“Jacob and Laban Make a Covenant”

Genesis 31:43-55

 

Jacob’s time in exile has come to an end. After twenty years he is on his way back home. We are at the end of the second part of Jacob’s life. And what a climax! Laban, his father-in-law has chased after Jacob and presented his case against him, verse 43, 

“Laban answered Jacob, “The women are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks. All you see is mine. Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about the children they have borne?”

The showdown! Jacob claims all of the women, kids, animals and slaves are his, yet Laban thinks it all belongs to him. They are at a bypass. 

Last week in verse 29, Laban declared, 

“I have the power to harm you;”

Yet, that is not what Laban chooses, instead he states, verse 44, 

 “Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us.”

This is not the first time we have read about sibling rivals who can’t find a way forward and ultimately choose to enter a covenant. Thus far in Genesis, covenants come into play only when a crisis has escalated to a showdown. When two rivals reach a point where they can’t decide on a good way out, they declare a ceasefire and formalize the relationship with a covenant.

It is not until the post exile from Eden that we see the existence of covenants. Outside of Eden, humans resort to making covenants with each other rather than resorting to killing each other. 

At some point, one or both sides realizes that the best way to avoid useless bloodshed is to bind each other to an agreement of ceasefire.

Interestingly, Laban was the one to break character and realize, “Ok, I give up. What are we going to do? Continue to trick each other the rest of our lives? I’m getting older. So let's make a covenant that will stand as a witness. From this day forward, what we are about to do will be both the judge of my actions and the judge of your actions.”

Verse 45, 

“So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.”

This isn’t the first time Jacob has set up a pillar. In fact, that is how Jacob started his exile. Remember the dream in Bethel? Here he is exiting his exile doing the same thing. This time he is not alone, verse 46, 

“He said to his relatives, “Gather some stones.”

They all gathered stones, made a heap of them. and had a feast. There you have it, just like before. Brothers come together, on a high place, have a meal and decide to make peace through a covenant. 

Laban, the Aramean gives the place a Aramaic name, which means, “Pile of Witness.” Jacob, being a Semite using Hebrew, called it “Gilead” which in Hebrew means, “Heap of Witness.” Both have the same meaning. Oh, and by the way, this place will come up again, and it will be called Mizpah, using the Hebrew word for “to watch over.” Laban leaves the watching to the Lord, verse 49, 

 “May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.” 

So when each of them is hidden from the other, Yahweh will still be watching, and be a witness between them. Notice Laban, the polytheist continues with, verse 53, 

“May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.”

Jacob doesn’t have a god of his own, yet, so he took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac. He then offered a sacrifice, there in the hill country, and invited his relatives to a meal. After they had eaten, they spent the night there. 

The brothers came to an agreement of peace. Or at least they decide not to kill each other. Laban woke early the next morning, kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. He then went home. 

A border had been established between them, at Mitzpah. 

To be sure, this will not be the last time we read about this place. Remember, Laban is an Aramean. We will encounter stories in Samuel and in Kings where one of the main hostile opponents of Israel will be the Arameans. This covenant will constantly be broken. We are reading about ancestors who choose a covenant only to discover their descendants later in the Torah and Prophets break it. 

What does one expect when two snakes make a deal? 

It’s interesting to note that the use of covenants only happens when the only way forward between two parties is to use the “let’s-stop-killing-each-other” trick. 

Let’s take a look at the previous covenants. 

 

 

 

The first covenant began with 

> Adam and Eve’s failure 

> which was replayed by their children, Cain and Abel, the innocent blood crying up out of the ground

> Cain, the murderer, goes and builds a city

> Seven generations later, Lemek appears and says, “I’m 77 times worse than my ancestor.” And then he builds a City of Blood. 

> That blood along with what the sons of elohim do, become violent events that cause an outcry that again rises up to God

> This is when God brings the judgment of a flood, the de-creation, Genesis 6:5,

“The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.”

God had to console himself. He had grief in His heart and wished He had never made humans. He decided to wipe out the whole lot of them, until…. He remembered the righteousness of one, Noah. So because of the righteousness of Noah, God spares the remnant. When the human family is set on a trajectory of self-destruction and violence and an outcry goes up to God, although God feels like “let the whole thing collapse in on them.” God allows the righteousness of the one to cover for the remnant, and that remnant will be saved through the de-creation. 

Sound familiar? 

Noah gets off the boat and the first thing he does is offer a sacrifice. Yahweh smells the “soothing aroma” of the sacrifice, which happens to be spelled with the same letters of the name of Noah, and Yahweh says, Genesis 8, verse 21,

“I’ll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent toward evil from an early age,”

Yahweh realizes that humans are not going to change.    So, the reason why God brought the flood becomes the reason why God decides to never bring the flood again. Ultimately, we need to remember God’s purpose. He desires to rule the world in partnership with humans, exactly how He created them, all messed up. 

Which brings us to the reason for a covenant. God was left with two options: 

1 - Either call the whole project off and be done with it

2 - Put up with humans and find a way forward

God chooses the latter and decides He won’t let the cosmos collapse again, because that would mean no more humans ever, and decides to bless the evil humans by making a covenant. 

The first covenant in the Bible is God admitting the less-than-ideal circumstances and rather than making humans into robots, He chooses to work with them, in spite of their violent, evil and selfish ways. 

The covenant ensures that God would never let the cosmos collapse again. Not exactly ideal, but then again, ideal would be returning back to the garden. Rather than negotiating, God recognizes that outside the garden of Eden, when human wills and definitions contain good and bad and can’t be trusted, the best thing to do is to create a covenant. 

The second covenant occurs after Abraham and Sarah sexually abuse Hagar. At this point, it’s clear that Abraham was going to have lots of kids that were not a part of what God had planned for them. But God is best at turning evil into good and brings about a judgment and an act of mercy, known as circumcision. Circumcision requires chopping off a section of the body part that Abraham used to abuse Hagar but also the body part that held the future of the family that God was going to use to bless the nations. 

The flood was both a judgment but then a mercy of God sparing the future remnant. As circumcision was a judgment and a mercy of the future remnant.

There were two more covenants between humans, Abraham and Abimilech made a covenant that they would be unified as brothers. 

Isaac, Abraham’s son, makes a similar covenant with Abimilech to do nothing but good to each other. Each having a big party afterwards. 

Today’s story contained the fifth covenant in Genesis. This creates a theme where covenants are the way forward. 

We have covenants with God and then we have covenants made by humans. As image bearers, we also make covenants with each other, although imperfect. Animals don’t make covenants with each other. The lion never strikes a deal with the little lamb. It’s uniquely an image bearing activity that actually goes against our human nature. 

It’s our nature to let might make right. You have what I want, I will take what you want, and I will kill you if you get in my way. That’s how nature works. 

Covenants work against that nature, calling humans to be more than human. The covenants we have read about so far in the narrative have been happening in Eden-like places. It’s like their base desires for self-preservation have transcended to negotiate something that helps the human family go forward in a non-ideal situation. But it offers a flicker of Eden, whenever we choose to not kill each other. 

Check in time. 

This is definitely not easy to do, but what a simple solution to the strife, the chaos and the rivalries that we have in society today. This story is like a blueprint of how to live at peace with one another. Everyone is trying to get control of the same scarce resources. We are all fighting against each other. 

Today’s Scripture offers us an example of how brothers work out their differences with a covenant. 

Jesus, however, pointed out what should be done when people do not see themselves as brothers, and are not willing to enter a covenant with you. Again, we go back to the Sermon on the Mount, 

“Bless those who curse you.” 

Love your enemies until you can help them see that you want good for them, and that their good is bound up in your good.

There is nothing more practical than trying to gain wisdom about how to negotiate difficult relationships individually and on a social level. 

Which leads us to the ultimate way to gain peace among the brothers and sisters - 

One representative human - faces and takes upon themselves all the treachery and the pain and the death and the violence - let’s it kill him - and then overcomes it with new creation, power, and life and creates a new humanity. In this new humanity we don’t kill each other, we sit down and eat meals of peace together, and learn how to live together in a new social order.

If that is not what people think of when they think of Christianity - then we have a lot of work to do. 

Following Jesus is not for the faint of heart, you just might get killed. 

Let’s pray.