06. § 4. Jacob
§ 4. Jacob
1. Jacob at Bethel.—The less progress Jacob had made in the divine life, the more he needed love as well as severity; and a proof of love was given him soon after his departure. A position beset with temptation was prepared for him. Taken away from the land of promise, from the only circle in which the living God was still honoured, he was to tarry among a race whence the living knowledge of the true God had begun gradually to disappear; and with this race he was to enter into the very closest relations. The vision given to him at Bethel, the Lord in His heavenly dwelling, a ladder upon which angels were ascending and descending,—ascending in order to carry up to God his wants and entreaties, descending in order to bring him help from God,—represents that which was made known to him immediately after in words, viz. God’s watchfulness over His chosen race, and over him first of all, who as the ancestor and head of it is here strengthened anew. In this symbol we have a prophecy of all the manifestations of a special providence until the time of its highest fulfilment in Christ and His church. Christ Himself expressly points to such deep meaning; comp. John 1:51. Jacob’s surprise at the appearance of God in this place must be explained by the fact that He regarded not the universal, but the special agency of God, the manifestations of God as Jehovah, as confined to the place where His visible community was at that time. This indeed was generally the case; for Ishmael and Esau, in leaving the paternal roof, also left the territory of Jehovah. How comforting it must have been, how it must have filled him with gratitude and love, to find that God would hold communion even with an isolated member, if he did not make himself unworthy of this communion by his own guilt! Jacob was in a very susceptible frame of mind. He felt himself alone, forsaken by all the world, and his eye turned so much the more eagerly to the Friend in heaven. He feared that God also had forsaken him; so that the increasing love with which He now revealed Himself must have made an indelible impression on him. Now was laid the proper basis for the building up of an independent spiritual life in him. In that night he was weaned; formerly he was still spiritually at his mother’s breast. At this time he first received a deep, heartfelt conviction, that if our sins be many, God’s grace is superabundant. It was doubtless the consciousness of sin in a great measure which led him to doubt God’s guidance and blessing. The place which for Jacob had become the gate of heaven, was henceforward sacred in his sight. At a later period he wishes to testify his gratitude to God by building an altar. Now he only prefigures what he will then do. The stone upon which he has slept is made to represent the place of a sanctuary, to foreshadow the future. He anoints it with oil he had taken with him, after the Oriental travelling custom. Anointing is a rite of sanctification and consecration. The prayer-houses of heathen antiquity belong to a later time, and evidently owe their origin to this narrative. The name stands in clear connection with Bethel. The vow of Jacob has often been stigmatized as mere compensation service. But let it be noticed that he only makes a condition of what God Himself has promised to do for him. If God did not keep this promise, he would not be God, and would therefore not be worthy of service. Mark also his modesty, which is contented with mere food and clothing. Let us not be more severe than God Himself, who demands only on the ground of His giving, who reveals Himself as our God in order that we may recognise Him as such, and honour Him by word and deed. It must be remembered that the manner of this revelation varies according to the difference of the times and the heart of the individual; that it must first of all be given externally to him who is still wrapped up in the external, in order that he may be led step by step to that which is higher. Again, the reproach of desire of reward arises mainly from a false rendering. It must not be rendered, “If Elohim will be with me, etc., then shall Jehovah be my God;” but only, “If Elohim, etc., and Jehovah be my God, then shall this stone become a house of Elohim; and of everything that Thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto Thee.” Therefore Jacob does not make the service of the Lord generally, but only a certain outward form of it, dependent on God’s manifesting Himself to him as God.
2. Jacob in Mesopotamia.—The centre of this whole narrative is the proof of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling the promise given to Jacob on the commencement of his journey. He experienced this immediately on his arrival in Mesopotamia. It was God’s guidance which led him unexpectedly to meet Rachel; and the same providence accompanied him during the long time of his sojourn in a strange land. True, he was exercised by many a cross; for in him the saying, “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,” was strikingly exemplified. Laban’s dishonesty involved him in bitter domestic relations; and his avarice sought to deprive him of the reward of his hard labour. But, by God’s blessing, that which had been taken was virtually given back to him. We perceive the aim of the divine leadings best by their results. Jacob says: “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which Thou hast showed unto Thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.” In this humble acknowledgment of divine grace Ave see what had been wrought in him by its means,—how he had risen to the Giver through the gifts, and had entered into the closest communion with Him.
Laban’s character requires no delineation. Its principal features are avarice combined with cunning and accompanied by stupidity, which is often the case. Even religion he employs as a means to his ends. But his hypocrisy is too notorious to enable him to bring this to any virtuousness, which is only practicable if the heart be really on one side inclined to divine things. By this means alone does the other side gain material to elaborate its aims. In Laban’s daughters the evil influence which such surroundings must have exercised upon them is very visible. They exhibit unamiable jealousy of one another, whose mean and hateful manifestations Moses has copiously detailed, in order that polygamy, in which Jacob was involved by the power of circumstances, may be recognised by its fruits as opposed to the original institution of marriage. We find religious error so firmly rooted in them, that Jacob’s influence during his whole residence in Mesopotamia does not suffice to free them from it. Rachel regarded the teraphim of her father so great a treasure, that she esteemed every means good by which she might obtain possession of them, and maintain it. Genesis 35:2, Genesis 35:4 shows that Jacob’s family also took other idols, ear-rings, and such like, which had reference to idol-worship. It was not until the family was in Canaan, removed from evil communications, when it was no longer esteemed necessary to pay honour to the local deities of Mesopotamia as well as to Jehovah, that Jacob succeeded in purifying it from the outward stain at least of idolatry. Whence it appears that he received the command to return to Canaan just at the right time. Otherwise the tendency to idolatry would have become so firmly rooted in his growing-up children, that it would have been almost impossible to eradicate it. The more difficult the relations in which Jacob was involved, the more beautifully does his faithfulness towards God shine out, and the better is the foundation for what God did to keep him in the truth With reference to these relations, he incurs no other reproach than that of too great pliancy and softness. He was most to blame in yielding to the two jealous sisters respecting their maids. In Jacob’s conduct towards Laban we find traces of his old nature. Laban congratulated himself on the conclusion of the agreement that Jacob should receive all the streaked cattle which should be born without the application of artificial means. Jacob knew this, and hence resolved to fulfil the contract in the same spirit in which Laban had concluded it. His conduct cannot be justified, and therefore must not be regarded as the result of God’s counsel, as many have assumed, misunderstanding the passage Genesis 31:11, which is not a command to Jacob, but only foretells what will happen, and what would have happened even without the human means applied, and for which he alone is responsible. But many excuses may be made for him. It was only his own property he recovered by a trick; which he thought the more necessary, since he could not seek justice by appealing to any power. In self-interest, Laban had sold him Rachel for the service of seven years, and had then deceived him respecting her, unjustly obliging him to serve seven years more. We learn from the example of Rebekah that the later Oriental custom of buying daughters from their parents was not yet universal, but was first introduced by that avarice which sought to turn everything into an article of commerce; for in Genesis 31:15 Laban’s daughters complain of his conduct as manifestly unjust: ‘‘ Are we not counted of him strangers? for he hath sold us, and hath quite devoured also our money.” They protest against his having sold them; at least they say he should have given them the purchase-money for a dowry. After the lapse of the fourteen years’ servitude, Laban, who was obliged to confess that he owed all his riches to Jacob, concluded an agreement with him, in which, as he thought in his cunning, Jacob would fare badly. But no sooner did he find himself mistaken in this opinion, than he broke and altered the compact, and that repeatedly, Genesis 30:7-8. Jacob says to Laban, Genesis 31:42, “Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty;” and Laban was unable to deny the intention, or to justify the means by which he had sought its attainment. For the rest, all that may be said either for or against Jacob is properly foreign to the unity of our narrative. The author has fixed his sole attention on the part which God had in the matter, and on the faithfulness of His promise, which proves itself here also; for if God had not blessed the means employed by the cunning Jacob always anxious to help the Almighty, they could have had but a small result, as all experiences which have been made in this department sufficiently prove. This was certainly not concealed from Jacob. He acted in faith; his object was not to help himself, but only to prepare a very small basis for the active efficiency of God.
3. Jacob’s wrestling.—The appearance of the angel—which, as we are told in Genesis 32:2, gave name to the later town of Mahanaim on the other side of Jordan, north of Jabbok, on the borders of the tribes of Gad and Manasseh—forms a counterpart to the appearance of the angel at Bethel; and the analogy suggests the idea of an inner fact. Here, as there, the angels are servants of God for the protection of His own; here, as there, the sight of them forms an antidote to that fear with which the sight of the visible must have inspired Jacob. There God made known to him in this intuitive way that He would preserve his going out; here, that He would preserve his going in, the result of God’s own command. The same assurance was soon afterwards given him in a still more impressive way, at the time when his anxiety was greatly enhanced by the news that Esau his brother was approaching with 400 men; whence it is evident that Esau had already received his part of the paternal inheritance. Much light is thrown on the account of Jacob’s wrestling by the passage in Hosea 12:4 : ‘‘He had power over the angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication unto him.” From this it is clear that the weapons of Jacob’s warfare were not carnal but spiritual; that it was in the main a spiritual encounter with God or His angel.In a mere outward struggle we do not overcome by prayer and tears. Apprehended in a gross outward way, the fact offers many difficulties, which Kurtz and Delitzsch have recently striven in vain to set aside. A spiritual struggle cannot, indeed, be placed in contrast with a bodily one. All deep emotions of the soul are shared by the body, and involve it in the agitation. We learn from the experience of one who was sunk in the depths of adversity, how heart and flesh rejoice in the living God; how, in one rescued from great need, the bones say, “Lord, who is like unto Thee? “Again he says: “O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed. Mine eye is consumed with grief; yea, my soul and my body.” When the true Israel wrestled in Gethsemane, His body was so deeply involved in the struggle, that His sweat, like drops of blood, fell down to the earth. Hence it is evident, from the great violence of the wrestling, that Jacob’s body was drawn into participation with the spirit; and this is decisively proved by the circumstance that the struggle had a corporeal consequence, and left behind it a bodily infirmity. But the essence of the occurrence is infinitely more important than its form. What was the cause of Jacob’s struggle? Evidently his great fear of Esau; comp. Genesis 32:7, “Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.” He knew his brother’s fierce disposition; and when he heard he was approaching with 400 men, he thought he might anticipate the worst. Everything was at stake—everything which he had already gained, and his whole future—the possession of Canaan and the blessing on the heathen. This anxiety drove him to God, by whom it had been sent for this purpose. But God did not immediately condescend to him. He steeled Himself against him, acting as if Jacob had no claim on Him, as if by his sins he had wholly separated himself from Him, and could therefore no longer look for His assistance, but must rather consider how he should prepare himself alone for the danger which threatened. But Jacob will not be put off: his faith proves itself to be faith by the fact that he grows more urgent as God becomes harder towards him, and continually opposes him with, “Though our sins be many, God’s grace is superabundant.” Thus he obtains that victory of which he and his people are to be continually reminded by the new name bestowed upon him. Jacob had been his name until then, because even in his mother’s womb he had held his brother by the heel, as a prefiguration of his noble striving after the possession of the spiritual birthright, of his aspirations after the kingdom of God, which was grasped by wrong means only in the beginning, Hosea 12:4. Henceforth his name is Israel, because he has conquered God in hard battle. The meaning of the new name, Israel, conqueror of God, is given in the words, “For thou hast power with God and with men “—with the latter indirectly. They were overcome in God. He who has God for a friend cannot be injured by any creature. Thus the highest claim which the ancestors of the covenant people had realized, and were destined to realize, was shown to be wrestling with God, perseverance in prayer, and entreaty until He should bless. This appears as the only but sure means of withstanding all dangers, even the greatest, while faith is the victory by which the church overcomes the world; and if from these struggles she bear a constant memorial of her victory, she is continually reminded of her weakness at the same time. Jacob is filled with fear of Esau: he is like a falling leaf; no human power avails in a struggle, which is the hardest, when our sins prevail over us. Israel, the wrestler with God, conquers the anguish, and is freed from danger. This event in Jacob’s life is parallel with that which occurred on Mount Moriah in the life of Abraham. He prevailed over God not only for once. The name is given to him as a perpetual thing; thus showing that we have here the commencement of a continuous relation to God, that Jacob has mounted a new step, that this victory is the beginning of a series of succeeding victories already contained in germ in the first and having it for a foundation. But that he may not estimate himself too highly, he bears away a sensuous sign from the combat, to remind him of his weakness, and to convince him that his opponent had been at the same time his helper, that he had conquered God only by God. Such signs are borne by every believer from every struggle he has with God. Not one comes out of such an encounter without a wound. God allows believers fully to realize their own weakness, that they may rightly apprehend how divine power alone is mighty in the weak. If, like the sacrifice of Esau, this event be looked at in its true light, as a prophecy, which ought to be and is realized in every individual believer and in the church at all times, it will be seen to contain a rich treasure both of comfort and exhortation, “For this reason,” says Luther, “let us learn that these things are written for our instruction, that if the like should happen to us, we may know to hold God in such a way that we become Israel.” That the event had a typical reference to Christ, the true Israel, is pointed out in Hebrews 5:7 : “Who in the days of His flesh offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared.” God acted towards Him as a stranger as long as He represented the sins of the whole human race; but when, like Jacob, Hosea 12:4, He pressed upon Him with strong crying and tears, He gave Him the victory, and thus laid a foundation for our victory. Esau’s loving conduct was to Jacob the next fruit of his struggle, the next proof of his name. His taking the 400 servants shows that he had set out, if not with decidedly evil intentions, yet with the purpose of allowing his resolution to be formed by circumstances. From his passionate temperament, humanly speaking, there was everything to fear. But God put love into the heart that had been filled with hatred. The whole meaning of Jacob’s wrestling is changed if we assume that Esau had previously had peaceable intentions, and that he had the 400 men with him for some other object, without any reference to Jacob. If the danger had been merely imaginary, how could God say that Jacob had striven with God and with men, and had prevailed? How could the victory over Esau’s desire for revenge be represented as the price of the struggle with God? We need not say that the fickle and sanguinary character of Esau made it improbable that he should retain hatred so long in his heart. He was fickle and sanguinary only where higher possessions were concerned. Lasting desire of revenge was a characteristic feature even among his descendants; comp. Amos 1:11. They show a strength of hatred against Israel such as no other nation has ever shown. It continues as long as their existence. But in this case Esau’s hatred is obliged to yield to a power stronger than his own, which stifles the flame of revenge, and fans to a flame the few sparks of brotherly love existing along with it. It is plainly set forth that this decisive struggle forms a turning-point in Jacob’s life. We see nothing more of his cunning and self-reliance. His trust is now firmly placed in God. But his old nature is perpetuated in his sons.
4. The crime of Jacob’s sons at Sichem.—The consequences of this event, rather than the event itself, form the kernel and scope of the narrative. The author’s eye is directed to the object which it subserved in God’s hand, not to the human guilt incurred. The trouble into which Jacob was thus brought drove him nearer to God, and caused him to do what from weakness he had already too long neglected, viz. to extirpate from his family all remnants of idolatry that had been brought from Mesopotamia, and to consecrate himself and his household anew to the service of the Lord. The threatening danger gave God occasion to manifest Himself as a Saviour. In Genesis 35:5 it is said: ‘‘And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.” The narrator, who is describing God’s dealings with Israel, is so absorbed in this his aim, that he leaves it to others to condemn the morality of the sons of Jacob. But we see plainly how little we are warranted by his silence in such a case to assume approval. The shameful deed is censured in the hardest terms by Jacob on his death-bed, Genesis 49:5-6; and divine punishment is predicted on Simeon and Levi, who, as sons of Leah and full brothers of Dinah, had been particularly active in the matter. The carnal pride of election, which already appears among Jacob’s sons, is noteworthy. This election is made to serve as a cloak for their revenge; comp. Genesis 34:7, Genesis 34:14, Genesis 34:31. It has been justly remarked, that we have here the type of those errors into which, in the course of history, many have been led by faith in the privileges of Israel rudely apprehended by carnal-minded men. The revelation of God vouchsafed to Jacob after this event, the ratification he receives of the name Israel, after he has again proved himself a wrestler with God—having passed through a struggle in which faith had conquered that despair of the divine grace in which the vice of his sons threatened to plunge him, the sight of the sins of the chosen race being the mightiest opponent which faith has to overcome—form a kind of key-stone. He still lives for a considerable period. But now his son Joseph steps into the foreground: he it is in whose life the special providence of God particularly reveals itself, working through his destiny for the realization of its plans respecting the whole nation. We must therefore begin a new section here, after the example of Moses, Genesis 37:2.