guidance via herma (anointed stone) – thus hermeneutics (art and science of interpretation) is related to Hermes (a god of travelers).

B. Jacob's Marriage. Before we get an invitation to the wedding, we have a coupe of short stories to handle. First, when Jacob comes to a local well, he meets the shepherds. ESV (or any other translation) does not do a justice to the scarcity of language used by them (Genesis 29:5-7). Jacob begins: Brothers! Where are you from? And they are very happy to engage in small talk – we are from Haran. But as soon as he mentions Laban, their answers are packed into one-word statements (again, not in English) and ASAP they shift Jacob's attention to Rachel. That should've been his first clue.

Then Jacob comes at the invitation of Laban. When they meet, Laban embraced him and kissed him (Genesis 29:13). “my bone and my flesh” - almost repeating the word of the Garden (Genesis 2:23) – the statement of being a family. Sounds great, but in a month something changes – Laban offers him payment. Kretzmann (like the others) sees it as a good sign (PopCom. OT:I, 66). In reality, Jacob was dismissed to the level of a hired hand, not a kin (cp. Luke 15:17-19, 21). That should've been his second clue.

There is not much that can be said on the marriage itself. Jacob gets Leah instead of Rachel on pretenses of the local customs (Genesis 29:26), maybe so... But what it does – a polygamy among Israel. It will turn into a rivalry among brothers to the point of death – brothers are sure that Joseph is dead.

C. Jacob's Children.

wife	Leah	Zilpah	Bilhah	Rachel
children	Reuben (1) Simeon (2) Levi (3) Judah (4) Issachar (9) Zebulun (10) Dinah (daughter)	Gad (7) Asher (8)	Dan (5) Naphtali (6)	Joseph (11) Benjamin (12) born in the land

D. Jacob's Wealth. Jacob became very wealth. People blame him for using some kind of “magic tricks” (Genesis 30:37). There was no magic – God saw him to be mistreated by his uncle and decided to intervene and bless him as He promised (Genesis 28:15). The main difference between the sheep of Jacob and Laban is having spots. If an animal has spots it's way more difficult to sheer – one can't simply make a pile of white wool and somewhere aside a pile of black wool... It is more labor intense. BUT (!) it is a better representation of the world – there not a single “white” person who doesn't have black spots, and visa versa.

E. Jacob flees from Laban. It happened on a sad note – the relationship got really tense. What is interesting, it is only here we find out that Laban was an idol worshiper (Genesis 31:30,34-35). Maybe the idolatry drove him mad and envious? Yet, and the end they make a covenant, and Laban invokes the name of the LORD to oversee them as they part (Genesis 31:49).