Book of Genesis - Ch. 30, Vs. 1-43 (02/25/2001)

Divine love is never exercised at the expense of holiness. Verse 1,

And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, Give me children, or else

I die. What does envy mean, Perch?

Something somebody else has got. Alright, a feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with a desire for the possessions and qualities of another.

So she's asking Jacob for children. Notice the complete lack of dependence on God.

You see the problems of polygamy. In the

Song of Solomon 8 and 6, we have these words, Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm.

For love is strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave.

The coals thereof are coals of fire which have a most vehement flame.

Verse 2, And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God's stead who hath withheld from thee the fruit of thy womb?

The idea that you ask me for children, who is it that holds that in his power?

God does. Am I greater than God to give you what you want?

In the day a woman was disgraced, if she had no offspring, the more children, the higher the standing.

And she said, Behold, my maid Bilhah, go in unto her, that she may bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.

This phrase, upon my knees, is rather confusing. When the surrogate gave birth while actually sitting on the knees of the wife, it symbolized the wife providing a child for her husband,

God opens and closes the womb. We see them now reverting to the practice of Abraham.

God did not approve of it then, and he will not approve of it now.

Verse 4, And she gave him Bilhah, her handmaid wife, and Jacob went in unto her.

And Bilhah conceived, and bared Jacob a son. And Rachel said,

God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son.

Therefore calls she his name Dan. And Bilhah, Rachel's maid, conceived again, and bared

Jacob a second son. Rachel said, With great wrestling have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed.

And she called his name Naphtalah, means wrestled with my sister. When Leah saw that she had left off bearing, she took

Zilpah, her maid, and gave her to Jacob, his son, his wife.

And Zilpah, Leah's maid, bared Jacob a son. And Leah said,

A troop cometh, and she called his name Gad. Zilpah, Leah's maid, bared

Jacob a second son. And Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed.

And she called his name Asher. Now we've had a lot of children born in just a short time here.

Things are going to change. Reuben went in, in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field.

Who's Reuben? Leah's son. Well, where does he stand in the...

All right, he's about seven years old. And found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother

Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, thy son's mandrakes.

What are these mandrakes? They were drugs, supposed to treat fertility.

All right, what did they look like? Drugs. David, what were they,

Bill? But the fruit that they used was what?

Well, we'll find out. And she said unto her,

It is a small matter that thou hast taken my husband. And wouldst thou take my son's mandrakes also?

And Rachel said, Therefore, he shall lie with thee tonight for thy son's mandrakes.

Now Jacob had eight sons by then, three women, and about six years had lapsed since his marriages.

The oldest son, Reuben, was about seven. Playing in the field during wheat harvest, he found this small, orange -colored fruit, brought them to his mother

Leah. These were superstitiously viewed in the ancient world as love atoms, apples, an aphrodisiac, or fertility -inducing narcotic, because the root resembled a human body.

This odd and desperate bargain by Rachel was an attempt to become pregnant with the aid of the mandrakes, a favor which failed to understand that God gives children.

Sixteen, and Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said,

Thou must come in unto me, for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night.

God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bared Jacob a fifth son. Leah said,

God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maid to my husband, and she called his name

Ishkar. And Leah conceived again, and bared

Jacob the sixth son. And Leah said, God hath endured me with a good dowry.

Now will my husband dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons, and she called his name

Zebulon. Zebulon signifies the hope of Jacob's dwelling with her now.

So we get the picture right. All these people lived in separate tents.

Jacob had his tent. The women had their tents. None in a big one common tent.

And afterwards she bared a daughter, and called her name Dinah. Now Dinah was, there were other girls born, but it's unusual that they would mention this one.

Why is that, Greg? Why don't we get to chapter 34.

And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened her, and opened her womb. And she conceived, and bared a son, and said,

God hath taken away my reproach. She called his name Joseph, and said, the

Lord shall add to me another son. And it came to pass, when

Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go into mine own place, and to my country.

Give me my wife, my wives, and my children, for whom

I have served thee, and let me go, for thou knowest my service which I have done thee.

Now let's listen to Uncle Laban. He's not through yet. And Laban said unto him,

I pray thee, if I have found favor in thine eyes, Terry, for I have learned by experience that the

Lord hath blessed me for thy sake. He knows,

David, that this is the one thing that Jacob adheres to, is the

Lord's working. So whether he believed it or not, he said it. Laban says, look,

I've been prosperous since you've been here. Don't go away. I will even raise your wages.

Just tell me how much you want. And he said, appoint me thy wages, and I will give it, whatever you want.

And he said unto him, Thou knowest I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me.

And it was little which thou hast before I came, and it is now increased into a multitude.

And the Lord hath blessed thee since my coming, and now when shall I provide for mine own house also?

God's blessed you, you've prospered, but what have I gotten, except two wives and a house full of boys?

And he said, What shall I give thee? Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me anything.

If thou wilt do this one thing for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock.

Now Jacob knows something that Laban doesn't know. He took care of his father's cattle for, well,

I was going to say 90 years, but maybe not that much. I will pass through all of thy flock today, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and of such shall be my hire.

So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come. When it shall come for my hire before thy face, every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted as stolen with me.

In other words, when we tally everything up, and you find any solid color among my cattle, you can consider them stolen.

Well, that sounds good to Uncle Laban. And Laban said,

Behold, I would it might be according to thy word. And he removed that day the he goats that were ring -streaked, spotted, and all the she goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hands of his son.

Now he separated everything. He took out all of the streaked and spotted cattle and goats and sheep.

On the two occasions that Laban asked this of Jacob, it was to urge him to stay.

But this time it was because he had rewarded, since the Lord had blessed me for your sake.

He was attempting to deceive Jacob into staying because it was potentially profitable for him.

Laban wanted Jacob to stay and asked what it would take for him to do so. Jacob wanted nothing except to be in a position for God to bless him.

He was willing to stay but not be further indebted to the scheming and selfish

Laban. He offered Laban a plan that could bless him while costing

Laban nothing. He would continue to care for Laban's animals had he been doing.

His pay would consist of animals not yet born. So he was going to get paid out of the increase.

Animals which would seem the less desirable to Laban because of their markings and colors.

None of the solid color animals would be taken by Jacob. And if any were born into Jacob's flock,

Laban could take them. They were considered as stolen. Only those animals born speckled, spotted, striped, or abnormally colored would belong to Jacob.

It seemed like a pretty good deal for Laban.

Evidently most of the animals were white sheep, black goats, brown cattle.

Few were in the category of Jacob's request. Further, Jacob would not even use the living speckled or spotted abnormally colored animals to breed more like them.

He wasn't going to get to use the off -colored to breed more.

He would separate them into a flock of their own kind apart from the normally colored animals.

Only the spotted and abnormally colored offspring born in the future to the normally colored would be his.

Since it seemed to Laban that the birth of such abnormality marked animals was unlikely to occur in any sufficient volume from the normally colored, he agreed.

He believed this a small and favorable concession on his part to maintain the skills of Jacob to further enlarge his herds and flocks.

Jacob, by this time, put himself entirely in God's hands. Only the

Lord could determine what animals would be Jacob's. To make sure Jacob didn't cheat on his good deal,

Laban separated the abnormally marked with the normal animals in Jacob's care. Now, then he set three days journey betwixt himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks.

Now, Uncle Laban's got it just like he wants it. He, to himself, is probably saying, you fool, when all the time it's going to turn out different.

Jacob was knowledgeable about sheep and goats and cattle. He knew that when one uncommonly marked animal was born with a recessive gene, he could then begin to breed that gene selectively to produce flocks and herds of abnormally marked animals, which were in no way inferior physically to the normally marked.

Once he began this breeding process, he sought to stimulate it by some method.

Now, the method may seem superstitious to us, and it is not used today, but that's not to say it doesn't work.

But it's most likely that he had learned that when the bark was peeled from poplar and some other trees, that there was some stimulant released into the water that stimulated the animals to sexual activity.

His plan was successful. He kept his own flock separated from the abnormally colored ones of Laban.

His system worked to his own advantage, not that of Laban, who had for years taken advantage of him.

Jacob gave God the credit for the success of his efforts, and is strictly the hand of God.

And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree, and plied with white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

Now, does anybody not understand that? He would just cut off a strip about an inch wide and just peel it out.

That left the stick striped. And he set these rods, which he had plied before the flocks in the gutters of the watering trawls, when a flock came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.

And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ring -streaked, speckled, and spotted.

The point of the whole story is that Laban and Jacob both believed that the white streaks in the rods caused the animals to be ring -streaked.

That is the important part of the story, regardless of whether there is any truth to it or not.

Jacob is using trickery. He may be quite a trickster, but Laban is the greatest.

And Jacob did separate the lambs and set their faces of the flock toward the ring -streaked, and the brown in the flock, and the brown in the flock of Laban.

And he put his own flock by themselves and put them not unto Laban's cattle.

And it came to pass, whenever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before their eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.

When the cattle were feeble, he put them not in. So the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger were

Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses.

Now, just a brief summary of Jacob's children to date.

Reuben was the first. Simeon, Levi, Judah, Ishkar, Zebulun.

And then come Dinah, daughter born to Bilhah, Rachel's maid. Dan, Naphthil, born to Zilpah, Leah's handmaid.

Gad, Asher, Joseph, and Benjamin. It includes some that are not here yet, but they will be.

I'm going to have to quit. My voice is gone. Now, I've done most of the reading.

Is there any questions from anybody? Well, then, let's go home.