“Deception Produces Increase”

Genesis 30:25-43

 

We are reading through the book of Genesis. We are currently in the center of the story of Jacob. Let’s do a quick recap of what has happened so far in the center of his story. It opened with Jacob’s parents fearing for his life because he had swindled his brother of his birthright and blessing so they sent him to his mother’s homeland. Arriving at a well where all the shepherds of the area came to water their flocks, he met “Lamb” or Rachel and fell in love. Turned out, she was his cousin and his uncle Laban arranged a deal that if he worked for seven years he could marry her. Jacob worked the seven years, which seemed like a day to him, but Laban, Rachel’s father deceives him and Jacob wound up with Rachel’s sister, “Calf” or Leah. Laban presents him with another deal of seven years of work and Jacob concedes and manages to get both sisters as wives. 

The deception becomes contagious and the sisters enter a rivalry where the younger sister and older sister battle it out on who gets to sleep with Jacob and produce more male offspring. Jacob spends all this time working for his father-in-law and decides he has had enough. He comes up with a scheme to deceive his uncle and make himself wealthy. We pick the story up at chapter 30, verse 25, 

 

After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob spoke to Laban, “Let me go back home. Give me my wives and children for whom I’ve served you. You know how hard I’ve worked for you.”

 

Jacob has been doing all the work for so many years, and Laban has been taking in the benefits. Laban was quite aware that is what’s been happening, verse 27, 

 

“Laban said, “If you please, I have learned through divine inquiry that God has blessed me because of you.” 

Jacob may be working out deals with Yahweh, but that doesn’t mean his uncle follows the same God. In fact, we will discover later on in the story that Laban has quite a few gods he follows and his idol statues go missing when Jacob leaves. Turns out his daughter takes them and manages to trick her father in a tent by sitting on a camel skin to hide the reality. At any rate, Laban manages to find out the truth about Jacob’s God through pagan divination concerning how he has become so wealthy. It probably didn’t take much divination to figure out that ever since Jacob arrived, Laban has become wealthier. There is a hyperlink with the word “divination.” The Hebrew word for divination is “nakhash.” It has exactly the same three letters that spell the Hebrew word for the word “snake” found in Genesis 3. It even has the very same vowels. Needless to say, we have a snake receiving blessings from a snake. 

Laban isn’t about to let Jacob go, he knows where his bread is buttered. Laban continues with, 

 

“So name your wages. I will pay you.” 

 

But Jacob doesn’t want money, he wants freedom. 

 

“Jacob replied, “You know well what my work has meant to you and how your livestock has flourished under my care. The little you had when I arrived has increased greatly; everything I did resulted in blessings for you. Isn’t it about time that I do something for my own family?”

 

Again, Laban insists on keeping Jacob for hire, he asks again, 

 

“So, what should I pay you?”

 

“Jacob said, “You don’t have to pay me a thing. But how about this?”

 

This is the climax of the battle of the snakes. Showdown!

Remember this theme? The chosen family was called by Yahweh to spread His blessing to the nations. The reason the family has the blessing in the first place was to spread it. Now we have a spreading in a weird, sad and twisted way. It’s what happens when humans manipulate their blessings for their own advantage. 

 

So Jacob comes up with a plan. He decides to stay a while longer and tend Laban’s flocks if Laban will agree to this arrangement, verse 31, 

 

“Go through your entire flock today and take out every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb, every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages.” 

 

Basically, Jacob was asking Laban to give him all of the blemished animals. 

“That way you can check on my honesty when you assess my wages. If you find any goat that’s not speckled or spotted or a sheep that’s not black, you will know that I stole it.”

 

“Fair enough,” said Laban. “It’s a deal.” 

 

The deal was set. Yet, that very day, Laban went to work, verse 35, 

“That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob. 

The scoundrel. As for Jacob, 

“He continued to tend the rest of Laban’s flocks.”

Jacob however, had a plan of his own. It had to do with peeled branches that had stripes on them placed near the watering troughs when they came to drink.  

“Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches,  but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob.”

If you read through commentaries there are a couple of views mentioned. One consists of a sort of superstitious ritual that if you put a certain type of rod in the eyes of the animals, they will give birth to animals that have the trait of the thing that they are looking at. This idea, however, is only mentioned in Jewish literature that comes 500 years after Jesus. Not a very significant case for a historian. 

 

 

 

Another thought is that the sticks were some sort of aphrodisiac, which doesn’t make sense because why would he put the sticks in front of those animals that were strong? If that were the case, he would have used them for the weaker animals. 

A Hebrew Bible scholar, Scott Noegel, did some research on this and wrote an essay on this chapter called “Sex, Sticks and Tricksters.”  Noegel visits Israel/Palestine a lot and decided to embed himself in Bedouin tribes to figure out breeding practices. He discovered that animal breeders often employed artificial mating devices along with teaser animals to induce females into heat. Exactly what Jacob was doing in this story. Turns out that when female lambs are in heat they are often inclined to rub against trees or sticks. Jacob allowed only the animals he did not want to sire offspring to become heated upon the rods. When Laban’s flocks were there, the flock stayed the same size because they were mating with sticks. 

But when Jacob’s flocks were there, he took away the sticks and his flocks multiplied. 

This fits right into previous stories. We can hyperlink to a story where animal-like disguises were used to trick someone,  Jacob himself with his father. And what about using tricks with fertility to gain a leg up on someone? We just read a story involving mandrakes, where Leah pays her sister in order to be able to spend the night with Jacob. 

Jacob had this in the back of his mind all along. Don’t think for one minute that Laban is the innocent one. Remember, before this whole deal started, Laban separated all the animals, took the best of them and gave them to his sons, leaving the weakest of the weak for Jacob. 

The perfect matching of snakes. 

The narrative closes with verse 43, 

 “In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys.”

Did you notice that Yahweh’s name was not mentioned, not even once? 

Normally you would expect that when someone was blessed with abundance, you would read, “And Yahweh blessed him and made him fruitful and multiplied.” But Jacob didn’t depend on Yahweh at all. He schemed this entire scenario all on his own. This will become significant as we continue with Jacob’s story. 

Check in time. 

We live in a world where snakes battle it out with each other all the time. It used to be done behind closed doors but today, we hear about it on the evening news. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a vacuum. Innocent people get caught up in the battles. What are we to do? 

The key missing element is 

“Where is Yahweh in all of this?”

Laban has not vested interest in Yahweh, other than he is pleased He is with Jacob and that Jacob is with him. Jacob hasn’t established a relationship of his own with Yahweh. At this point, Jacob is a member of the chosen family and Jacob seems to be taking advantage of the fact that Yahweh has been benevolent towards him…..So far. 

Let’s bring it to today. 

“Where is Yahweh in all of this we are going through now?”

We have read through the book of Matthew. We have a clear understanding of what things come from God and what things are being manipulated by humans. Jesus gave an excellent sermon describing what things we should expect come from God. Although God’s Kingdom is not here entirely. We live with snakes. However,  we are given glimpses of it every day. Those of us who are chosen to follow Jesus are called, like Abraham, to bring God’s blessings to those around us. It’s up to us to share God’s blessing. A tough call, but we are not called to do it alone. We have been given an advocate, the Holy Spirit. 

My answer to the question, “Where is Yahweh in all of this?” 

He is right in the midst. 

Wherever His children are, so is He. Snakes have been around since the beginning of time, twisting the truth for their own benefit. However, on this side of the cross, we have been given an advocate, the Holy Spirit, God with us. He comes alongside us to help us to discern the truth, bear each other's burdens, give us strength, encourage, teach, and counsel. May we use the power of the Holy Spirit to demonstrate God’s presence wherever He sends us.                                Let’s pray.