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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net
Editor: Elvi Glass

A Prophet's Eye-View Of Bible History"

Lesson 11
The Restart (part 4 of 5)
Jacob [A.K.A. Israel]

By Teresa Seputis

This period of history covers the lives of Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. We already covered the first three (Noah, and Abraham and Isaac) in previous lessons. This lesson will look at Jacob's life.

Jacob

We already developed Jacob's childhood when looking at Isaac's life. We saw that Jacob was not his father's favorite. His brother was a manly outdoorsman, but Jacob was a bit of a wimp. Jacob was also a manipulator and schemer, which he apparently learned from this mother. The biggest "scheme" was when his father decided to give his brother the firstborn's blessing and sent him out to hunt some game to prepare for him to eat before he blessed him. Jacob and Rebekah plotted together to cook a goat from the flock and to disguise Jacob as Esau. (This only worked because Isaac had lost his sight.) So Jacob went in and stole the firstborn's blessing from his brother. This made his brother furious, and he wanted to murder Jacob. So Rebekah, trying to protect Jacob, sent him to go live with her brother Laban, who lived very far away. The "excuse" she gave was that he was to go find a wife from his own people instead of from the local girls.

God appeared to Jacob in a dream while he was in route to Laban's home. This is the famous dream of the ladder stretching from earth to heaven with the angels ascending and descending on the ladder. God stood at the top of the ladder and spoke to Jacob, giving him the same promise He'd given to Abraham and Isaac. God also promised to be with him and bring him home safely. Jacob's reaction was interesting. First he was afraid, and then he made an interesting vow which basically equated to this: "God, I won't take God as my God now, but if You keep Your promise to be with me and take care of me and bring me home safely, then You will become My God."

Gen 29 introduces us to Laban's character and he is even more of a manipulator than his sister Rebekah. Jacob falls in love with Rachel and wanted to marry her. He agreed to work seven years for his uncle in order to be allowed to marry Rachel. The time passed quickly for him because he was so in love with her. But his uncle schemed on their wedding night and gave him Leah (the older sister) instead of Rachel. Brides were heavily veiled for the wedding ceremony. Jacob may have gotten drunk at his wedding, because he did not realize that he had the wrong woman until the morning, after he'd already slept with her.

Of course Jacob was very upset by this -- he'd worked seven years for the woman he loved and had been given someone else. His uncle made a lame excuse, and told him he could have Rachel a week later if he would agree to work for him for another seven years. Jacob agreed to this, and a week later, he had two wives.

Do you remember how Jacob's father had loved his older brother more than him and had given Esau preferable treatment? Jacob did the same thing with his wives. He was not cruel to Leah, but he loved Rachel more and treated her better. Apparently both of the sisters started out barren. But God took Leah's side (since she was not loved) and gave her four sons. Leah hoped the children would gain her some love and affection from her husband, but it did not work out that way. Jacob remained madly in love with Rachel and ignored Leah.

However, Rachel remained barren and she became very jealous of Leah's children. So she had Jacob sleep with Bilhah (her slave) and when Bilhah had a son, Rachel felt a bit vindicated. Bilhah had a second son for Rachel and Jacob. Apparently there was a fierce competition between Leah and Rachel. Since Leah was unable to have anymore children, she had Jacob sleep with her slave, Zilpah, and Zilpah also had two kids. At this point, Jacob had eight sons, but Rachel was not the mother of any of them.

Family life must have been pretty tense. Rachel and Leah were extremely competitive with each other. Genesis 30 records an interesting story -- Jacob was only sleeping with Rachel and he was totally ignoring Leah. Leah had some mandrake plants that Rachel wanted, so Rachel traded for them -- Leah could have a night with her husband if she gave Rachel some of the mandrakes. Leah agreed and Jacob complied and Leah became pregnant with a fifth son. She also ended up having a sixth son, bringing the total number of Jacob's sons to 10. Then Leah had a daughter named Dinah.

Some time later, Rachel finally had a son, who she named Joseph. When Joseph was born, Jacob decided it was time to go home and show his kids to his father. However, Laban wanted him to stay on because God was blessing Laban's household and finances for Jacob's sake. So Laban began paying Jacob wages to continue working for him. Jacob did not recognize God's providence and blessing so he schemed to "get rich." God blessed him despite his scheming, and he ended up massing a huge herd of sheep. Jacob ended up becoming quite wealthy because God was prospering him, but at this point in his life, he did not recognize that God was the source of his prosperity. He thought he was a self-made man, that his scheming and manipulating was why he had become so rich.

Laban's sons became resentful towards Jacob since he seemed to be amassing his personal fortune at their expense. About then, God spoke to Jacob and instructed him to "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives." And God promised to be with him. It turned out to be more difficult than Jacob anticipated to obey that command, because Laban did not want him to leave. Jacob literally had to load up his family and flee. Laban pursued him, and just as he caught up to him, God visited Laban in a dream and warned him to leave Jacob alone. So Laban basically said goodbye to his daughters, blessed his grandchildren and went back home.

God had protected Jacob from his scheming uncle, but his troubles were far from over, because his brother Esau still hated him and wanted to kill him. That was a very real concern to Jacob, particularly when Esau set out to "meet him" en route before he got near his parents (and potential protection). Angels came to Jacob. Immediately after that he came up with a strategy to appease his brother -- first sending an expensive gift and then sending the slaves with their 4 sons, then sending Leah with her six sons and finally sending Rachel and her son last. We do not know if that was yet another scheme that Jacob concocted from his own resources or if it was the suggestion of the angels that visited him. Jacob found himself in a very interesting place. He was risking his life to obey the God who he had not yet committed to follow. God had already met a portion of Jacob's conditions for serving Him -- to be with him and prosper him. Now Jacob was desperate for God to meet the other condition -- to bring him home safely.

The night before he was to encounter Esau (and possibly die), Jacob had a very restless night. He had a visitation and wrestled with "a man" (probably an angel but maybe Christ) all night. We know that the "man" could have freed himself if he wanted to because God and angels are much more powerful than people. So we must assume this was some type of test for Jacob -- that he would persist in seeking after God and not give up. At daybreak the angel told Jacob to let him go and he said he would not let the angel go until he blessed him. The blessing that Jacob got was that his name was changed from Jacob to Israel (one who wrestles and prevails).

When Jacob finally met up with Esau, he humbled himself and Esau had a change of heart and received him warmly. Esau wanted to accompany Jacob home, but Jacob declined and ended up settling in Succoth, a long ways from where Esau lived. Some time later, God told Jacob to return to Bethel and to put away his foreign Gods and serve only God. Jacob obeyed and God met him at Bethel. There God changed his name to Israel, just like the "man" had prophesied in his blessing. At that point, God also renewed the covenant he had made with Abraham and Isaac with Jacob.

Rachel, who was getting elderly at this point, got pregnant with a second son. Unfortunately she died in childbirth. However the baby was born healthy and became Jacob's 12th son. Shortly after that, Isaac (Jacob's dad) died.

You would think Jacob learned some life-lessons to make him wiser in family relationships. But that was not the case. He favored Rachel's two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, far above the other ten. And that created a lot of jealousy and sibling rivalry. He showed overt favor to Joseph over his brothers, and that eventually caused the ten elder boys to plot against Joseph. The were going to kill him, but they ended up selling him as a slave instead. But they reported to their father that a wild animal had killed Joseph.

This was too much for Jacob. He had recently lost his beloved wife and then his father and now his favorite son. He entered into a severe depression and grieving that lasted most of the rest of his life. Jacob's life was not a very happy one from that day forward. He eventually transferred his affections to Rachel's other son, Benjamin. The bible does not explicitly spell it out, but there are indications that Jacob suffered from depression for a long time after he lost Joseph. He was never close to his other ten sons like he was close to Benjamin and Joseph. You would think he would have been determined to treat all of his sons well, since he did not like it when his own father favored his brother over him. Unfortunately, Jacob repeated his father's mistakes when raising his own children.

Jacob was very protective of Benjamin. When a severe famine hit, he sent all of his other sons to Egypt to buy grain, but he kept Benjamin safely at home with him. Nine of the ten sons returned and reported that the other was in prison in Egypt and would not be released until they brought Benjamin back with them. Jacob was content to let his older son rot in prison in Egypt rather than risk endangering Benjamin. When the food ran out again, and they had to go back to Egypt for more, Jacob reluctantly let his sons take Benjamin with him.

Jacob's personal misery shows us that God's blessings and favor are not synonyms with personal happiness. Jacob was God's chosen and anointed man, the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. He had the potential for much joy from his many sons, all of whom wanted their father's approval and affection. But his own personal issues had not been dealt with, and they became stumbling blocks for him. He ended up acting out on his family the same offenses that were committed against him when he was young. For this we learn that it is very important to allow God to heal our past hurts and move on to wholeness. God desires our joy to be full and He wants to heal us. But if we don't cooperate with Him in the process, it can leave us in a condition where we are unable to experience the joy of the Lord, even when we are surrounded by God's blessings and favor.

Despite his character flaws and weaknesses, God was merciful to Jacob. In the end, he discovered that Joseph was still alive and was allowed to see him again. Jacob relocated his entire household to Egypt and Joseph took good care of him and his family during the famine. He was reunited with his favorite son, and he got to see and bless his grandchildren. His depression lifted those last few years of his life and his faith in God was restored. He believed God's prophesy that after 400 years in Egypt, God would lead the tribes of Israel out of Egypt. That is why he made Joseph promise that he would not be buried in Egypt. He became a man of great faith at the very end and he died a happy man.


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-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

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