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GENESIS 31
Jacob’s flight, Laban’s pursuit and God’s faithful protection -- (DATE: Around 1694 before Christ)
DISCOVER Genesis 31: After Jacob had worked under Laban for another six years, increasing his own wealth, he noticed that Laban’s children began to speak ill of him, accusing him of having stolen all his wealth from his uncle. It was during this time, that the LORD appeared to him in a dream and told him to return to his own people in Canaan, and that He would be with Jacob. -- So Jacob called for his wives the next time he went to tend to his flocks and told them of this, complaining that not only had he lost the favor, with which Laban had looked upon him at first, but also how Laban had cheated him of his rightful payment time and time again up to this point. He also underlined that the command for him to leave came from the same God he had seen in his dream back in Bethel. Hearing all that, both Leah and Rachel consented, because they had become foreigners to their kin, not expecting to be provided for here, since their father had sold them to Jacob. Agreeing that the wealth Jacob had amassed in the past six years had been given to Jacob by God, in spite of Laban having tried hard to press as much out of him as he could, they assured their husband that they would follow him if he chose to obey his God. -- The next time Laban was away from his home to sheer the sheep of his flocks, Jacob rose early and put his wives and children upon his camels, and taking all their belongings he drove before him his flocks as he fled from his uncle’s place in northern Mesopotamia. Unbeknownst to him, Rachel, however, took something else with her as well, namely the idols her father worshiped. -- When Laban learned of his nephew’s escape three days later, he gathered his men and followed him in hot pursuit. Shortly before Laban caught up with Jacob and his family, God appeared to him in his sleep, warning him that he was not to do anything to them. -- So when Laban confronted his nephew in Gilead (at the north-eastern border of Canaan) he didn’t dare become violent and instead only demanded to know why he had withheld his daughters and grandchildren from him so that he couldn’t send them off with a feast and good blessings. -- Admitting that his hands were tied by Jacob’s God, Laban demanded to know why Jacob had stolen his idols. Denying to have done any such thing, Jacob offered him to search through everything he had taken with him, to prove his innocence. So Laban searched, even in the tents of his daughters, but because Rachel claimed to be menstruating, she managed to hide the idols by sitting on them the whole time while Laban searched her quarters. -- When Laban returned empty handed, Jacob had enough from his uncle and demanded to know what he had done to him that Laban would wrong him so much and even pursue him after he left. After all, he had given him every benefit and bit of good will for the past twenty years. Jacob knew that if it weren’t for the God of Abraham and the God of his father Isaac, Laban would have thrown him out empty handed regardless, which is why God had rebuked him in his dream. -- Lashing out that all of Jacob’s possessions were actually his, Laban nonetheless had to admit defeat, for before the LORD he dared not lay a finger on anything. Thus he asked Jacob to make a covenant of non-aggression with him (probably in the hopes that Jacob would not take even more from him). Jacob agreed to his uncle’s suggestion and did what he had done in Bethel, erecting a pillar using a single stone in respect to the Lord God. But knowing that Laban and his men worshiped different Gods he called them to pile up multiple stones on a heap to act as their witnesses to this covenant. To Laban and his kinsmen this place, which he and Jacob had agreed not to cross to harm the other party, became known as Jegar-sahadutha (meaning “witness heap” in Aramaic), whereas Jacob called it as Galeed (meaning “witness heap” in Hebrew) and Mizpah (meaning “watchtower” in Hebrew). This way the two men had peace, broke bread and spent the night there in harmony. -- Laban then left for his home the next day, once he had bid farewell to his daughters and grandchildren, blessing them.