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The deceitfulness of man - no problem to God.

In this chapter we have a further example of how the LORD is not hampered in fulfilling His plans and purposes. Moses has already been at pains to teach this as we saw when we considered ch.27 – the fact that he returns to this subject again suggests that the Israelites hovering on the borders of the Promised Land needed to hear this lesson again. It is probably a lesson that we need to hear repeatedly too in our own day and age!

Man's duplicity and rebellion against the LORD are inexcusable and the LORD certainly does not approve of such behaviour either from His own people or from their enemies. However we must not for a moment imagine that God is somehow sitting in Heaven and looking on as a helpless observer to see what will happen on earth! No, He is not wringing His hands in despair as He desperately awaits some man/men who will finally cooperate with Him in moving His plans along.

Yes, God does allow deceit to fester in His world but there is no way that such deceit will prevent Him achieving His purposes.

Let us look together at how God advances His purposes in this chapter. You'll remember that the previous chapter ended with the LORD repeating to Jacob the covenant promises that had been made with Abraham and Isaac before him. These covenant blessings had been supplemented by terrifically encouraging promises whereby the LORD committed Himself to looking Jacob and to never abandoning him.

With those encouraging promises ringing in his ears Jacob continues his journey with a new spring in his step. He is off to find his mother's relatives and to get a wife for himself.

Jacob has just pledged himself to follow and to serve the LORD but as the chapter unfolds it becomes very clear that he has a whole lot to learn yet about discipleship. A new believer does not become a mature wise disciple overnight!

Moses races on. The remaining 450 miles are covered in one brief sentence and the next event of significance that Moses wants to tell us about is Jacob's arrival near Haran. If you look on a map Haran is N.N.E. of Beersheba from where Jacob had begun his journey. But now Moses describes his arrival as being in "the land of the people of the east". Has Moses got his geography wrong? No. Do you remember what we've said earlier about the east? In Genesis moving eastwards signifies a movement away from the LORD. Is Moses here indicating that this part of Jacob's family is not God-fearing?

Be that as it may Jacob has arrived at a well and that well was not far from Haran as he learns from the shepherds he finds waiting around the well. So he questions them a little further and the shepherds, who don't seem particularly talkative, respond by affirming that they do know Laban. They then indicate to Jacob that his daughter Rachel is at that very moment approaching the well.

A believer reading these details at once discerns the Sovereign hand of God at work – chance and coincidence? Well "coincidences" just seem to happen so often when God is about His business!

Before we proceed we need to remind ourselves of another wedding story in Genesis. That story too involved a meeting at a well (possibly even this well). Do you remember how Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac? The stories are similar and yet the differences of detail serve to highlight some important matters for us.

In the case of Abraham's servant the whole affair was bathed in prayer. He was very careful not to rush on and trust to his own understanding of what was going on. As the scene unfolded this servant blessed the LORD God attributing everything to Him.

But in the present case of Jacob we're not given the slightest hint that Jacob prayed fro guidance or that he thanked the LORD for leading him to his relatives. Jacob may well have promised to serve the LORD but he still acts as though he wishes to take matters entirely into his own hands.

It isn't easy to change the habits of a life-time and Jacob has been a schemer and a manipulator all his life. Having been told Rachel is approaching he first tries to encourage the other shepherds to leave. And then when Rachel does arrive he is again pushing on without seeking the LORD taking matters into his own hands as he removes the stone from the well. We're told that Jacob kissed his cousin Rachel and that he wept aloud – probably relieved to have found the family he was seeking – but there is not one word of thanks given to the LORD for directing and guiding him!

How central the LORD was as Abraham's servant sought a wife for Isaac – how central Jacob was as he looked for a wife for himself!

This is not something that we are immune from either. How easy it is for us at one moment to profess our commitment to follow the LORD only shortly after to try to take the reigns of our life into our own hands as though He were uninterested or unable to direct us further!

Years before Rebekah had run to Bethuel and to Laban with word of a man at the well. Now it is Rachel's turn to run to Laban her father.

I wonder whether greedy old Laban remembered all those camels and all that wealth. Was history repeating itself? So he goes off quickly to meet and greet his relative.

It must have been something of a let down for Laban – no riches but just a man on his own with just the clothes he's standing in.

Doubtless it didn't take long for Laban to ask Jacob why he was there, what he had come for etc.

v.13 is intriguing "Jacob told Laban all these things." Just how much did Jacob tell his old uncle? Did Laban question him and draw detail after detail from him? Did Jacob explain the rivalry between himself and his brother Esau? Did he explain he had had to leave home in extremis after having cheated Esau one too many times?

It would seem clear that Jacob explained sufficiently for Laban to recognize that they were indeed two of a kind! Yes, they were blood relatives but that was not all – they were both similar types prepared to cheat and scheme to get ahead.

It doesn't take long for Laban to turn things to his advantage. So Jacob has come without any riches but at least he a strong man and strong men can make useful labourers. Laban soon has Jacob working for him. Only after he's been working there a month does Laban begin to mention the possibility of wages!

From now on Laban is hardly treating his nephew as family – he invites negotiations concerning wages and thus Jacob becomes a lowly labourer under contract.

Before Jacob can give an answer Moses supplies us with the information we need to appreciate what happens next. Laban has two daughters and Jacob is captivated by the shapeliness and the beauty of the younger of the two, Rachel.

Now there is nothing wrong in itself with physical beauty but how often are men swayed by that alone! Jacob ploughs prayerlessly on – the pretty face has hooked him. And yet later events will reveal Rachel to be far from an ideal choice. She doesn't conduct herself well in the albeit difficult marital relationships that develop; she remains attached to the gods of her father's idolatry; she may well be her husband's preferred wife but it will be the unloved Leah who produces the Messianic line. But we mustn't get too far ahead of ourselves.

Jacob seizes on the opportunity and makes his play. He wants to marry Rachel and he wants to make it impossible for Laban to refuse. He offers getting on for twice the going rate – years of work to serve as the bride price he is prepared to pay!

Laban can't believe his ears – he gets to keep the services of his daughter for seven more years all the wile receiving an inflated price. He readily accepts – or at least appears to…

And Jacob serves happily for the next seven years – how small a thing this seemed to him because he was working for his beloved Rachel!

At the end of 7 years Jacob asks for his bride – Laban didn't seem in a hurry but Jacob now was!

Laban responds by making a feast – the word used signifies "a drinking banquet" and the presence of too much alcohol may well help us to understand what happens next.

Marriages festivities would habitually last a week with the bride being brought to her husband at the end of the first day – she would be veiled throughout the day. And Laban pulls a fast one – already the wedding present he'd given of one servant was pretty stingy but now he swaps Leah fro Rachel! Jacob is perhaps worse the wear for drink and in the absence of lighting doesn't realize what's happened until the next morning. But then he's furious!

Jacob confronts old uncle Laban and accusing him of deceit. But the old boy is totally unfazed merely replying that it's not the custom to give the younger before the firstborn. Did those words touch Jacob's conscience I wonder? Because he had done just that. Jacob had been deceived in the darkness of the night after an evening drinking bout. Years earlier he'd deceived his blind father who'd also been drinking!

So Jacob the cheat has been trumped – he's met his match in old uncle Laban who cheats him comprehensively proposing a further seven years labour for the wife he really wanted! Only this time Jacob will have Rachel at the end of the week.

The first seven years of service had flown by but I don't think that was the case for the second set of seven.

When Rebekah had urged Jacob to flee to her brother Laban all she had had in mind was a sojourn of a few days, he would only be gone a while. Those few days turned into 14 long years!

Where has the LORD been through all of this? Has He been there at all? Isn't it often the way of the world to act in ways that totally ignore the LORD and then to complain that He is to blame when things go wrong? Let's not be like that!

Jacob has continued to live by his wits or to fly by the seat of his pants and see where it's got him. But the LORD begins to multiply him by giving him.

Leah is unloved – how much a victim, a pawn or a rogue in the affair she was we simply don't know but she suffered for it. And the LORD God was not indifferent. As the author and given of life He allows her to conceive not once or twice but four times while her sister remains barren.

And for the first time we begin to find one person in this story find solace in the LORD. Her spiritual progress is nevertheless slow.

Initially she responds by imagining that her boys will be the way of winning her husband's love but apparently that did not happen.

There is a change after the birth of her 4^th son Judah. Instead of seeing this son as a further means of winning her husband's affection she humbles herself before the LORD and gives Him the Praise!

And how significant these boys will turn out to be! Four heads of tribes! Moses and Aaron will descend from her third son Levi and it would be the privilege of the Levites to serve the LORD in the Temple. King David and King Jesus would be descendants of Leah's 4^th son Judah.

As later Israel would read this story of Laban's deception and Jacob's wrong choices they would nevertheless be brought to see that through it all their sovereign LORD was able to fulfil His promises.

The LORD had told Jacob that his offspring would be as the dust of the earth spreading throughout the entire world. Here is the beginning of that accomplishment. But the final accomplishment comes only through Jesus Christ as His disciples are sent out into all the world, to all nations:

Gal.3:7-9 "Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith."

So when life seems to be filed with nothing but human deviousness, duplicity and corruption we need not panic and imagine that the LORD has let things get out of control and therefore His promises are compromised. It is true we might not be able see just how the LORD is working or how He will proceed but this piece of real history embedded in Scripture for us tells us so very clearly that nothing can stand in His way!                   

To God be the Glory.