Genesis 31: shaky people and an un-shakeable God
After a period of twenty years since meeting him in the famous dream at Bethel recorded in Genesis 28, God finally calls Jacob on the next step in the plans he has for him. It's easy to glance over the passing comments littered throughout Genesis which tell us of the passage of time between each 'episode' we read, and yet time and again, in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God makes his people wait. There is a larger plan at work, and God's timings are perfect. To our human minds it can feel like we're just waiting around sometimes, and when God brings us to something new we think: why did you not do this before? But if God let the founder of Israel 'put in time' for 20 years, then we cannot feel it unusual when this plays out in our own lives. Moreover, in spiritual and character terms, Jacob appears to have little to show for his time - the struggles of working under Laban have not refined his character to an extent that he is no longer tricking and deceiving, nor taking matters into his own hands.
However, when we reach Genesis 31 we see that God calls Jacob back to Canaan. His time under Laban is up and it is time for him to establish his own home and land, and indeed, nation. Like we have seen so many times before, we see God's plan in action, but alongside it and in it, human beings who do not quite trust the process! In this instance, Jacob is obedient to God's call (in some ways not a difficult thing for him as he feels pushed out and endangered by his soured relationship with Laban's family), but in typical fashion, does not trust God to put this plan into action, favouring the option of deceiving Laban and sneaking off. His words to his wives were full of reference to God, but as Joyce Baldwin puts it in the relevant Bible Speaks Today volume, both Jacob and Laban: paid lip service to the God of their fathers when to appeal to God was to their personal advantage, but in practice each depended on his wits (1).
When Laban realises the deceit and inevitably catches up with Jacob's slow-moving caravan, there is an almighty show-down. However, God's grace is apparent - through his appearing to Laban warning him not to hurt Jacob, and through the eventual reconciliation of the two parties (despite a hair-raising moment when Jacob almost signs Rachel's death warrant over the issue of the missing household Gods).
It is easy to feel a slight lack of satisfaction over the behaviour of the two human parties and their reconciliation - neither covers themselves in glory and we, the reader, know that from a human perspective, their agreement was based on Rachel's lie about not having the household gods. But this is an important truth to learn: human beings will never be satisfying. How much more glorious, then, does God's guiding hand, working through and with these unsatisfactory creatures, seem? Let us not put our trust in mere mortals, but in Him. The human foundations for Jacob and Laban's covenant are shaky, but God is not.
(1) Baldwin, J (1986) The Message of Genesis, p.133
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