For those of you who do not know me as well as Pamela, I am including an introduction of myself for you. I consider myself a "reacher" as I married up to an awesome woman, Pamela. We have been married for 18 years and have been blessed to have 3 kids. I have worked in retail for 16 years at a locally owned store selling household major appliances. (if you are in need, I might know a guy) This is my first time contributing to a blog, and my writing skills will be evidence of this - I apologize to you in advance for this. I am a part of this blog to gain a stronger and closer relationship to our God by reading His Word, and I trust that we can all learn more as we dig into the passages together and share our comments with one another.
As Jacob is on his journey, it appears that he is on the right path for when he meets the shepherds and begins to ask them questions, Jacob is hearing the answers he wants to hear. He must have felt an overwhelming amount of relief upon the realization of God's faithful direction and leading him to this point. His feeling of relief appears to quickly change to a sped up heart beat as he meets Rachel who was, "lovely in form, and beautiful." (Genesis 29:17) So much so, that he did what any young man would do to woo his future bride - "he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle's sheep." (Genesis 29:10) I would imagine that this task would have normally required a couple of shepherds to complete together, not typically by one man alone, but this man had a woman to impress.
We go on to read that Jacob requested Rachel's hand in marriage after he worked for Laban for 7 years. I found it interesting that Jacob worked out this deal. I would think that this would be a high price to pay for a daughter in marriage, but maybe he wanted to show Laban how much he wanted to marry her. At any rate, the time seemed to fly by to Jacob, and soon enough the time came for him to receive his bride.
Just when it seemed too good to be true, God allowed events to take place that would surprise anyone. Jacob was deceived by Laban in a switcharoo scheme, similar to what Jacob did to his father Isaac. Jacob was getting a taste of his own medicine. Perhaps this circumstance was part of God's plan? At this point, it would appear that Jacob did not feel that God was in control of this situation. Jacob's heart was with Rachel, so his reaction was to take this situation into his own hands and still have Rachel as his wife. He was going to have what he wanted in spite of God's will. God would have known that Jacob would have rather married Rachel over Leah, and maybe this was the only way to accomplish this? After all, it was Leah who gave birth to Judah, through whom Jesus, our Saviour, would eventually be born.
How often are we tempted to take control of a situation that we are in when it does not appear to be going our way? Jacob's decision to pursue Rachel after being married to Leah, did not prove to make for a peaceful situation. We have the luxury of reading passages and seeing how much better it could have been had they not been disobedient earlier. How much better could our situations be if only we were faithfully obedient to God! God does not abandon us and He did not abandon Jacob. Jacob lived a life struggling with people and with God. They say it takes two to fight. It's the same with a struggle. When we are struggling, that means that God has not abandoned us. To discipline our children means we are with them, so how much more true is that of God's discipline on us. God allowed Jacob's poor decisions to be his punishments.
Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Genesis 31-32, Romans 11:1-18
3 comments:
One thing I always notice about this passage is how different Jacob's wife selection is compared to Abraham's servant's.
Abraham's servant prayed and asked God for wisdom in choosing a wife for Isaac. Jacob, on the other hand, was struck by Rachel's outer beauty and didn't even ask God for His advice or consider her character and whether or not her inner beauty was comparable to her outer beauty.
I did think it was kind of poetic justice that Laban deceived Jacob just as Jacob had deceived his father and brother.
Excellent point about Rachel and Leah. I, too, have always noticed that Leah was the one God chose in Jesus' genealogy, and I've always loved that, but I hadn't really considered the fact that Leah had been God's intended for Jacob all along and that he never should have married Rachel at all.
Conrad - thanks so much for joining the blog and for all your thoughtful comments! I've really been appreciating the extra insights by you and Pamela every day and it definitely enriches the experience as we're really learning together.
I had also never considered that maybe Jacob was never supposed to marry Rachel and that it was God's plan for him to marry Leah alone. It is something interesting to consider.
I also never considered that it was Jacob who first suggested the idea of working for 7 years...was that just the going rate for wives at the time or was it a way to show his seriousness in wanting to marry her. It's interesting that it was another 7 years of work after that. I wonder if he felt like those 7 years felt like no time at all too...or were those years just a long suffering reminder of his own deception to his father and brother.
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