Jacob flees, Laban pursues
31
📚And he heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that belonged to our father, and he has gained all this wealth from that which was our father’s”. 2 📚And Jacob looked at the face of Laban, and now it was not friendly toward him as before.3 📚And the LORD said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers, and to your relatives, and I will be with you 📖”.
4 And Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field to his flock, 5 📚and he said to them, “I see from your father’s face that he is not friendly toward me as before, but the God of my father has been with me.
6 📚And you know that I have served your father with all my strength. 7 📚And your father has deceived me, and changed my wages ten times 📖. But God did not permit him to harm me 📖. 8 📚If he said: ‘The speckled ones will be your wages’, then all the flocks bore speckled ones; and if he said: ‘The streaked ones will be your wages’, then all the animals in the flock bore streaked ones. 9 📚So God has taken away the flocks of your father and given them to me.
31:9 Jacob acknowledges that it was God who did this and not his tricks – Gen 30:37-43.⚜
10 📚“And it so happened at the mating season of the flock that in a dream 📖 I raised my eyes and saw that the rams which were mating were streaked, speckled, and spotted. 11 📚And the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob’, and I said, ‘Here I am.’ 12 📚And he said, ‘Raise your eyes and look. All the rams which mate with the flock are streaked, speckled, and spotted, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. 13 📚I am the God 📖 of Bethel 📖, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now get up and go away from this land, and return to the land of your relatives.’ ”
14 📚And Rachel and Leah answered and said to him, “Is there still any share or inheritance for us in our father’s house? 15 📚Are we not counted by him as foreigners? For he has sold us and also has entirely eaten up our money. 16 📚For all the riches which God has taken from our father is ours, and our children’s. Now then, do whatever God has told you”.
17 📚Then Jacob rose up, and put his sons and his wives on camels, 18 📚and took away all his livestock, and all his goods which he had accumulated, his acquired livestock which he had accumulated in Padan-Aram, to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.
19 📚And Laban went to shear his sheep. And Rachel stole her father’s household gods.
31:19 Though Laban knew of the one true God (v 53), and knew that it was He who had blessed them (Gen 30:27), he still foolishly kept idols in his house and called them his gods (v 30). Sadder still is the fact that Rachel wanted them so badly she was willing to steal them. Had Jacob been so busy gaining wealth that he had not taken time to instruct his beloved wife in the truth of God? Would he have even desired to do so (compare Gen 35:2)? We cannot be sure. Sometimes people reject instruction even when it is given. Perhaps Jacob told Rachel the truth about God and idols and she did not believe it.⚜
20 And Jacob deceived 📖 Laban the Syrian, by not telling him that he was running away. 21 📚So he fled with all that he had. And he got up and crossed over the river 📖, and set his face toward Mount Gilead 📖.
22 📚And on the third day Laban was told that Jacob had run away. 23 📚And he took his brothers with him, and pursued him a seven-days’ journey, and they caught up to him in Mount Gilead. 24 📚And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream 📖 at night, and said to him, “Watch out that you do not say anything to Jacob, either good or bad”.
25 📚Then Laban caught up to Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent on the mountain. And Laban, with his brothers, also pitched on the mountain of Gilead. 26 📚And Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done by deceiving me, and carrying away my daughters like captives taken by the sword? 27 📚Why did you run away secretly and deceive me? You did not tell me so that I could send you away with joy and with songs, with tambourines and with harp.
31:26-27 Why should people who deceive others be surprised when others deceive them? Note at Gen 29:25.⚜
28 📚And you have not allowed me to kiss my sons and my daughters. You have now acted foolishly in doing so. 29 📚It is in the power of my hand to harm 📖 you, but the God of your father spoke to me yesterday night, saying, ‘Watch out that you do not say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.’ 30 📚And now you have certainly gone away, because you were longing for your father’s house. Still, why have you stolen my gods?”
31:30 Verse 19; Josh 24:2. Of what value are gods which can be stolen? Jud 6:30-31; Ps 115:3-8; Isa 42:17; 44:12-20.⚜
31 📚And Jacob answered and said to Laban, “I was afraid 📖, because I said, ‘Perhaps you would take your daughters from me by force.’ 32 📚Whoever you find your gods with, let him not live. In the presence of our relatives see anything that is yours with me, and take it”. For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
33 📚And Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the tents of the two maid servants, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah’s tent, and entered Rachel’s tent. 34 📚Now Rachel had taken the idols and put them in the camel’s saddle, and had sat down on them. And Laban searched the whole tent but did not find them.
35 📚And she said to her father, “Do not be angry, my lord, because I cannot rise in your presence, for the way it gets with women is now with me”. And he searched, but did not find the idols.
31:35 Rachel also did not mind practicing deceit. It seemed that none of them realized that families and peoples who practice lying and deceiving will experience all kinds of troubles and difficulties.⚜
36 📚And Jacob became angry and contended with Laban. And Jacob answered and said to Laban, “What is my crime, what is my sin, that you have so hotly pursued me? 37 📚Now that you have searched all my things, what have you found of all your household things? Put it here before my family members and your family members 📖, so that they may judge between the two of us.
38 📚“These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flock. 39 📚I did not bring to you those which were torn by beasts; I bore the loss of it. You demanded from me what was stolen either by day or by night. 40 📚This is how I was: in the day the heat consumed me, and the frost at night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. 41 📚Now I have been in your house for twenty years. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your livestock, and you changed my wages ten times 📖. 42 📚Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac 📖, had been with me, surely you would now have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my misery and the labour of my hands, and rebuked you yesterday night”.
43 And Laban answered and said to Jacob, “These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and these flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about their children whom they have borne? 44 📚So now come on, let us make a covenant, I and you, and let it be as a witness between me and you”.
45 📚And Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar 📖. 46 📚And Jacob said to his relatives, “Gather some stones”, and they took stones and made a heap. And they ate there by the heap of stones. 47 📚And Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.
31:47 Both Jegar Sahadutha and Galeed mean “witness heap”.⚜
48 📚And Laban said, “Today this heap is a witness between me and you”. Therefore its name was called Galeed, 49 📚and Mizpah. For he said, “The LORD watch between me and you, while we are absent from one another.
31:49 Mizpah means “watchtower”.⚜
50 📚If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take other wives besides my daughters, even though no man is with us, see, God is a witness 📖 between me and you”.
51 And Laban said to Jacob, “Look at this heap and look at this pillar, which I have set up between me and you. 52 📚May this heap be a witness, and this pillar be a witness, that I will not cross over this heap to you, and that you will not cross over this heap and this pillar to me, for harm. 53 📚The God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us”. And Jacob gave an oath by the Fear of his father Isaac.
54 📚Then Jacob offered a sacrifice 📖 on the mountain, and called his relatives to eat a meal 📖. And they ate the meal, and spent all night on the mountain.
55 📚And early in the morning Laban got up, and kissed his grandsons 📖 and his daughters, and blessed them. Then Laban left and returned to his place.