GENESIS 28:13-22 -- JACOB AND GOD

 

Genesis 28:13-22 Jacob and God

Sometimes we can learn a lot in the Bible from the smallest word or even from the absence of words. As an example, the above verses describe the aftermath of Jacob's night vision at Bethel of the heavenly ladder as he was on his way from his parents' house to that of his Uncle Laban.

God first unilaterally promises Jacob seven different things:

1. that He is the God of Jacob's ancestors

2. that he will give him and his descendants land

3. that his offspring will be many

4. that they will inhabit all parts of the earth

5. that all the families of the earth will be blessed through him

6. that He will be with Jacob wherever he goes

7. that He will bring him back safely to his own land

Since the number seven (and its multiples) is symbolic throughout the Bible of perfection or completion, God is in effect saying that He will bless Jacob thoroughly in every way possible.

Then Jacob wakes up, sets up a stone pillar of remembrance, and replies to God in verses 20-22 that if God will do all these things, then (“and only then” is implied) Jacob (1) will take Yahweh as his God, (2) make the stone God's house, and (3) give God a tenth of all his belongings.

This is in fact a replay of Jacob's earlier actions which had gotten him into his present fix, being forced to run away from home. Remember that by cheating his brother Esau out of his father's blessing on two separate occasions, he had made himself unwelcome in their midst.

And the fact is that Jacob didn't even need to go through all that scheming at all since, as related in Genesis 25:23, God had already promised Rebekah that her younger son would be favored by Him over the elder. And there is absolutely no doubt that she would have told Jacob that fact over and over again. But instead of simply accepting God's promise, he and Rebekeh felt it was still up to them to make sure that this promise came true, by whatever means they felt were necessary.

Jacob finds his match, however, in the scheming Laban who tricks Jacob into working an additional seven years by pulling a switch of identities on him on his wedding day, just as Jacob and Rebekeh had successfully hoodwinked Isaac by pretending that Jacob was his brother Esau instead. But all of this pain was entirely unnecessary in the first place and could have been avoided if Jacob had simply trusted God to be true to His word.

Then there is the lesson to be learned from considering in more detail the things Jacob demands out of the bargain he is willing to make with God on his own terms instead of accepting by grace what God is willing to give him with no strings attached. Note that in place of the complete lists of seven blessings above, what Jacob wants is the equivalent of blessings #'s 6 and 7. And to make sure that number 6 is thoroughly understood by God, Jacob defines it further as providing him with adequate food, drink, and clothing. In other words, there is really little difference between Jacob and his brother Esau, who gave away his birthright for a little food. Jacob seems to similarly despise the larger blessings God has for him in return for immediate gratification.

Thus, on top of Jacob turning a free gift from God into a contract which Jacob will only sign if God agrees to all of Jacob's demands, those demands are actually much less that what God had already promised to carry out. This whole story may sound absolutely ridiculous to us today with Jacob having the nerve of trying to get the upper hand over God in the first place and then compounding his nonsense by being willing to take much less that God had already offered him free from any obligation on his part. However, with my prior experiences with two chemists I knew who had Middle Eastern origins, I think I can understand Jacob's mindset a little better. One of these men was a devout Orthodox Jew and the other one was an Arab who was born in Israel. I won't bother telling you which story belongs to which since they both shared a common trait – wanting everything to be on their own terms and always being suspicious of anything that looked like too good a deal. And in each case, they, like Jacob, never seemed to learn their lesson.

One of these men was my next door neighbor, and both of our houses needed our asphalt driveways resurfaced at the same time. So we we were looking for an applicator who could do that job. (I should mention first that there was a common scam in the area at the time for a contractor to agree to add a topping of asphalt to peoples' driveways but they applying used motor oil instead, which looked great at first, but totally washed away with the first good rain.)

I found a man who agreed to do the job for a certain price and sent him over to my neighbor's house for an estimate there. Our driveways were about the same square footage, and so the quote for that job was the same. My neighbor laughed at me for accepting the opening bid without further dickering, and proceeded to show me how it should be done. First, he pointed out to the contractor that his driveway was a little bit shorter than mine and therefore the price for his job should be lowered a little. The man agreed. Then a day later he called the man back and said that since the same equipment could be used to do both our jobs at the same time, that would mean a savings for the contractor, who wouldn't have to drive his equipment to another site. Again the man agreed to lower the price.

Then the evening before the contractor was scheduled to come out for the job, my friend got the jitters. He began worrying about how easily he had been able to talk the man down in price and became convinced that the contractor would play some trick on him to recoup his loss. He actually called the contractor up that night and told him that he was willing to pay the original quote instead of the lower amount. The man said, “No,you got me fair and square. You only have to pay what we finally agreed on.”

Well that reply only intensified my friend's fears that he was going to get gypped, and so he had a sleepless night worrying about it. We were both away at work when the asphalting was done, but as soon as we parked out in front of the house, my neighbor carefully looked over my drive and his, trying to see if there was any subtle difference he could detect between the two. And that continued every day for several weeks until it finally rained. But after the rain was over, he saw that the driveways both looked as good as new and he could finally relax. So he, like Jacob, caused himself much prolonged grief over something that he didn't need to worry about in the first place.

And to close out that story, my friend apparently was unable to shake himself of his habit of trying to get the best out of others. He ended up getting in trouble with the law and having to pay a large fine when he attempted to get out of paying income tax to the government on profits from some land he had developed by putting the land in his nephew's name.

My second story is a bit shorter. I was being relocated from the Northeast to the Southwest United States by the company, and so I realized that I didn't have any more use for my set of studded snow tires I had just used for one winter season. I knew that another chemist had a car that used that size tire, and so I offered to give my tires to him. Immediately, he became very wary of the offer and wanted to know exactly how much money I wanted for them. I assured him that it was a free gift since they would be absolutely useless to me where I was going. Then he wanted to know what kind of shape the tires were in. I assured him that they had only been used for one season, and were good for at least one more.

He was still waiting for the other shoe to fall, because he had apparently never run into anyone in his acquaintance who would just give away something free of charge. Even after I had given him the tires, I got the impression that he was still waiting for me to ask him to do something for him in return. The whole concept of grace was lost on him entirely.

And like my other friend, this one continued to milk our company for all he could get by falsely claiming religious discrimination against him.