Wrestling in the Night

We're at last coming to the climax, maybe, of the story of Jacob, the third and last of the three great patriarchs in Genesis. We've heard already how his grandfather Abraham had been called out from Mesopotamia to Canaan, given incredible promises like a magnified name, abundant offspring and land, a destiny as a nation, a mission to bless all families of the earth. Through the forge of decades of testing, reaching its fever pitch on the mount of sacrifice, Abraham's faith was transformed into an absolute devotion to God and an unshakeable conviction of his goodness and faithfulness. We've heard, too, about Jacob's father Isaac, Abraham's son of promise and heir of the covenant, whom Abraham was willing to offer back to the Lord in love. Traumatized and passive, Isaac nevertheless learned of God's great faithfulness; God ordained his marriage to his cousin Rebekah and forged him into a worthy patriarch himself, one committed to entrenching Abraham's mission in the land.

And now there's Jacob, conceived as one of two twins, the subject of a perplexing prenatal prophecy. Born second with a vice grip on his fuzzy brother Esau's ankle, Jacob was a clever mama's boy whose schemes first extorted his brother's birthright and then, by identity theft, secured the blessing Isaac meant for Esau. We've heard how Jacob was then shuttled away from the land, a penniless exile, who dreamt of angels and the promises of God on his way to seek refuge at the house of his uncle Laban in the place whence God had plucked Abraham so long before. His warm welcome there soon proved a crucible of flame, as his deceptive schemes were reflected back at him, hitching him to his two cousins Leah and Rachel and compelling him to slave away in a foreign land for twenty years until God bade him head home. Last Sunday, we watched Jacob's exodus and Laban's pursuit, leading to a showdown of words rather than warriors. Jacob testified that it was the goodness of a faithful God that shielded him from Laban's tyrannical avarice and brought him forth to freedom.

From the hilly heights of Gilead where they'd squared off southeast of the Sea of Galilee, Laban “went and returned to his own place” (Genesis 31:55), while “Jacob walked on his way,” moving further southward on the far side of the River Jordan (Genesis 32:1). Two decades ago at Bethel, Jacob had vowed a vow, one of the conditions of which was that God would “guard me in this way that I am walking” (Genesis 28:20).¹ Now, as if to remind him of the fulfillment of that condition, “the messengers of God encountered him” at a particular spot in Gilead (Genesis 32:1). This is the first time 'messengers of God' (or 'angels of God' – 'angel' is just the Greek word for 'messenger') have been mentioned as a group since Jacob “encountered” the site of Bethel and dreamed his dream of “messengers of God” there (Genesis 28:11-12).² But this time, Jacob's not dreaming. This is the waking world. These are angels of God out in the open. They encounter Jacob not by chance but on purpose. And it isn't one or two, but a significant group; when Jacob sees them all, he exclaims, “This is the camp of God!” – just as, waking up twenty years ago, he realized that “this is the house of God”; and so, as he named that place Bethel, so he now names this place Mahanaim, 'Two Camps' (Genesis 28:17-19; 32:2).³

The question is what the encounter means. This language, 'to meet,' 'to encounter,' is ambiguous; sometimes it has confrontational overtones. So some see the angels 'encountering' Jacob at Mahanaim as “a threatening encounter,”⁴ or at best ambiguously tense for the sake of suspense.⁵ On the other hand, perhaps these angels were “visions which inspired him with good hopes for the future,”⁶ an encouraging encounter intended by God to “drive out all his apprehension” and reassure him that the host of heaven had his back.⁷ It's hard to say.

All this time, Jacob's thoughts have undoubtedly been preoccupied with what it means to return to Canaan. The reason he left was to escape his twin brother, a man who, last time he was mentioned in Genesis, was consumed with a burning, mounting bloodthirst to slay Jacob (Genesis 27:41). Rebekah, their mother, had promised to let Jacob know when Esau had moved past this passion (Genesis 27:45). But that summons never arrived, so Jacob is no doubt wrestling “long-suppressed memories from his ignoble past.”⁸ Inspired by God's messengers having met Jacob, Jacob adopts the idea and mimics it, sending his own messengers “from his face, toward Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the field of Edom” (Genesis 32:3).⁹

The message Jacob dictates for them to carry, in finely formal language, explains Jacob's absence and return as merely a family visit with Uncle Laban, assures Esau that Jacob has no reason to come make demands on the inheritance, and stresses his desire simply to “find grace in your eyes” (Genesis 32:4-5).¹⁰ But when Jacob's messengers return and report that Esau is already marching northward from Seir with a personal militia in order to intercept Jacob, Jacob melts in sheer panic. “He feared greatly and was distressed,” expecting the worst (Genesis 32:6). Appreciating the duality he invoked when he named Mahanaim ('Two Camps'), he decides to take a precautionary measure: dividing his own group into two separate camps, each containing some of his spouses, children, servants, sheep, goats, donkeys, and camels; that way, if push comes to shove, one camp can get away while the other one is being sacrificed at Esau's sword (Genesis 32:7-8). The irony is that, while Jacob is seeking 'grace' in Esau's eyes, the word 'camp' contains the word for 'grace.'¹¹

Jacob alternates pragmatism and piety – that's sort of his thing – so, after implementing his practical precaution, he prays the longest prayer in the Book of Genesis. First, an invocation: Jacob cries out to God, invoking the way God had introduced himself at Bethel as “the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac” (Genesis 28:13); now Jacob calls on the “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the LORD” (Genesis 32:9). Jacob further paraphrases the LORD's more recent command to “return to the land of your fathers and to your nativity, and I will be with you” (Genesis 31:3) as a command to “return to your land and to your nativity, and I will do good with you” (Genesis 32:9).¹²

Second, a confession: Jacob praises God for “all of the kindnesses and all of the faithfulness which you have done your servant.” Specifically, Jacob highlights how God has prospered him to have “become two camps” – both camps are equal extensions of Jacob's own self – even though, when he'd “passed over this Jordan” twenty years earlier, it was merely “with my staff,” or “with my stick” (Genesis 32:10). Clever Jacob is subtly pointing back, not only to his poverty as an exile, but to how God prospered him through the use of “sticks” to plead for miracles in breeding his flocks and herds and gaining the upper hand over Laban (Genesis 30:37-39).¹³ In praising God for such kindnesses and for this faithfulness, Jacob, who spent decades slaving away in service to Laban, now positions himself as God's servant.¹⁴ He also humbly declares his unworthiness. But the word he uses is more literally 'littleness,' and connects with the description of Jacob as having been his mother's “younger son,” or literally, “smaller son” or “lesser son” (Genesis 27:42).¹⁵ Jacob is embracing that status.

Third, a supplication: Jacob names aloud his fear of Esau, “lest he may come and attack me, the mother with the sons” (Genesis 32:11), a rare phrase found later in the Law forbidding somebody from taking both a mama bird and her chicks (Deuteronomy 22:6-7). Jacob is concerned about the prospect, not simply of his own harm, but of family annihilation, an act of “unparalleled brutality” of which he thinks Esau might well be capable if he has continued degenerating morally throughout these twenty years.¹⁶ So, he pleads, “deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau” (Genesis 32:11) – from the very hand he once had dressed up his own hands as (Genesis 27:22-23). Jacob already testified how God “delivered” the livestock of Laban and gave them to him (Genesis 31:9), so surely God can deliver him from Esau's hand and give him to himself.¹⁷

Fourthly and finally, a recollection: Jacob closes out his prayer by citing back to God his previous promises as a basis for Jacob's present hope. The exact words Jacob puts in God's mouth are a pastiche, drawing on the angel's promise to Hagar of descendants “which cannot be numbered for multitude” (Genesis 16:10), the angel's promise to Abraham of seed “like the sand of the sea” (Genesis 22:17), and Jacob's own desperate but hopeful understanding that God means to “absolutely do good” to him (Genesis 32:12). Though not quoting verbatim anything God said to him personally, Jacob nonetheless faithfully sums up God's outlined plan.¹⁸ Jacob stresses that, if Esau were to target Jacob's children, then God's promises of uncountable descendants would be placed in jeopardy unless God were to intervene somehow, thus answering Jacob's prayer.¹⁹

Jacob's prayer is carefully constructed and rhetorically powerful. But the most important thing is that Jacob – yes, the infamously self-reliant Jacob – is actually praying. For the first time that we read, Jacob asks God for salvation.²⁰ Jacob steps out in faith. But Jacob also works. After that evening prayer, the next day Jacob sets in motion his next stratagem. Having just begged God to deliver him “from the hand of [his] brother... Esau” (Genesis 32:12), Jacob now “took from what came to his hand an offering for his brother Esau,” which he then “gave to the hand of his servants” (Genesis 32:13-15). Jacob gave these servants careful commands to “pass over” in front of his face, to separate the herds, and to have certain answers at the ready “when Esau my brother encounters you” as the messengers of God had 'encountered' Jacob (Genesis 32:15-19). Each set of Jacob's servants would inform Esau that Jacob is “behind us,” though each time the expectation of Jacob would be deferred by another drove of livestock. The author even clues us in to what Jacob is telling himself about his hopes: “I will cover his face with the offering that goes before my face, and afterward I shall see his face; perhaps he will lift my face” (Genesis 32:20). That's a lot of faces! We'll retread that ground in a couple weeks.

And so Jacob's present, his 'offering' to Esau, “passed over before his face, and he himself stayed that night in the camp” (Genesis 32:21). The Hebrew words for 'offering' and 'camp' are anagrams – they have all the same letters, but the middle two are switched around.²¹ The offering and camp are now separated. But in the middle of the night, Jacob gets up – for reasons that aren't clear – and he takes his family and flocks (presumably two camps' worth of them), and “he passed over the pass of the Jabbok, and he took them and made them pass over the river, and he made what he had pass over” (Genesis 32:22-23). The Jabbok – today called the Zarqa River – is a bendy stream between the hills that ultimately flows west to feed into the Jordan. And it just so happens that the name 'Jabbok' is the name 'Jacob,' just minus one letter and with the last two swapped. Suspicious...

So picture Jacob “standing in the deep-cut river's ice-cold waters in the darkness of night,” facing “the steep path leading upward” on the other side.²² As he had his servants separate the droves he sent towards Esau, now Jacob separates himself from his family and from his flocks to be a flock-of-one.²³ He puts the others on one side of the stream, and leaves himself on the other side; and all in the dead of night, when crossing a stream is a risky proposition. If Jacob moved them back to the north side and stayed on the south, then Jacob is backing his family toward safety and stepping out further in Esau's direction.²⁴ But if Jacob moved his family to the south side and stayed himself on the north, then Jacob might be using his family as a buffer so he can abandon them and bolt if things get rough.²⁵ Thankfully, most scholars think Jacob stayed on the south side.²⁶ Either way, for reasons of his own, Jacob isolates himself from everything God has given him. He “cast off all that was his,” as if to “forsake worldly things.”²⁷ He's outside the camp, alone in the dark, as on that lonesome night at Bethel.

Suddenly, much like at Bethel, Jacob realizes he isn't alone. On his side of the Jabbok, there's somebody there in the darkness with him. “A man,” we're told. And that man, sneaking up silently in the dark, is on the attack, “assaulting Jacob at night” like a ninja.²⁸ If I were in Jacob's sandals, I'd assume it was Esau or his messenger. We read that this mysterious “man grappled with him,” with Jacob (Genesis 32:24). This story is the only time this verb ever shows up in the Bible, and it's just one letter away from the names 'Jacob' and 'Jabbok' – more and more curious!²⁹ Literally, it means to make dusty – as in, these two are rolling around in the dust by the river.

This becomes an intense wrestling match, “both terrifying and intimate,” and it lasts for hours and hours, “until the ascent of the dawn” (Genesis 32:24).³⁰ There are no weapons involved; this isn't a fight to the death.³¹ This man and Jacob appear almost evenly matched – almost as if by design. But in order to hold his own for hours and hours, Jacob necessarily “summoned all his strength, perseverance, and courage.”³² As dawn gets closer, “he saw that he did not prevail against him” – the author intentionally drops out the names so that, as we read it or hear it, we aren't sure who's who in the dark.³³ But whoever sees he isn't prevailing against his opponent then “touched the palm of his thigh,” hard enough to dislocate it, wrench it out of place (Genesis 32:25). It's a cheap move, literally below the belt, exactly the sort of cheating you'd expect from Jacob. But it turns out that, as his name surfaces through the blackness, he was victim rather than victimizer in this tricky maneuver. Now we know it's the mystery man who couldn't get a clear victory over Jacob, the mystery man who reached out and struck at Jacob's thigh, much as Abraham's steward swore with his hand at Abraham's thigh (Genesis 24:9).³⁴

Amazingly, despite his thigh or hip being wrenched during this grappling session, Jacob doesn't give up. Now the pair are entwined, and the darkness is beginning to lighten to gray as the dawn ascends. So, effectively, they “wrestle to a stalemate.”³⁵ On that basis, one of the two – again we have to wait to figure out which – speaks to the other, breaking through the silence otherwise punctuated only by grunts and groans. “Send me away, for the dawn is ascending” (Genesis 32:26). The opening word here is exactly what Jacob said to Laban six years ago, “Send me away,” “Let me go” (Genesis 30:25). Back then, Laban wouldn't let Jacob go, because keeping him meant continuing to profit from the LORD's blessing (Genesis 30:27); and now, one wrestler says to another, “I will not send you unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26). He's got a grip on the one who's trying to disengage – a grip as strong as Jacob had on Esau's heel the day of their birth (Genesis 25:26).

In reply to this demand for a blessing as a condition of freedom, “he said to him, 'What is your name?' And he said, 'Jacob'” (Genesis 32:27). Twenty years ago, when asked in the darkness who he was, Jacob had answered very differently: “I am Esau,” he'd lied (Genesis 27:19). Now, at last, he remedies his old lie with a confession of the pure and simple truth: “Jacob.” After Jacob had impersonated Esau then, the real Esau had lamented that the name 'Jacob' fit this younger twin too well – for 'Jacob' sounds like somebody who craftily overtakes, trips up, restrains, replaces, and cheats people (Genesis 27:36).³⁶ In now truthfully declaring his name to be 'Jacob,' Jacob confesses his patterns of conduct – his lies and trickery, his craft and guile, his self-seeking and self-serving, all the ferocity of his ambitions. Before he can be blessed, “Jacob must confess who he is.”³⁷

Now, in the face of this confession, the mysterious wrestled masked by the dark is about to do something Jacob could've never seen coming. “Not Jacob shall be your name any longer!” (Genesis 32:28). A change of name is on the way – like Sarai to Sarah, like Abram to Abraham. This patriarch will be no more “one who trips up” others; he will be someone different, someone more.³⁸ But who, and what? Using the same phrasing Jacob just used, “Except if you bless me” (Genesis 32:26), the man tells him, “Except if,” or rather, “Israel” (Genesis 32:28). That will be his new name, his new identity: Israel.

And now maybe we understand a bit what this grappling and wrestling has all been about. The last time we read about a twenty-year wait that culminated in close entanglement and opposition in the darkness, where was it? It was in utero. Rebekah waited twenty years to conceive a child, and when she did, the twins in her womb behaved as if in close-quarters combat like this (Genesis 25:20-23), with Esau born trying to be let go of Jacob's grasp (Genesis 25:24-26). Now, after a twenty-year gestation in Paddan-aram, Jacob is again grappling in the dark with an opponent – with an ersatz Esau – and is desperate to enter the light.³⁹ This encounter at the Jabbok is “the birth of the person he is to be,”⁴⁰ is “a new spiritual birth... no longer as Jacob but as Israel.”⁴¹

Now the mystery man explains that choice of name: “For you have striven with God and with men, and you have prevailed,” or endured (Genesis 32:28). Later Jews saw a similarity between the word 'Israel' and the kinds of names that archangels had.⁴² 'Israel' is therefore “a great and blessed title,”⁴³ “the name that signifies God's choice” of him.⁴⁴ They took this explanation as “an omen of great blessings to come and an assurance that his race would never be extinguished and that no mortal man would surpass him in strength.”⁴⁵

Now, certainly Jacob knew he had striven with human beings – he grappled Esau in the womb, outmaneuvered him for a birthright, deceived Isaac for a blessing, and ultimately overcame Laban's tyranny. But having striven with gods – with God? When? Now? Here? And how, anyway, does this mystery man assume authority to decree for Jacob a new name, when so far the only times a name has been changed have been by the voice of the LORD when he appears in person on the earth (Genesis 17:5, 15)?

In awe and wonder, Jacob asks a question, he makes a request; he urges this mysterious figure, who wishes to depart before the sunrise, “Tell me, please, your name?” But the mysterious one retorts with a question of his own: “Why do you ask this, about my name?” (Genesis 32:29). This is word-for-word the answer Samson's father Manoah once heard: “Why do you ask this, about my name? And it is wonderful!” (Judges 13:18). The speaker then was none other than the Angel of the LORD, who then ascended in flame.⁴⁶ So the prophet says Jacob “in his strength strove with God, and he was prince over the Angel, and he prevailed” (Hosea 12:3-4).

Taking their cues from Judges and Hosea, ancient Jews understood the opponent as a “phantom,” a “specter,” an “angel of God,”⁴⁷ as “an angel of the Lord,”⁴⁸ maybe one who needed to return to heaven before sunrise so he could lead the morning liturgy of worship as “a chief of those who praise.”⁴⁹ Some specifically identified the assailant as “Uriel the angel of God,”⁵⁰ or as “the angel Sariel... in the appearance of a man,”⁵¹ or even as Esau's own guardian angel.⁵² But as early as the second century, Christians were identifying the mysterious wrestler as none other than the Word of the Father who, later in flesh appearing, would be Christ the Lord.”⁵³ They said he “ministered to the will of God, yet he is God,”⁵⁴ and he evaded Jacob's request for his name because “he had not yet become man.”⁵⁵ Jacob, Israel, “this man is for you the true God, not in name but in nature,”⁵⁶ “both human and God.”⁵⁷ And so there none other than “God appeared to him, wrestled with him, and blessed him.”⁵⁸

How did Jacob prevail in his struggle with God? By clinging. By not letting go, even when it hurt. By not weakening his grip, even once he was crippled by God in the darkness. And so, as ancient Jews and Christians read the story, Wisdom “gave him the prize for his hard struggle, that he might know that devotion to God is mightier than all else” (Wisdom 10:12), showing that “Jacob's faith and devotion were unconquerable.”⁵⁹ And so the very name 'Israel,' as borne by the nation that Jacob is becoming, is founded on the patriarch's “new character and destiny,” achieved through a determined struggle with God, to endure in cleaving to him.⁶⁰

Jacob's request for a blessing was “to make it known that it was in love that they had laid hold of each other,” himself and this man who was God.⁶¹ And so, after the name change, “he blessed him there” (Genesis 32:29). We've heard Isaac's blessing for Jacob, but Genesis doesn't spell out the words of this blessing. A later version in the Dead Sea Scrolls, though, tries to fill in the blank, saying that the man blessed Jacob with fruitfulness and multitude, that the LORD would fill him with “knowledge and intelligence,” and – most important here – “may he free you from all violence... until this day and for everlasting generations.”⁶² And with that, the mystery man – the man, the Angel, the God – is mentioned no more. Genesis doesn't tell us how he went. Some Jews figured he “walked on his way,”⁶³ and others assumed he simply “vanished.”⁶⁴

Awed by this encounter of the night, Jacob gives a name to the spot once he's left alone, as he had at Bethel and at Mahanaim. This place will henceforth be Peniel, which means 'Face of God,' “for I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been delivered,” he muses (Genesis 32:30). Jacob is “marveling at his survival in this intimate encounter with the divine,”⁶⁵ since, as the LORD said to Moses, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). What grace is this, to have lived through this night with the Face of God?

But on the other hand, wasn't this just what Jacob had prayed for? He begged, “Deliver me” (Genesis 32:12), and now he testifies, “My soul has been delivered” (Genesis 32:30). Somehow, through these painful, punishing, sweaty, costly hours of wrestling with God in the dirt and in the dark, Jacob has received the salvation he sought, and has been assured of his true grounds for hope. What he now understands (and what all those who lay claim to his new name must understand) is that his struggles with Isaac, with Laban, with Esau – these all take a backseat to his encounter with God, his relationship with God. This experience has given Jacob a much-needed “realignment of his hopes and fears.”⁶⁶ His story was never primarily about Jacob versus Laban, Jacob versus Esau, Jacob versus exile, even if that's how he would've told it. The question was always whether Jacob would struggle with God, flee from God, or cling to God. With God, there's hope, regardless of the fear.

And now, as he passed over this place of Penuel, “the sun rose upon him” (Genesis 32:31). Finally! It's about time! We've been waiting to hear about the sun ever since, at Bethel, we read that “the sun had set” (Genesis 28:11). Literarily and spiritually, this has been a twenty-year night of exile, a sunless void into which Jacob had been plunged. But now that's over: “the sun rose upon him” (Genesis 32:31). “For you who fear my name,” says the LORD, “the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings” (Malachi 4:2).

Healing in its wings – but there's a sense in which Jacob isn't healed. As he passed over Penuel by the light of the risen sun, “he limped on his thigh,” the one that got wrenched and twisted in the grappling (Genesis 32:21). Jacob has a track record – he fled from Esau (Genesis 27:43), then he fled from Laban (Genesis 31:21) – and, as God's saving answer, he's now physically disabled from fleeing away from his problems any more.⁶⁷ Having crossed paths with “God's severe mercy,”⁶⁸ Jacob – but now we should know him as Israel – perpetually “bore on his body the tokens of the wrestling.”⁶⁹ From Peniel on, “his every halting step is a silent sermon, preaching that his body has been marked by the touch of God.”⁷⁰ As he moves forward in life, Israel quite visibly “gets along only with the help of grace,”⁷¹ “no longer reliant upon his own strength.”⁷² He's starting to understand that “being chosen means being wounded” as well as “possessing the promises.”⁷³

This chapter wraps up on an odd note, though. We know that the mysterious man, who was in some way God, “touched the palm of Jacob's thigh on the cripped sinew.” But now it's explained that this is commemorated by a tradition, a custom: “On this basis, the Children of Israel do not eat the crippled sinew that is on the palm of the thigh to this day” (Genesis 32:32). Before, there was a defining mark on the heirs of Abraham, and that was circumcision (Genesis 17:10), a one-time mark imposed on the sons which would seldom be seen by others; now, to it is added a custom that would be displayed by sons and daughters alike at every feast, a custom to be practiced by a community of the Children of Israel. This would constitute the Children of Israel as a people, as a people who don't do all the things that other peoples do, a people dislocated from the norm by a holy touch unique to them and their sacred tradition.⁷⁴ That custom is instituted in hope, a hope that “future generations would unfailingly meditate on God's kindnesses” to all who receive this name of Israel and limp on in grace.⁷⁵

This is an unfathomably deep and mysterious story. Some ancient Jews were so stunned by it, they thought Jacob was actually an incarnated angel now learning his true identity as “Israel, the archangel of the power of the Lord..., the firstborn of every living thing..., the first minister before the face of God.”⁷⁶ But to Christians, who confessed Jesus Christ as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15), Christ's “name from of old was Israel – a name which he conferred on the blessed Jacob when he blessed him with his own name, announcing thereby that all who come to the Father through him are part of the blessed Israel.”⁷⁷ The Gospel itself declares that “no one has ever seen God” in his essence, not even Jacob; rather, “God the Only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18).⁷⁸

To the first Christians, “by touching Jacob's thigh and making it numb, Christ showed that he too would grow numb... in physical and mental suffering at his crucifixion,”⁷⁹ so that “the paralysis of [Jacob's] thigh might prophesy his Heir's Passion.”⁸⁰ By the third century, though, they started to take this scene as a prophecy of “the future struggle between Christ and the descendants of Jacob,” with the crucifixion as the moment Jacob's seed 'prevailed' over the Lord, after which “their own walk of faith and salvation began to limp seriously, uncertain and insecure.”⁸¹ Jacob left his Peniel “both blessed and lame,”⁸² predicting his children who (respectively) believe and disbelieve.⁸³ “If you have come to believe in Christ, recognize yourself as blessed; if you have denied Christ, recognize yourself as lame..., one of those about whom the prophet says, 'They have limped off from their paths.'”⁸⁴ On top of this, some took Jacob as representing, not Jews, but “the Christian people” who “wrestled with the Lord” by faith.⁸⁵ “Jacob's withered thigh stands for bad Christians, so that we find in him both blessing and limping. He is blessed with respect to those who live good lives; he limps with respect to those who live bad lives.... For the time being, the Church is lame. It puts down one foot firmly; the other one, being crippled, it drags.... Yet the touch of the Lord is the hand of the Lord, chastising and giving life.”⁸⁶

That was Jacob's experience. Jacob was, as it were, born again as Israel, but only through intense struggle and perseverance. In the German Pietist tradition our denomination grew out of, that was often what they expected being born again to look like: a breakthrough after an intense Bußkampf or 'repentance struggle.'⁸⁷ Our founder – whose first name was, after all, Jacob – described his dark season of “persistent and fervent pleading” that led him gradually “closer and closer to [his] enlightenment.”⁸⁸ His chief companion confessed that “for three long years I continued in this penitent and sorrowing condition... under a load of guilt, [until] it pleased a gracious and merciful God to deliver me from my sad estate..., to have a glimpse of the saving mercy of his grace.”⁸⁹ Later, though, he told of another experience where he spent a thirty-mile journey in weeping and then “in the evening I wrestled about an hour in prayer, until I was finally overwhelmed with a mighty stream of love....”⁹⁰ In the early Holiness camp meetings, they emphasized that “to every fully consecrated and believing soul shall be found other Penuels than that beside the ford Jabbok, and to those who wrestle there it shall be given them to say, 'I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'”⁹¹ Genesis 32 was a Pietist model, a challenge for the believer to “persevere all the more in struggling and striving before the Lord” until true piety is restored.⁹²

But you don't have to be a Pietist (I'm not) or follow the Holiness Movement (I don't) to find rich lessons in Jacob's wrestling. In a more general way, we find that we often “encounter God in ambiguity, even in apparent hostility, in mystery cloaked in darkness.”⁹³ We grapple with him – in prayer, in repentance, in our daily walk of faith – and, in the dark, we struggle to cling on when it feels to us like he's trying to shake us off. But actually he's challenging us to cling harder. He's disabling that in us which has fallen to abuse. He's reviving in us that which has been buried by our guilt and shame. He's changing and blessing us, not that we might walk away from the encounter perfected, but that we might limp away with a new perspective and a new calling. Jacob reminds us that “nobody can obtain the glories of virtuousness without pains, yet after the struggles, God bestows upon him a crown of joy.”⁹⁴ But “whoever has encountered God will remain marked by him.”⁹⁵ So I invite you to pray with this lovely poem by Charles Wesley, inspired by the holy ferocity of Jacob at the Jabbok:

Come, O thou Traveller unknown,
whom still I hold, but cannot see:
my company before is gone,
and I am left alone with thee,
with thee all night I mean to stay,
and wrestle till the break of day.

I need not tell thee who I am,
my misery or sin declare;
thyself hast called me by my name,
look on thy hands and read it there.
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now!

In vain thou strugglest to get free,
I never will unloose my hold:
Art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of thy love unfold;
wrestling I will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell –
to know it now resolv'd I am;
wrestling I will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

'Tis all in vain to hold thy tongue,
or touch the hollow of my thigh;
though every sinew be unstrung,
out of my arms thou shalt not fly;
wrestling I will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

What though my shrinking flesh complain
and murmur to contend so long?
I rise superior to my pain;
when I am weak, then I am strong,
and when my all of strength shall fail,
I shall with the God-Man prevail.

My strength is gone, my nature dies,
I sink beneath thy weighty hand,
faint to revive, and fall to rise,
I fall, and yet by faith I stand –
I stand, and will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

Yield to me now, for I am weak,
but confident in self-despair:
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
be conquer'd by my instant prayer:
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
and tell me if thy name is LOVE!

'Tis Love, 'tis Love! Thou died'st for me,
I hear thy whisper in my heart.
The morning breaks, the shadows flee:
Pure Universal Love thou art!
To me, to all thy bowels move,
thy nature and thy name is Love.

My prayer hath power with God; the grace
unspeakable I now receive;
through faith I see thee face to face,
I see thee face to face and live:
In vain I have not wept and strove –
thy nature and thy name is Love!

I know thee, Savior, who thou art:
Jesus, the feeble sinner's Friend;
nor wilt thou with the night depart,
but stay and love me to the end;
thy mercies never shall remove –
thy nature and thy name is Love!

The Sun of Righteousness on me
hath rose with healing in his wings;
wither'd my nature's strength, from thee
my soul its life and succor brings;
my help is all laid up above –
thy nature and thy name is Love.

Contented now, upon my thigh
I halt, till life's short journey end;
all helplessness, all weakness I,
on thee alone for strength depend,
nor have I power from thee to move –
thy nature and thy name is Love.

Lame as I am, I take the prey,
hell, earth, and sin with ease o'ercome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
and as a bounding hart fly home,
through all eternity to prove
thy nature and thy name is LOVE!⁹⁶

Laban's Tale

Last Sunday, we arrived in Harran with the exiled Jacob, fleeing Canaan and his brother's wrath. He'd been sent to take shelter and spouse from Uncle Laban. Fourteen years later, he's married both Laban's daughters, Leah and then Rachel (plus Bilhah and Zilpah their handmaids), he's got twelve kids running around, and he's been profoundly humbled in his crafty Aramean ways, because Laban has proven to be quite his match. Rachel's given birth at last to Joseph, and that marks the finish of Jacob's second seven-year shepherding contract. With all the gals as moms, Jacob reckons he should be free to skedaddle. But that's the question: Jacob has been 'serving' Laban (as he says three times in today's first two verses), but does that mean 'working for hire' or 'being a slave' for Laban?¹ Jacob now presses Laban on the issue, emphasizing that even if he'd been a slave, it was for a set term, and now it's well past time to manumit him and send him back where he belongs (Genesis 30:25-26).² God's been faithful in his promise of seed; now it's land time.³ And in demanding Laban sent him away and let him go, Jacob sounds like Moses insisting Pharaoh send Israel forth, set Israel free (Exodus 5:1).⁴

Pharaoh, of course, gave an outright no in reply (Exodus 5:2). Laban's smoother than that, laying on some thick and buttery flattery, saying he's learned by divination – an occult practice – that his newfound riches are because the LORD has blessed Laban for Jacob's sake (Genesis 30:27). Jacob latches on to that point, agreeing Laban was just average before he showed his face here and now has been blessed with an explosive fortune – Jacob borrows language from God's promises at Bethel (Genesis 28:14). But while Laban's gotten rich, Jacob owns nothing at all.⁵ The later Law of Moses will say a servant should be set free after six years of service, and he can't go empty, but must be gratefully supplied from his former master's flocks, grain, and wine: “As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him” (Deuteronomy 15:12-14). Jacob drops hints that, with his contract up and Laban rich enough to be satisfied, Laban should supply him sufficiently to support his family on the long walk home.⁶ But Laban sidesteps all hints, making it obvious that he's never had any intention of letting Jacob go – ever.⁷ I mean, Jacob's his no-limit credit card from God, and Laban's greed would never return such a treasure. Jacob thought this place was protection, but it's prison – like Pharaoh's Egypt will be later. And as long as this goes on here, Jacob can never become the nation and kingdom he's destined to be.⁸

So, Laban says, “Specify your wages to me, I will give,” “What shall I give you?” (Genesis 31:28, 31). Like a mafioso, Laban clearly means this as an offer Jacob can't refuse.⁹ But Jacob remembers the last time Laban said he'd 'give' a 'her' who turned out to be the wrong sister (Genesis 29:19), so, Laban, “you shall not 'give' me anything” (Genesis 31:31).¹⁰ But, since Jacob has to become financially independent before he leaves Paddan-aram, he suppresses his anger and outlines terms for a renewed contract. If Laban agrees, Jacob will “pass through all your flock today, removing from there” every sheep or goat that looks a certain way (Genesis 30:32). That way, it's easy to see which are which when Jacob finally collects on his wages: “my righteousness will answer for me” as honest (Genesis 30:33). The list of sheep and goats Jacob specifies sounds convoluted until you know that in his world, almost every goat was dark and every sheep was white, and Jacob picks out the small minority that don't fit the norm: sheep with darker patches of fur, lambs that are all dark, and goats with white flecks or patches.¹¹ What Jacob's saying is, “You know the weird-colored ones that don't quite fit in? I'll go through and claim those; my cut will be the mutts.”

To Laban, this sounds like an unbelievable bargain.¹² Typically, a hired shepherd might claim anywhere from 8 to 20 percent of the lambs and kids born while they tend a flock. Jacob's proposal, under any natural condition, should add up to a lot less, while still keeping things fair and proportional.¹³ So naturally, Laban agrees right off the bat (Genesis 30:34). Jacob said he'd go through and remove the misfits from the flock, and sure enough, we read that “he removed that day the he-goats that were striped and spotted, and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every dark one among the lambs, and he gave them into the hand of his sons” (Genesis 30:35). But only now do we realize that the 'he' who did it wasn't Jacob, as it was supposed to be, but Laban cleaning out the supply; he turned them over to his sons and put a three-day journey between them to ensure Jacob can't get his hands on them (Genesis 30:36).¹⁴ Even when getting a great deal, Laban chooses to put Jacob at a further disadvantage, making sure he has barely any breeding stock that fit his needs.¹⁵ Laban really is “set on cheating Jacob at every turn.”¹⁶

So here's Jacob, left alone with the rest of Laban's flock. What's he to do? Well, I bet none of us would come up with what he does next. He goes and gathers fresh sticks from three kinds of trees, peels strips of bark off to expose the inner sapwood, and presents them where he takes his flocks to drink water, but only when it's their mating season; then, when they've seen the sticks coloring their reflection different patterns, and they mate, the little lambs and kids they bear come out multi-colored (Genesis 30:37-39). This is... really weird. It's like when Rachel thought mandrakes would make her fertile – that was folk-medicine. This sounds like folk-wisdom that says a baby's looks depend on whatever the mom was looking at during conception – as people used to think.¹⁷

So is this just a silly story for people who didn't know better? Well, you'd think so, before you see all the puns. Genesis names the three species of tree Jacob uses: poplar, almond, and chestnut. But the word for 'almond' is luz, as in, the old name of the city that's now to be Bethel (Genesis 28:19). The word for the 'chestnut' or 'plane' tree sounds like 'smooth' or 'shrewd.' And the word for 'poplar'? It sounds a lot like the name 'Laban.' In fact, when Jacob exposes the 'white' inside each rod, he exposes 'the laban,' because 'Laban' means 'white.'¹⁸ Just like Jacob outsmarted Esau the Red with a red stew, he aims to outfox Laban the White by the white of this wood.¹⁹

Again, all very primitive and weird. But it's not supposed to make real sense – yet.²⁰ Not until we read the next chapter, and hear Jacob describe another dream, a sequel to Bethel. During that first mating season, when Jacob was at a loss what to do, he looked up and saw multi-colored he-goats mounting the flock – literally, 'ascending on' the flock, like angels on a ladder to heaven (Genesis 31:10; 28:12).²¹ The Angel of the LORD called Jacob, as he had to Grandpa Abraham on the mountain; so Jacob answered the same way, “Here I am,” and got an explanation that this dream was God's answer to “all that Laban is doing to you” (Genesis 31:11-12). And the angel used the present tense because Laban was still at it. Just as Pharaoh gave ten nos to Moses' demand for Israel's release, so Laban “has mocked me and changed my wages ten times,” testifies Jacob (Genesis 31:6). Over and over, Laban would revise their agreement to only patchy ones or only spotty ones. No matter which way Laban tried to cheat, though, the flock kept bearing whatever Jacob would get (Genesis 31:8). “Thus God has delivered the livestock” of Laban, as he'd deliver Israel, “and has given them to me” (Genesis 31:9).²²

Jacob set up the sticks as a symbolic sign, “not of his own devising, but with grace from on high inspiring his mind,”²³ “not relying on them, but awaiting God's assistance.”²⁴ Jacob contributed everything he did know about selective breeding practices, carefully applying this sign to the healthier, more robust animals while leaving Laban the feebler ones (Genesis 30:40-42).²⁵ Now, just as Laban's wealth has “burst out” to abundance through Jacob's blessing (Genesis 30:30), Jacob's own wealth “burst forth very much” so that he could barter his sheep and goats to get “large flocks and maidservants and manservants and camels and donkeys” (Genesis 30:43), just as Grandpa got all those years ago (Genesis 12:16). God “made abundant the fruit of [Jacob's] works, stood by him against the greed of his defrauders, and enriched him” (Wisdom 10:10-11). And Jacob confesses, it wasn't he who outsmarted Laban, but the Lord (Genesis 31:5-6).²⁶

Six years go by. Jacob's getting richer and richer. His brothers-in-law are understandably resentful – that's their expected inheritance he's chipping away at. “Jacob has taken all that was our father's, and from what was our father's he has made all this glory!” they complain (Genesis 31:1). That's obviously an exaggeration; ancient readers knew Jacob was enriched “not from a division but from an increase in the flock.”²⁷ But Jacob heard his brothers-in-law; he also “saw the face of Laban, and behold, it was not with him as heretofore” (Genesis 31:2). Laban's “sons' words deranged his mind and made him forget” how Jacob had been the means of his blessing in the first place,²⁸ so that now “Laban and his sons were jealous of Jacob.”²⁹ Then the LORD speaks again: “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you” (Genesis 31:3). It sounds so much like God's first words to Abram, “Go from your land and your kindred and your father's house” (Genesis 12:1). This will be the same journey, but it's taking Jacob back to his family, back to his homeland.

Say no more, God; Jacob's on it. But who will go with him? Will Leah? Will Rachel? Will the kids, now ages six through twelve? Going with Jacob would mean leaving the only home they've ever known – a feat of faith second only to that of Sarah and Rebekah. So Jacob calls just Rachel and Leah to the field with his flock, a perfect pretext to speak without risk of eavesdroppers; and Jacob anxiously unpacks the situation and tries to carefully convince them to join him (Genesis 31:4).³⁰ He contrasts his dedicated service with Laban's mockery and cheating, and the turned-away “face of your father” with the faithful “God of my father” (Genesis 31:4-6). He narrates the dream that set their prosperity in motion, glorifying God for saving him from Laban's plans of evil (Genesis 31:7-12). Finally, he expands on the divine message calling him back home so he can at last make good the vow he vowed to “the God of Bethel” (Genesis 31:13). Thus spake Jacob. But the question on his mind is how these bitterly feuding, headache-inducing wives of his – the daughters of Laban, who grew up bouncing on Laban's knee and snuggling in Laban's arms to banish their nightmares – will take all this.

Surprisingly, Jacob's got nothing to worry about. For the first time since we met them, Rachel and Leah “speak in unison.”³¹ We hear nothing further about a rivalry between them. They raise three points (Genesis 31:14-16). First, their father sold them to Jacob like livestock for his wages, and, what's more, instead of providing them a dowry out of the bride-price of Jacob's lengthy and lucrative service, Laban “indeed devoured our silver” greedily for himself.³² Second, Laban's cheating their husband inflicts the same insecurity on them as him; they feel like outsiders, knowing their dad doesn't have their backs. And third, they expect no future inheritance from him. They reckon God's enrichment of Jacob was God's way of giving it “to us and to our children,” rather than to Laban. So, the sister-wives tell Jacob, they renounce Laban-loyalty and throw in their lot with him and the God of his father; “now then, whatever God as said to you, do” (Genesis 31:16).

Jacob's clan is now as united as Israel preparing the first Passover (cf. Exodus 12:27-28). Taking advantage of the absence of Laban and his men who are off shearing their sheep, a big spring undertaking (Genesis 31:19),³³ Jacob collects everything he'd accumulated, emphasizing it was all rightfully and lawfully his (Genesis 31:18).³⁴ As Israel plundered the Egyptians of the Egyptians' own free will, so Jacob and his family have profited off of Laban. Where Jacob arrived on foot, he leads away his children and wives on camels (Genesis 31:17). And his destination is “to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan” (Genesis 31:18) – the first time either word's been mentioned since the LORD introduced himself at Bethel in Canaan as “the God of Isaac” (Genesis 28:13).

But, speaking of plunder, Genesis now mentions two thefts.³⁵ First, we read that “Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father's” (Genesis 31:19). Most likely, teraphim were small statues that played a role in domestic religion.³⁶ It was common in many societies to have, not just the big public temples, but also at-home worship of gods both big and small, even low-level deities specific to the family. Ancient Aramean families worshipped the clan ancestor.³⁷ So these figurines were probably set up in Laban's household shrine, and he likely used the teraphim in his rituals of divination (cf. Ezekiel 21:21; Zechariah 10:2).³⁸ Why Rachel took them is anybody's guess. Is she so superstitious she clings to her dad's religion even as she leaves him?³⁹ Or is she the opposite, so pious she's trying to free him from his own idolatry?⁴⁰ Is she acting out of spite, stealing what's dearest to him as payback for his theft of her monogamy?⁴¹ Is she taking precautions to keep him from divining their path of escape?⁴² Are the teraphim hostages, a bargaining chip to play if they get caught?⁴³ Or is she consciously trying to ignite the chain of events we'll soon be reading about, with an eye to Jacob's own good?⁴⁴

We'll have to wait and see. But that's only the first theft. There's another like unto it. We read next that “Jacob stole the heart of Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he intended to flee” (Genesis 31:20). Ambitious Absalom “stole the hearts of the men of Israel” with flattery (2 Samuel 15:6); Jacob steals Laban's heart with secrecy and mistrust. When Rebekah first sent Jacob off, she bade him “arise, flee to my brother Laban in Harran” (Genesis 27:43). Now those words are written in reverse, rewinding his move: “Jacob fled... and he arose, and he crossed the River” (Genesis 31:21). Passing over like Israel at the sea, Jacob begins ushering family, flocks, and followers toward the hilly plateau of Gilead east of Jordan. At last, their exodus is begun!

But with an exodus, there's bound to be trouble coming. In Moses' day, “when the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled,” he so resented the loss of Israel's service that he “took his army” and chariots and “he pursued the people of Israel” until he “overtook” them at the sea (Exodus 14:5-9). Those are exactly the verbs Genesis uses here: it was “told to Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled,” so “he took his brethren with him and pursued after him,” pressing closely until finally “Laban overtook Jacob” (Genesis 31:22-25).⁴⁵ The Bible could not hint any harder that Laban is a Pharaoh figure here, with the same fury burning in his blood.

It's a long chase – Gilead is hundreds of miles from Harran, and later retellings suggest Laban hunted Jacob for nearly two whole months.⁴⁶ However long it was, when we reach a stop, Jacob's people and Laban's people are encamped on opposing hillsides in Gilead, facing each other like armies poised for battle (Genesis 31:25).⁴⁷ But something happens. Like Abimelech in Abraham's day (Genesis 20:3), Laban has a dream at night where he meets, not his own gods, but the LORD. The message is simple enough even for Laban: As Jacob 'kept' Laban's flocks and was himself being 'kept' by God, so Laban had best 'keep' himself, “lest you speak to Jacob, from good to bad” (Genesis 31:24). It reminds us how Laban and his dad saw the clear will of the LORD when Abraham's steward came to get Rebekah (Genesis 24:50); God's saying he should see Jacob's liberty as an equally clear manifestation of providence, and should submit to it in peace as above his pay grade.⁴⁸

Despite the warning, Laban confronts his runaway son-in-law, as if prosecuting a lawsuit against him. “What have you done?” Laban opens (Genesis 31:26), using the same words Jacob spoke in protest when Laban put Leah in Rachel's place (Genesis 29:25). First, Laban protests that Jacob was presumptuous and unjust in fleeing Laban's house secretly. Had Jacob let him know he was going, Laban would of course have been more than fine with it, and would've thrown a great farewell party for him and the girls (Genesis 31:27); but, as it is, Jacob's dishonored Laban by preventing him from kissing his daughters and grandkids goodbye (Genesis 31:28). Or so Laban claims. Everything we've read leads us to doubt Laban would've done any such thing.

Laban's second claim is more serious. “You have driven away my daughters like captives of the sword!” Laban cries (Genesis 31:26). His contention, his assumption, is that Jacob is an abusive husband, having forced Leah and Rachel away like prisoners of war, separating them unwillingly from their home by threats of violence, and treating them like livestock to be driven to and fro. That's awfully rich, coming from the dad who named his daughters after livestock and sold them like livestock. In fact, we already know what Laban's pride won't let him imagine: that Rachel and Leah were fully on-board with ditching him. But Laban makes this accusation to manipulatively play on Jacob's sympathies, father to father.⁴⁹

Laban interrupts his indictment to throw his muscle around. “It is in the power of my hand to do you evil!” he crows, and the only reason he doesn't is that dream from “the God of your father” (Genesis 31:29). Both times, the 'you' Laban uses is plural. He's not just threatening Jacob. He's boasting that he and his brethren could hurt and abuse Jacob and all those with him, including his little sons by Leah and Rachel. What a great grandpa. In the same speech, Laban subtly taunts Jacob, saying condescendingly that he understands Jacob's motive is that “you longed longingly for the house of your father” (Genesis 31:30). He's sneering at Jacob as a daddy's boy, a pun who, even well past middle age, isn't really a full-grown man able to make it in the world.⁵⁰

He sandwiches all this between two charges of stealing. At the start, he accuses Jacob of having “stolen my heart,” indeed, of having “stolen (away from) me” (Genesis 31:26-27). But Laban saves the heaviest charge for last. All this rest he'd overlook, “but why did you steal my gods?” (Genesis 31:30). He means the teraphim – they were gods to him, and now they're gone. Stealing the sacred was a very serious crime, a capital offense.⁵¹

Jacob's stammering reply is clearly on the defensive. He excuses his hasty and furtive flight by claiming he had a reasonable fear that, far from a party, Laban would've “kidnapped your daughters from me” (Genesis 31:31) – a stronger, more violent word than just 'steal.'⁵² But Jacob bypasses the rest to get to the closing shocker, which threw Jacob for a loop because he has no clue Rachel took the teraphim. Rashly, Jacob sentences the culprit to death – “anyone with whom you find your 'gods' shall not live” – but challenges Laban to back up his charge and “discern” whatever's his (Genesis 31:32), as Jacob's father failed to do years before (Genesis 27:23).⁵³

Dramatic tension heightens as Laban searches Jacob's camp, tent by tent, until reaching Rachel's, where we know the teraphim really are (Genesis 31:33). But it turns out that Rachel's stowed them inside her boxy camel saddle and is sitting on them (Genesis 31:34). To keep her father from checking it, she claims she can't get up because “the way of women is upon me” – i.e., her menstrual period (Genesis 31:35). So, avoiding the saddle, her father “felt all about the tent, but he did not find” (Genesis 31:34), just as Jacob's blind father “felt” the disguised Jacob but didn't find the truth (Genesis 27:22-23).⁵⁴ Despite the powerlessness of women in her culture to 'stand up' to a man, Rachel uses her womanhood itself to covertly undercut his power, denigrate and defile his 'gods,' and call him to abandon his path of anger (Genesis 31:35).⁵⁵

When Laban comes out, Jacob calls this the last straw. “For the first time, he stands up to Laban face-to-face and as an equal.”⁵⁶ The Bible says that “Jacob became angry and strove with Laban” (Genesis 31:36), filing a countersuit for malicious prosecution. Laban has severely insulted Jacob by rifling through all his things, and all his wives' and sons' things, for nothing. “What is my offense, what is my sin, that you have pursued after me?” Jacob asks; “you've felt through all my goods; what have you found of all the goods of your house? Set it here, before my brethren and your brethren, that they may judge between us two!” (Genesis 31:36-37). Jacob demands Laban produce the evidence to back up his accusation that Jacob's a thief of anything, much less of Laban's pretended 'gods.' But Laban has nothing to show the court. By Sumerian law, making an accusation and producing no evidence meant the accuser would suffer the same penalty the defendant would have if convicted;⁵⁷ in Babylon, if the owner of lost property accused somebody of theft but couldn't produce evidence, “he is a liar, he has indeed spread malicious charges, he shall be killed.”⁵⁸ Laban's in hot water.

As Laban hems and haws, Jacob presses on, unleashing two decades full of grievances. Jacob shames Laban by reminding him what a good and faithful shepherd Jacob's been as he “fed, guarded, toiled, and kept watch over the sheep of Laban.”⁵⁹ He persevered twenty years through dry heat in daytime and biting cold in the sleepless nights (Genesis 31:40). He so tended the ewes and she-goats that none miscarried their young. Even where shepherds were permitted a ram now and then to butcher for meat, Jacob never availed himself of that privilege (Genesis 31:38). Even though shepherds weren't accountable for livestock killed by wild beasts, Jacob assumed the loss, and when animals were stolen, Laban required it from Jacob in defiance of the law (Genesis 31:39).⁶⁰

In the face of such faithfulness, Laban not only exceeded his lawful rights but constantly cheated Jacob of his rightful wages, a fact with which Jacob at last confronts his wicked boss. Had it been up to Laban, Jacob would still have empty pockets; Laban would've tossed him aside like garbage (Genesis 31:41-42). Jacob finally, cathartically, “exposes Laban's repeated treachery and lies,” from start to finish.⁶¹ And the only reason Laban didn't destroy Jacob was because “the God of my father – the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac! – was with me” amidst the trial. Using exodus language, Jacob exclaims that “my affliction and the toil of my palms God has seen – and he judged you last night!” (Genesis 31:42). Laban's dream itself delivers the verdict!

By the time Jacob concludes his countersuit, Laban clearly hasn't a leg to stand on. Laban's gods are on the back of a milk carton; but the God of Abraham, the Fear of Isaac, is living and decisive. Divine justice has now delivered faithful Jacob from Laban's shrewd schemes, from Laban's cruel, conning, cheating cunning. So what's Laban to do? Throw a tantrum, that's what. “The daughters are my daughters! And the sons are my sons! And the flocks are my flocks! And all that you see is mine!” he howls, stamping his feet (Genesis 31:43), betraying his own admission that the LORD had blessed him for Jacob's sake and by Jacob's service.⁶²

At this point, even Laban's brethren can see he's pathetic. This is no wise man. It's delusional for Laban to lay claim, as patriarch, to owning Leah and Rachel, and Reuben through Joseph, and all the sheep and all the goats, and all the camels and all the donkeys, and all the maidservants and all the manservants. Laban's claim over all these is “empty rhetoric” untethered from reality.⁶³ Laban is a cheap pretender, a “deluded scoundrel,” forever rewriting history to his liking, unashamed to contradict himself.⁶⁴

Now he's visibly a blustering buffoon “who has lost all credibility.”⁶⁵ He knows, deep down, that “my brethren and your brethren” would never sustain his assertion; but he's got to convince himself he's being magnanimous while effectively forfeiting, since he doesn't have the courage to admit his own defeat.⁶⁶ Ah, “what can I do this day for these my daughters, or for their children whom they have borne?” (Genesis 31:43). He speaks as if his deepest desire were to benefit Rachel, Leah, and his grandkids – despite all evidence to the contrary. So, he tells Jacob, “come now, let us cut a covenant, I and you, and let it be a witness between me and you” (Genesis 31:44). For the first time, Laban is forced to deal with Jacob as an equal, as a clan head in his own right.

Jacob gives no verbal answer; he sets up a standing-stone (Genesis 31:45), like he did at Bethel (Genesis 28:18) – they were quite popular with Arameans, too.⁶⁷ Jacob bids his brethren to form other stones into a mound, and Laban and Jacob each name it 'Heap of Witness' in their respective languages, Aramaic and Hebrew (Genesis 31:46-47), for which we've been prepared by Aramaic expressions already in the story.⁶⁸ This pillar and this heap – which, though we just watched Jacob set them up, Laban delusionally claims he erected – will mark a boundary neither may cross by raid or invasion (Genesis 31:51-52).⁶⁹ To guarantee the treaty, Laban calls on two gods – the God of Abraham and the god of Nahor; Jacob, increasingly ignoring Laban, swears by “the Fear of his father Isaac” (Genesis 31:53).⁷⁰ They're now defined as representing two separate peoples with different languages, different gods, different places to call home; there'll be no more fetching brides from Harran.⁷¹

In the end, it's Jacob – now asserting himself as patriarch in his own right – who sacrifices the sacrifice and who calls everyone to share in the covenant meal he hosts (Genesis 31:54). When morning comes, Laban kisses his daughters and grandkids, blesses them, and is sent off to return to “his own place” (Genesis 31:55). The Laban chapter has reached its end. Through this time in Paddan-aram, Jacob “has struggled, he has suffered, he has endured, and he has come out much the stronger and better for it” – not by his own wits, but by God's grace.⁷² Jacob and his family are free and clear to move to the Promised Land, while Laban has been forced to concede that the LORD is a living God who watches over the oppressed whom he has chosen (Genesis 31:49-50).

Jacob's now secured the northeastern edge of the land; the boundary between Israel and Aram will run through Gilead. The Book of the Kings will tell us often about wars between Israel and Aram over Gilead (1 Kings 22:1-4), until “the LORD gave Israel a savior so that they escaped from the hand of Aram” (2 Kings 13:5). But in time, the northern kingdom of Israel will make common cause with Aram against the southern kingdom of Judah. This alliance defies the covenant of Jacob and Laban, as Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel join forces “to wage war on Jerusalem” (2 Kings 16:5). The prophet Isaiah was sent to the fearful king Ahaz with a sign: “Hear then, O House of David!... Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:13-14). We, of course, know the deeper meaning of the sign, but it was given first in the setting of the vengeance of the sons of Laban. When all was hidden, God was watching (Genesis 31:49).

We're approaching our great celebration of this sign coming to pass, of God being with us more intimately then he was with Jacob even, for he takes on our flesh and our blood, born a descendant of Jacob – and of Laban, by Leah. And these things written in Genesis are for our instruction, when we grasp them spiritually. For Jacob is at pains to show himself faithful in shepherding the flock, and in that he points forward to the Good Shepherd. “I am the Good Shepherd,” says Jesus. “I know my own, and my own know me..., and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14-16). Early Christians, as they read Genesis, remarked that “Jacob served Laban for the spotted and speckled sheep, and Christ served, even to the servitude of the cross, for men of different colors and features from every nationality, redeeming them by his blood and the mystery of his cross.”⁷³ The three kinds of branches were understood to either prophesy Christ's crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension,⁷⁴ or to be a symbol of the Holy Trinity, since the fruitfulness of the Christian flock comes from seeing in the baptismal waters the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).⁷⁵

So then who is Laban, from whom the flock is claimed? Early Christians, reading Genesis mystically, took him as signifying none other than the devil.⁷⁶ Who else wrathfully pursues God's people, as Laban did Jacob, than “the devil [who] has come down to you in great wrath” (Revelation 12:12)? Who better blends flattery, deceit, insult, and accusation, as Laban did, than “the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9), who “has been sinning from the beginning” (1 John 3:8)? Many, alas, have been “captured by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26), as Jacob was lured into Laban's clutches in Haran.

When Laban catches up to Jacob in Gilead, Laban searches diligently through all that is Jacob's, certainly that he's going to find something that's his own, since “whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil” (1 John 3:8). But, as St. Ambrose (celebrated today) wrote, “Laban searched and found nothing that was his. How happy is the man in whom the Enemy has found nothing that he can call his own!”⁷⁷ “Give no opportunity to the devil,” advises the Apostle (Ephesians 4:27), and “do not be outwitted by Satan [and] his designs” (2 Corinthians 2:11), but rather “escape from the snare of the devil” (2 Timothy 2:26) and “stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11), as Jacob did against Laban.

Jacob was assailed with all of Laban's most devilishly beguiling words, his fiercest accusations, his deceptive misrepresentations – Laban tried his hardest to manipulate Jacob, as the devil does us. But when Laban's search came up empty, because Rachel had buried the idols in their shame, Jacob grew confident and spoke in God's name against his accuser, turning the tables back. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). He did just that. Laban was forced to seek a truce and distance. It was Jacob who set up the pillar and the heap of stones. It was Jacob who gave it its lasting name. It was Jacob who swore to the true God. It was Jacob who served the meaty meal on the mountain. And we, when the devil flees, may feast on the mountain, sharing the hallowed bread and wine from Christ's hands in the name of the Lord. We may reclaim our identity, for so long obscured by sin and the world, and be called back to the blessing of Abraham, away from our spiritual Aram.

I'll close with the words of St. Caesarius: “May the divine mercy grant that our Adversary may find nothing of his works in us! For if he finds nothing of his own, he will not be able to keep us or recall us from eternal life. Therefore, dearly beloved, let us look at the treasury of our conscience, let us examine the secret places of our heart, and if we find nothing there which belongs to the devil, let us rejoice and thank God.... However, if we recognize something of the devil's works or cunning in our souls, let us hasten to cast it out and get rid of it as deadly poison. Then, when the devil wants to ensnare us and can find nothing which belongs to him, he will depart in confusion,” to his own damned place – and we, to the God who's been with us all along.⁷⁸ Amen.