Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day for these my daughters or for their children whom they have borne? Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I. And let it be a witness between you and me.” So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. And Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me today.” Therefore he named it Galeed, and Mizpah, for he said, “The LORD watch between you and me, when we are out of one another’s sight. If you oppress my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us, see, God is witness between you and me.”
This is rich! If you are unfamiliar with the story to this point, here is a recap.
1. Jacob is sent, by Isaac his father, to his mother’s (Rebekah) brother Laban. He is sent there to get a wife.
2. Jacob loves Rachel and wants to marry her. He agrees to work seven years for that right.
3. On the wedding night Laban (a deceptive man) switches out Rachel with her older sister, Leah. His point is that the younger sister can’t be married before the older.
4. Jacob agrees to work seven more years for Rachel.
5. The two sisters and their two hand maids duel out each other on giving babies. Leah gave birth to six boys and a girl. Her hand maid (Zilpah) gave him two sons. Rachel’s hand maid (Bilhah) gave him two son. Rachel gave him two sons, Joseph and Benjamin.
6. Jacob started to gain more livestock than Laban. And that turned Laban against him.
7. Jacob saw that Laban was out to get him and took his two wives, two hand maids and their 13 grandkids to return to his own land.
8. Laban pursues them and this is where we are in the above. Laban claims, in the above verses, that all this is his.
This is not true. God had taken from Laban and had given to Jacob. But, Laban was so proud he had to deceive himself to make this work. His pride would not allow him to confess that God had blessed Jacob. The world can’t see what God does for His people. Laban, due to pride, had to hold onto a false narrative to make himself feel good. Jacob does not dispute Laban. He avoids the conflict and the pride and simply gets to the point that he is taking them all and going to his home. When the world wants to flex and puff out their chest over temporal and material goods, don’t forget it is God who orchestrates the world around us. Note what God said to Laban before he pursued Jacob:
Genesis 31:22-24 (ESV)
When it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob had fled, he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him for seven days and followed close after him into the hill country of Gilead. But God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night and said to him, “Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.”
God is in control.
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