We’re putting in today at Verse 30 of Chapter 29.  Now if you have your Bibles, turn there.  Verse 30 of Chapter 29 of Genesis.

And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.

You see this man Jacob we saw last time was totally deceived by his uncle.  His uncle promised him that he would give him Rachel if he would serve seven years.  And he served those seven years faithfully, and what did he get?  Well, he got Leah.  And believe me he got the short end of the stick.  Poor Jacob was certainly disappointed.  And after all, you must recall, that he put one over on his father, and he short-changed his own brother.  He pretended to be the elder when he was the younger.  Now he’s given the elder when thought he was getting the younger.  So he has to serve now seven more years.  And he’s learning the chickens do come home to roost, and that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  Now Uncle Laban made him serve twice as long as he originally agreed to and that was long enough.  But believe me, this is a long time; 14 years he served.  

And that gives him now two wives somebody said.  And that’s right.  And somebody else is going to say, “Well, it’s in the Bible.  God must approve of it.”  Now God doesn’t approve of everything that’s in the Bible.  That may startle some of you, but God didn’t approve of the devil telling a lie.  God didn’t approve of David telling a lie.  And God didn’t approve of David’s sin; He judged him for it.  But the record is inspired, and the thing that is inspired here are not the thoughts.  The thing that’s inspired here is the record or the words.  And this is an accurate record that he did have two wives and this is the way it came about.  And that’s where inspiration comes in, Friends.  It doesn’t mean that God approved of everything that’s in the Bible.  God disapproved of this, and let me say this to you.  This man had plenty of trouble in his family from here on out, and it all goes back, of course, to his own methods that he had used which God could not approve.  

Now in Verse 31 and 32, and let me read them:

And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.  And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me.

And so Leah is a pretty sad person because she knows that her husband loves her sister more than he loves her.  And now she’s become the mother of Reuben.  And that must have brought joy to her heart because he’s the eldest son.  He was not the one in the line that was to lead to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Actually, the one that’s to lead to Christ will be Judea, and that was the last son that Leah had.  You see, Leah had four sons.  She had Reuben and then, in Verse 33 here, she had Simeon; Verse 34, the record that she had Levi.  And so actually, she had some of the outstanding boys of the 12 sons of Jacob.  And the fourth son in Verse 35 here is Judea, and out of Judea is the one that is to furnish the kingly line.  David was in this line and then later on, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; according to the flesh, he came into the line of Judea.  And Levi was the priestly tribe, and Reuben lost his position as the first born, you will recall, because of his sin.  Now we have here these four boys that were the offspring of Leah.  

CHAPTER 30

BIRTHS OF JACOB’S SONS

And when we come to Chapter 30, why again we begin to see that God is moving in spite of the man’s sin; this man, Jacob.  Not because of it, but in spite of it, and we find that this man Jacob now is disturbed.  Let me read Chapter 30:1.

And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.

You see a woman in that day was disgraced unless she did have offspring, and the more, well—the more she had maybe not the merrier, but the more the better it was for her; that is, her position.  Now notice Verses 2 and 3.

And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?

And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.

Well, again, we see this was the practice of that day.  And you will recall I’m sure—those of you following this study, that Abraham and Sarah practiced it.  And God did not approve it then, and He’s not going to approve it.  The record is here and it’s an accurate record, but it doesn’t mean God approved it.  In fact, it’s quite obvious that God disapproved it.  My, the strife that we’ve already called attention to that was in the family of Abraham, was in the family of Isaac as we saw; now it’s in Jacob’s family already, and he’s in for a great deal more trouble.

Now we find that Bilhah was Rachel’s maid, and she bare Dan and Naphtali.  And then we find that Zilpah, the maid of Leah, bore Gad and Asher.  So we have here, well another, Issachar.  And we find, I’m not reading these verses in this Chapter as you see.  Just a record of the births here of these boys where you’ll remember there are 12 sons of Jacob, and they’re very important because from these 12 sons will come the 12 tribes of Israel; that is, the nation will come from them.  Believe me, Jacob had his hands full with these 12 boys.  We find also that there’s a girl there from Leah.  Her name was Dinah, and I guess she served a good purpose because there are lot of restaurants today named Dinah’s Shack or Dinah’s Dining Room or something, and so she did serve a good purpose.  And Issachar and Zebulun are mentioned here also.

Now I’m going to read in Verses 22 here and, well, I’ll read down to 24.

And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.  And she conceived, and bare a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach: And she called his name Joseph; and said, The Lord shall add to me another son.

Now this is the boy that we’ll follow down into the land of Egypt and make way for the rest of his brethren later on.  He’s quite remarkable.  We’ll have to save that story of him until another day, but it’s coming up, you can be sure.

JACOB PREPARES TO LEAVE LABAN

Now Verse 25-26.

And it came to pass, when Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country.   Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and let me go: for thou knowest my service which I have done thee.

Well, this is quite remarkable here, by the way, because we’re going to see that this man Laban had really mistreated his son-in-law and his nephew, Jacob.  And listen to Uncle Laban here.  You see, he’s not going to be through, you can be sure of that.  Jacob wants to get away, and now Uncle Laban says in Verse 27:

And Laban said unto him, I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry: for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake.

Now, this is something quite interesting.  This was something that you will recall that Abimelech, King of Gerar, found out when Isaac was in his midst.  He was blessed because of his presence.  And this is something now that Uncle Laban has discovered; that God is with Jacob and he’s blessed him.  And Uncle Laban said, “Now look, my boy, don’t rush off.  Don’t leave me.  Just hang around.  And I’ve been blessed and I want to raise your wages. I’ll pay you more.”  Listen to him in Verse 28.

And he said, Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it.

And I tell you, Jacob ought to know by now that any time Uncle Laban made a deal that he was the one that came off the winner; not the other fellow.  But Jacob’s learned the lesson.  Jacob wants to leave.  Uncle Laban says, “I’ll pay you more.” 

And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me.  For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased unto a multitude; and the Lord hath blessed thee since my coming: and now when shall I provide for mine own house also?  (Genesis 30:29-30)

In other words, listen to Jacob.  You talk about a man complaining.  He’s really – he’s singing the blues.  In other words, he’s saying here, “All I’ve got out of all of this service for you are two wives, and two maids, maids to the wives, and I’ve got a house full of boys.”  In fact, he’s gotten 11 boys now.  Now what in the world is he going to do?  How’s he going to feed them?  And he says, “God blessed you and he prospered you.  And I don’t have anything.”  In other words, “You’re the one that’s prospering and I’m not.”  And now Jacob says—and will you listen to him.  Verse 31.

And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me any thing: if thou wilt do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock.  I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire.  (Genesis 30:31-32)

In other words, the pure bred will be Laban’s, “but that which is just a half-breed or not breeds at all, that are not blue ribbon cattle, I’ll take those if you’ll give them to me.  And that’s all that you’ll need to do.  These are the off breeds.  They were not pure bred by any means.”  And he said, “You let me have these and that’ll be my wages.”  Now that sounds like a pretty good proposition.  Verse 33 now, and let me read.

So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me.  And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to thy word.  And he removed that day the he goats that were ring-streaked and spotted, and all the she goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons.  (Genesis 30:33-35)

In other words, they would not be able to breed with the others.  Jacob would take that which is the off-breed and only the full breed would bear, and that would belong to Uncle Laban.  But the others would be his.  He’s making here a very interesting deal.  And the way that it worked out is quite interesting.  And I want to read this because this has been criticized.  Verse 36.

And he set three days’ journey betwixt himself and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.  And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.  And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.  (Genesis 30:36-38)

Well, there’s been several explanations of this.  There are those that this is nothing in the world but just pure superstition, and others say it’s just old wives’ tales, and this is certainly something that ought not to be in the Bible record.  I think probably it should be in the record.  In fact, it’s my judgment that it should be in the record.  It’s very important that it be in the Word of God.  And the fact of the matter is this is not superstition.  There are several explanations.  

Now I’m of the opinion that there are those that today have been able to ascertain that this does have an effect upon those that are bringing into the world animals.  And certainly what a woman sees in time of pregnancy and her experience during that time has a tremendous effect upon the child.  And today these psychiatrists and psychologists make a great deal of it.  Well, it affects the animal world also.  Now I do not intend to go into that particular phase of it, but there are things that, frankly, I can’t explain.  And I don’t know that anybody that can explain them.  If they can, they ought to explain them to me because I’m in the dark.  

I remember in our community where I lived as a boy in Southern Oklahoma there was one of these men that would take a forked stick and tell you where there was water.  And everybody in our neighborhood when they wanted to drill a well, they’d call for him.  He came along with a forked stick and, the interesting thing is that every time they called him in and he picked out a spot, they’d drilled for water where he said, and they got water.  Now I don’t know whether they would have gotten water if they hadn’t called him in.  I don’t know.  All I know is that there was a very strange procedure and it sounds superstitious to me.  But it seemed to work.  I know in many cases, it does not work.  But I found out that there are a lot of scientific cures today that they give, and they don’t work.  And there are a lot of scientific explanations that don’t work.  So that just goes to say that it doesn’t work and in some cases it does work, and that doesn’t prove anything.  All I’m trying to say is don’t rule this out as being superstition.  

Now if you want to know the thing that I actually think, both Laban and Jacob believed this is what caused them to be ring-streaked, and that’s the thing that’s important for this story.  Maybe you are smart enough not to believe it, but these two boys believed it.  And what you must remember, all those cattle were together and some cattle would produce ring-streaked and speckled and some of the offspring would be white.  Now if they’re speckled, some speckled and some not, even that one that’s not may bring into the world one that is not.  I know that it—may I use a homely illustration.  I remember we had a cat one time when I was a boy and that cat was the prettiest, whitest cat that I’ve ever seen.  Now she had a bunch of kittens, and there were a lot of them just speckled, you know.  Just like the cattle.  And several were perfectly white and, lo and behold, in that litter there was one that was as black as ink.  Now you tell me how he got in there when his mama was a white cat; just a snow white cat, and here she has a black kitten, and yet others speckled and others white.  Well, I know she must have met a black cat somewhere, but I do know this.  Why did one be perfectly white and one black?  Well, that’s what’s happening with these cattle. I don’t understand all that myself.  And I don’t propose to try to explain it.  

All I say is this is the record that is here.  These men believed it, and Jacob is using trickery again regardless of whether there’s value in it or not.  He’s using trickery.  Now he’s been quite a trickster, you can see, but he’s met an uncle that’s a better trickster than he is.  And he’s trying now to make a comeback.  Well, may I say to you, poor Jacob, because he came there with just a walking stick, and when he leaves he leaves with quite a few possessions.  

Now God is calling him to leave.  And before we leave the chapter, I think probably I ought to call attention to this.  It may be mechanical about these boys, but here you have the mention of the 11 sons, and that’s important because these 11 sons are the sons that are going to constitute the twelve tribes of Israel.  

CHAPTER 31

JACOB THEN LEAVES

Now in Chapter 31, Jacob now leaves Laban without giving notice.  And he takes French Leave, and they don’t even have a farewell party.  And Jacob and Laban then make a contract not to defend or hurt each other.  Then they separate in an outwardly friendly manner.  

Now this is a rather lengthy chapter that we’ve come to.  Here it has 55 verses in Chapter 31.  We’re going to save most of it for next time.  But here’s the other side of the coin.  God wants to get him out of that land.  He recognizes that the influence there is not good for Jacob and this growing family that’s coming along; for these boys, because these are to be the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel, and God is anxious to get them out from that environment and back into Abraham’s country.  The country He’d promised to Abraham, and God now is calling Jacob to return.  

And you’ll notice here as we come into Chapter 31—you’ll see that Jacob now is getting more than Uncle Laban is getting.  And he doesn’t like it, and his sons don’t like it either—that is, Laban’s sons.  

And this man wants now to leave, and he takes Rachel and Leah and meets them out in the field, and they plot to take leave, and they do take leave.  And poor Jacob, he’s perplexed, he’s frustrated; he doesn’t know now where to turn, and it’s this time that God has called him to leave.  And God has called him to leave for the sake of his family, the boys, the children there; that they should not stay in that environment.  But we’ll have to leave that ‘til next time.