Genesis Bible Study - Chapters 30-31 - Jacob Flees Laban

0:00Because from search and individuals on society's dual禃, alternative paths in life will always be You are listening to Against the Horde. Welcome back everybody. To Against the Horde. I am here with Ben from the Dig and Ben that is from the Muddy Piston. The other Ben from the Dig is also a Muddy Piston. But we are all here today. That is going to be confusing. It is. Ben your buddy and your father at home.

1:03They are both my buddies. Well, I guess that is a good thing. I will leave your dig name out. If you want to know. Oh you can say his nickname. That is fine. So I am being the other guy is Big Sexy. Yeah. Oh good. Oh. He is a John Wayne character. He is. He is got a aura. Yeah. The John Wayne persona. It is more like the Pig Pen aura. The Cloud pose. You take showers sometimes. I have seen it. Well. Well, no way. Hey, hey. This is kind of show isn't it? You learned it. You did no better. First time on here. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Anyway, today we are moving on. Last time, if you guys remember, we went through Genesis 28 and 29, a little bit about

2:03Jacob's life and working for Laban and getting tricked into marrying one of his daughters and then getting the one he wants about a week later but still had to work another seven years for her. But there was a lot of things that happened in those chapters. I hope you go back and listen to that kind of as just set up for more of what happens down the road because Genesis is one of those books that has just so much information and so many things that if you're just reading it at face level, you can miss a lot of the big picture. Me and the big sexy over here Ben actually have taken a course by Justin Jackson. You talked about no one who that was. You watched some on Revelation that he had done from Hillsdale College. And we took that course on Genesis which he didn't do all of Genesis but went through certain sections. I think so. He was Genesis one that I was saying that. Well he was just a little snippet and then I always waited.

3:07He was on E-Team or something. I was like, well when's your next thing? I'm waiting. You have to go on the Hillsdale online course and it's free to take. But that course on Genesis he does is so well done and dives so deep into the word. He goes by the commentary by Robert Alter is what he uses a lot. That commentary is excellent. Ben actually has purchased that in the past and he's been gracious enough to let me borrow it here and there. So it's a great tool to kind of dig into this word. So without further ado what we'll do and because you haven't done this with us before but what we do is I'll go through I'll read the chapter and then we'll stop. We'll kind of go through some highlights through there and pick out anything that we think

4:07is pertinent. We don't really go line by line and just pull out you know. So I'll read the chapter, get the feel, get the vibe and then talk a little bit about what happened and what we pull from it. So this is Genesis 30 and we let Stephen read because you don't want to hear me stumble reading. We tried that once. He's like man let me take over. Ben you read real good. Read real fun. I practice my words every day. It's way more better than that. Anyways. Alright. When Rachel saw that she wasn't having any children for Jacob she became jealous of her sister. She pleaded with Jacob, give me children or I will die. Then Jacob became furious with Rachel.

5:09Am I God? He asked? Is the one who has kept you from having children? Then Rachel told him, take my maid, Billha and sleep with her. She will bear children for me and through her I can have a family too. So Rachel gave her servant Billha to Jacob as his wife and he slept with her. Billha became pregnant and presented him with a son. Rachel named him Dan. First she said God has vindicated me. He has heard my request and given me a son. Then Billha became pregnant again and gave Jacob a second son. Rachel named him naftily. She said I have struggled hard with my sister and I am winning. Meanwhile Leah realized she wasn't getting pregnant anymore. So she took her servant Zilpa and gave her to Jacob as his wife. Soon Zilpa presented him with a son. Leah named him God. First she said how fortunate am I. Then Zilpa gave Jacob a second son and Leah named him Asher.

6:10For she said what joy is mine. Now the other women will celebrate with me. One day during the wheat harvest Ruben found some mandrakes growing in a field and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel beg Leah please give me some of your son's mandrakes. But Leah angrily replied wasn't it enough that you stole my husband. Now you want to steal my son's mandrakes too? Rachel answered. I will let Jacob sleep with you tonight if you give me some of the mandrakes. So that evening as Jacob was coming home from the fields Leah went out to meet him. You must come and sleep with me tonight she said I have paid for you with some mandrakes that my son found. So that night he slept with Leah and God answered Leah's prayers. She became pregnant again and gave birth to a fifth son for Jacob. She named him Isaacar. Before she said God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband as a wife. Then Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to a sixth son for Jacob.

7:11She named him Zebulin. For she said God has given me a good reward. Now my husband will treat me with respect because I have given him six sons. Later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dyna. Then God remembered Rachel's plight and answered her prayers by enabling her to have children. She began pregnant and gave birth to a son. God has removed my disgrace she said and she named him Joseph. Before she said may the Lord add yet another son to my family. Soon after Rachel had given birth to Joseph Jacob said to Levin please release me so I can go home to my own country. Let me take my wives and children for I have earned them by serving you. Let me be out my way. Certainly you know how hard I have worked for you. Please listen to me Levin said. I have become wealthy for the Lord has blessed me because of you. Tell me how much I owe you whatever it is I will pay it. Jacob replied, you know how hard I have worked for you and how your flocks and herds have

8:15grown under my care. You had little indeed before I came but your wealth has increased enormously. The Lord has blessed you through everything I have done but now what about me? When can I start providing for my own family? What wages do you want Levin asked again? Jacob replied, don't give me anything. Just do this one thing and I will continue to tend and watch over your flocks. Let me inspect your flocks today and remove all the sheep and goats that were speckled or spotted along with all the black sheep and give these to me as my wages. In the future when you check on the animals you have given me as my wages you will see that I have been honest. If you find in my flock any goats without speckles or spots or any sheep that are not black he will know that I have stolen them from you. All right Levin replied, it will be as you say. But that very day Levin went out and removed the male goats that were street and spotted and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted or had white patches and all of

9:17the black sheep and he placed them in the care of his own sons. Who took them a three days journey from where Jacob was meanwhile Jacob stayed and cared for the rest of Levin's flock. Then Jacob took some fresh branches from Poplar, Almond and Plain trees and peeled off strips of bark making white streaks on them. Then he placed these peeled branches in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink. For that was where they made it and when they made it in front of the white streak branches they gave birth to young that were streaked, speckled and spotted. Jacob separated those lambs from Levin's flock and at mating time he turned the flock to face Levin's animals that were streaked or black. This is how he built his own flock instead of increasing Levin's. Whenever the stronger females were ready to mate Jacob replaced the peeled branches in the watering troughs in front of them then they would mate in front of the branches. But he didn't do this with the weaker ones so the weaker lambs belonged to Levin and

10:19the stronger ones were Jacob's. As a result Jacob became very wealthy with large flocks of sheep and goats, female and male servants and many camels and donkeys. And that is chapter 30. What a sneaky, sneaky fella. When we talked a lot about Levin last go around how Levin really is a very greedy person. We see it all the way back to when he was younger. When Isaac came for Rebecca he literally the furt, he sees the jewels basically the gold that he's given her, the earrings, the bracelets and Isaac actually brought presents for it. But the servant that came for Rebecca brought these gifts for him because Isaac didn't actually go there but brought these gifts back and Levin, that's the first thing he saw. He was like, you got money. Then we saw last chapter when he got the same greed built in him.

11:26He tricks him to have his daughter work for him, or have him work for his daughter for seven years then give them the wrong daughter for seven years of work. And then makes him work another seven to get the daughter he actually wanted. So Levin you see his character through and through but... Yeah, little shady. You got some thoughts there? First thought was, I wonder why he didn't want the one daughter. She had weak eyes. She looked like. She's what she said. It's what the scripture says. She had weak eyes. I'm going to, I'm going to guess that the big springs in it here. She was. I'm going to guess that she didn't have many male suitors. Let's say that. If you go back down into the beginning, I think it's interesting because you see first

12:30off that culture, you know, it was such a big deal for the women. Like you can go through all of biblical times. When a woman was barren, it was the worst possible thing for her. It was like the ultimate disgrace. You see that with, think about Hannah with Samuel, right? Like she's just disgraced. Her husband is, her husband's other wife just rips on her, makes, you know, makes fun of her all this stuff because she can't have kids. You see Sarah, not able to have kids initially. You see so many times throughout the Bible when someone's barren, it is like the ultimate disgrace. So Rachel's taken this heart and she is basically cussing her husband out which back in that day didn't happen. You were walking on thin water and then so he gets mad and tells her, well, I'm not God. Right.

13:31Well, I find find these, we'll take the bill of how, however you say her name and sleep with her, which was her little servant lady or whatever. Well, you see both of them do that with their servant. And the interesting part is that has never gone well in history. No. Ever look it, but look at what happened with Sarah. That's the thing. That is what split. And now we have the descendants of Ishmael and have the descendants of Isaac who have been at war for thousands of years since then because of that poor decision, taking that out of God's hands. But because you thought, and I get where Sarah is coming from back then. But because she thought her one thing that she had to do was to give Abraham an air. So she thought when God said, you know, Abraham, you're going to have an air. She's like, well, they didn't say Sarah yet. That was before God came, you know, when they came to the camp and said, your wife when

14:32she laughed, it was before that, he said that. So she's like, okay, well, take a car. God says you're going to have an air, but what she did was take it to her own hands. But she did what she thought was right. But in the end, we see the result of that action. And that also leads to, you know, Abraham was married to Sarah. So therefore, Sarah was supposed to have the, you know, the child or children. But if you, you know, it's like it's a marriage thing. You don't just go, you know, sleeping with your slave women, that babies. Unless your time is Jeff or something. Well, true. But, you know, it's supposed to be the marriage and your children's supposed to come out your marriage, not.

15:33It's, you're right. And you were trying to get something out. I know you were. Well, yeah. No. According to Alters commentary here, he talks about the reason that Jacob was so incensed. In the conventional back then, the conventional was to, he says to go see an oracle or be visited by a divine messenger or a man of God. That's where she should have went for that instead of throwing that in Jacob's face. She threw it at him like it was his fault. And that's why he got so upset. He's like, oh, I don't have anything to do with this. And you didn't, I'm not God. That's why he said I'm not God. Because back then, that would be, that was where the women was supposed to go first, was to seek God or to seek an oracle that could talk to God or whatever to figure out

16:36why they were having children or to, you know. Well, you saw that with Hannah going to see for them or something, yeah. And yeah, just exactly like that, where she went and eat high-tolder, but. And then the other interesting thing that he said, and I don't know, it was in the translation when you read it, it went through it fast, but when she gave, when Rachel gave the slave girl, the quote he has in here says, come to bed with her that she may give birth on my knees. And Alder says that that, and this is something else that I've read before and just read through and never really, what does that mean? And that, that symbolizes adoption. So it's almost like when the slave girl had the kid, now it's not her kid anymore, it's now Rachel's and Rachel has taken over.

17:39He says, give birth on my knees, placing the newborn and then he says, placing the newborn on someone's knees was a gesture of adoption. It's like a serrated, serrated. Built up through her as with, yeah, as with Sarah in chapter 16. And he, he tells what it is, it's a verb that says son. And I thought that was interesting, that. Because I never really thought about that, but the servant just, I mean, she, all she was was a serrated, really. She had no control from that moment of birth on with that kid, you know, and it's now Rachel's kid, regardless of the bloodline or whatever. Right. It's actually interesting to think about that hierarchy because if you look at, you know, back then, very male-centric society, then you have your wife behind you to the point where she can just basically say, okay, you go sleep with my husband, I want your kid.

18:42And even she had that much dominance over those. This slave people are one of the other points he brings out. And this was in a previous thing that I read. I wasn't in these two chapters, we're going through tonight, but it was important for women to have children, particularly sons, so that they would have somebody to take care of them when they were older. There was no social security, no snow, and the men, like they, like today, die first. Well, if you didn't have a son that had some means that he could take care of you, or a son-in-law or something, there was a lot to that that if you're alone, you're, you know. That's interesting because you think about what is one of the things that Jesus does right at the end of his life, as he tells John. He tells John who's standing right there. Right there, please take care of my mother. Take care of him. Yeah, and he does. John does the rest of her life there in that church and I think of this. Yeah, but he, so that's, and that was Jesus putting that off on John, but that, in that

19:48culture, I mean, that was, that was a big deal because you needed somebody to... Yeah, he's a woman getting on anything. Right. They had no rights to the head of... So even though he's been died, all his land would go to somebody else, not turn. Many of them had not a way to make income or, you know, sort of prostitution or whatever, but... That's good. Yes. So that's another reason that it was really important that they... You have kids. I guess my wife ain't going to have to worry about it, the other's yours. Both had boys, none but boys. Well, the other thing that was interesting is mandrakes is kind of a tomato-type fruit. Okay. That, that, uh, Ruben came back with. Robert Holzer says that mandrakes, as in other later cultures, these plants with tomato-shaped

20:50fruit were used for medicinal purposes and were thought to be an afridiz yak. Mmm. So that's what they were used for. And to also have the virtue of promoting fertility, which he says, it seems to be what Rachel has in mind. The interesting thing that I see here and it kind of throws me off a little bit always, and I think it's those things. There's always these passages in scripture that will... They just seem so out of place. Like, why is that there? And right here, you know, we're going through all this, this kind of battle between Rachel and Leah and having kids. And, you know, Leah goes, uh, Leah became pregnant again and gave birth to a six son for Jacob. She named him Zebulon because her force, she said, God, has given me a good reward. Now my husband will treat me with respect for I have given him six sons. And then it says, later, she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dyna.

21:54Like, I know there were some other girls in there, but why has she mentioned? And that's what is always interesting because if you go back even early in Genesis, when you talk about, um, tubal cane and, you know, when Lammock comes and has those three sons, the evil Lammock, not the good Lammock, the evil Lammock, actually the first case of polygamy in the Bible where he had two wives, he actually says that he has a daughter and her name is Neymar, which means beautiful, which then instantly goes into the Genesis 6 narrative right after that. So with her name being, you know, why would he say her name, especially in such a male centric society? Because even look at these genealogies, not very many women are ever mentioned unless there is some big, big role that they played. And honestly, I think, um, you obviously see a change throughout scripture to some degree where you're seeing a lot more women named in the New Testament, but Old Testament, it was still that very male centric society.

22:57But Dyna, well, we won't ruin it, but does have a pretty significant role a little later in chapter 34. But, you know, and this is the other thing is I'll sit here and say the same thing Abraham was with Sarah. Sarah's like, here, here's Hagar. He's like, but you want me to sleep with another woman? He doesn't fight it. Jacob doesn't seem to be fighting anything right here. He's like, okay, okay. I mean, his male urges, you know, are being fed by his wives, and because all for that, that need to win his approval by having as many sons as they possibly can, many heirs to him as they possibly can. And yet it just seems to me. They're fighting each other. But it's so counterintuitive. Like he's the favorite, you know. But why would you, and I think I get the adoption thing.

24:00It makes sense, I guess, to a degree, but it's still such a take things into your own hands. Because if you really look at this and you think about those 12, eventually 12 sons so far only 11, Joseph's the last, then we have Benjamin who's not born yet. But we have those 12 sons later on. Once again, don't want to ruin too much. But most people have heard the story of Joseph and the code of many collars, right? Those sons, and not saying all of them, but Rubin, who actually was Leah's son, her actual son, was one that tried to get Joseph out of the problem that he was about to be in, or save him ultimately. But those other sons, including the ones that were born to Zilpa and Bilha, both all of them are in on Joseph, you know, getting sold into slavery. Something that's evil comes out of that. God still turns it into something good. But because of this, you have all these other brothers that are in influencing, you know,

25:03from that side in something, taking something into your own hands when it's not God's intended plan. God still turned it for good because in the end, Joseph obviously protects his brothers from the famine when they come to Egypt and all that stuff. God can make anything great, but there's so many things that happen when you take everything into your own hands rather than just going what, if God wanted Rachel to have a kid, he would have opened her womb. Then what does he do? When it's time, he opens her womb. So she puts it on her servant. Well, then you know that also causes problems. That's not mentioned. The same problems with serenhaegar and guarantee were there was some jealousy, some amazement. It would be the same even if today, if your wife was like, hey, you can't give you no babies, won't you hang out with my best friend. And then next thing, you know, why are you hanging out with my best friend all the time?

26:06You know, it's just getting the cause of trouble. All, you know, there's no way around it. Absolutely. Now, if you go a little further down, you see, you know, God is blessing Jacob throughout all of this. Even though, you know, Jacob sitting there, he's taking it on the, on the lip from Laban, but God is blessing him in everything that he does, which in turn, because of his, just his presence, his blessing, Laban, just his being there is making Laban become very wealthy. And you hear him say it there, and he goes, before I was here, you had very little. Now you are enormously wealthy. Do you think that Laban's figured that out? And that's one of the reasons he doesn't want to let him go? Oh, absolutely. For sure. You're my good luck charm. You're my lucky rabbit's fun. And that could have been part of the whole, oh, well, here's my oldest daughter, because he knew he wanted Rachel.

27:07So that's like, well, now he'll stick around. He's working another deal. But we don't want to piss him off too much. So we'll go ahead and give him Rachel, but he still has to stick around. And he's already kind of getting Jacob's character of working the seven years and, you know, doing the right thing, whatever. So he's probably already kind of measuring him to see how far he can push him. And when you usually, I think this goes even further into like the New Testament staff, you know, when someone smacks the right cheek, turn, give him the left one, is like, Jacob's taking it on the chin, and he just keeps going. He keeps doing it. He doesn't fight back. He doesn't, you know, doesn't try to steal from him, doesn't try to take from him until Leibon really does this bad. And he does this. And this is what I think is interesting.

28:07He doesn't kind of dirty, obviously, by taking all those spotted strides. Why did you get him? So he didn't have nothing. So he did that. So he couldn't have nothing, but any kids with sons, which would make him stay longer, but because I'm not going to leave with nothing, you know, but the sticks with the stripped bark, a few different types of wood are mentioned, but that's interesting. Yeah, I would like to do some research on that to see if that even is true. This, according to alter, it's, it's an age old belief that sensory impressions at the moment of conception affect the embryo. That was something that they believed, but is that, I don't know that that's accurate. I would think that, and I'm not saying that that maybe is the belief they had, or potentially maybe God told Jacob to do that. Or literally Jacob, Jacob just had such faith that he was blessed, that he just did something.

29:07He's like, hey, God's behind me, I'm going to make this happen. And I think, I mean, ultimately, whether or not, you know, you can control genetics through different things like that. I really don't know. I would think that's more of a wives tale kind of thing. But with that being said, I do think that, I do think because Jacob saw it, he knew, I mean, the, before this on his way to Laban is when he first met God, you know, at the Luz, or what's it, what they renamed it, he renamed it something, and I can't remember off top of my head, but it was at Luz that he met him. Bethel? I think it was Bethel. So, yeah. House of God. So he renamed Bethel because that's where he meets him. So after that, and we talked about that last time because he was very, he was very bartering with God at that time. If you do this for me, I'll do this.

30:08And if you do this, I'll do this. And if you do this, you'll be my God. So he goes through all those things, but now he sees God has blessed him. He's had that face to face encounter. He knows that, you know, there's this promise that Abrahamic Covenant has been passed on to him. He's going forward. He knows that this stuff is going to happen. He knows it's coming through him. The promise of the Abrahamic Covenant, you know, your seed will be as many as the stars in the sky as the, you know, the sand and the sea shore, all those things. But I do. He's still working on it. So he also knew he's out there being working with him for seven years. He knows how many black lambs and spotted lambs and he goes back out and there's nothing. He knew something. Okay. Okay. I'll see how you're going to do this. It's one of them.

31:09You only get to get something over on me, big guy. I'll figure something out. We got sheep here. I might throw some sticks in the water and trough and see what happens. Come out green. The sheep will be green. Oh, man. He's the rogue stick. I wonder if there's one that'll make you come out like a cow. I could use a few steers out there. Lamb turns into beef. Yeah, that sounds good to me. Oh, man. But, yeah, I think that that's really interesting. You just see once again, just, Laban's greed, Jacob's patience and the blessing God has on him. It also says that he got, you know, he's come into more servants, I guess. You don't know how many he come, but it says. And then also camels and donkeys. I guess he's doing some trade. You know, I'm selling off what he's of the herd to get other things to then.

32:14Oh, you like straight sheep? I had got what you know. Yeah. So, I don't think I'm going to get into just go buy some camels. Let's see how they do out here. Have you seen, they actually have been severeville. They got a pet and two elder camels. Okay, petting's these one thing. I'm like, you legit. Yeah, but how much stuff are they feeding them and doctor number whatever? That camel. I walked up to that camel and severeville that camel. Like, my head came up to the bottom of his neck where it started. I mean, that thing is gigantic. I've never, I didn't realize how big they were. You see them in the movies and they relied on, you know, every desert movie has camels. Right. If you've watched Indiana Jones, I'm sure you've seen camels. Aladdin. I think those are cartoon, wouldn't they? Yeah, it was. It was still big. It was big in the grocery. Big cartoon. It's got to be real. It's got to be real, bro. It's Disney.

33:16It wouldn't lie to you. This is the highlight of the episode right there. It wouldn't lie to you at all. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's interesting to kind of see that. I don't know. You got anything else, Ben? Nothing. That's you. All right. We're on to 31. And that's what we're going to do tonight. Ben's over here. Well, one of the Ben's is over here already, yawn. Yeah. It's been a long day already. Yeah. And you didn't even work. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Yeah, that's true. And I'll get paid for the work at home. Chapter 31. But Jacob soon learned that Laban's sons were grumbling about him. And Jacob began to notice a change in Laban's attitude toward him.

34:17Then the Lord said, Jacob, return to the land of your father and your grandfather until your relatives there. And I will be with you. So Jacob called Rachel and Leah out to the field where he was watching his flock. And he said to them, I have noticed that your father's attitude towards me has changed. But the God of my father has been with me. You know how hard I have worked for your father. But he has cheated me, changing my wages ten times. But God has not allowed him to do me any harm. For if he said the speckled animals will be your wages, the whole flock began to produce speckled young. And when he changed his mind and said the striped animals will be your wages, then the whole flock produced striped young. In this way, God has taken your father's animals and given them to me. One time during the mating season, I had a dream where I saw that the male goats were mating with the females that were streaked speckled and spotted. Then in my dream, the angel of God said to me, Jacob, and I replied, yes, here I am.

35:21The angel said, look up and you will see that only the streaked speckled and spotted males are mating with the females of your flock. I have seen how Laban has treated you. I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel, the place where you anointed the pillar of stone and made your vow to me. Now get ready to leave this country and return to the land of your birth. Rachel and Leah responded, that's fine with us. We won't inherit any of our father's wealth anyway. He has reduced our rights to those of foreign women. And after he sold us, he wasted the money you paid him for us. All the wealth God has given you from our father legally belongs to us and our children. So go ahead and do whatever your God has told you to do. So Jacob put his wives and children on camels and he drove all his livestock in front of him. He packed all the belongings he had acquired in Pad and Aram and he set out for the land of Canaan where his father Isaac lived.

36:22At the time they left, Laban was some distance away shearing his sheep. Rachel stole her father's household idols and took them with her. Jacob outwitted Laban the Armenian for they set out secretly and he never told Laban that they were leaving. So Jacob took all his possessions with him and crossed the Euphrates River heading into the hill country of Gilead. Three days later, Laban was told that Jacob had fled. So he gathered a group of his relatives and set out in hot pursuit. He caught up with Jacob seven days later in the hill country of Gilead. But the previous night God had appeared to Laban, the Armenian in a dream and told him, I am warning you, leave Jacob alone. He had been caught up with Jacob as he was camped in the hill country of Gilead and he set up his camp not far from Jacob's. What do you mean by deceiving me like this Laban demanded? How dare you drag my daughters away like prisoners of war? Why did you slip away secretly? Why did you deceive me?

37:23And why didn't you say you wanted to leave? I would have given you a farewell feast with singing and music accompanied by tamarines and harps. Why didn't you let me kiss my daughters and grandchildren tell them goodbye? You have acted very foolishly. I could destroy you, but the God of your father appeared to me last night and warned me, leave Jacob alone. I can understand your feeling that you must go and your intense longing for your father's home. But why have you stolen my gods? I rushed away because I was afraid Jacob answered. I thought you would take your daughters from me by force. But as for your gods, see if you can find them and let the person who has taken them die. And if you find anything else that belongs to you, identify it before these relatives of yours and I will give it back. But Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the household idols. Laban first went into Jacob's tent and searched there, then into lias and then into the tents

38:24of the two servant wives, but he found nothing. Finally he went into Rachel's tent, but Rachel had taken the household idols and hidden them in her camel saddle. And now she was sitting on them. When Laban had thoroughly searched her tent without finding them, she said to her father, please sir, forgive me if I don't get up for you. I am having my monthly period. So Laban continued his search, but he could not find the household idols. Then Jacob became very angry and he challenged Laban. What is my crime he demanded? What have I done wrong to make you chase after me, though I were a criminal? You have rummaged through everything I own. Now show me what you found that belongs to you. Set it out here in front of us before our relatives for all to see. Let them judge between us. For twenty years I have been with you caring for your flocks and all that time, your sheep and goats never miscarried. In all those years I had never used a single ram of yours for food. If any were attacked and killed by wild animals, I never showed you the carcass and never

39:26asked you to reduce your count of the flock. No, I took the loss myself. You made me pay for every stolen animal whether it was taken in broad daylight or even in the dark of night. I worked for you through the scorching heat of the day and through the cold and sleepless nights. Yes, for twenty years I slaved in your house. I worked for fourteen years earning your two daughters and then six more years for your flock and you changed my wages ten times. In fact, if the God of my father had not been on my side, the God of Abraham and the fearsome God of Isaac, you would have sent me away empty handed. But God has seen your abuse and my hard work and that's why he appeared to you last night and rebuked you. Then Laban replied to Jacob, these women are my daughters, these children are my grandchildren and these flocks are my flocks. In fact, everything you see is mine. But what can I do now about my daughters and their children?

40:27So come, let's make a covenant. You and I and it will be a witness to our commitment. So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a monument. Then he told his family members gather some stones so they gathered stones and piled them in a heap. Then Jacob and Laban sat down beside the pile of stones to eat a covenant meal. To commemorate the event, Laban called the place Jigar sahaduta, which means witness pile and air maic and Jacob called it galleed, which means witness pile and Hebrew. Then Laban declared, this pile of stones will stand as witness to remind us of the covenant we have made today. This explains why it was called galleed witness pile. But it was also called Mizpa, which means watch tower. For Laban said, may the Lord keep watch between us to make sure that we keep this covenant when we are out of each other's sight. If you mistreat my daughters or if you marry other wives, God will see it even if no one

41:28else does. He is a witness to this covenant between us. See this pile of stones, Laban continued, see this monument I have set between us. They stand between us as a witness of our vows. I will never pass this pile of stones to harm you and you must never pass this stones or this monument to harm me. I call on the God of our ancestors, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of my grandfather, Nehore, to serve as a judge between us. So Jacob took an oath before the fearsome God of his father Isaac to respect the boundary line. Then Jacob offered a sacrifice to God there on the mountain and invited everyone to a covenant feast. After they had eaten, they spent the night on the mountain. He even got up early the next morning and he kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then he left and returned home. And that is chapter 31.

42:28I do think it is interesting right away in chapter 31, the apple don't fall far from the tree. Right? Laban's sons are sitting there. Hey, no, no. Jacob, you gained everything. You are stealing all our father's stuff. That is ours. Right? They are instantly greedy thinking that Jacob is taking their inheritance or taking what belongs to them. Well, the wives are the same. The daughters. Well, he is done. That should be ours, Steve. He is done wasted it. So screw him. We will go with you. And there is a little lesson that we need to learn right here at the beginning that I think is really important when it talks about. So you have Laban's kids and they are obviously talking with Laban and you see Laban's attitude change towards somebody. Now this is the thing. The more you hang around with people that are a negative influence on you, they are going to impact you. They are going to impact your mentality.

43:28They are going to impact how you view people around you. They are going to impact just your overall positivity in life. They are going to impact your walk with Christ. The more people that you have around you with that negative input, that negative non-godly walk and that is something that we need to know. As Christians, we have talked about this before, Ben, when we said this, Liz actually talks about this all the time. Inner circle, outer circle. You have an inner circle of friends, people that you can be very, very vulnerable with, very honest with, very truthful with. And they have to be trustworthy and have to keep it between you two. Yes. And then you have your outer circle, who are people that you are with them, whatever, but you are not going to let those people in the same way to affect you in the way that you are inner circle can. And that is the problem here.

44:29Laban's inner circle allowed him to affect his attitude towards Jacob to make it even worse than it was before. And this kind of goes back to what we just talked about in the other chapter before too, because when Jacob goes to tell his wives, hey, you mind if we leave, they are like, no, for sure, but he goes through and tells them, God appeared to him in a vision. God has been blessing me. God is always there with me. Look what God did when your dad was cheating me. Yeah. So it says, and once again, here we go, Christophany, right? Oh, yeah. We see it right there when it says the angel of God, not an angel of God, it's the angel of God, which we see. And many of us believe as I definitely believe that this is where you see instances of Jesus showing himself in the Old Testament. Yep. So I think that's bless you.

45:31So I think it's interesting when you see that, you know, this angelic being show up, but it's the angel of the Lord. And I always love those spots where you can tie in and say, okay, yeah, you know, Jesus is not just a new testament character. You're pretty quiet over there, Bowne. I was just reading it. All of them makes a point of pointing out that Jacob, when he was telling the ladies that he called them out into the field. And Alder says it's part of that reason for that was to get him away from everything else. So he could explain to him, this is what's going on. But the other part of that had to be that he was showing them the lives that he's like, this is, you know, this is what's coming with us. And this is why. And this is the story. And I want to tell you this, just the three of us out here in the field. And there's nobody to overhear this conversation.

46:34And that was deliberate. He didn't want to talk to him. I make sounds where they were in the bigger circle like you were just talking about. That makes sense. Now you see kind of a, I mean, we'll probably get to part of it here, but we'll see a big transformation throughout this is because you don't really, first off, you see Rachel stealing the household idols, which apparently I can't pronounce when we're talking. And you see that she still has some of her father's pagan beliefs. And these household idols are, you know, they're so important. There's so many different types of these. I mean, we've talked to Derek Gilbert in the past kind of going through how some of these things worked, but they, a lot of times what they would believe that these, these idols were either they had a, basically the essence of the God imbued in them, or it was actually

47:42considered like a resting place, a house for that God. So they knew it was a stone, but they thought the stone was basically supercharged. So she still believed. We're like a, like a gateway to whatever God did. So she had, she believed, you know, obviously that she had these pagan beliefs enough that she wanted to bring those gods with her, because I would imagine she's, even though she agreed to this, she's still scared. Her and Leah both would have been scared, I would imagine. Oh, yeah. And it's tough because you're leaving a place you've been your entire life. You're going off with, with Jacob, but you're running from your father, you're running, and they, they've already seen how he's been treating Jacob. So what's going to happen when they take off if they get caught? Well, it also further upset that the wives said that their father don't treat them more than, like a wife or a foreigner.

48:43Then foreign, foreign women. So it's even like, they're not even treated like just other women of that area, like your scum. And it's probably has to do with the views on Jacob, which is now spilling over to his own daughters, even though he's the one that married him, you know. But you see that part where she takes those idols, because I think with her fear, she believes those idols are going to be what saves her. She's still not bought into the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac, the God of Abraham. She's not told. Yeah. All their points out to that, to your point on that, he brings up another interesting point. It starts out with kind of in quotes here, put them in the camel cushion and sat on them. And he says, the camel cushion may be a good hiding place, but Rachel's sitting on the tariff, as it is also called, is also kind of satiric glance by the monotheistic writer

49:50on the cult of figurines, as necessarily compels Rachel to assume this irreverent posture towards them. So she's sitting on them. He brings that out. So she may be just hedging her bets here, but she has to sit on them instead of, you know, to kind of in a way, almost defile them a little bit, I guess, he would think, you know, maybe that makes sense. So that in order to save herself and to save the things. So that to me, with that points to, if you think about it, that means is the excuse of I'm having my monthly. If you got to tell him something, she just can't get up. I can't stand up, sorry, Dad. But that points to an indoctrination into a certain pagan culture, where you're still, you have this belief you've been worshipping these household idols, you've been following after those pagan gods.

50:52But yet, when fear comes down to it, you still can't place your total trust in them. Right? They weren't going to protect her, and she knew it. But she brought them along because she was fearful. Right. So it's something that she grew up with and her child, I mean, from her earliest memory, those things have been there. Yeah. And it was just taught to her that they had some sort of power, or they were just part of the tradition, or whatever it was. It had some sort of a meaning for her, she wouldn't have drug them along. Now, this brings up a great point that is a total side note, but something that always drives me nuts. This right here is why whatever your religious belief is, anybody out there listening to this, whatever your religious belief is. If it's not biblically based, well, we need to get you in the Bible. If it is technically biblically based, you need to truly be in the Word to understand

51:53what God is telling you, not just taking the doctrines of men at base value, because there is many parts of the so-called Christian church that do not have Christ as the center, that do not have him as the deity that he is, and that truly take things out of context to a point where they make so many other salvation things, whether it's what you do, your works, whether it's your, you have to be baptized this way, whether it's all these different things. If you're not in your Word and you're not reading the Bible, you're missing the point. You need to get in the book. And I can't be more adamant about that, because as the world gets closer and closer to the end, we are going to have to, we're going to have only a couple things. You're going to have to understand there's going to be a lot of wolves and sheep's clothing

52:54that are going to, and those when it's talked about that in Scripture, these are people that are supposedly believers in the church that are going to pull you away. They're going to feed you false doctrines. They're going to feed you false truths. And if you are not in the Word and not found it on the Gospel, that's right in front of us, that God gave us, that you better have a copy in your house, then it's going to be real easy to fall away when things get ugly. So for what it's worth. And you won't even know you're falling away. And I think that's the true one. That's the veil that's going to be, you know. It's the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was making the world that, think he didn't exist. That's right. Right. So if you can just, and that's where if you see the sensitivity to different aspects of culture nowadays, where the church is bending to culture rather than sticking to God's Word is where we're seeing a lot of those churches fall out of alignment with Scripture.

54:04And that's, that's a story. And you also have to look at it as, you know, obviously God tells us to live everybody. But he also said if you have two tunics, sell one and buy a sword. Soards ain't to love people. So, you know, there's a time in the place. For everything. And the Cleasy Assies and Towsl Sands. Yeah. And so you can't, you can't be like, oh well, it's, you know, whatever. And just trying to love your way through life. Because that's, I mean, Jesus himself through the tables that in the temple. I mean, that's, you're wrecking everybody's stuff. I don't think that's love. This maybe some people would say that's love, but I don't think so. That's tough love. Tough love. That's the thing. You're, I mean, you're dead on and you even have preachers out here that's a wolf

55:07and sheep's clothing. That's just leading them away. There's plenty of those and it's a sad thing. And there's more and more and more. Because you, you know, you start looking, you'll find all kinds. Yeah. Well, that's where you got to refocus, stop looking out there and look at this book. You use the Bible to filter life through. If it goes against what the Bible says, then it's false. It's wrong. We test everything against God's word. This is the ultimate litmus test right here. Yeah. And if you read it, then your discernment will be there. You'll be more keen to catch and wait a minute. That don't sound right. Right. Because you need that too. That's important because so many of those people are gifted at taking a verse or two and turning it.

56:07Yeah. We even it the way they want to. Yeah. In the word yourself, it's easy to get turned because you're not going to have that what you just said. There you go. Desire. Wait a minute. No, no, what about over here where it says that don't line up with that. Right. The way you're saying it. So it's important that we do that for ourselves and not because it's really easy if you're not to get led down the road by because some of those people, man, they get smooth talkers. They're like car salesmen or something. They really know how to put it on you. They do that. They do. It's so important that we read it for ourselves and seek the understanding that comes with them. You got to think about this throughout history. How many people have? I mean, let's look right here. Right here on the back of my Bible, Tendale, William Tendale, died, was killed by the Roman Catholic Church for trying to translate the Bible. So people could read it for themselves.

57:09Right. Exactly. Because people like to control the narratives. Right. Yeah, yeah. Then they didn't have to rely on the cardinal or the priest or whatever to tell them what it meant or what it said. Even they can most of them couldn't read. Well, you can go back through history and think, well, how did the, you know, things like the idea of indulgences, paying for your forgiveness of sin. Right. Right. Which was how the church controlled it. It wasn't much of an offering. You have to say, well, I did this and wow, you owe us 20 bucks. Yeah. That's why the tables got flipped. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You were just talking about it. Yeah. Just they were buying there. The problem is, it doesn't matter on what side of the coin we are. It's very hard for people who have a lot of power to stay true to the Word. And you see the Pharisees, for example, right?

58:09They know Scripture better than anybody, but they love their position and their status throughout Scripture. Right. Pharisees, Sageses, Essings, they love their position throughout Scripture. Well, do you think that might be why you, Jesus tells these, I think it happened a couple different times. The wealthy man comes to him. He says, still everything you have, give it to the church and come follow me. And they, I can't. I can't. Because if they didn't, then they would take that power and they got the money to back it because they have the knowledge and then they could possibly do something that's not, you know, not correct. And what does he say, right, then, when he does it? It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. That's a crazy thought to think about. Like, man, because there's, I mean, we don't have a lot, but there are parts of the country

59:11where I look like, there are parts of the world where I look like a millionaire. Oh, for sure. A lot of parts of the world. But, you know, but here I'm very, very average of, you know, in that range at best. But you know, I think that the problem is when we look at wealth and things of that nature, we look at it in such a wrong way because, you know, Jesus says, you know, load up for yourself, rewards in heaven, not here. This earthly stuff won't happen anywhere. They don't know where. It won't happen. It's not going anywhere. It's going to happen and die and everything you work towards for nothing. We probably should finish the chapter. That was our mid, mid, mid. Me and you were good at that. A mid episode, dad talks. Tantrum. Or was it called a tantrum? Tantrum, tangent. Tantrum. Tantrum. Tantrum. We're throwing a tantrum. We're throwing a tantrum. Tantrum.

1:00:11Tantrum. That's what I was looking for. I was able to read, but I know some big words. That impressed. That's good. I'm going to highlight that one on the episode, put a big sound effect after it. Tantrum. Tantrum. Tantrum. Tantrum. Ah, so we see Laban catches up to them after they check off. And you know, what happens? Well, God protects Jacob again. Say, but he comes to Laban. I bet he had a bad idea. You go very messed with him. This is where we see the transformation. Because when you get down to the end of this, and they once again, you know, just like he did at Bethel, you know, puts up a monument. They do the same thing here, Pylostones, another monument. But Laban says, I call on the God of our ancestors, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of my father, Nahor, to serve as a judge between us. So that, before this, he's the one that has the household idols.

1:01:12He's the one that's not living a very godly life by the way he's treating Jacob. I have a hard time believing that he was a follower of Yahweh. I have a hard time believing that he invested in that much. And if at very best, he was just one of the gods. Right. And that's a lot of times, I think, even how the Israelites, you know, the unknown, the unknown God of the world. Yeah, I know that God. But it's those things where you see, there's a lot of times they stick like the Hebrews or Israelites, you know, an Exodus. They don't ever like, say, disown God. But what they do, they're like, yeah, he's real. But what these gods have going on, and I can go and do whatever I want. I can have sex with whoever I want. I can do this, whatever I want. That's just kind of attractive. So I'm going to go do this. Not that you're not real. I'm just going to hang out over here for a little bit. And that's, you know, you know, it's an angel. Well, it says, I am. And they were going to run it that year. Well, we need you. Until an angel, you just go sit back here in the back.

1:02:13And that's right when he says, I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God. Yep. And it does not want any, you know, and we obviously have the 10 commandments as a part of that. So. But interesting. That layman kind of comes full circle. And now after having that encounter with God overnight, now he's like, all right, all right. We'll swear on this God. We'll swear on your God, the real God. We'll swear on that. We'll make our pact on that. So I think that's, that's pretty interesting. And then he still tried to, yeah, but all that was mine anyways. You might have earned it and worked for me for 20 years. So that even tells you after the 14 years of working off, he was still there. Another six years to try to get his, get his money back or whatever, you know. And he was still so better about it. Yeah. It's just crazy to sit there and think that that someone, I mean, all, ultimately, all

1:03:19this was for Rachel. The whole thing was for Rachel. And what? And then she battened. So if you need to found your models, he'd have killed her. But think about that. He goes there. He goes there for one wife. The whole point was to go there and get a wife and go home. Yep. And then he said, what does God do? Even though he was there for 20 years, what God do? God blesses everything he does to the point. He comes back with four wives. Four wives. A whole bunch of kids. Yeah. And a huge flock of sheep. He's got camels, donkeys, all this stuff. God blesses him in such a great way. And then tells him that covenant is going to be passed down through him. And man, we see the interesting. One last part here that I think is interesting. We have the 12 sons. To me, it's interesting because normally either we see the first born or we see the youngest, usually getting the rub here.

1:04:23They get everything. So the oldest always gets everything in the heritage and in the culture. But we see the favor of the youngest son like in David. We see that with other younger siblings throughout. Even here, Jacob eventually, Benjamin, when he thinks Joseph's, that Benjamin says one true that he cares. He loves the youngest. But that's because it's the last child from Rachel, who he really loved. But oh, I had a good point where we're going somewhere with this. It's Gizzard of both things, Ben. Is what you just getting that? Oh, that one, that one. That one, that one. But. That's why I wear the favorites. Yeah. Oh, man, it was a good point. It was a good point. Oh, yeah. So. Is what? Where is Judah in line? In the, in the, these four. Four really interesting number of the fourth. Now, why is Judah so relevant?

1:05:26Well, obviously, you know, you know the prophecy. Isn't that, that the line is going to come from Judah, where Jesus comes from. Right. Now, there's a couple cool things that kind of coincide with this. And it's actually when Jacob, it's in Genesis 49, 10, Jacob, when he is going through and talking to each of his sons, tells Judah, the scepter will not pass from you until the one who comes that will rule all the nations is here. So Judah, you see it later on, Israel separates her two kingdoms. Judah is always a kingdom. Right. Right. So the scepter will not pass from you until talking about Jesus shows up the one that will rule over all the nations. So the first time that that's mentioned that it's going to come from Judah is from, is from ultimately from Jacob, is the one that has that kind of prophecy. If you go down further, I truly think this ultimately is why because God, you know, he

1:06:30is, he is, he always was is and always will be, right? So he sees the past. I don't, I think God is outside of time. There's no God invented time. So there's no time that is, God sees everything at the same time. There's no, there's no linear, the chronology and time is something that is a human construct. My, my whole idea of it's like the timeline, he's looking at the whole thing at once. The whole beginning and end and he can just look wherever he wants to look at up and down and. But the interesting thing on that same note, because I agree with you, is that if you go down and line of Judah, who's in the line of Judah, who ends up being a king of Judah? David. David, the one that we, we see so much, you know, through the Psalms, we see so much through, you know, how God favored David, one after his own heart.

1:07:31And ultimately that, that line goes from Judah and then you look at the story of Judah and Tamar and all these different things down the line to keep that blood line in. But I think that God knew who David was going to be in that blood line of those 12, you know, sons, said, it doesn't really matter which one of these sons it's going to be, you know, line of Judah, whatever it's you know, he says that. But he's like, David, that's my guy. It's going to come from there. Yeah. It's going to come from there. And now once again, the youngest son, the lowliest, the eighth son, Jesse didn't even go out in the field hoping he'd die, hoping the cowty or wolf or what that buried gillum. And he's the one that God saw as one of his most favored people throughout scripture. Pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. Well, anyway, guys, I hope that you didn't mind our tantrums, our tangents.

1:08:35I appreciate you listening in and I hope that you take something from this because we enjoy it, enjoy the time talking about this, learning from each other, growing with each other. And I hope that you're doing the same. So in the meantime, keep digging. You can follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Substack. If you'd like to reach out and ask a question or just leave a general comment, go to against the herd podcast at gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.