"A Voice Was Heard in Ramah"

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 35:16-29

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According to my history, it was in November that we read up through chapter 35, and so we want to, as is our custom, read through the last narrative cycle of Genesis next week and look forward to the opportunity to beginning the
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Joseph cycle. Last week, as we began chapter 35, we saw the the revival at Bethel, the revival coming after the deplorable tragedy at Shechem in chapter 34, and as a result of that,
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God called Israel, that is Jacob, back to Bethel, back to the place where he had first found him.
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And there, in that very process of calling him, almost wanted Jacob to realize that God would meet him there, and that Jacob would thus be revived.
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And one of the points last week was that it is God's presence that revives God's people. And we saw three actions last week that revived
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Jacob. First, Jacob receiving God's Word. Second, the result of that,
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Jacob purging the idols in his midst. And then lastly, the response of that clean heart and that purified conscience was building an altar.
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In other words, dedicating himself to the worship and service of God. Now this morning, as we close out chapter 35, we are closing out the
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Jacob cycle, and structurally we are closing out the generations of Isaac.
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We remember that we said the the framework for the book of Genesis is the Toledot structure, the generational structure, and so we're closing out the generations of Isaac with the death of Isaac recorded at the very end of the chapter.
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But as far as the narrative and the content goes, we're really shifting focus from Jacob to chapter 37, beginning the shift toward Joseph.
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The completion of the twelve tribes of Israel is another very important aspect as we close out this chapter, and of course that completion comes about as the result of Benjamin's birth.
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With Benjamin, the only son born in the land, we have the completion of the twelve tribes.
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That significance, I think we all understand in one sense or another, to be carried through to the
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New Testament, and what we'll see this morning is there's a lot more that takes us from Genesis 35 toward the fulfillment of the
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New Testament, and it's not just the number 12 which is then echoed in the allotment of the twelve disciples.
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So with the birth of Benjamin, we'll find this larger movement of God's purpose to bring the promised seed into the fallen world.
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In other words, finally we have an opportunity in Genesis 35 to keep the big picture in view, that 10 ,000 foot overview that helps us see the big themes and how they all correlate to the coming of Jesus our
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Savior. The conclusion, as we'll see, of Jacob's cycle is marked by death and betrayal, but it's also marked by life and hope.
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We want to consider the remainder of chapter 35 in really four parts. First, the death of Rachel.
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Second, the sons of Jacob. Third, the death of Isaac. And fourth will take us outside of chapter 35 to consider this larger fulfillment pattern.
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I'm very excited about that fourth point, so let's not waste any time getting to it. First, the death of Rachel beginning in verse 16, then they journeyed from Bethel and when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in childbirth and she had hard labor.
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The return to Bethel had been a revival, but we see here times of revival are not without trial.
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In fact, we could say times of revival are not just means by which
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God refreshes and strengthens His people after a time of stale backsliding or dwindling.
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In fact, revival is often God strengthening and restoring His people for a trial yet to come and we can see that really unfolding here.
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Bethel is not the conclusion after a long dry season, but the sort of refill station on the way toward more difficulty and trial and such is the
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Christian life. Revival is often meant to prepare us for the difficulties and trials yet to come.
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As they leave Bethel, while they're yet a little difference from Bethlehem as we find out in verse 19, what we call here
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Ephrath, Rachel begins to go into labor and the crisis of this labor is given enigmatically with the words, she had hard labor.
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I imagine all labor is hard labor, but this is uniquely hard labor, life -threatening in fact.
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Now this metaphor of difficult labor is used really throughout Scripture as a metaphor of impending judgment or otherwise impending trial or travail.
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We see it in Isaiah 26, Isaiah 66, Jeremiah 4, Hosea 13, the
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Olivet Discourse, Jesus likens it to birth pains, 1st Thessalonians 5, in a very similar context
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Paul uses this metaphor, and it might be that in our modern day we've become desensitized to the risk and the travail of childbirth.
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Maybe even a hundred years ago women were more attuned to the possibility, the very real possibility, that they would suffer some hardship in bringing forth a child and that they in fact could lose their own life.
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This is something still prevalent today in third world nations where having a child is a very risky thing and it will often either cost the life of the child or the life of the mother.
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Now of course it's far less common for us, we have due to God's common grace and we ought always to give him the thanks and the praise, we have further advanced medical capacities, we're able to detect things early, we're able to take immediate measures to try to save the life of the mother, and all of this is part of God's grace toward humanity.
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But with Rachel she has hard labor, very hard labor, and it seems that even she realizes she's not going to make it through.
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As we'll see, it seems the midwife realizes she's not going to make it through. She tries to offer words of comfort.
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We have it in verse 17. Now it came to pass when she was in hard labor that the midwife said to her, do not fear, you will have this son also.
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So the midwife is seeking to comfort Rachel. Please remember that phrase, I use it advisedly. She sought to comfort
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Rachel. Rachel refuses to be comforted in the way that she names this son.
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Perhaps the midwife sees the danger that Rachel is in. We have it translated, when it came to pass, when she was in hard labor, probably not the best translation.
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If you're a grammar geek, you might have ears to hear this. I'm just going to say it just so it's kind of on record.
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We have a shift from the PL stem to a hyphal infinitive, it's meant to produce a contrast. Okay, we're done with the grammar geek now.
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It's better translated, when she was at the hardest point of her labor. There's a contrast here.
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It's not redundant. She had hard labor, and when she had hard labor, you know, the midwife said to her, no, no, no.
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When she was at the hardest point, when she was in agony and it seemed like there was no moving forward, that's when the midwife is trying to reassure her and bring her comfort.
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Don't fear, you're gonna have a son, you're gonna have this son also. And we're reminded, ironically, of the name of Joseph.
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Remember when Rachel gave birth to Joseph back in Genesis 30, verse 24, she said, may
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He, that is God, add another. And the implication was, add another son.
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And here we have the midwife saying, you will have another son.
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And so Rachel's hearing, as it were, the reverberation of her own hopes for Joseph in the answer of the midwife.
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May He give me another son. You will have another son. But with further irony, the means of receiving this son will bring
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Rachel's life to its end. She cries out in desperation in Genesis 30, verse 1, give me children or I die.
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And in God answering that prayer, giving her a child, she is dying. And so we have verse 18, as it was, her soul was departing, parentheses, for she died, and she called his name
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Benoni, but his father called him Benjamin. So we have this description of her death, it's given as a parenthetical statement.
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In other words, the narrator is less interested, Moses is less interested in the fact of her death as in what took place as she died, the naming of the son,
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Benoni, but the father, Jacob, says no, Benjamin. The description of death is not only here, we saw it earlier with Deborah being buried under the terebinth, we'll see it at the end of the chapter with Isaac, and with all of this emphasis on death in chapter 35, we don't want to miss these little nuggets of information that are sprinkled here and there throughout
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Genesis, which help us create a theology of afterlife, and this is vital.
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Here we have Rachel dying and the language is literally her soul or her life is departing, and when
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Isaac dies he will be gathered to his people, not his corpse, but Isaac is gathered to his people, and the idea is in Sheol, in the afterlife.
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And so here we have just a passing statement that helps us understand there is a theology of the ongoing existence of life in the afterlife, that the soul departs from the body, and though the body is buried and grieved, there is a life that follows that body, and the soul departs, the soul is removed, and the soul then awaits, as we have with later revelation, to be further clothed.
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So already in Genesis we have a theology of resurrection hope beginning to develop.
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Notice that it's not something laid out in a treatise, it's not organized by little statements, Moses doesn't put it in a confession for us, but we do have a theology of death in the afterlife, things to come in these little narrative asides.
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Now when Rachel dies, notice, she with her dying breath, and this is part of what
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I think as we'll get to later, Jeremiah is picking up on, she's refusing to be comforted, she refuses to take refuge in the fact she has a son, so with her dying breath, as her soul is departing, which is what that means, as she gives up the ghost, she names the son
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Ben -Oni, which means son of my sorrow or son of my suffering, and Jacob, not wanting to have the child cast under that shadow, not wanting to have a name that sharply and painfully reminds him of the loss of his beloved wife, he says, no, it will not be
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Ben -Oni, but Ben -Yamin, Benjamin, son of my right hand. The connotation there is son of my favor, son of my strength, a son of my power even.
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We have verse 19, so Rachel died and she was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is
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Bethlehem. Keep that in mind because this is all going to be swirling toward fulfillment theology by the time we get to the end of the morning.
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And Jacob set a pillar on her grave, which is the pillar of Rachel's grave to this day, was known even to the
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Israelites, even beyond in the days of Samuel the prophet, this location was known.
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So Rachel died, again note this running emphasis on death, it's been a while since we've seen it in the genealogies, and he died and he died, and we're trying to set that up in light of Genesis 1 through 3,
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God's intention for humanity to embody his image and have everlasting life in his presence, and yet as a result of sin, death enters into the world, and he died and he died and he died and Rachel died, and yet she's buried in hope.
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So we're not far from Genesis 1 through 3 and the promise of the seed that will conquer the consequence of sin, have victory over death, and bring hope and everlasting life to his people.
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So we're still at this point in Genesis 35 walking out the curse of sin and the consequence of the fall, and we're reminded here in Genesis 35 that death is an unavoidable experience woven into fallen humanity, but behind death and behind the theology of burial there is a hope of restoration and awaiting of the promise of God.
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He will, Isaiah 25, swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face.
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That's embedded here in Genesis 35. Not only do we have a theology of death, but we have these very personal moments of Jacob.
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His care for Rachel after she dies is really just symbolic of the way he cared for Rachel throughout his whole life.
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He loved her. He never made any bones about her being the favorite wife.
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He doted over her. She was the love of Jacob's life. Remember when he had to work seven years to marry her?
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Moses said it was like a few days to him because he loved her so much, and all that they had been through, not just in Paddan -Aram as he worked an additional seven years to actually win her hand in marriage, but the children that came to Leah sparking this bitter rivalry, the way he tried to comfort
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Rachel, surely, the excitement when Joseph was born, the way that he arranged his family in that great showdown with Esau, how he sent them all ahead of him as he wrestled and rivaled
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God, as it were, on the brook of Jabbok, and then when he made it over, how he arranged them all in procession to go and stand before his long -lost brother
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Esau, and how he kept Rachel and Joseph there with him at the very end. Everyone else could go ahead, but Rachel, this is his
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Rachel, this is his beloved, and even as he sets up this pillar, and as he grieves, and even as many years go by, decade after decade on his deathbed,
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Jacob will say to Joseph in Genesis 48, when I came from Paddan -Aram,
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Rachel died beside me in the land of Canaan on the way, and it was just a little distance from Ephrath, I buried her there on the way.
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So this moment in Genesis 35, it stays with him throughout his whole life, and when he's there looking at Joseph now, and all the wonder of that reconciliation, the first place his mind goes to is the loss of Joseph's mother, his dear wife
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Rachel. She died by my side, he said. All the milestones of Jacob's life have been marked by the building of pillars,
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God's revelation at Bethel twice over, wherever God revealed himself to Jacob, Jacob built a pillar as a memorial, as a way of commemorating this wonderful moment in his life, and here he builds a commemoration of not only his love for Rachel, but also his sorrow.
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And I can't help but think even here we have a testimony to the untwisting grace of God.
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This is what sanctifying grace does in the life of a husband. It takes a very selfish, deceitful, manipulative, willful man, and it untwists him to such a degree that he can be very tender, devoted, loyal, moved by the relationships in his life, and we see that with Jacob.
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And here we also see that Jacob needs to learn to walk by faith. He's been revived at Bethel.
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At Bethel, God had said, be fruitful, multiply, and Jacob must have with all that strength said, yes, and then when
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Rachel began to show, he must have been so excited, you see, yes, God is now blessing us. We will be fruitful, we will multiply, we will spread his name in his worship throughout this land.
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You can imagine how excited he was. Rachel had been made fruitful again. How many more children could we have?
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She's practically in her prime still, and then the Lord took her away, and that death would have been a crushing blow.
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In fact, it almost would have seemed against the very purpose of God. God, you came and you told me to be fruitful and multiply and your plan is now to take away my wife?
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And yet he had to learn how to walk by faith and not by sight. His hope had been built up and God had blessed him, but then
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God, in the mystery of his providence, took Rachel away from Jacob and said walk by faith and not by sight.
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And we don't have any answer given, there's no rationale given. If Jacob said why, the only response would be the secret things belong to the
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Lord. We cannot say why Rachel was taken. It doesn't seem to be a punishment for anything.
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Maybe if Rachel was taken at Shechem we could say, well, it must have had something to do with it, but God had already revived and blessed and given the covenantal mantle over to Jacob, and so the death of Rachel comes like a lightning strike.
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And I think we learn here also, and this is going to be very significant moving into the Joseph cycle, something of the mystery of God's providence, something of the way that we must bend our knees and worship what cannot be understood in this life.
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We learn that sorrow in a Christian's life is not necessarily traced to punishment.
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In fact, it could be the very opposite. It all depends on how we understand the
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Lord to be working in and through us. It all depends upon our faith in the
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Lord's purposes and our trust in His goodness despite the circumstances, despite the sorrows that we encounter in our life, personally, health -wise, familial, whatever it may be.
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I love what one said, if we're right with God, we'll meet sorrow as Israel and not as Jacob.
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Meet as one's prevailing with God rather than one who's usurping. Every affliction may be viewed in two ways.
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One viewpoint may be thought a Ben -Oni, but from another it will be seen as a Benjamin. All right, and here
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I think we see Jacob walking by faith, not by sight, submitting to this difficult providence of God by even giving his son the name
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Benjamin. It's like a statement of faith. No, Rachel, God has been good and he will not be the son of our sorrow, but he will be the son of our strength.
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God will be our refuge. He will keep us in our going forth forever. And so no wonder in verse 21 we don't have then
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Jacob journeyed, we have then Israel journeyed. It's the pronouncement that he is walking by faith and not by sight.
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Israel journeyed, we read, and he pitched his tent beyond the Tower of Edir, and as we said, revival often prepares you for trial and the trial comes.
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He's here in Migdal -Edir. We don't know exactly where that is, but if we just follow the narrative, it's somewhere between Bethlehem and Hebron, or Ephrath and Mamre, as it's said.
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However long this may have been, we can imagine Jacob is still mourning. He's now settling into the reality of a life without his beloved
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Rachel in the midst of his grief, and in his mourning we have verse 22. When Israel dwelt in that land,
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Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard about it. Why does
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Reuben go in to lay with Bilhah? I'm sure we all, those of age, understand the euphemism behind lay, behind the verb shekav.
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Well one thing we need to keep in mind is that Reuben is the son of Leah, and it's entirely unlikely that Reuben is lusting after Bilhah and just decides, well
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I'm just gonna go and kind of shoot my shot and take a chance. It doesn't seem to be the struggle of lust at all, it was in fact a power play, and the significance of him being the son of Leah plays into why he seeks
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Bilhah. He's attempting to usurp his father's position as head of the family, as leader with all the inheritance behind him, and he wants to actually take power from his father, take possession of the inheritance from his father, and lead the family according to his own will.
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I'll demonstrate that in a moment. The significance of him not only being the son of Leah, but also
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Bilhah, now remember Bilhah was Rachel's maiden, handmaiden,
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Jacob has never shown much of an interest or attraction to Leah, and I think
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Reuben understands Bilhah now is going to take Rachel's place, and the sons of Bilhah will now take what's coming to me, and so if I don't take my chance to dishonor
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Bilhah, put her down in the rank, and actually take possession of the family, then
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I'm actually going to lose my inheritance, or at least fall into a place of disfavor. We see the same dynamics at play in 2
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Samuel 16, beginning in verse 21. Do you remember Absalom begins to have a detest for his father's rule, and maybe this very similar dynamics here,
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David was very passive in his household by the time we read 2 Samuel 16, and Absalom sees this as a weakness to be exploited.
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All the people come to me, and they appreciate me, and I'm not getting my fair due, in fact I think I should be running the kingdom, and he has his loyal supporters who don't like the reign of David either.
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So when Absalom is seeking to usurp his father's position, he finds counsel from Ahithophel, and this is
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Ahithophel's counsel. Go into your father's concubines. David had his concubines.
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Bilhah is a concubine, along with Zilpah, whom he has left to keep the house, and all
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Israel will hear that you are abhorred by your father, but the hands of all who are with you will be strong.
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Maybe Reuben had support from his brethren. Yeah, you know what, we need to do something that will provoke him and lead to a contest, and then
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I can take power. Do it, brother, we're with you. We're gonna support you in this. So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the top of the house, and Absalom went into his father's concubines in the sight of all of Israel.
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So it's not something done secretly, it was meant to provoke, meant to draw out a contest, meant to create, as it were, a civil war in the family, and Absalom's hope was that he would come out on top, and so of course we have
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Israel hearing of this. It was meant to be public, it was meant to be a display, it wasn't done secretly as a form of adulterous lust, it was done as a provocation, a power play.
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Just like Absalom, Reuben deposes Jacob, or at least seeks to, trying to replace his father as the leader of the family, and just like Absalom, Reuben fails.
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Nothing comes of this, and it seems that Israel, his response to it, it's just one of accepting the fact of it, perhaps grieving over it, but there's a quiet resilience to his strength.
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He's not drawn in to the provocation. Later in the law, this would lead to warrant the death penalty, but he doesn't act at this moment.
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He seems to let it all sort of blow over, and then he has these words to Reuben.
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In Genesis 49, he dispossesses him at the very end of his life. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, the first sign of my strength, you were my firstborn son, this is what you were meant to be, excelling in honor, excelling in power, turbulent as the waters, and you will no longer excel because you went up onto your father's bed, onto my bed, and you defiled it.
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And so he dispossesses Reuben, and he claims Ephraim and Manasseh to be his own, and so we have that fulfillment in the twelve really being eleven and two half tribes, which is fulfilled by the hanging of Judas, the dispossession of Judas as one of the twelve, the allotment of Matthias and Paul as one born do out of time.
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So again, the beautiful theological symmetry of fulfillment. We see a prime example here of Reuben's sin, and with it the hypocrisy of sin.
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Remember, Reuben is a son of Leah, and it was Leah's daughter Dinah that was raped, and all the brothers of Dinah said, should
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Shechem have treated our sister like a harlot? All the brothers went out and plundered the city as an act of vengeance, and it was the brothers of Dinah in particular that said, this is a form of outrage in Israel.
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This is a disgrace to Israel. How could we not act in light of this disgrace?
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And yet here is Reuben literally disgracing Israel, literally defiling the wife of his father for the sake of power.
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And so it's very significant here, the hypocrisy of sin, the downfall of Reuben, the quiet resilient strength of Israel.
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The narrator is very clear, Israel heard it, Israel. He's walking in the faith of God.
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Thankfully, we move on. The providence of this unfolding again, we don't know the exact resolution, we just know
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Reuben is inevitably dispossessed. And with that, just again, moving toward the
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Joseph cycle and seeing the mysterious providence of God, we understand even when there doesn't seem to be a reckoning in the moment, there will always be a reckoning by the end.
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Reuben might have thought, well, that didn't go exactly the way I thought, but I'm no worse for the wear, it was worth it, and maybe he just thought everything could kind of carry on.
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Maybe he thought everything had been kind of healed and cemented over in the prevening decades, but he finds out in Genesis 49 that that is not the case.
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There's always a reckoning. Though providence may be difficult to interpret, there's always a reckoning, and we see that in the life of Reuben.
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So now, turning from Reuben to the twelve. The sons of Jacob were twelve, the sons of Leah were
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Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel were
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Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant, were Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Zilpah, Leah's maidservant, were
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God and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan Aram.
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Speaking generally here, of course, Benjamin was born near Bethlehem. We're given a full list of Jacob's children, not according to the order of their birth, but according to their mothers, and it's worth,
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I think, whenever we look at something like this, it's worth to consider these were two sisters who grew up in the same household, two sisters who married the same man, two sisters who had very similar contexts and experiences over these decades, and yet the children of these two sisters could not be farther apart.
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And so this whole debate over nature versus nurture, there's an interesting study to be done here in the lives of the children of Rachel and Leah.
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Same atmosphere, more or less, same influences and experiences, more or less, very different outcomes.
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The house of Isaac now is complete, and now that the house of Isaac is complete and the twelve tribes of Israel have been fulfilled, we can move forward to conclude the household of Isaac toward the generations of Esau and into the cycle of Joseph.
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So we close with verses 27 through 29. Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kerjeth Abba, that is
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Hebron, so we've got three different names that this place would have been known by over time, where Abraham and Isaac had dwelt.
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So Jacob is now returning to the place of his father's as heir of the covenantal promises.
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Now the days of Isaac were 180 years, and Isaac breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days, and his sons
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Esau and Jacob buried him. We remember as Jacob approaches that he has not seen his father, so far as we know, for 30 years.
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For over 30 years he's been a stranger to his home. Remember in Genesis 27,
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Isaac thought he was about to die. He was unsure that he was healthy enough to wait to bless his son, so he said,
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Esau, prepare a meal for me that I might bless you, but the old man, he pushed through actually quite a long time beyond this.
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Jacob, of course, had run away, afraid of his brother, and had not seen his father ever since.
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You can only imagine what this reunion must have been like. How do you even knock on the door after so much has transpired?
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Knocking on the door, three of his wives are there, his twelve sons, the whole retinue, all the servants and all the cattle.
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Isaac, if he somehow recovered his sight, or if he's still blind as a bat, surely would have felt the faces and wept and hugged, and they would have had a lot to catch up on as they both glorified the ways and the wisdom and the goodness of God in their lives.
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It's an interesting thing going home. I mean, I'm close enough that I can go home daily, if not weekly.
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My parents' home is only half an hour away, but for some of us who have actually moved from a different state, to actually travel back and return home, you get this well of memories and experiences that come back to your mind.
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You can only imagine that coming home and seeing things, seeing places, having triggered memories of certain events, it would have been a testimony to Jacob how much
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God had worked in his life, how much change God had brought about, and now he had come back to the place that thirty years before he ran away as a selfish, manipulative, deceitful man, and he's brought back as this humble, patient, wise man who's prevailed with God, who's now walking according to the promises given to his fathers.
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It's the return of the prodigal son. It was a very precious time of fellowship with Isaac, and Isaac's death is recorded here, but we'll see
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Isaac again in the Joseph cycle. It's sort of taking the fact that he died and it's sort of bringing it all the way back, just so we can actually close out the generations of Isaac.
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So we're recording his death here, but don't be surprised when Isaac pops up again in the
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Joseph cycle, he's still alive. In fact, when Joseph comes back, Joseph, I think, is 30 years old and he's still alive, so he's not, you know, resurrected or zombified or anything like that.
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We have the death here to close out the narrative of the book, and with it, again, we have this theology of death.
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He breathed his last and yet he is gathered, he goes on, there is an afterlife, he's joined to his people, the people that have gone on before him.
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When a Christian dies, that believer is joined to his people. His body is buried in hope, he awaits to be further cleansed.
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That's something that, once you get reformed, it's kind of fun because you're like, oh, I can't wait to meet Spurgeon, you know,
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I can't wait to meet Jonathan Edwards and some of these Puritans, and it's kind of like, well, you know, Jesus too, guys, you know, it's a lot more than theologians in heaven, but we will be gathered to our people.
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Perhaps the joy of that reunion could only be eclipsed by the greater joy of being made anew like unto our firstfruits, our great hope, which is
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Jesus himself. We have Jacob now returning to the promised land, a man of faith, a man who had wrestled with God, reconciled with God, reconciled with his long -lost brother, a man who's experienced difficulty and loss, fragility of life and the loss of his beloved wife
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Rachel, but the sins of his past God has gloriously redeemed, and though they occasionally show up and occasionally we find him going back to old patterns and old ways, we see that God's grace is relentless.
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It will not let Jacob ultimately slink back to the man he was, it's always prodding and impressing him and compelling him forward to the man that God intended him to be, and we see that as a testimony to our own lives, brothers and sisters.
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God's grace is relentless to his people. He compels us and moves us and prods us along so that we might fall into conformity into our
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Savior. This is the family, this rather messy family.
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This is the family with usurping Reuben, who has disgust over what happens to Dinah, but no shame at all over what he does to Bilhah.
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We have the bitter rivalry, perhaps even the idolatrous practice on the side of all of these siblings, if not the mothers.
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We have rivalry at every level and we'll only see that further deepen as we move into Joseph's cycle.
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This broken, messy, combative, selfish, often self -willed family is nevertheless the family that God has chosen to be the very carrier and vessel of his promise for the world.
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This family will bring about, ultimately, the nation through which the promised seed will come, and this family, ultimately, this broken, messy, combative, sometimes irritating family will ultimately fulfill
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God's promise that they would be a blessing to the nations, a blessing to the whole world. And that brings us to,
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I think, some theological reflection in our last moments. We have
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Genesis 35 before us. They journeyed from Bethel, and when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in childbirth, and she had hard labor, and it came to pass when she was in the hardest point of her labor that the midwife said to her, do not fear, you will have this son also.
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Throughout this chapter, Ephrath, being Bethlehem, is emphasized.
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It's repeated, and then when Jacob recounts this to Joseph in Genesis 48, he'll repeat
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Ephrath twice as well. So the significance of Bethlehem is beginning to glow through this moment of Rachel's death.
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Of course, she's not in Bethlehem, she dies toward Bethlehem on the way to Bethlehem, and she mourns, she grieves the fact that she's losing her life, and more significantly, she'll be cut off from seeing her children, her two boys,
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Joseph and Benjamin. So we have Genesis 35 in front of us. There's some moving parts here, so I'm going to try to go slowly and methodically.
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I don't want anyone to miss the train because it's so glorious. Now we go to Matthew 2, and it may not be immediately clear why we're going to Matthew chapter 2, but we go to the beginning of the gospel, and if you were to read the beginning of Matthew's gospel, you'd understand he's enigmatically stating something about the identity and the significance of the coming of Jesus.
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In fact, this is often missed, but the very first two words of Matthew's gospel, which we often just have translated the book of beginnings or the book of genealogy, and then you go into the genealogy that Matthew's recorded.
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So Matthew 1 .1, book of generations, book of beginnings, and in the
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Greek, it's a little more obvious. It's biblos genesis, it's the book of Genesis, and that's very much intended by Matthew.
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Genesis is the beginnings, and then he goes into a genealogy. Remember, Genesis is, if nothing else, structured by genealogies, generations, and so Matthew is saying this is kind of like Genesis.
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This is a new form of Genesis. Here's these generations that you began back in that book of Genesis, and now you need to see them all the way through to their fulfillment in the person of Jesus, and so he's beginning to identify
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Genesis with the coming of Jesus from the very first verse, and then of course you have with that, throughout
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Matthew 1 through 4, the calling of the twelve tribes, that brings us back to chapter 35, then
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Jesus, as it were, recapitulating the experience of Israel in fulfillment of Israel, being called out of Egypt.
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We have that in Matthew 2. You go back to the reference there in Hosea, and it's the nation of Israel being called out of Egypt.
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I've called my son out of Egypt. Matthew says it's fulfilled in Jesus, and then he's led through the
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Jordan in his baptism, like Israel was led through the Jordan, and then the Spirit casts him into the wilderness to be tested for 40 units of time, even as Israel was wandering in the wilderness being tested for 40 years, and so you have this fulfillment theology going on,
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Jesus as Israel. Now we come to Matthew 2 beginning in verse 18. Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, remember?
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You know, why don't you come back and tell him, you know, tell me when you find him that I might worship him also.
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That's not really what, the wise men were very wise, they're like, he doesn't want to worship him, let's not come back this way.
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And Herod sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts from two years old and under.
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Again, thinking the historical significance is not lost on us, but here the son of promise has finally come, and the serpent, the serpent that has slithered through the empires of Pharaoh, slithered through the empires of Assyria and Babylon, the sort of serpent -fueled anti -god reign of fallen humanity, it appears in the form of Herod here, and there's a massacre, the so -called massacre of the innocents.
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He puts to death anyone that could potentially be this promised Savior, and we see the serpent seeking to destroy the promised seed.
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Then what was fulfilled, what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping,
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Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more.
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So let's keep a big picture in view here. Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin somewhere along the road from Bethel to Bethlehem, right, when they were but a distance from Bethlehem.
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She goes into hard labor and at the highest point of her labor, she names Ben -Oni and she dies.
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In her suffering, she's comforted, we saw that, comforted, you're having another son, that's picking up language from Genesis 30, but she as it were is refusing to be comforted, she names him son of Mysore, she finds no comfort.
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Now there are reasons to believe that Rachel was not quite so close to Bethlehem when she died, and those reasons come from 1st
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Samuel. Remember in the context of 1st Samuel, a lot of his prophetic ministry takes place in Ramah.
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1st Samuel 7, Ramah is described as the center of where he was working as a prophet, and in 1st
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Samuel 10, Samuel tells King Saul that he will meet two men at Rachel's tomb after he leaves the town of Ramah, which seems to indicate that Rachel died near or even in Ramah, okay?
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So keep that in mind, it's important for Jeremiah. We have Rachel dying on the way to Bethlehem, and where did she die?
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Well, going to 1st Samuel, it seems to be Ramah, and this is the first instance of why
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Matthew is connecting these dots between the massacre of the children in Bethlehem and Rachel weeping for her children.
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Rachel died on her way toward Bethlehem, and she's weeping, she's weeping because she will not be able to see her children, she's weeping because of what's going to take place at Bethlehem, and so that seems to be enough for Matthew to pull in this context of Genesis, and the idea is for Matthew, Rachel dies looking for the hope, looking for the promise, looking for the restoration, but she cannot experience it, so she weeps, she cannot be comforted.
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That's the idea, and Jeremiah picks this up and that's what Matthew's quoting. Jeremiah 31, beginning in verse 15, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, bitter weeping,
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Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more.
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So now Jeremiah is developing something from Genesis 35 in a very interesting way. We have
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Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, they are no more. Keep that in mind.
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But thus says the Lord, refrain your voice from weeping, your eyes from tears, your work shall be rewarded, says the
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Lord. They shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says the
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Lord. Your children will come back to their own border. So in verse 15, we have this quotation from Jeremiah 31 that Matthew was quoting, but what
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Matthew doesn't quote is intended to be understood in the quotation. This command, stop weeping.
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You've been weeping, Israel, for 400 years, the result of exile, the lack of fulfillment, being cut off from the promise of God.
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Stop weeping. Your work will be rewarded. You have a future with hope.
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Your children will be gathered to you again. In Jeremiah, Rachel's weeping because her children are no more, and this is not the result of losing children in birth except figuratively, losing children because they're dragged away in exile.
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They're no more because exile is like death. Big picture, exile being pulled out of God's presence in Eden is death.
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Being cast out of God's presence in his dwelling place is death, and Genesis theology is all about being restored to the presence of God in the land of his dwelling, and so exile is like Edenic death.
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And Rachel is weeping because her children are no more, they've been dragged into exile, but God is saying in the midst of that exile,
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Rachel, stop weeping because there's hope for you. Your children will be gathered to you again. There will be an end of exile, and what follows that in Jeremiah 31?
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The promise of a new covenant. Arama is significant not only because of where Rachel's buried, and this is significant for Jeremiah, it's where the children of Israel were deported.
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It was one of the major gathering stations from which the Babylonians sent the captives to Babylon, and Jeremiah himself was being held in Ramah prior to being deported to Babylon.
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And so Jeremiah is imagining Rachel weeping at Ramah, watching her children being dragged away into the death of exile, and she's refusing to be comforted because she'll never see them again, but God's word comes and says,
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Rachel, stop weeping. You will be gathered to your children again because there's a hope for your future, and that hope is in the new covenant.
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Let me say it one more time just so that we're all on the same page. Here's the big picture. In Genesis, Rachel dies, giving birth on the road to Bethlehem.
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In the midst of her suffering, the midwife tries to comfort her with news that she's having another son. She refuses to be comforted.
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She weeps, having this sorrow, and it overwhelms her. It feels like there's no future now.
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She'll never see her children. There'll never be a restoration to the land. The promised seed hasn't come for her, and then in Jeremiah, Rachel weeps over her children again because they're being dragged into the death of exile, and she's, as it were, in her grave looking toward Bethlehem, and that's what
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Matthew's picking up. The children are being slaughtered, and she's weeping, and it just seems like, again, where's the promised seed?
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Where's the hope? Where's the restoration? Where's the promise? Where's God's dwelling place? And then along comes
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Joseph and Mary and Jesus to Bethlehem, to the land, and here's the bringer of the new covenant.
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Here's the seed of promise. Here's the reason for Rachel to stop weeping, and so the cycle of death in Genesis 35 is reminding us of the curse of sin, that we need to be redeemed, that we're exiled from God's presence, and there's no life and no hope as we're cast aside from it, but the cycle of birth brings this hope that there will come the promised seed, and God will restore his people, that we will be brought near, and all of that, both the cycle of death and the cycle of life, is fulfilled in Jesus, and Matthew structures
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Genesis 35 and Jeremiah 31 to make sure that nobody misses that connection, and so Jesus is the end of exile.
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Jesus is the gathering of his people. Jesus is the yes and the amen of all that God has promised.
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Jesus, in order to fulfill these things, has to become Ben -Oni.
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He enters Bethlehem, and he he's not just named the son of sorrows, he's the man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief, the son of suffering, the suffering servant, and he lives out his whole life as this man of sorrows until they mock him and spit upon him and tear his back with a scourge and stretch him upon a cross, and the son of suffering and the son of sorrow gives up his ghost, just like Rachel gave up her ghost, but like Israel said, that son of suffering, that Ben -Oni is in fact our
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Benjamin, and he's exalted to the right hand of the Father, and he's seated in glory and in power, and he is the strength of the purpose and promise of God.
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And so at the cross we find Jesus as the seed that Rachel died waiting for, weeping over this
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Ben -Oni who is in fact the Benjamin, the covenant of God, the promise of salvation all embodied in him, and therefore
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Rachel can cease her weeping. There's a hope and a future for the people of God.
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This is the glorious theology of Genesis, and we're reminded as we as we close now that this was always
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God's intention and plan, that through the the fumbling and stumbling, the backbiting, the dwindling, the dry seasons, the failures, the moments of grace and sanctification, all of this work in and through Jacob's life and in through his family was not ultimately for Jacob or even for his family or even for the nation of Israel and the twelve tribes therein, it was all for the purpose of bringing forth his son, to bring about the the fulfillment of all that he had promised in Genesis 3 .15,
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that there would be a serpent crushing seed who would conquer death once and forever, and that we can magnify him as the suffering
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Son who is now seated in glory and in power, the Son of God's right hand.
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Amen? Let's pray. Father, we're amazed by the intricacy of Your Word, the wisdom of Your Word.
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Who can deny its inspiration? Things that the prophets longed to look into that they themselves could not understand, we see that the perfect artistry and symmetry, the unfolding of the witness to Jesus that we find leaping as it were off of every page.
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We pray that like Rachel, Lord, we would cease our weeping over whatever losses and pains and sorrows we encounter in our life, knowing that there is a future and there is a hope embodied in the person and work of our
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Savior, Your Son. And let us not forget that He came into this world with great travail and labor pain and lived
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His life in sorrow, that He might fulfill all that we lack, that He might be what we are not, that we might find all that You require in Him, and that He would thereby become our all, that our souls would find satisfaction in Him, that You would give us rest, that You would help us to feast upon Him, feeding on Him as manna.
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Lord, we pray that the depths of this chapter would not be lost to any of us, even young minds, that we would be enraptured by the beauty and the glory of Your plan and purpose to glorify
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Your Son, so that You might receive all of the honor and all of the praise and our thanksgiving eternally, these things we ask in Your Son's name, amen.
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Well, now's our time for interaction. It's really kind of an interesting scripture to preach on Mother's Day, Rachel dying and giving birth to her son, but in a sense, mothers do sacrifice themselves for the sake of their children.
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So, let's round of applause for Kathy sacrificing herself for four kids.
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Amen. There's, yeah, it's actually a very wonderful place to be on Mother's Day, isn't it?
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There's so much bound up with the promise of the seed, you know, and Rachel's birth is very much pointing us forward to the birth of Jesus.
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So, it's glorious to think of God's wisdom. Well, hey, thank you very much for preaching.
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You know, I usually miss all of the symbolism. I've missed all this, even though I've read it many times. You know, earlier you said even, what, with Reuben being cast aside and Manasseh coming in, you paralleled that with, you know,
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Judas, you know, being cast aside, so to speak, and was it Matthias, I think? Matthias and Paul.
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So, you know, it'd be interesting to hear more about that. But, yeah, and then now, so I appreciate that.
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I have to look more into that because I do miss the symbolism. But you know what strikes me? You know,
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I know it maybe misses your main point, but a lot of the fathers of the Bible just were terrible fathers.
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I mean, I think of Jacob, and I don't know, maybe it's like what you said, but I just see a father who's just passive and doesn't deal with his daughter being raped and doesn't deal with what his son did.
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And then we just see David, and we just see even Samuel, whose two sons were like thieves or whatnot.
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And I'm sure if I thought about it, maybe there's some good examples of mothers,
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I don't know. But just, you know, in light of what the Bible tells us about mothers and fathers, and the children, and Ephesians, and I think it's
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Colossians, to whoever. But, and then even in D6 and whatnot, there's just some sorry excuses for parents in the
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Bible. Yeah. Is there anybody I can look at to say, here's a great example?
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Be more like... Yeah. Yeah, who? I don't know. There's, generally speaking, you know, a large runway of failures, and bright little moments where you're like, oh wow, you know, this is actually really good.
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And I think you're right to highlight that. I think with Jacob, and interestingly, because it's a very similar circumstances with King David, you know, he gets through the hard parts in his life, and then he seems to settle into passivity.
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And a lot of the turmoil of his own, you know, walk with the Lord begins to kind of settle into sort of just regular maintenance, and he becomes passive, and the influence that that has on the family is profound.
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And I think you, you know, you can see a parallel between Absalom and Reuben because of that fatherly dynamic.
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And so I think you're right to highlight the fact that this is meant to be a warning for our own sake, our own instruction.
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But I would point out that the passivity in Genesis 34 is strikingly clear.
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In Genesis 35, Jacob is referred to now exclusively as Israel, and I think that is a narratival way of saying he was walking by faith.
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And it may have been that he was so overcome by sorrow, fresh off the heels of losing Rachel, that he just didn't even know how to respond to Reuben.
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And it's very bizarre that it seems to amount to nothing until we hear about it again at the very end in Genesis 49.
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But yeah, even in our sorrow, we should be prepared for the enemy to, you know, to do other kinds of damage.
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And so we always have to be on guard in whatever season of life we find ourselves. And that failure points us to Jesus, who even in the midst of his sorrows was always on guard about the attacks of the enemy and never allowed himself to be compassive in the way he was discipling the twelve.
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And our goal is to be like Jesus and not necessarily like Jacob. You're the dad,
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Mike. You know, with what you shared,
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Ross, about, you know, Rachel and from Jeremiah and from Matthew, you know, in my prayer in the beginning of the service,
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I spoke, really it's interesting that this week the Lord has laid, you know, my mom, my heart, and then
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Jen's mom isn't doing too great in terms of her hip and everything. I mean, the church has a hope that in some ways they didn't have, you know, we're on the other side of this promise, right?
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Even, like, we're not on the side of Rachel despairing and saying, you know, Ben versus Benjamin, right?
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And so I think, you know, in some sense there is this picture that all of our fathers and all of our mothers have failed us because, in ways, right?
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I mean, I look at my mom who's not a believer and I see the example, not in testimony, in words to me, but in her actions pointing me to Christ once I know
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Christ and I see it now. But there's this sense that I think, because of sin, that it is right for us to see that our, you know, in some sense that our earthly fathers and mothers have, you know, can never be
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God to us, can never be our Heavenly Father and our mother on earth, which
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I think, you know, the Reformers talk about as is the church, this local church.
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And the church has the promise of their standing in the time of Benjamin, right?
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And so there's a sense that, like, we're to look at what
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Christ, as you said, that Christ is the husband, right? The father. And that the church is the mother.
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And together, by the preaching of the word and through the word, the church, in some ways, is this mother with the promise of, is this
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Rachel, in a sense, with the promise of Benjamin. And so I think it's right.
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I'm not always, you know, Mike, I'm not trying to say, like, against what you're saying, but in one sense, shouldn't we know that all the fathers and all the mothers have ultimately not been our
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Heavenly Father and the mother that they could have been on this side of eternity? But what we have is we have the hope of Christ, who is the
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Benjamin, right? We have the hope of Christ as our father, right, as the perfect husband as well, and we have the church that is the bride and the mother, right?
01:00:08
And so I think in some ways, at least what inspires me is to hold those two up higher than I ever would.
01:00:17
And it's a good reminder for me when I see that. You know, I see I have a mother who doesn't even know the
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Lord. I have a father who maybe knew the Lord, but his life ended in a way where it certainly showed that it's a good possibility he didn't know the
01:00:33
Lord. And that argument is there, and it's probably truer than the other argument, in a sense that it makes
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Christ more precious. It makes his church more precious, and it makes the desire for him and the desire to be part of this institution, the church, more precious.
01:00:54
Because our hope is not in, you know, an earthly father, an earthly mother. Our hope is in Christ, and it's in his church.
01:01:03
And it's in his church, because his church was given the promise that the gates of, you know, will not prevail, right?
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No earthly person has been given that promise. And so in some sense, like,
01:01:16
I try and look at it that way, to say my desire for Christ must be above all. My desire for his church must be above all.
01:01:24
And in doing that, I may be a better father, right? I may be a better father, and Jen may be a better mother, in light of that, right, that quest because of Christ.
01:01:37
So, you know, yeah, just along with what you're saying, I think it's beautiful what you said about Rachel and tying it to Matthew and Jeremiah.
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This is why the church is called our mother, right?
01:01:52
And this is why Christ and our Heavenly Father is called our father, the husband and our father. This is the perfect one, and everyone who's a pitcher on earth is imperfect.
01:02:05
But their perfection comes through their faith in God, right?
01:02:11
And, you know, I look to men who have, and women who have, sure, their failures all over the place, right?
01:02:18
They failed, but what I see is the overcoming and the restoration through faith, and that's the thing we want to grab on to, and that should be our motivation, because we're, in many ways, failures just like any other father or mother would be.
01:02:32
Our only hope is our faith, right? Amen. Let's help clarify some things for me from the, you know, like Mike mentioned, the, you know,
01:03:07
I've read Genesis, I don't know, 12, 13, 14 times, and yet my thought process on Rachel had always been that she was possibly not even saved, right?
01:03:20
Because, like, oh, she stole the household idols, she was an idolater, you know, she was bitter when she died because God didn't, she demanded another, so all these different things, and I was always like, this
01:03:31
Rachel sucks. I'm like, clearly Leah's the one that is more godly and righteous, and Jacob just didn't see it.
01:03:39
But I'm thankful that I've gotten, there's a lot more in the Hebrew than the
01:03:45
English sometimes brings out, I think. So I'm thankful for that. Amen. Brother?
01:04:11
Your ability to, I guess, read between the details and kind of, like, talking about what it must have been like as Rachel was dying and the emotion and stuff like that, and to think that it just helps these accounts, they're not just stories.
01:04:32
Like, I was thinking about that, especially as you were tying together kind of all the symbolism and everything, and this isn't like C .S.
01:04:38
Lewis or whatever wrote a really good book and put in some really good little details. Like, these are actual events, these are actual people going through actual trials, you know what
01:04:48
I mean? It's just like we go through trials, and, you know, I know we talk about this a lot, the whole idea of, like, where dots on a line heading in a certain direction and everything like that, and to just be able to learn about how this all connects and actual history.
01:05:07
Again, it's not a story, these things actually happened in God's bigger, you know, picture or bigger purpose for all these trials.
01:05:14
It really just, I don't know, I guess it just drives you to want to praise and worship, you know, so I appreciate that.
01:05:21
Yeah, praise the Lord. I mean, the infinite wisdom of God, you know, that all of this is about the promise of Genesis 3.
01:05:32
This is all just meant to help us contextualize and understand the coming of Jesus, and it's just, it's amazing how it's not even just here, it's how it reverberates through the prophets, and it's just, to me, the deeper you go, the only more convinced you have to be about the authorship of the
01:05:52
Holy Spirit. What human mind across such spans of time and languages and locations could orchestrate something like this.
01:06:02
To say it's the greatest story ever told is the biggest understatement imaginable, you know.
01:06:08
All of life and creation and history is bound up into this story. It's profound to just dance across the surface of it, and I think eternity will only bring more profundity.