Resolution to conflict and God’s grace (Genesis 31)
Gen 31:1-55
We all know people who are of the ‘what you see is what you get’ type. They are often outspoken, sometimes thoughtless even offensive in the way they express their opinions, but at least there is no hidden agenda or innuendo in their speech and no need to read between the lines. On the other hand, those who cannot bring themselves to clash directly with others may be too afraid to voice the strong opinions they hold. Open conflict and argument can feel threatening, so they stew in bitterness and nurse their wrath to keep it warm. However, such behaviour leaves problems unaddressed and unresolved. Jacob falls into this second category and while his flight is understandable, God will bring him to confrontation and resolution.
Jealousy and injustice
As at other times, God’s blessings evoke jealousy in others, this time in Laban and his sons (Gen 31:1-2). The final impetus for Jacob to leave, however, comes from God’s command (Gen 31:3). In Jacob’s discussion with his wives in the open field (probably safer where they cannot be overheard – Gen 31:4), as well as in his later outburst to Laban, the enormity of Laban’s unfairness and greed becomes evident. The changing of Jacob’s contract numerous times (ten is probably symbolic like we might say dozen), the diddling away of his wives’ dowry (Gen 31:7, 15), as well as Jacob having to bear any accidental loss or theft of animals alone (Gen 31:39 cf. Exod 22:10-13) are unjust.[1] Yet, even as Jacob complains of his father-in-law, he acknowledges God’s help throughout (Gen 31:7, 9, 10-13, 42).
Stealing gods, stealing away
Despite his trust, Jacob is also fearful and these two are not necessarily incompatible (we only need to think of Abraham’s lies about Sarah). Too afraid to leave openly, Jacob sneaks away during the busy time of sheep-shearing (Gen 31:19-21). The narrator sets in parallel Rachel stealing the household gods (images of ancestors or gods who were thought to provide protection) and Jacob stealing Laban’s heart (the literal sense of the Hebrew ‘to deceive’; vv.19-20). This suggests a level of disapproval for both actions, but it is also a contrast. On the one hand, Rachel’s action is just plain wrong both on the count of stealing and because of idolatry.[2] Although the expectation of worshipping the one true God exclusively is only made explicit at Sinai, the presence of such practices in Jacob’s family sounds an ominous note. On the other hand, Jacob is repeating the pattern of his earlier flight from Esau’s anger though his fear is understandable given Laban’s power to hurt him and how painstakingly Jacob acquired what he had (Gen 31:29, 42). Yet, God will once again protect the patriarch and restrain Laban (Gen 31:24). When Jacob says that ‘God has seen my affliction’, this expression is only otherwise used of Israel’s suffering in Egypt (Exod 3:7; Deut 26:7) and so foreshadows Israel’s later exploitation there and God’s intervention in the exodus.[3] God indeed sees the injustices and the suffering His people endure both then and now.
Dealing with the root of bitterness
Jacob’s story highlights once again the Bible’s realism. The patriarch is no saint, but God is patiently working in his life both protecting but also forcing him to confront fears and come to a place of resolution in his relationships. Bitterness like Jacob’s, even if rightly felt, can poison our interactions today, not least in a church context. Exposing issues is necessary to avoid ongoing resentment, and who knows, it might open up a conversation that leads to repentance, forgiveness and full reconciliation. Sometimes though, as in the patriarch’s case, the tensions are too deep-seated, and the clashes are partly due to personalities so that full resolution may be difficult to achieve. Laban, for instance, was unlikely to reform his greedy and deceitful nature, so that the treaty with Jacob could only achieve a truce, a non-aggression pact (Gen 31:51-52), as well as lead to the creation of physical distance between those two. There may be relationships in our lives, too, where this is the only realistic option. Yet, it is by God’s intervention and grace that Jacob, who was subjugated by Laban earlier, ends up being an equal partner in the covenant between them.
[1] The bride price or at least a part of it was meant to be used as a dowry for the wife, money intended to help her if she were widowed or divorced. Although no money exchanged hands as a bride-price in Jacob’s case, one would have expected Laban to put aside the equivalent amount of Jacob’s wage as dowry for the daughters, but this has evidently not happened. As to Jacob’s responsibility over the flock, ancient Near Eastern law required shepherds to exercise care and negligence was unacceptable. However, it was also recognised that some loss of animals was unavoidable and a shepherd or hired worker should not bear all the responsibility for these.
[2] Teraphim or household gods were of varying size. Some were large enough to be mistaken for a man (as when Michal, David’s wife, put the household god in the bed to create the shape of David sleeping and give him time to escape from Saul — 1 Sam 19:13-16). The ones Rachel hid were likely quite small to fit into the camel’s saddlebag. The narrator also underlines his disapproval of Rachel by mentioning that she sat on the idols while having her period. Menstruation made a woman ritually unclean in later Israelite law (and likely some of these taboos existed cross-culturally), so that anything a woman sat or lay on would become unclean (Lev 15:19-24). This is not a discrimination against women; men likewise became ritually unclean from seminal emission (Lev 15:16-18). Ritual uncleanness was not sin, but it meant that the unclean person was not to go to the temple in that state because it would defile the temple’s holiness (Lev 15:31). Since blood represented life (Lev 17:14), a woman’s bleeding probably symbolised death (the loss of potential life) and the ban to visit the temple in such a state expressed the idea that God, the source of life, had nothing to do with death. Although these are later regulations, Israelite readers would immediately see the irony that the ritually unclean Rachel was sitting on these supposedly ‘sacred’ idols and made them unclean, which in a religious sense they were already for Israelites (Ezek 5:11).
[3] Gordon Wenham, Genesis 16-50, WBC 2 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 278.
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