Thursday, March 8, 2012

Jacob the visionary or Jacob the schemer?

Many commentators and writers present Jacob in a very negative light. To quote the TAFTEE Genesis Course it says in Week 8 Day 2 Frame 4 “Jacob knows very little about the LORD”. As another commentator says on Genesis 28 “Jacob, the bargainer, stoops so low that he bargains with the Almighty.”
 
I have another perspective of Jacob’s spiritual growth which goes as follows:-

Jacob was 15 when Abraham died. (Gen 21:5, 25:7 & 25:26) Abraham, knowing that the promise was through Isaac, would have spent as much time as he could with the grandchildren and would have shared with them the promise of God to him.

There was a prophecy given to Rebekah that Jacob would take precedence over Esau (Gen 25:23). If Abraham had believed in the prophecy, he would have paid special attention to Jacob.

So the first spiritual experience of Jacob would have been the testimony of Abraham and the promise given to Abraham.

Esau did not want the birthright as it carried two responsibilities neither of which interested him. The first was the responsibility of looking after the parents for which he was given a double portion. His wives could not get along with Rebekah and so this was something he did not look forward to (Gen 26:35). The second was the fulfilment of the promise given to Abraham. To Esau these stories of Abraham did not appear real. Abraham was an old man, 160 years older than them, and did not seem to be relevant to the world. 45 years had passed since his death and no fresh revelation from God was there. So he sold his birthright to Jacob.

Jacob believed in the words of Abraham and desired the birthright. Because of his faith he found favour in the sight of God. He saw the 45 years passing without a word from God, but held on to the vision.

Jacob was forced by Rebekah to carry out the plot to steal the blessing. This created problems for everyone, but we need to recognise that Jacob was an unwilling accomplice in this episode. Because of this error he has to flee to Syria.

Jacob is not adventurous like Esau (Gen 25:27). For him the journey to Syria would have been a fearful and uncertain experience. On the first night out, at Bethel Yahweh appears to him and repeats to him the promise given to Abraham and he is told that Yahweh would bring him back to Palestine. To Jacob this is something new and his response is probably not the best, but is essentially, if all you say is true, you will be my God and I will build you an altar.

Jacob reaches Syria and is his usual manipulative self trying to best Laban in his business deals. He however does recognise that the wealth that he has obtained is God’s blessing (Gen 31:5-9). He is too young in his experience of Yahweh to be able to accept Laban switching Leah for Rachel and bring a lot of woe into his life by insisting on marrying Rachel also. But he sees God is with him and when God tells him to go home he does.

On the way home he begins to face his fear of Esau and panics, making all kind of arrangements to protect himself and especially Rachel. At this time, when he is at a breaking point, at Peniel he has an experience of God which enables him to commit his situation into the hand of God and this becomes the turning point in his life.

 Bethel and Peniel were key events in Jacob’s spiritual journey, but there was last step required. He had permitted Rachel to worship her gods which she had brought with her, stolen from Laban. At Shechem his sons commit a crime of wantonly killing a tribe and Jacob is horrified. He realises that his spirituality is not of any use if his family does not carry on the blessing of Abraham and so he calls for them to clear out all the idols from amongst them.

 Jacob’s own evaluation of his life is found in Gen 47:9 where there is none of his arrogance or confidence in self but trust in Yahweh.

 What lessons do we learn from Jacob for ourselves? Learn to trust in Yahweh rather in self if you do not want to be brought to a point of breakdown in your life. Keep the faith in the vision even though we go through spiritually barren times in our life.

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