Let’s get one thing clear before we go any further. Jacob was a jerk. He was the kind of guy that people warned you about on your first day at a new job. “The washrooms are at the end of the hall. The coffee out of the coffeemaker is gross; you’re better off going downstairs to the coffee shop. Oh, and watch out for Jacob. He’s always got some angle or other going. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”
This is the second message in a series we’re doing called “Celebrities from the hall of fame.” I’m glad I didn’t keep my original working title of “Old Testament Heroes” because Jacob is no hero. But he is famous and we’re looking at the lives of some of the Old Testament people mentioned in the Faith Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11 in the New Testament. We’re looking at the “big stories” of the Old Testament. Last week we began with Abraham and this week we’re continuing with Abraham’s grandson, Jacob.
Jacob was a twin, but he and his fraternal twin brother, Esau, were about as different as brothers can be. Esau was what people often call “a real boy.” If you take out the one editorial comment in verse 34 about Esau despising his birthright, he comes over in these stories as something of a gentle giant. Red haired, outdoorsy, good with his hands, strong – his friends probably called him “Big Red.” If you needed something done out in the fields, Big Red was your man. He’d turn up in his Ford pickup and haul out that stump or put up that fence. When deer season came around there was nothing he loved better than a hunting trip into the back country with his buddies.
Not Jacob. Jacob was a “home body,” maybe even “a mummy’s boy.” He didn’t have the build to be useful around the farm, and when the local football team picked sides he was always the last to get picked. So he gave that up and hung around the house, scheming.
Esau’s name was descriptive of what he looked like – hairy. Jacob’s name was more ominous. One meaning of “Jacob” is “he deceives.” I don’t know if he decided to live up to his name or not, but that’s how he turned out. While Esau was good with his hands, Jacob was good with words, and he used then to his own advantage. He was an opportunist, and in chapter 25 when Esau came back from the fields tired and hungry one day Jacob took advantage of the situation to get Esau to sell him his privileges as firstborn.
These days, if someone comes to your door and sells you a slick sales pitch for one of the utility companies or some other product, the law gives you a “cooling off” period. All you have to do is call the company and tell them you’ve changed your mind and they have to cancel the contract. Esau didn’t have that option. Jacob took advantage of him and tricked him into giving up his position in the family.
Maybe it was because he missed being the firstborn by just a few seconds. Maybe his mother had told him about the prophecy that his older brother would serve him. Whatever it was, Jacob seems to have been obsessed with “blessing.” In today’s language we would say he was obsessed with success. He would do anything, step on anyone, lie to anyone, cheat anyone, to get to the top.
Now, if you look at some of the commentaries on this section of Genesis you’ll find that some of them do some serious “spin doctoring” on Jacob. They call him an astute businessman or an entrepreneur. They try and find hidden spiritual depths in Jacob that simply aren’t there in the story. Jacob is a jerk! He’s the younger, smaller brother who’s simply obsessed with coming out on top.
We see that the next time we meet him, in chapter 27. When he was younger he had tricked his brother into giving up his birthright. Now, at the instigation of his mother, he sets about making that legally binding. In the process he takes part in what might be the first recorded case of identity theft. He proves that you don’t need a computer and the internet to steal someone else’s identity, just a blind father and a total lack of integrity.
Jacob’s father, Isaac, was old and blind he wanted to put his house in order and bless Esau, his oldest son, before he died. In that society a blessing like that had the same force in law as a will does for us. Isaac asks Esau to go and hunt game so they can have a meal together. So, while Esau goes off to do what his father asks, Jacob sets about deceiving his father. His mother does all the work. She cooks the meal for Isaac. She gets Esau’s clothes and puts them on Jacob. She even takes goat skin and puts it on the backs of Jacob’s hands and the front of his neck so he feels hairy like Esau. Instead of honouring his father, Jacob is about to treat him like a mark in a confidence trick.
It’s clear that Jacob knew what he was
doing, but the only hesitation he had was about the consequences if he was
caught. 27:11 Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau
is a hairy man, and I’m a man with smooth skin. 12 What if my father
touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on
myself rather than a blessing.”
I love that line, “I would appear to be tricking him…” Well, yes! That would be because you were tricking him! But there’s no sense of guilt. All he was worried about were the consequences if he got caught.
When Esau comes home and finds that Jacob has stolen his blessing, essentially he has forged the family will, he’s mad; mad enough to kill his brother. So Jacob the Liar takes off north, a man on the run. He may have gotten Esau’s position and Isaac’s blessing but it didn’t do him much good. He heads out with nothing but the clothes on his back.
Something we learned last week was that God is faithful to his promises. Some people might even say he sticks stubbornly to his word. God had promised Abraham that he would bless his family and he plans to keep that promise.
While he’s on the road, Jacob has a dream,
and in the dream he hears a voice that says, “I am the
Lord, the God of your father
Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on
which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of
the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north
and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will
bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have
promised you.”
It’s important that we realise that the dream is not some kind of reward to Jacob for his actions. It’s about God telling him he will keep the promise he made to his grandfather, Abraham, even if Jacob messes up.
And what’s Jacob’s response? “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this
journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so
that I return safely to my father’s house, then the Lord will be my God 22 and this
stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you
give me I will give you a tenth.”
“Tell you what, God.
I’ll make you a deal. You keep me safe and warm and fed and clothed, and
bring me safe home, and I’ll give you…let’s say… 10% of all my profits.”
[That’s still a pretty
popular approach for many people today. “Spirituality” or “faith” is not
primarily about God, it’s about me and what God can do for me.]
So Jacob journeys on to Paddan
From the moment he sees his cousin Rachel
he is absolutely besotted, and he asks Laban for permission to marry her. Since
Jacob left home in a hurry he doesn’t have anything to pay as the bride price,
so he offers to work for her father for free for seven years, then marry her at
the end of them. And it says 29:20 So
Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to
him because of his love for her. (Awww)
Ok, that’s the end of
the sweet bit because, in Laban, Jacob has met his match when it comes to
underhanded, conniving schemers. So, on the first morning of his honeymoon
Jacob looks over in bed and, lo and behold, Laban has swapped daughters on him.
It’s Leah, Rachel’s plain, older sister lying next to him!
Gen 29:25 says simply,
25 When
morning came, there was Leah!
Was he dead drunk when
he went to bed after his wedding or what? You’d think he’d notice!
So Jacob said to
Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I?
Why have you deceived me?”
“Why have you deceived
me?” That’s a good one coming from Jacob the Liar. “Why have you deceived me?”
For the same reason that you deceived your brother and your father! Because he
benefits from it, by another seven years of free labour to be exact!
And it just goes downhill from there. For the next thirteen years the story of Jacob runs like a daytime soap – full of rivalries, deceit, betrayal and sex.
[Proverbs 6:27 says, “Can a man scoop fire into his lap, and his clothes not be burned?” What you choose to value shapes who you become, and it shapes your relationships with those around you. Jacob lived for one thing, blessing, success. To borrow the tag line from the TV series “Shark,” for Jacob, “winning is the only that matters.”
But when you live by that rule you also model it to those around you and it tore Jacob’s family apart. You see it the lives of the women around him. If the most important thing is to win, and if winning for a wife in that culture was to bear sons, then it was inevitable that Jacob’s wives would try to outdo each other. And so they compete, not for Jacob’s affection, but simply to produce the most sons; because that’s success, and success is the ultimate value in this family.]
That same attitude only aggravated Jacob’s conflict with his uncle Laban, who is, of course, also his father-in-law. Even as he worked for his uncle, Jacob set about to systematically strip the best assets from Laban’s business. (Meanwhile Laban was trying to cheat Jacob out of his wages, so neither of them was any better than the other.) Jacob would have fit in really well with the upper management of Enron or any one of the other companies where managers enrich themselves at the company’s expense.
Eventually it gets to the point where Jacob has to run again. He ran from his brother. Now he’s on the run from his uncle.
That’s what happens when you use people. You alienate yourself from them and, unless you do something to restore the relationship, all you leave behind you on your way through life is a trail of angry people and broken relationships.
Jacob waits till Laban is off in the fields
shearing his sheep and he sneaks out of town in the night. Of course, there’s no
way he’s going to get away with it. He arrived in Paddam
But God still has his eye on Jacob. When Esau was out for Jacob’s blood and he had to flee north, God appeared to Jacob and promised him protection. Now Laban is out for Jacob’s blood as he flees south again, but God appears to Laban and warns him off from harming Jacob.
[Now, if you’re like me, you’re asking why in the world would God protect a scumbag like Jacob? I think there might be two reasons. First of all, God had promised Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham, that he would bless his family and make it great, and God likes to keep his promises.
I think the other reason God protects Jacob from the worst consequences of his choices is that God doesn’t give up on people. I find that wonderfully encouraging. The Bible is not about God rewarding good people for being good and punishing bad ones for being bad. There are no good people in the Bible. (Jesus said that only God is good.) There are no good people in the Bible. There are only regular people who have let God into their lives.]
So Jacob has all the blessings that he wanted; children, wealth, power, but he has nowhere to call home. He can’t go back north. He just ran from there. To the south lies a brother that he alienated twenty years ago. The last time Jacob saw his brother, Esau was planning on killing him. So…
32:3 Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau
in the
However, their report left something to be
desired.
6 When the messengers returned to
Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet
you, and four hundred men are with him.” 7 In great fear and
distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups,
and the flocks and herds and camels as well. 8 He thought, “If Esau
comes and attacks one group, the group that is
left may escape.”
Now, if the story stopped there it would
simply be another tale of a man destroyed by greed. But the next three words
are, “Then Jacob prayed.” I mean he really
prayed. This was no bargaining vow like the one after his dream. It’s a simple
plea for help, “Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for
I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their
children.”
Finally, Jacob is in a place where he is
willing to rely upon God rather than his own ability to spin things. That
night, after he has organised his flocks and servants so that Esau has to wade
through a sea of gifts to get to him, Jacob wrestles with God and God does two
things. He cripples Jacob so he walks with a limp from now on (I think to
remind him that he isn’t as capable as he though the was) and he gives him a
new name. He changes Jacob’s name from “deceiver” to “
And the next morning the whole tone of
Jacob’s story changes. Ever since he appeared, in chapter 25, Jacob has been at
the centre of deceit, anger and strife, most of it of his own making. Now, in
chapter 33, when he goes out to meet his brother the strife is gone. Verse 4
says, Esau ran up and embraced him, held him tight
and kissed him. And they both wept.
Jacob was a self willed, deceitful man. What can we take away from this story?
Don’t waste your life. Assuming he was in his 20s when he left home, it took more than 40 years for God to get Jacob to a place where he could be touched by God. 40 years of broken relationships, alienated friends and estranged family.
Think about what you value. What we choose shapes who we become. What we pursue determines our path through life. Jacob was obsessed with success. Is there some obsession in your life that is keeping you from walking through life with God? Unforgiveness is a common one. Holding on to some past hurt. Esau had every reason not to forgive Jacob, to bear a grudge, but he didn’t, he let it go.
Get real with God. Jacob talked about God and used his name but, for most of his life, he didn’t serve God. He served himself and God was someone (or something) that Jacob pulled in to make his own life better. It was only when he was hemmed in and he had nowhere else to go that he got serious with God.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
In the end we can be thankful for two things; God keeps his promises, even when we don’t; and God doesn’t give up on people.