Laban — Faves of Dave - Bible Study

Gen. 30:25 As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. 26 Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” 27 But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you. 28 Name your wages, and I will give it.” 29 Jacob said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. 30 For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?” 31 He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: 32 let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages. 33 So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” 34 Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.” 35 But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. 36 And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock.

Gen. 30:37 Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. 38 He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, 39 the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. 40 And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock. 41 Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks, 42 but for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. 43 Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

The first thing I notice in this story is that Jacob is ready to go home. Clearly, he’s had “success” while working for his uncle Laban. He had eleven sons and a daughter by his two wives and their servants. By what transpires with Laban attempting to do whatever he can to keep Jacob and his family from leaving, we know that he has been successful in shepherding Laban’s sheep and goats. Furthermore, it seems clear to everyone in the story that this success is from the LORD. It would be so easy to just keep on keeping on.

But it appears to me that Jacob, having completed his commitment of service to Laban in return for his two wives, understands that he belongs back in the land of Canaan, which will be his inheritance by virtue of the covenant that God made with his grandfather Abraham and has recommitted to Isaac and to Jacob as he fled from his home in fear of his brother Esau. Yet, at this point, Jacob seems to have no concern about Esau. He simply wants to go back home and take his family and earnings with him. I believe this inclination to return home is not Jacob wanting a change of scenery. It’s the LORD’s sovereign work in Jacob’s life that is leading him to the fulfillment of the blessings that the LORD has promised Jacob.

Now we learn something about Laban. First, Laban learned from “divination” that the LORD had blessed him because of Jacob (v. 27). From “divination?” Why did Laban not understand this from revelation and from observation? Laban had some understanding of the LORD’s blessing upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when Abraham sent his servant to his family to find a wife for Isaac. Laban’s family was blessed by Abraham through that interaction, and now, for these past fourteen years, Laban has had plenty of opportunity to see the LORD’s blessing upon him by having Jacob marry his daughters and work for him. He doesn’t need divination to understand that. This suggests that while Laban knows who the LORD is, it is not evident that he trusts the LORD.

The next thing that we learn about Laban, which has already appeared before, is that Laban is concerned about nothing but Laban. When Jacob agrees to work longer for him, Laban agrees in word, but promptly attempts to cheat the arrangement.

Let’s talk about this arrangement for a minute. If I understand the scholars correctly, sheep in that part of the world are normally white, and goats are normally black. If this is the case, Jacob, through his proposed arrangement, tells Laban that he will keep the unusual sheep and goats. While Laban agrees to this, Laban promptly removes all the unusual sheep and goats from the herd with the assumption that the all white sheep and the all black goats will continue to breed and bring forth offspring that are solid in their respective colors. In other words, he does everything in his power to minimize the number of sheep and goats Jacob would keep, thereby making it necessary for Jacob to continue working for him.

But Jacob does two things. First, as he was shepherding Laban’s flocks, he put peeled sticks (that would appear striped) in front of the flocks in the anticipation that the breeding animals would see them and that, in turn, would cause their offspring to not have a solid color wool according to their breed. Now, I grew up in an area with sheep, goats, and other livestock. I have never heard of anyone doing this, and I have no evidence that this would work for anyone. But the point is that Jacob did believe this would work because he believed the LORD would bless him. The second thing that Jacob did was he only put the sticks in front of the breeding animals who were the strongest and healthiest. That makes sense.

Verse 43 informs the reader that his flocks became great and he was very successful.

This story is really about the contrast between a man (Laban) who recognizes who the LORD is but does not trust him and only works to serve himself, and a man (Jacob) whom the LORD is leading to a life of faith and blessing as he demonstrates his trust in the LORD.

I am not a “prosperity gospel” person. I don’t read the Scriptures in such a way that the interpretation means that God will provide me with wealth in this life. In fact, Jesus told the disciples that the poor would still be among them and that they themselves would suffer for his name’s sake. But the Scriptures do tell us that God cares for the flowers and the birds, and cares for us even more so. The Scriptures also affirm an eternal life of abundance in all our needs. In this life and this time, the followers of Jesus must not focus on ourselves. We must trust the LORD and be instruments of God’s blessing to others.