Jacob’s Family, God’s Grace

Text: Genesis 30:1-43

Introduction

The lessons set before us today can literally save your marriage, can salvage your family relationships, can solve your own heart’s relentlessly unsatisfying hunt for happiness.

Our text in Genesis 30 records two of the most common challenges for every human: the temptation for women, on the one hand, to find their identity in their family, and the temptation for men, on the other hand, to find their identity in their work.

The great problem with replacing God’s pleasure at our core, as the source of our identity, is that nothing in the universe is big or good or loving enough to fill that void.

By contrast, as we are reminded by God’s grace even in Genesis 30, in Christ we are complete! Because of Christ the ultimate verdict is in, and God is well pleased with me. And so in Christ I can now freely love, freely serve, freely enjoy others.

I. The Endless Battle of Envy (vv.1-24)

1. vv.1-8 Rachel bears Jacob children…sort of.
   1. In v.1, what a sad but insightful observation begins this narrative: And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister…
      1. Rachel’s envy leads to unreasonable expectations & even impossible demands: v.1 …and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.
      2. Maybe you have said, or at least felt, similar words? ‘Give me __, or else I will die!’ Children, a spouse, a better income, more popularity.
   2. Jacob’s reply to Rachel, while technically accurate, is not exactly sensitive to her sorrow: v.2 Jacob is angry with Rachel: “Hey, I’m not God; I’m not the one who has withheld children from you!”
   3. When her unreasonable expectations/impossible demands are not met by Jacob, then Rachel resorts to her own ingenuity in order to solve the problem, and in doing so commits sin.
      1. v.3 Rachel resorts to a common practice among unbelievers in her day; she gives her handmaid Bilhah to Jacob as a sort of surrogate mother.
      2. Rachel names the two boys born to Bilhah ‘Dan’ & ‘Naphtali’. Dan means ‘judge’, God hearing her case like a judge & granting her petition. (Is that what happened, or has she simply done her own thing and stamped God’s name on it?)
      3. The name Naphtali means ‘wrestle’; and Rachel’s explanation of that name is revealing: v.8 The motivation behind all Rachel’s efforts, bizarrely, is: With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed… (Rachel is not enjoying the love of her husband, nor is she even really pleased with children she now has. Rather, she is competing with Leah!)
2. vv.9-21 record Leah’s side of this sad competition.
   1. In v.9 Leah resorts to the same scheme as Rachel, gives her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob, since she can’t conceive again herself. (Zilpah bears 2 children, whom Leah names Gad & Asher. Gad means ‘good fortune’; and Asher means ‘happy’. But notice why Leah is happy: v.13 Leah says, “I am happy, because other women will call me happy.”)
   2. That’s how envy works. It is never just happy; it is only happy if it thinks that other people will think you’re happy.
   3. Yet vv.14-16 Still not satisfied, Leah basically treats Jacob like a stud horse, buying the right to lie with him from the more-loved Rachel.
      1. For her part, Rachel pursues the ‘mandrakes’ in the first place probably b/c the plant was thought to increase fertility. Again, not relying on God, but her own efforts.
      2. Leah takes the deal, lies w/ Jacob, and then names the resulting child ‘Issachar’, which means ‘wages’. v.18, Leah believes God has given her a son as her wages!
      3. Envy & discontent can become so ingrained that we feel we deserve more, that we are due more, that God is obligated to bless us.
   4. In vv.17-21, Leah bares another son Zebulun (‘honor’) b/c it is still her hope that Jacob will honor her if she just bears him enough children.
      1. Leah’s part in the competition comes to a close as she bears her last child, a daughter whom she names Dinah; which, altho we are not explicitly told this, in the Hebrew means ‘avenged, vindicated.’
      2. It seems Leah is still finding her identity in her children, still seeking to ‘win’.
3. vv.22-24 Just as Leah is sitting back feeling ‘vindicated’ by God b/c of her superiority over Rachel in number of children, v.22 explicitly says, for the first time, that God remembered Rachel & blessed her to bear a son. Leah is thinking God is on her side, while God is in fact refusing to take sides.
   • While Rachel seems to give thanks in v.23, saying that the Lord has taken away herreproach, the actual name she gives her son suggests continued discontent on herpart: she calls him Joseph (‘add to’) b/c Rachel prays, ‘May the Lord add to meanother son!’

II. The Impersonal Battle for Prosperity (vv.25-43)

1. vv.25-26 Jacob is so much the businessman, so much in pursuit of personal success, that he even talks abt his own family in terms of wages.
   • He says to Laban, ‘Give me my wives/childrn for whom I have served you’
2. vv.27-43 record the equally empty competition btw Jacob & Laban, as they both try to cheat the other and make themselves rich.
   1. vv.27-31 Laban admits that he is being blessed b/c of Jacob’s presence w/ him, so begs him to stay. He tells Jacob, ‘Name your price; I’ll do whatever you say to keep you working for me.’
      1. In v.30, Jacob’s desire is appropriate, in that he recognizes God has been blessing his labors for Laban; but Jacob also must at some point begin to provide for his own.
      2. Many a workaholic has started out with the recognition of God’s provision & with the right motivation to provide for his family.
   2. vv.32-33 Jacob says ‘Let me have all the blotchy animals and you keep the others.’ Jacob seems to be asking for the minority share in the family business.
   3. vv.34-36 Laban says, ‘Deal!’; and then goes thru the whole flock, that same day, removing all the spotted animals, & then moves 3 days’ journey away from Jacob! (Doing his best to still get the upperhand; Jacob has to start from zero!)
   4. vv.37-43 however, record how God takes care of Jacob despite Laban’s scheming – and for that matter, despite Jacob’s scheming. (Because Jacob comes up with a superstitious plan to set spotted sticks in front of the sheep in hopes they will therefore bear spotted sheep.)

Conclusion

Where is the gospel in this chapter? In all the head-long pursuit of victory over another person, of personal success? In one way, we see it in the grace of God in spite of ourselves.

Also, however, we see the gospel in contrast to all the insatiable selfishness that we find here – and, if we are honest with ourselves, in contrast to the insatiable selfishness we find in our own hearts, decision-making, priorities by nature.

Php 2:3-11: Jesus was so determined to serve others more than himself that he even went to the cross, and died, for the sake of others. But, Paul goes on to point out, this is precisely the kind of spirit God loves to honor. To the point that the Father has now highly exalted Jesus, and at Jesus’ name every knee must now bow, whether in heaven or in earth. And every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.