Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. Jacob said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? For you have felt through all my goods; what have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, that they may decide between us two. These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flocks. What was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. There I was: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.”
Jacob, whose name is translated “supplanter” (to replace by power or force or deception), has met his match in his uncle Laben. Laben is a master manipulator. He tricked his nephew, Jacob, to first marry the older daughter and then continued to trick him about his wages and anything else he could do to him. Jacob himself was reported as tricking Laben out of his sheep. He later is accused by Laban of tricking him when he took Laban’s daughters and the flock he had earned:
Genesis 31:25-27 (ESV)
And Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched tents in the hill country of Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you have tricked me and driven away my daughters like captives of the sword? Why did you flee secretly and trick me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs, with tambourine and lyre?
Their relationship was not healthy. It was not something a family could point to as a good family dynamic. Like most families, their relationship had many flaws. Yet, God would later change Jacob’s name to Israel and use this messiness to bring about the twelve tribes of Israel. This story can be repeated throughout history. David’s family was very messy. His son attempted to overthrow His kingdom. His son, Solomon, would give brith to a son who would eventually lead the nation to split into the Northern and the Southern Tribes. But in each instance God was working. God works in the messy parts. For Jacob it was a tough lot in life. He must have thought God had abandoned him. Anyone would feel that way. But God was always working. God even works in the messy parts of life ... the majority parts of life. We ought not lose heart in the messy parts. God is the God of the majestic mountains and the God of the messy valleys.
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