Stephen
Terry, Director
Jacob,
the Supplanter
Commentary
for the May 28, 2022, Sabbath School Lesson
"He had a dream, and behold,
a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven..." Genesis 28:12a,
NIV
Two things are common about the
human condition and our relationship to God. We tend to become impatient with
God if our expectations are not swiftly met, and we ourselves will refuse to
move forward on something until forced to do so by conflict or trial. We saw
this with Abraham, who did not leave Ur until his advocacy for the true God
brought him into conflict with Nimrod. That conflict cost the life of his brother,
Haran and almost cost his life. It also endangered the rest of the family, even
though they were idol worshippers. His father, Terah, had deceived Nimrod
concerning the birth of his son. The entire family then left Nimrod's realm for
Harran, a city said to have been built by Nimrod, but now within the Hittite
Kingdom. Since the Hittites were strong enough that they sacked Babylon under
King Mursili I, this was a wise decision. They remained there until Terah died.
All of this is highly condensed in the Bible.[i]
Although the writer of Genesis makes clear that God takes credit for bringing
them out of Ur.[ii]
Lot's father, Haran, died believing
in the God of Abraham, perishing in the same fire that was to have consumed Lot's
uncle. Lot followed him and grew close to Uncle Abraham while they resided in
Haran. But the rest of the family continued with idolatry as was seen when
Jacob left Laban's household with Rachel and Leah and Rachel stole Laban's
household idols.[iii] The continued dissonance
between the idol worshippers in the family and Abraham and Lot's desire to
worship the true God may have been the catalyst for Abraham's departure.
Perhaps Terah had been able to smooth over those issues, but when he died,
Abraham and Lot left Harran with their households and their possessions and
entered Canaan. Terah had power and influence in Ur and may have had
considerable wealth. When he died that wealth would have been divided among his
heirs with Abraham's brother, Nahor, receiving the physical estate in Harran
while Abraham and Lot left with slaves and flocks that would be the foundation
of future wealth. This was a time of conflict between the Egyptians and the
Hittites so there may have been incentives for those living in the Hittite
Empire to move south into Canaan to promote Hittite occupation and stabilization
of their frontier with Egypt. The Bible even tells us that Abraham bought land
in Canaan from a Hittite, Ephron.[iv] Through
this transaction with Ephron, Abraham acknowledges that Canaan is under Hittite
occupation and control. Whatever the motivation for the move may have been,
once again, the author of Genesis writes that God called Abraham from Harran to
Canaan.
We are not told how much time
passes, but eventually, Lot decides he can serve God just as faithfully in
Sodom, perhaps missing the more urban environments of
Ur and Harran. There was fighting between the herders of Abraham's household
and those of Lot's and this was blamed for bringing about their split, but when
Abraham urged Lot to make a choice about where he would live, his nephew
revealed the longing of his heart when he set his eyes upon Sodom and chose
that valley for his flocks. Abraham remained in the hill country where he would
not compete with Lot for grazing fields. Unfortunately, things did not go well
for Lot in Sodom. Lot and his wife were captured by invaders, and Abraham had
to rescue them, and finally they were driven from Sodom when it was destroyed
by fire.
Terah had sent Abraham to live
with Noah and Shem when he was a child to protect him from Nimrod. Those godly
men taught Abraham all they could about God and how to worship him. Lot drew upon
that knowledge in his relationship with his uncle, but once separated, he could
no longer easily turn to Abraham for answers. He began to drift so that his
wife's heart was more strongly drawn to Sodom than to God, and his daughters
had found relationships with the men of that city, men who neither respected
Lot nor his God. Even though Abraham had saved the citizens of Sodom when he
rescued Lot, they continued to consider Lot a foreigner. Things have not
changed much since then. Faithful people may move to the cities where the best
paying jobs and greatest opportunities for wealth are to be found, but if they
are peculiar enough to believe in God, their acceptance there is tenuous, dependent
on whether they will participate in those things that might challenge their professed
morality.
A year after Lot leaves Sodom
for good, Abraham finally has his only child with Sarah, Isaac. When Isaac is
of age, Abraham sends his servant back to Harran to find a wife for him. It is
unclear why this is so. The Bible tells us that they do not want Isaac marrying
an idolatrous Canaanite, but the family back in Harran were idolators also. It
may have been more about preserving the family wealth within the family. This
was common and at times resulted in marriages that we would consider incestuous
today. Even Abraham was married to his half-sister, Sarah.[v]
Whatever the reason, the servant returns with Rebekah, and she becomes Isaac's
wife, eventually bearing him twin boys, Esau and Jacob. As they grew, Isaac
favored Esau and Rebekah favored Jacob. This played out in rivalries between the
two. Jacob is often labeled the deceiver, but he had a good teacher in Rebekah,
who encouraged his deceptions. He convinced Esau to sell him his birthright for
a bowl of lentils and a bit of bread. But his mother pushed him into the greater
deception of lying to Isaac to receive the patriarchal blessing. She and Jacob
both paid dearly for this lie, not seeing one another again for decades as
Jacob fled to Harran to avoid Esau's wrath. A Talmudic tradition states that
Jacob went to live with Shem and Eber before going on to Laban in Harran. The Bible
says nothing of this, but it does add about 14 years to his absence which would
make it more likely that his arrival would coincide with the approximate time
of Rebekah's death.
Despite his vision of a ladder at
Bethel that affirmed an ongoing connection to God and the Covenant of
Circumcision established through Abraham, like many a
young man, he was soon swept off his feet by a pretty girl and gave his heart
away without regard to Rachel's family being given over to idolatry. They say
young men don't think with their head. Although, he participated in deceptions
and lies in his own family, he became the victim of the same while living with
and working for Laban, Rebekah's brother. The deceitfulness of Rebekah and her
brother adds a little more to the understanding of why Abraham and Nahor parted
company after Terah's death. We do not know how bad it might have been between
the brothers, but if Laban's treatment of Jacob and Rachel's theft from and
lies to her father are an indication, it may have been a difficult household to
survive in. Even Jacob decided for his own safety and that of his wives and
children, it was time to leave. No tearful goodbyes or farewell parties. He and
his family left without telling anyone, so Laban pursued him, threatening death
over his missing household idols. Did she take the idols to hurt her father in
retaliation for the things he forced her to do such as deceiving Jacob with
Leah? Or did she take them because she was an idol worshipper and believed they
would guarantee safety and prosperity? If that were the case, she was soon
disappointed as Jacob took away their idols and buried them at Shechem.[vi]
His household would worship the true God.
Sadly, the dysfunction that may
have driven Abraham and Lot from Harran, caused Rebekah to deceive Isaac, and
caused Laban to repeatedly deceive Jacob, who had also deceived Esau and his
father, Isaac, continued to plague this family struggling to realize the
covenant with God that Abraham passed on to his descendants. Self-serving deception
and idolatry continued to plague those that came after them until they finally
stopped worshipping idols because of the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon.
An ironic outcome. Abraham fled the idolatry of Babylon to promote the worship
of the one true God, but it was Nebuchadnezzar, a later king of Babylon who inadvertently
but finally put them back on the right path away from worshipping other gods. Where
Nimrod opposed God, Nebuchadnezzar came to honor him, and Daniel whom the
Babylonian king took as hostage from Jerusalem guided the king to the worship
of the true God and did the same for the later king who conquered Babylon.
We have drifted since then.
Although we may not be worshipping carved images of gods who are no gods, we
are worshipping things like wealth, power, and control, all things that modern
Babylon has in plenty. Through deceit and lies we are binding ourselves to her
train. But one day, the purveyor of all those opportunities will come to an
end. Some of the faithful God will shelter and provide for in that difficult
time as God delivered Daniel from the lions. Others, like Lot fleeing Sodom,
will escape with only the clothes on their backs, grateful to be saved, nonetheless.
Others may finally call upon the God they have never had time for. May God be
merciful and compassionate on that day. Until then, may we as fervently seek
him as he does us.