Sermon - AudioGen 30-31 - Audio
Gen 30-31 - Daily Reading
Daily Insights - Please Comment
Opening Prayer for the reading and understanding of the Story
| Almighty God, in you are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Open my eyes that I may see the wonders of your Word; and give me grace that I may clearly understand and freely choose the way of your wisdom; through Christ our Lord. Amen |
Genesis 30
- 30.1: Each woman wants what the other has, neither can be happy with what they have been given.
- 30.3: Bear a child “for me” literally is “on my knees” which means that Rachel will adopt these children and make them legitimate.
- 30.14 Mandrakes were thought to be an aphrodisiac, so Rachel wants them so she can bear children.
- 30.15 The hiring of Jacob so he will sleep with Leah in the original language reflects not a loving relationship but intercourse that takes place under unsavory circumstances.
- 30.25ff: Laban’s deal with Jacob is one where Jacob gets the most uncommon sheep and goats. This means that his wages should be rather low. But even though they are low, and an agreement has been made, Laban takes all of these kinds of sheep and goats and sends them off with his sons so Jacob begins with nothing. God comes to Jacob’s aid and brings him great wealth in spite of Laban’s greed and dishonesty.
- One of the most revealing things in this chapter is Laban’s character. Living with Laban must have been a difficult thing for all concerned. A few things that speak of Laban’s bad character:
- He doesn’t pay Jacob fairly for his labor
- He doesn’t give his daughters their share of the bride price (by law part of the bride price was supposed to go to them) , he treats them as commodity rather than as daughters.
- He demands that Jacob replace sheep that were killed by wild beasts, such a demand goes against the law of the day.
- He would have tried to send Jacob away with nothing if he would have known Jacob was leaving (31.42)
- He tries to save face after he is shown to be a scoundrel (31.43ff).
- 31.19: usually the taking of idols is seen as a negative comment on Rachel i.e. she still wants to worship them. This, however, is never stated in the text. All we know is that she took them. One rabbi says she took them so her father could no longer worship them. It’s an important reminder to look at what the text actually says and not assume an answer.
- 31.35: Laban can’t imagine that Rachel would sit on his gods while having her period, because to do so would defile them.
- 31.42: God is called “Fear of Isaac” a unique name for God. Jacob wants to emphasize that God is the God who causes terror to those who would not obey him i.e. if you don’t pay heed to the dream you had last night, bad things will happen.
- 31.53: The NIV misses the point that the God of Abraham and the god of Nahor are different Gods. Abraham’s God is Yahweh, Nahor’s god is the moon god. In this oath we see that Laban has not accepted Yahweh as God and that, in fact, he is the enemy of God’s people.
2 comments:
It's interesting that the image of marriage is nothing like the image of marriage that Christ portrays in the New testament. There is all this deceit, anger, jealousy, and competition and the multiple wives. I know this is because of different laws but when and why did all the rules change for marriage? Is it because in the OT they did not have a true image of what love should look like. We can reflect our marriages around God's love for his people through the giving of his son.
Hi Rebecca,
Maybe the best place to start is in Genesis 1 and 2. "For a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the they shall become one flesh". God's creational design is for an amazing unity between husband and wife, the kind of love that even we do not fully gather in our fallen world. It is the fall that messes up God's creational design. We sense the fullness of this when we find that the first time love is actually mentioned in the Bible is in terms of Abraham's love for his son Isaac.
We should remember that as God's story moves forward that marriage has different priorities than it does today. Having children was more important than being in love. Marriages were arranged rather than being based on romantic love (romantic love in marriage is a rather recent thing flowing not out of the Bible, but out of culture).
At the same time we do get a picture of a change that is happening in marriage. Jesus in Matthew 19 refers back to the creational design--but as he does so he points out something that is not in the Hebrew of Genesis 1. Genesis 1 speaks of "they shall become one flesh" but Jesus says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?" Jesus' reference to "two" rather than "they" points to a monogamous relationship. Add to this the radical way that Paul speaks of the husband/wife relationship in Ephesians 5 in a society where love had no place in marriage and you can begin to see the change that the scriptures open up as God moves his story forward to restore what he intended in the original creation.
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