Sunday Night, May 26, 2019 AM

If you remember, we've just talked about the way in which Jacob stole the blessing, deceived his father with the help of his mother to take the blessing. Of course, he had purchased the birthright from Esau, and even though he had deceived his father and Esau had threatened to kill him, Isaac and Rebekah send Jacob away to Haran, back to where she's from, so that he may go find a wife.

Jacob is blessed by his father Isaac to do so, and Isaac, with full awareness of who Jacob is, conveys to him the blessings that were conveyed to him by Abraham. The blessings really have been handed down from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob.

To confirm this, we have Jacob having a vision at Bethel, wherein he sees a staircase or a ladder stretching from heaven to earth. We talked about the significance of that as Christ points to himself as Jacob's ladder, the one who mediates between heaven and earth, the one through whom all the word of God and the will of God is fulfilled.

And so, Jacob has had this incredible moment in his life. He has renamed the name of the place he's at, it was called Luz, but he names it Bethel, house of God, Bethel, house, God's house. And he has made this vow after hearing the blessings, the promises of God affirmed to him.

He may imagine how encouraging this must have been for Jacob, one who had been very alone, cut off from his family and so on and so forth, to hear this word from God. And so now we're going to read through, go through the first 20 verses of Genesis 29.

Jacob Arrives in Haran and Meets Rachel

It says,. Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the sons of the east. He looked and saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it, for from that well they watered the flocks.

Now the stone on the mouth of the well was large. When all the flocks were gathered there, they would then roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep and put the stone back in its place on the mouth of the well.

Jacob said to them, my brothers, where are you from? And they said, we are from Haran. He said to them, do you know Laban, the son of Nahor? And they said, we know him. And he said to them, is it well with him?

And they said, it is well. And here is Rachel, his daughter, coming with the sheep. He said, behold, it is still high day. It is not time for the livestock to be gathered. Water the sheep and go pasture them.

But they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered and they roll the stone from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep. While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess.

When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother.

Then Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted his voice and wept. Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebekah's son. And she ran and told her father. So when Laban heard the news of Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him into his house.

Then he related to Laban all these things. Laban said to him, surely you are my bone and my flesh. And he stayed with him a month. Then Laban said to Jacob, because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing?

Tell me, what shall your wages be? Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah and the name of the younger was Rachel. And Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful of form and face.

Now Jacob loved Rachel. So he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel. Laban said, it is better that I give her to you than to give her to another man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel.

And they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her. Well, when we think about this story, the first thing we see in the text is this valiant act by Jacob. Valiant act. Jacob goes on his journey.

And it's an interesting turn of phrase in the Hebrew. It says he lifted up his feet and hence we feel light-footed to feel like things are going well. He has just received all these promises from God, affirmation that he is doing the right thing, going the right direction.

And so he is lifting up his feet as he goes. So he's encouraged, he's eager, and he's going on his journey. He finally comes to where he is supposed to be, to the land of the sons of the east. And an interesting thing appears before him.

He sees a bunch of sheep and more sheep coming, flocks slowly gathering towards a central place. There's this great well and a massive stone sitting on top of a well. Now, you know, we don't know much about ancient Near East shepherding practices.

But anybody with half a brain knows you don't put a big massive stone on top of a well. Unless you're trying to get at someone. I mean, there's the stories you've already heard about Abimelech and Phicol, the Philistines and so on, in tension with Isaac and stopping up the wells that he has dug.

But why would you put a massive stone on top of a well? And all these flocks are there, they're all thirsty, but nobody can get to the water. This is a very strange thing. Why in the world are you doing this?

And Jacob doesn't go straight for the jugular and say, you know, what fool is in charge of this operation? First, you know, where are you from? How things are going? Tell me about my relatives, so on and so forth.

And apparently, when he says, look, we need to water these sheep. I mean, Jacob's grown up taking care of sheep. He knows how you're supposed to take care of sheep. He spent his whole life doing this, and he knows that this is not good for the flocks.

The flocks are not going to do well if you don't water them when they're supposed to, don't pasture them when they're supposed to. He points this out to them and says, yeah, but this is, you know, Two-toothed McCoy says, well, we don't do things like that around here.

We've never done that before. And why is that? They said they have to wait until all the flocks are gathered. Then they, not the flocks, but the shepherds, roll the stone from the mouth of the well. Then we water the sheep.

So what's really going on here? What's going on here is that you have a group of people that don't trust each other. You have a group of people that don't trust each other, and they are now living under basically a ceasefire, some kind of uneasy truce.

They don't trust each other to not steal from the well, to overwater the flocks, to perhaps do something to the well. And so to keep everybody honest, they wait until all the different flocks from the different family groups show up.

And because it's a massive stone, they have to wait until they all get there, and they all together move the stone off of the well, and then they all water their flocks. And in this inefficient way of watering and pasturing their flocks, they are somewhat keeping the peace so that nobody can do something to the other by ruining the well or taking too much water and so on and so forth.

They just don't trust each other. There's a sense of Jacob's walking into a situation where there are people who, for whatever reason, they don't trust each other. There's a lack of civility at some level.

As we'll see with Laban, he's not the most trustworthy guy, but neither is Jacob. So there's a connection here. There's a connection here that it is when Jacob sees Rachel, the daughter of Laban, coming with the sheep, that he says, let's get cracking.

Let's water the flocks here. My relative's my uncle's daughter just showed up, Rachel, and I think we need to start watering the sheep now. We need to do this for family. But notice how this works. Verse 9, while he was still speaking with them, telling them, you're doing this wrong, why are you doing it this way, Rachel came with her father's sheep for she was a shepherdess.

When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, Jacob acted. He sees Rachel, and he is put into action. How often does that happen? Jacob is immediately attracted to Rachel, and he knows exactly what to do to make a point, to make a statement.

He goes up and rolls the stone from the mouth of the well. Now, this is a stone, the type of stone that has been placed on the well that cannot be moved unless you have more than a few shepherds. All the shepherds have to come together because they all have to work together to move the stone off the well.

It's that kind of a stone. That's the whole point of it. If normally a single person can roll the stone off the well by himself, then it's a pointless stone. These folks have been doing this for a long time, this way.

This is a giant stone, too heavy for one person to move. This won't be the last miracle in Jacob's life, but what he does is a bona fide miracle. He comes over, and he just moves the stone out of the way and waters Laban's sheep.

By this valiant and mighty act, he intends to bless Rachel and her family and do things the right way. I think that that is a telling thing, that Jacob would do this valiant act to essentially, I would say, get the attention of Rachel.

He did it for the sake of Rachel when he saw her. Then he moves into action. He provides water by his mighty act for Rachel, whom he later on asks her hand in marriage from Laban, her father. He wants to marry her.

I think at some level, as we were reminded, Paul talks about the mystery of marriage, points to Christ and the church. Then we are reminded of Christ's valiant act on behalf of his bride to do what we could not do for ourselves and to give to us life, to give to us living water.

That is a good reminder. Verse 13, when Laban heard the news of Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he related to Laban all these things.

Laban said, surely you are my bone and my flesh, and he stayed with him a month. After a month, and I don't know how much I am supposed to read into this, but it is after a month that Laban says to Jacob, because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing?

Was that traditional to have your nephew work for you for free for a month before you offer him wages? I don't know. It is Laban. I don't know if it's, you know, maybe it was traditional. I think, you know, maybe a week would be a bit more, you know.

But he gets a free month out of him, for sure. And then he says, what do you want your wages to be? Well, Jacob follows through in what his mother and father told him to do. So his mother and father said, you need to go find, you need to go to Haran, go to your relative, our relative Laban, and you need to go find a wife.

This is your whole purpose in going. And he honors his father and mother here.

He does.

He makes, he doesn't have anything, right? He has no dowry. He has nothing to, or the bride price. He has nothing to offer to Laban other than his labor, other than his work. And so he offers seven years, which is, which kind of brings us, it's also kind of a valiant act, isn't it?

To serve for seven years, to work for seven years, for the privilege of marrying Laban's daughter Rachel. Laban agrees. And as we think about this desire that Jacob had, what does it say about the time for Jacob?

And how he served for seven years, but what does it say about it for Jacob? It's just a few days to him because of his love for her. And this brings us to the other observation of the text is the vast affection that Jacob had for Rachel.

We see his valiant action, but we also see his vast affection. Now Laban did have two daughters. And when we read verse 17, we see that there's a distinction between Leah and Rachel. And now when you see that Leah's eyes were weak, that's actually not an insult.

Okay, it's not an insult. It's a term that means tender, the term that means delicate. It's actually the most stunning feature about Leah. And that she has this signature beauty about her. So there is a beauty to Leah.

Yet the contrast is not that Leah had ugly eyes and that Rachel was very beautiful. It's that Leah had this signature beauty about her, but that Rachel was more beautiful than Leah because she was beautiful of form and face so that she was more beautiful than her older sister, which I'm sure helped the relationship a lot.

So Jacob is just instantly, thoroughly infatuated with Rachel from the first time he saw her. It was for her he moved the stone off the well. He is dead set on marrying Rachel. I think it's important to note that his love for Rachel was not a brief flash of passion.

It was not a waning fire. When Jacob was on his deathbed, Joseph brought his sons to Jacob to receive a blessing. And Jacob at this point is an exceptionally old man, trying to remember like 130 something.

And he begins to speak a blessing over Joseph's sons. This is in Genesis 48 7. And as he's giving this blessing, as we tend to do in critical moments, his mind wandered to the distant past 70 years prior to this moment when he's giving a blessing.

And he says this in Genesis 48 7. Now as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died to my sorrow. In the land of Canaan on the journey, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem.

70 years after, he was still deeply, deeply impacted by the loss of Rachel. And when we think about, we think about this, we see the intensity, the intensity of his love that he had for his wife who had passed away.

Jacob had been married to Rachel for less than 15 years when she died. If you track the chronology, for less than 15 years, he was married to Rachel. And yet for 70 years after that, he was still impacted by her loss.

So we see, we see that he has this vast affection for her, this very deep love. And that when he serves these seven years, it was like just a few days for him in serving for her. He did work hard. These seven years felt like a week to him, but he did work hard.

It wasn't that there wasn't hard work. It was very hard work. Later on, when Jacob is venting on Laban and telling him off, and a whole nother issue that we'll talk about later, he reminds Laban of how hard he worked.

He said,.

In Genesis 31, 39 through 40,.

He says,.

That which was torn of beasts that did not bring to you, I bore the loss of it myself. You acquired it of my hand, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. Thus I was by day, the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes.

It is hard work.

Hard work for Jacob, working for Laban and working as a shepherd out in the field. He did that for seven years, and it was like just a few days to him because of his great love for Rachel. And again, as we see this story of a man who greatly loved his bride and did all of this for her sake, I think we are reminded, are we not, of the joy that was set before Christ, how he endured the cross and bore the shame for his bride.

How he died on the cross, willingly in obedience to the father to satisfy his father, and died for the sake of his bride. And so I think that as we read this beginning portion of Jacob meeting Rachel and we see how it is that he is interacting with her, we're reminded of the greater story about marriage.

As Paul says, when it comes to the husband and wife relationship, this mystery is great, but ultimately we should be thinking of Christ and the church, which is the direction to which every marriage should point.

So at the beginning of the relationship, as far as thinking about where the story is going to go, at the beginning of the relationship, we have Jacob and Laban getting along fairly well. And at the beginning of the relationship, we have Jacob and Rachel getting along pretty well.

Things are looking good. We hear that Jacob is lifting up his feet as he goes. He is very eager to see what is next. We have this miraculous moment when he's moving the stone off of the well, and he serves the seven years for Rachel.

So everything turns out well, right? Probably when we think of the person of Jacob, this is probably not the story we first remember about him. What are the stories about Jacob that we normally think about?

Think about Jacob's ladder, deceiving his brother. Love his boy. Yeah, I think so. We'll set it up later. Remember Jacob wrestling with Christ at the side of the river? Think about Jacob's 12 sons and all the interactions between them as he was trying to be a father to them.

So there's a lot of different things we think about. I like this story because it's not one that I learned a lot about. But here is Jacob doing this mighty thing for the sake of a bride, not only moving the stone miraculously, but then serving for seven years to win her.

All right.

Jacob Is Deceived into Marrying Leah

So let's move on a little bit more as we have the time. Then Jacob says to Laban, Give me my wife for my time is completed that I may go in to her. Laban gathered all the men of the place and made a feast.

Now in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to him, and Jacob went in to her. Laban also gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a maid. So it came about in the morning that, behold, it was Leah.

And he said to Laban, What is this you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I assured with you? Why then have you deceived me? But Laban said it was not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the firstborn.

Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you shall serve me for another seven years. Jacob did so and completed her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife.

Laban also gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maid. So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and indeed he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he served with Laban another seven years. So why does Jacob not know which woman is in his tent?

Probably more than one reason. I think that the Hebrew word for feast also means to drink. So you can't move one from the other. If your word for feasting is also your word for drinking, those things go together.

So Jacob may not have known who it was in his tent because of that reason. Secondly, it was traditional for the women to be wearing veils for their wedding week as well. So what went through Laban's head when Jacob said, I will work for seven years for your daughter Rachel?

He probably thought to himself, well, Leah will get married before those seven years are up, so it will be fine. And it didn't work out. And so he said, well, so basically Laban is stuck with this. Well, okay, so I didn't get Leah married off before Rachel's and I can't have.

And again, Jacob runs up against another custom. It's not our custom to water the sheep. And so here it is. It's not our custom to. And so Laban deceives Jacob and Jacob is not happy. I think in the sequence of what occurs, Jacob is married to Leah for an entire week before he marries Rachel and then serves another seven years.

So I think Leah got to be his bride for seven days before he married Rachel, the one he really wanted to marry. Now, as many people have wondered, why is it that there is no actual commandment in the scriptures, as thou shalt not be polygamous?

Okay, well, Jesus's answer to that, to everyone wondering about all the different variations on marriage that man may come up with, he says, have you never read? And then quotes Genesis, Genesis chapter two, verses 23 through 25, and just says, there it is.

So anything other than the design that God has given to us in Genesis for marriage is some sort of aberration, some sort of alteration. And we don't have to have a thousand commandments, each one to match whatever aberration man may come up with on marriage.

All we have to do is stick with the original. And every single time we read in the scriptures about polygamy, it's some unhappy situation. Every time. It's never good. Starting back with Lamech, Ada and Zillah, who had to listen to their murderous husband boasting about him killing people.

We have Abraham with Sarah and Hagar. And we have now Jacob. Now, as we've been listening, it would be traditional for a wealthy man to send one of the maidservants along with his daughter to be her servant, to be her helper in a family.

And so he sends these two maids, Zilpah for Leah and Bilhah for Rachel. And why is that significant? Trivia time. Why is Zilpah and Bilhah important? They're going to become Jacob's wives as well and help bear some of those twelve sons of the twelve tribes of Israel.

And why they become his wives, again, comes back to the jealousy and the rivalry at work between Leah and Rachel, which we're going to learn more about. But of course, it starts here as we read that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.

And he served with Leah another seven years. OK, so let's look at the rest of the chapter. Now, as the Lord saw that Leah was unloved. Isn't that wonderful that he sees that? That he is not blind to that and that he is compassionate.

Now, the Lord saw that Leah was unloved. He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Now, this is good for Leah, but this is really bad for the relationships in the family. But God has a purpose in all this.

Leah's Sons and Her Move from Longing to Praise

So Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben. Named him Reuben. And this is a name which means, hey, look, here I have a son. So why would you name your firstborn child, hey, guess who has a son?

Unless you were particularly jabbing or trolling someone, as we would say now. But honestly, she is taking comfort. And this is God's intention for her to take comfort in having a child. So Leah conceived and bore a son named Reuben.

For she said, because the Lord has seen, has looked upon my affliction. Surely now my husband will love me. And there's a lot of sadness into that, isn't there? Then she conceived again and bore a son.

And said, because the Lord has heard that I am unloved. So did having a son, did having Reuben change her? No, it didn't. So now her second son. And so he says that he has therefore given me this son also.

So she named him Simeon. Named him Simeon. He has heard. Simeon is a word that is related to shema or hear. The word for hear. The Lord has heard. He has seen that I am unloved. He has heard that I am unloved.

And so she says he has given me Reuben and he has given me Simeon. She conceived again and bore a son. And said, now this time my husband will become attached to me. And again, a little note of sadness.

My husband will love me. My husband will love me. Or at least maybe he'll be attached to me. Because I have borne him three sons. And therefore he was named Levi. And she conceived and bore again and bore a son.

And said, this time I will praise the Lord. Therefore she named him Judah. Which is praise to the Lord. And so she stopped bearing. And so we hear this progression in Leah's expectations. She moves from thinking that having children will finally get her husband to love her as much as he loves her sister.

And this doesn't seem to work. But by the time she has four sons, she's been praying all this time, God, please get me out of this. God, please change my situation. God, please alleviate this. By the time she has her fourth son, she's been praying and she's been so focused upon God through these trials that by the end she doesn't have any mention about her situation.

She's just praising the Lord. And isn't this the way that God uses trials and afflictions in our lives to often bring us into a more God word focus by the end where we stop looking for the eject handle and are looking to praise the Lord for who he is and his faithfulness in our lives.

So Lord willing next time we'll be looking more about the ongoing saga of the sons of Jacob, how it is that he ended up with the 12 sons and a.

Daughter.

Let's go ahead and close by singing the doxology together.