[1]We all have a favorite place on the planet, somewhere that stirs our souls with its natural beauty. Perhaps for you it’s a white beach, or an alpine mountain, or something else. For me its Longboat Key Florida, on the beach, at sunset. To me, nothing quite stills the soul than a stiff sea breeze. And to me, there’s no beach quite like the one at Longboat Key. The very thought of it brings comfort to me, and each time we visit, it always shines out beautifully, never quite the same, yet always familiar, revealing glory after glory.
Why begin like this today? Because the same is true of Scripture, and the same has proven true each week in our time in Genesis. Each verse, each chapter, each narrative we come to wows us with the unsearchable riches of Christ. Each time we open the Word, it always shines out beautifully, never quite the same, yet always familiar, revealing glory after glory. There’s always more to see, more to discover, and it’s always wonderful. Church, there is no diminishment with Christ. No hidden disappointments, just unending and ever-increasing truth and beauty and goodness.
Would you pray with me now, that God would once again do this in our midst?
Lord, you are great, and you are always better than we think you are. Today as we open up your word, come and meet us, open our eyes, open our hearts to bask in your unsearchable riches. In Jesus name, amen!
Well, we have been in the section of Genesis where Jacob is the main character in view and we have watched him in times of great blessing and we have watched him in times of great sin. The same continues on today as we finish out chapter 30, more sin is before us, yet God’s blessing continues to follow after this Patriarch. But before we get to it remember briefly where we just were last week.
In the first half of chapter 30 we see Jacob going back and forth between his two wives and their two servants in what I called the ‘birth wars.’ Pastor Andrew led us through this section last week as both Rachel and Leah employed various methods and measures to bear children, and through all these efforts, Jacob’s house increases. As the text continues in v25, now Jacob’s property and possessions increase.[2]
Our passage today is 30:25-43 easily divides into two portions, the contract and the contest.[3] See first…
The Contract (v25-34)
“As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you. Name your wages, and I will give it.” Jacob said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?” He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.”
Jacob has now fulfilled his 14 year contract of service to Laban. And clearly, as v25 shows us, as soon as Rachel (the wife Jacob truly loved) had given birth to Joseph Jacob feels free of his service to Laban and desires to go back home. Jacob not only asks to be sent away but he asks that Laban give him his wives and his children that he may go away. And then he gives a reason for it in the end of v26, “…for you know the service that I have given you.” Perhaps you may be asking, ‘Why did Jacob ask for his wives and children to be given to him?’ We might think that they already belong to him, because they’re his wives and his children. But, although they do in a very real sense belong to Jacob, Laban believes that they belong to him, because all of this was given to Jacob while he was a servant under contract in Laban’s household. Technically then according to the culture at this time, if Jacob were to not ask this question and just leave he would have looked like a thief running away.[4]
We generally should believe the best about people, but as v27 begins and we see the first words being “But Laban said…” we do not expect anything good to be said by Laban in response. We’ve seen him very deceptive and cunning in all his interactions before and sadly the same remains true in this moment as well. Notice what he says in response to Jacob’s question. Rather than speaking to him as an uncle, or as a father-in-law, he speaks to Jacob as if Jacob is his superior. It’s almost as if he’s trying to schmooze him or kissing up to him by saying “If I have found favor in your sight…” this is the language of a servant to his master, so why is Laban talking this way to Jacob? It already fills us with a kind of concern for what he’s really up to. Laban then remarks with another strange phrase, that he has used divination to learn how much the Lord has blessed him because of Jacob. We’re not told exactly what this practice of divination entailed, but we do know from historical sources that divination, or a kind of pagan magic, was common in this culture and that God never thinks or speaks favorably of such practices. That Laban responds like this not only shows us how pagan he is in his own customs and religious behavior, it shows us how obtuse and unaware Laban really is. All he had to do to learn of the great blessing God had given him through Jacob was look around him. It was obvious with the growing number of people and possessions in his household, but he did not learn it by just looking around him, no, he employed a kind of divination to come to the knowledge of this fact.
And once knowing this fact, that through Jacob God is greatly blessing him, Laban is probably aware of another fact, if Jacob leaves he will no longer be so blessed. Very similar how the Egyptians would later refuse to let Israel go because of how greatly they were blessed through them.[5] Thus, Jacob must stick around. So Laban begins bargaining with Jacob in v28, asking him to name his wages. And Jacob responds not by naming his wages but by reminding him of the obvious as a kind of offended son-in-law here. He has served him for these many years and God has blessed him immensely. In fact, Jacob says in v30 that wherever his feet have turned the Lord has blessed his work. Is it not high time for him to take care of his own household? In this we see a plea from Jacob for Laban to treat him no longer as a servant but as a son. He should not only grant the request of Jacob but Laban should be eager to help establish the household of his son-in-law. But notice how Laban responds in v31. He will not treat him as a son and will not bless him on the way out, but again he brings it back to bargaining, saying “What shall I give you?”
You might imagine Jacob getting angry at this response, but he doesn’t. He keeps his cool, and begins his own deception. In v31-33 makes Laban an offer that he can’t refuse. Now normally in a flock of sheep and goats, the sheep are generally white and the goats are generally darker. Jacob says he will go through Laban’s flock and take out all the speckled and spotted animals leaving all the pure colored animals for Laban. And somewhat ironically, Laban’s name means white so the offer at hand is for Laban to take all the Laban animals while Jacob takes all the miscolored animals, and that this will be his wages, and Laban can even check later to make sure he’s honest.
Laban, probably thrilled at such a good deal, recognizing how much he’ll receive and how little Jacob will receive in this, immediately accepts in v34.[6]
This is their contract. Now we come to the rest of the chapter as we see the contest in v35-43.
The Contest (v35-43)
“But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock. Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks, but for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.”
I think my first reaction after reading this the portion is always “WHAT?” I know this all sounds very strange but I do think it’s actually quite humorous and simple to understand so let’s unpack this together.
Laban, being a deceiver himself, anticipates Jacob trying to deceive him. So what does he do? In v35-36 he goes through all his flock and removes all the speckled and spotted animals and separates them from the rest of the flock and from Jacob by a three days journey. Of course, this only leaves pure colored animals in the flock, which left nothing left for Jacob to take as his wages. What a good father-in-law right? Geez. But Jacob has a plan, or at least he thinks so.
In v37-42 we find the plan and it’s a strange one to say the least. Jacob was going to find branches of a certain color, lay them in or near the watering trough, to not only encourage the animals to mate but to produce offspring matching the color of the sticks. In this way Jacob could intentionally build himself a very large flock, and leave Laban with only a small flock. And more so, Jacob was going to intentionally pair the strong animals together while using his color sticks to produce strong offspring for himself, while pairing weaker animals together while not using the sticks to produce weak offspring for Laban. And…his plan works! We read the conclusion in v43, “Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.”
What do we make of this plan? Two things. First, I think this plan is how Jacob retaliates for the wife swap from earlier.[7] Remember, on the wedding night Jacob was excited to finally have Rachel after working seven years for her, yet in the morning it was Leah! Laban had duped Jacob by swapping out beautiful Rachel for weak eyed Leah. Which of course led to more service for Laban so that he could marry Rachel too. Well, now Jacob, through this strange color stick plan, gets Laban back. He carries out his plan, and what’s the result? Jacob comes out of this scene with a large beautiful flock, while Laban gets a not so large weak flock. Jacob the deceiver, who was deceived, now deceives again.
Second, a brief word must be given to discuss the nature of this color stick plan. As we’ve seen it was common cultural belief in their day that if animals were exposed to a certain kind of visual stimulus during mating the outcome of that mating could be manipulated, in such a way that the color of the offspring would match the color of the stimulus. The question to be asked of this is, did this really work? Some do believe so. That this really was how Jacob bested Laban and got the result he was desiring, a speckled and spotted yet strong and large flock. There are options here. It might be that this really did work, many think that. I land on this being an instance very similar to what we saw in the earlier part of this chapter during the birth wars.[8] Back in 30:14 we saw mandrakes being employed to encourage fertility, another common cultural belief of their day. In both scenes the question is the same isn’t it? Did the mandrakes really work then, and did these multi-colored sticks really work here? Well, one thing is for sure, Jacob certainly thought so. I don’t think we’re required to agree with Jacob, and believe that it worked.[9] I think both of these, the mandrakes and the color sticks, belong in the category of old wives tales.[10] Ultimately though it doesn’t matter really, because we all know it was God who was the one governing the outcome of all of these events.[11] And that He, in His kindness, accommodated to Jacob’s own time and customs.
Conclusion:
I think this story always gives us readers a sense of satisfaction. That deceitful Laban gets what he deserves, finally! But how did Jacob win out in the end? By returning once again to his own deceitful scheming. So, once again we have a narrative before us where there really are no good guys for us to point to. Which only leaves us with one conclusion. God is the hero is the story. God had promised Jacob that He would bless him greatly. In 28:14 God says, “Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Our passage today, once again shows us that God is blessing, greatly blessing Jacob, despite Jacob.
Church, we need this reminder. None of us can walk around with a smugness or swagger, as if we were the reason great blessing comes to anyone or anything. No, God has blessed us, lavishly so in Christ, not because of us but despite us. Despite what we are. Despite what we do. And despite our many sins.
Perhaps though you don’t see this as good news yet. Many of you do and praise God for that. But I’m sure that some of you don’t see this yet. Maybe you think your sins somehow cut you off from ever receiving grace and blessing from God. Be encouraged if this is you. God is drawn toward the unlovable, the sinful, the wronged, and the forgotten. We’ve seen this over and over in our time in Genesis, and no wonder, we see the same thing when this God comes to dwell among us in the person of Jesus! He also goes toward the unlovable and the sinful and pours out his grace.
So be encouraged. “Whatever darkness inside of you troubles your heart, whatever capacities for wickedness and stupidity lurk within, whatever haunts you from your past, however fearful you are that you will never change, know this: your sin does not intimidate Jesus. What is right in Him far outweighs what is wrong in you. There is more grace in Him than guilt in you. He is better at saving than you are at sinning. It is at the point where all of us feel the most disgusted with ourselves, the most helpless and most worthy of judgment – it is here, in our worst defilement that we find Jesus to be the most tender and gracious toward us.”[12]
This is how Christ welcomes us, and this cross-shaped gospel welcome is what we’re to offer all in His name. So as we sinful deceivers welcome other sinful deceivers to the sinless savior heaven’s welcome becomes real in our midst. The very thought of it brings comfort to me…never quite the same, yet always familiar, revealing glory after glory.
[1] This introduction stems from Ray Ortlund & Sam Allberry, You’re Not Crazy: Gospel Sanity for Weary Churches, 84-85.
[2] Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2001), 416.
[3] Waltke, 417.
[4] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50, WBC (Waco, TX: Zondervan, 2000), 254.
[5] Wenham, 260.
[6] Wenham, 255.
[7] Waltke, Genesis, 420.
[8] Waltke, 420.
[9] Kevin DeYoung, Possessions and Peace, sermon 2.6.22.
[10] R. Kent Hughes, Genesis, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 385.
[11] John D. Currid, Genesis 25:19-50:26, EP Study Commentary (Holywell, UK: Evangelical Press, 2015), 98.
[12] Ortlund & Allberry, You’re Not Crazy, 36-37.
