GENESIS IN THE
LIGHT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Section 11
- Jacob.
(Chap. xxvi. 34 - xxxvii.
i.)
The Dispensational Application. - In Isaac we have
had, as we have seen already, the acknowledged type of the Son of God. In the
twenty-second chapter also Abraham takes the place, which from his relationship
we are prepared to find him filling, the place of the typical father. These
two, Abraham and Isaac, God links with Jacobs name when revealing Himself
to Moses at the bush. He bids him "say unto the children of Israel, The
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath sent me to
you." This is, as the apostle tells us, a sign of His approbation of
them: "God was not ashamed to be called their God" He could connect His name
openly with theirs. Had He said He was the God of Lot, Lots conduct would
have been His own dishonour. The special choice of these three men in the way
God chose to associate them with Himself was perhaps the highest honour He
could bestow upon men.
In the New Testament there is one name which has
of necessity displaced all other names. God has found one Man with whom He can
perfectly and forever identify Himself, and from whom His character can be
fully learned. He has been revealed in His Son, and is now to us forever known
as the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
But surely this will
prepare us to see even in the case of the Old Testament names a deeper view of
God than any thing which could be gathered merely from their biographies. As to
two of them, we have seen that this is justified by the fact; but God, when
linking in His revelation to Moses the name of Jacob with this, adds, "This is
My name forever, and this is My memorial unto all generations." This has
generally been limited to the title, "Jehovah," which is the word our version,
as is well known, here as almost always, translates as "Lord," but which is,
indeed, almost identical with the "I am" of the previous verse: "I am hath sent
me to you." Nor can it be for a moment contested that Jehovah is the name by
which God is henceforth known as Israels covenant God. This is not meant,
then, to be disputed. Only along with and displaying this "Eternal" One, this
other term comes in: "Jehovah, God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: this" - all of it - "is My name forever,
and this is MY memorial unto all generations."
For us the God of
redemption is indeed here fully displayed. For if in Abraham we find manifestly
the type of the Father, and in Isaac admittedly that 0f the Son, in
Jacob-Israel we find a type and pattern of the Spirits work which is
again and again dwelt on and expanded in the after scriptures. Balaams
words as to the people, using this double - this natural and this spiritual -
name, are surely as true of the nations ancestors, "It shall be said of
Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!" What God hath wrought is surely
what in the one now before us we are called in an especial way to acknowledge
and glory in. For Jacobs God is He whom we still know as accomplishing in
us by almighty power the purposes of Sovereign grace.
In these two
names of his - Jacob and Israel - the key to all his history is found. The long
years of discipline through which he passes are necessitated by his being
Jacob: they are the necessary result of righteous government, but which in the
hands of a God infinitely gracious issue in blessing the most signal to the
chastened soul; the worm Jacob becomes, in the consciousness of his weakness,
Israel, - has power with God and with man and prevails. The fruitfulness of
Gods holy discipline is surely the moral of his life.
And of this
the nation are as striking an example. The only people chosen of God as His own
among the nations of the earth to be the manifest seat of divine government,
their own history becomes of necessity the illustration of this. "You only have
I known," He says, "of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish
you for your iniquities." Any thing else but this would have been impossible
for a holy God. And yet it is of Israel and their election that it is said,
"The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom. XI. 29.) Even in
their present state of dispersion, as the apostle argues, they are still
"beloved for the fathers sakes." Their rejection as a nation is not
final. God repudiates utterly, by the mouth of Jeremiah, that which is still
the thought of many Christians: "Considerest thou not what this people have
spoken, saying, The two families which the Lord hath chosen, He hath even
cut them off? Thus have they despised My people, that they should be no
more a nation before them. Thus saith the Lord, If My covenant be not with day
and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then
will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David My servant, so that I will not
take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them." (Jer.
xxxiii. 24 - 26.)
Their present chastening is therefore for final
reformation, and thus nationallv are they a pattern of Gods dealings in
holiness, but in grace, with all His people. Their father Jacob becomes thus
also their type, a view to which it seems to me the language of the prophets
every where conforms, and which it indeed necessitates. The life of Jacob
divides into three parts, according as we find him in the land, exiled from it
at Padan-Aram, or again returning; and to this correspond very plainly the
three great periods of Israels national life. The last is indeed only
known by prophecy, but as surely as any history could make it known.
The first part seems to me to cover the whole of their inspired history. Jacob
is shown to us, as the apostle declares in Romans ix, as the object of
election. The constant order of Genesis is, as we have seen, the rejection of
the first-born: it is "first that which is natural, and afterward that which is
spiritual." But in every other case there is some plain reason for the divine
choice. In Cain, self-righteousness sets aside; in Isaac, his birth from Sarah
might be urged as reason; Reuben, too, falls into sin, which deprives him of
the birthright. In Jacobs case, as the apostle tells us, "The children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth;
it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger." Jacob
stands indeed here scarcely so much as a type of the people as he is one with
the people: "Jacob have I loved" is said of both. And this choice of divine
love, as it insures their full final blessing, so it insures the discipline
needed as the demand of His holiness and of that blessing of theirs also: "You
only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you
for your iniquities." Beth-el, the house of God, figures therefore so largely
in Jacobs history, and it is as El Beth-eli, the God of His own house,
that he has to know Him, in the holiness which becomes His house. It is thus at
Beth-el, when he returns there, that his history morally closes.
In this
first part he answers fully to the name which Esau indignantly invokes: "Is he
not rightly called Jacob? For he hath supplanted me these two times." The
national characteristic cannot be well doubted here. Jacob values the blessing
of God, but seeks it in subtle and carnal ways, totally opposed to faith, as
the apostle testifies of Israel that they "sought after the law of
righteousness," but "did not attain to the law of righteousness; and wherefore?
Because they sought it not by faith." It was thus they stumbled at the
stumbling-stone, and became wanderers from the land of promise, exiled by their
sin. Yet as Jacob, an exile from his fathers house, finds God at Beth- el
watching over him with providential care, and assuring him of a final return to
his fathers house in peace, so have his seed been watched over in all
their wanderings, and their return to their land is guaranteed by the sure word
of prophecy.
The Lord in His words to Nathanael applies that Beth-el
vision to Himself. It is when Israel shall accept with Nathanaels faith
the Lord Jesus Christ as Son of God and King of Israel that they shall have the
blessedness of looking up into an opened heavens, and seeing the angels of God,
in their ministrations to men, attending on the Son of Man; and these two
thoughts combined - Son of God, as confessed by Nathanael, and Son of Man, as
in His love to men He constantly styled Himself imply a Beth-el, a house of God
on earth. In that day it could be but a vision of the future, for the nation
had not Nathanaels faith. For such as he, the pledge of that day was
already there.
During Jacobs twenty years at Padan-Aram he enjoys
no further revelation until the angel of God bids him depart thence. In the
meantime He deals with him as one for whom He has purposes of blessing which
can be reached only through disciplinary toil and sorrow. He is multiplied
through unwelcome Leah and the two bondmaids mainly, serving long and with hard
labour for his wives and flocks. The general application to such a history as
that of Israel since her dispersion is not difficult to make, although it may
be impossible to trace in detail. Perhaps we should expect no more than a
general thought of such a history, as the Spirit of God could find nothing in
it upon which to dwell, save only to magnify the divine mercy in it. Enslaved,
trampled on, yet preserved, and merging into final wealth and power: this is
the simple, well-known, yet marvellous fact, in which they witness to the care
and holiness of that God of Beth-el whose name they know not.
In the
third part we find Jacob (up to this, still and only that,) returning to his
own land. In the application, we must remember that it is a remnant that
represent and grow into the nation. For these as for their father, Peniel
prepares for Beth- el; that they may not fall into their enemies hands,
God, whose name is yet unknown to them, must take them into His own, crippling
the human strength in which they contend with Him, that in weakness they may
hold Him fast for blessing. They must needs confess their name naturally, that
grace may change it for what has to be henceforth their name. At Peniel, Jacob
becomes Israel, although not yet does he fully realize that which is implied in
this, so that at Beth-el he again receives it, as if never his before. Thus,
broken down in repentance, and their human strength abased, the nation will be
saved from the hands of their enemies. Purged from idolatry, they will then
have their second Beth-el, when God discovers to them His name, so long hidden,
and confirms to them the promise to their father Abraham. Christ, Son of His
mothers sorrow, but of His Fathers right hand, will then take His
place among them, and so they will come to Mamre, and to Hebron, to the
richness of a portion which now is to be enjoyed in fellowship with God.
The Individual Application. - In the individual application the
lesson of Jacobs life is, as we have already seen, the fruitfulness of
that holy discipline which Bethel, the house of God, implies, and which out of
such material as a Jacob can bring forth a vessel of exquisite workmanship to
His praise. Here the literal history unites with the typical to develop a
picture of the deepest interest to us. May He who only can, give us true
blessing from it.
First, as a preface to the setting aside of Esau, we
are told of his marriage, at forty years old, at once to two Canaanitish wives.
This is the natural sequel of a profanity which could esteem his birthright at
the value of a mess of pottage. These "forty years" are a significant hint to
us of completed probation. In his two wives, married at once, he refuses at
once the example and counsel of his father, and by his union with Canaanitish
women disregards the divine sentence, and shows unmistakably the innermost
recesses of the heart. It is a sign of the times that so little is thought of
the character of mans associations. In truth, nothing gives us our
character so much. To say of Enoch, or of Noah, that " he walked with God,"
describes the man fully in the fewest words; voluntary association with His
enemies, can it consist with any proper desire after such a walk? Esaus
Canaanitish wives set him finally aside from the blessing which the next
chapter shows us becoming Jacobs.
On the other hand, crookedness
and deceit are found in Jaccb, the vices which belong to feebleness where there
is no due counteracting power of faith. Faith. which alone is wisdom and
foresight, waits upon God and makes no haste. It walks erect and openly in the
shelter of His presence secure of the accomplishment of His will, which alone
it seeks, while cunning and craft blunder in the darkness. Jacobs deceit
is not that which procures him the blessing: it procures him nothing but twenty
years of toil and sorrow, of banishment from his fathers house, and
subjection to the will of others. The blessing could not be Esaus. Was
Isaac or Esau more than God that they could alter His purpose or did He need
Jacobs feeble hand to uphold His throne? Alas, he is neither the first
nor the last who has acted as if it were so. And this is what restlessness and
impatience mean, either some lust of the heart we must secure whether He will
or no, or some doubt if God be God - rank unbelief or rank self-will; and these
are near companions. How far off was Jacob yet from El-Beth-el!
True,
there was strong temptation, - a mothers voice, the voice of affection
and authority, to urge him on; the coveted blessing just slipping, as it
seemed, away: but in the case of one with God, all this would only have made
plain the power of God to keep a soul that confides in Him. With Him, no
difficulties avail against us; it is not inherent strength or wisdom which
avails in our behalf. The whole question is, Are we with Him?
Jacob
feebly opposes his mothers solicitation, but not in the name of God or of
truth. He dreads getting a curse instead of blessing - "seeming a deceiver,"
rather than being one. He makes the whole question one of expediency, not of
righteousness, hence has no power at all, or rather is already fallen. His
mother boldly assumes the responsibility - and he has nothing more to oppose.
Once gained, he soon learns boldness; he can not only assure his father, once
and again, that he is Esau, but dares to say that God has brought him what
Rebekahs hands have prepared. What is holiness in us but the fruit of the
shining of Gods face upon us? If our faces are turned away, how soon
does all the rabble of evil stalk abroad in the darkness! "The fruit of the
light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth." (Eph. v. 9, RV.)
Yet Jacob obtains the blessing, surely from grace alone, and not from his evil
works; and Isaac, dim sighted spiritually more than physically here, wakes up
to find how far nature has misled him, and to own the righteousness of a
stronger will than his own. Esau sees nothing but Jacob and his father.
He who has now got the blessing is still totally without ability to trust God
for the fulfillment of it. Rebekahs voice again is heard, urging him to
flee from his brothers wrath, and Isaac is wrought upon to send him to
Padan-Aram, to take a wife from Labans daughters. It is now that
solitary, a wanderer and a fugitive, he arrives at Bethel, and here for the
first time God appears to him. Already the chastening of Gods hand was
upon him, and heavily he must have felt it as he lay upon the hill that night
at Luz. Under the pressure of it, he was now to have the interpretation as the
holy discipline of divine love. He must stoop his neck to the yoke, and accept
the fruit of his own ways; God can assure him of no escape from that: but in
and through it all the blessing that is his shall be attained. He will be with
him to accomplish His faithful word, and bring him back from all his wanderings
into the land which he is now leaving. He sees the angels of God passing
between heaven and earth in constant ministration to the heir of promise, for
He whom they serve is Abrahams God.
Here all is perfect grace, for
grace alone delivers from the dominion of sin. Holiness is the necessary rule
of Gods house, but to be in Gods house supposes relationship,
nearness. Jacobs matters, wonderful to say, are Gods own care. What
a remedy for Jacobs self-seeking anxiety is in all this! Had he learnt
the lesson, how much evil would have been spared him! How soon and how
differently might Peniel have been reached! But it is evident he enters little
into the spirit of this divine communication. He calls the place indeed Bethel,
Gods house, and the gate of heaven, but he is oppressed with fear, rather
than comforted. The magnificence of the promise which has just been made him
shrinks into mere bread and raiment, and his fathers house again in
peace, and he answers with a legal vow, in which what he will do is all too
manifest. So he goes on his journey to find in Labans house what is more
congenial yet than Gods, and to learn slowly there by experience what
faith might have learnt as speedily as surely, without the sorrow.
In
all this Jacob is our type; for if he were responsible for receiving and
walking in the power of a grace so plainly revealed, how much more we who have
received a revelation which is to Jacobs as noon to twilight! To us the
God of Abraham and of Isaac is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
through Him our Father. For us the house of God is found on earth, all the
fullness of God dwelling bodily in the Man Christ Jesus; and the promise, "I
will dwell in them and walk in them," being fulfilled to us also, as
individually and collectively indwelt by the Holy Ghost. For us the throne of
God is revealed as a throne of grace - grace reigning through righteousness;
our Saviour, Christ our Lord. How should all this purge out of our souls the
leaven of subtilty and self-will, and conform us wholly to the will of God!
"His commandments are not grievous," says the apostle: what say our souls?
Practically, as day by day His will is declared, is it the conviction of our
hearts, and what our lives manifest, that His yoke is easy and His burden
light?
In fact it's more - the only true and practical rest for the
soul, and test of how far our hearts have been brought back to God. "Faith, if
it have not works is dead being alone." "Whoso keepeth His word, in him verily
is the love of God perfected; hereby know we that we are in Him." It is divine
love which, sown in the heart, produces in the life the necessary fruit of
service. Faith is the hearts response; service, the lifes. Nor can
the one be very much below the measure of the other.
Grace is that
which, in the knowledge of it, delivers from our own will and ways. We cannot,
blessed be God, carry it too far or rejoice in it too fully. He whose life is
unfruitful testifies (whatever his lips affirm) how little he has known of it,
not that he has carried it too far, or abandoned himself to it too entirely.
That is impossible. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not
under the law, but under grace."
"Then Jacob went on his journey, and
came into the land of the children of the East." And here the second period of
his life begins. He is now a stranger, a servant for hire, the victim of deceit
and self-aggrandizement on the part of Laban, his relative, and morally also
near akin. It is impossible to mistake the retribution all the way through, in
which the measure he has meted to another is measured to himself again; but it
is impossible also not to see that in the manner in which it is dealt out God
is speaking to the heart and conscience of the wanderer. There is governmental
equity, but also the chastening of a holy love. Bethel is vindicating itself.
The Father scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. The sceptre of the kingdom is
the rod of discipline of the Fathers house.
Deceit and injustice
practiced upon ourselves, how easy to read them in their true character! How
the poor pretence of justification we had attempted in our own behalf betrays
its shame when another attempts it against us. Thus can God overrule sin to
teach us holiness. Yet the lesson this way is long in learning, as we surely
see in Jacob. Throughout it he is Jacob still, though by degrees becoming
fruitful and prosperous.
The general teaching here seems plain enough,
while the details are difficult to follow. The names of wives and children too
bear witness to the subjective character of the line of truth which presents
itself to us. Rachel, "sheep" seems significant of the meekness and patience of
true discipleship, the very opposite of Jacobs hitherto self-willed and
unrestrained temper. But her he must obtain by means of undesired Leah, whose
name, "wearied" suggests the "tribulation" by which " patience" is wrought out.
And even then, before Rachel is fruitful, and in despair of her fruitfulness,
the bondmaids are received, Bilhah, "terror," and Zilpah, a "dropping" (as of
tears).
These names seem to harmonize very strikingly with the general
purport of the history. Indeed, putting them together, they carry conviction
scarcely to be resisted. The names of the children, again, as they should do,
speak on the other hand of various blessing, but which I am not prepared to
enter into here. But Joseph, Rachels son, surely, in beautiful conformity
to his origin, expresses that steady "virtue" (or courage) which goes through
whatcver trial to the crown, and with which Peter commences that spiritual
"adding" to which he exhorts (2 Pet. i. 5), and which seems indicated in
Josephs name. From his birth Jacob begins to look toward his own place
and country once more; and though at Labans request he continues six
years longer in his service, he yet now emerges from the poverty in which he
has for so long been, until his riches awaken the envy of Labans sons and
of their father. Yet he waits until Jehovahs voice bids him return to the
land of his fathers, though still lacking faith to take an open course - he
steals secretly away, God interposing to save him from the pursuit of Laban,
who follows him to Gilead, but there to part from him with a solemn
covenant.
Jacob now pursues his way, and angels of God meet him: how
ready is He to assure us of His power waiting only a fit moment to be put forth
in our behalf! It must have reminded, and been intended to remind him too, of
Bethel, and of the promise there; but there Jehovah had appeared to him, if but
in a dream. Here He does not appear. Jacob an outcast and wanderer could have
that which Jacob returning in wealth and with a multitude could not now be
permitted. Then, it was grace; now, it would be fellowship; and for fellowship
he was not yet prepared. "This is Gods host," (or "camp") he says; and he
calls the place "Mahanaim" - that is, "two hosts," or "camps." Here he must
have counted his own, and accordingly we find him immediately dwelling upon it
in his message to Esau: "I have oxen and asses, flocks and men servants and
women-servants, and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favour in thy
sight." How significant that in but a little time we find him dividing this
host of his into two camps,* saying, "If Esau come to the one camp* and smite
it, then the other camp* which is left shall escape"! Such is our strength when
built upon, although we would fain perhaps associate Gods power with it.
In the time of need, our own, what is it? and Gods, where shall we find
it?
* The same word as before.
It is remarkable too that it is just
when he has met Gods messengers* that he sends his own to Seir to Esau.
But God and Esau are evidently mixed up in his mind all through. Nor is it
strange, but inevitable, that what recalls God to our souls should recall also
one against whom we have sinned, and sinned without reparation; perhaps without
chance of reparation. Bethel is still manifesting itself in all this - the
discipline which becomes Gods holy house. There was but too much truth
hid under Jacobs servile words to his brother a little later: "I have
seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God."
* Same word as
angels.
Yet when he said this, Peniel had intervened; and he had "called
the name of the place Peniel, because [he said,] I have seen God face to face."
How could he after that fail to distinguish between Gods face and his
brothers. He could not, had Peniel really answered to its name but how
often do we misinterpret the significance of what has been (as Peniel was to
Jacob) of most real importance to our souls! Had he seen God in reality "face
to face," how could he have added to this as the wonderful thing (as we find
him doing,) "and my life is preserved"? Who that has seen Gods face but
has found in it deliverance from self-occupation and from fear, such as
controlled Jacob when he met his brother?
God had indeed met Jacob, but
met him by night and not by day: when the day broke He had disappeared. And
correspondingly, though He blessed him finally, He refused to declare His name
to Jacobs entreaty. Unknown He had come and unknown He departed.
Jacob it was who had acquired a name at Peniel, and yet even this cannot be
said without reserve; for at Bethel afterward he has afresh to receive it -
there where Bethel itself for the first time really acquires its name. These
two things are surely connected. What he has learned at Peniel is expresscd in
his altar at Shechem, where he proclaims exultingly God to be the God of Israel
- his God; but his altar at Bethel owns Him God of His own house, in which in
subjection Israel must find his place in order to have really the power of his
name.
At Peniel God meets him (His face hidden) to make him learn the
strength which is perfected only in weakness. With his thigh out of joint he
prevails and is blessed. The secret of strength is learned, and yet, strange as
it may seem, the power that he has with God he cannot yet find before man. He
meets Esau with abject servility, practices still his old deceit, talks of
following him to Seir, and as soon as freed from his presence, crosses into
Canaan, building him a house at Succoth, and buying a parcel of ground at
Shechem. There he proclaims God as God of Israel, when presently Dinah falls,
and the massacre of the Shechemites makes him quake with fear because of the
inhabitants of the land. No part of his history is so dark and shameful as that
which follows the scene in which (and they are divine words) "as a prince he
has power with God and with men, and prevails."
If this be a mystery,
it is one with which the experience of the saint is but too familiar. Power may
be ours which yet we cannot manifest, or find for our emergencies. "I besought
Thy disciples to cast him out, and they could not," says the father of the
possessed. And those to whom this very power had been committed ask in
perplexity, "Why could not we cast him. out?" And the Lord replies "Because of
your unbelief" adding "Howbeit this kind goeth not forth but by prayer and
fasting."
Even so he whose name is already Israel is practically Jacob
still, as God says to him afterward (xxxv. io). Only in obedience can power be
used; our meat and drink - our strength and refreshment - are in doing His
will; grace, where realized, breaks the dominion of sin; and "sin is
lawlessness," our own will and not His. Divine power must be realized in the
divine ways. grace only establishes, never alters this. So at Bethel alone the
promise of Peniel can be fulfilled.
How many are there whose altars are
to "God their God," and who exult in a grace which proves yet no practical
deliverance; who dwell in an unpurged earth, and are reaping, and must be
allowed to reap, the sure and bitter fruits! Gods princess how far from
knowing the dignity of their calling.
In the extremity of his distress
Gods voice arouses Jacob to "go up to Bethel and dwell there;" and then
we hear of strange gods in his household to be put away, and purification
effected to meet Him "who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with
me in the way I went;" and the terror of God falls upon the cities round about,
so that they do not pursue after the sons of Jacob. At Bethel his wanderings
really end; his new name is confirmed to him, and God declares His own, as at
Peniel He could not; the blessing now is fully his; and Jacob bowed in
gratitude recognizes the house of God, in which (the purpose of discipline
being accomplished,) he finds at last his rest.
Still he journeys on,
for pilgrimage is not over, although in the land now, his portion. Sorrow still
comes, for on the road to Bethlehem his beloved Rachel dies, but Jacob now
shows his mastery over it. Him whom his dying mother names Ben-oni, "son of my
affliction," his father calls Benjamin, "son of the right hand." We can easily
discern the reflection of Christ in this, the glory fruit of the cross. With
our eye on this, Mamre, which is in Hebron, (the "richness of communion,")
Abrahams old resting place, is soon reached. With how great toil and how
many experiences is he back at last, whence only unbelief had ever driven him!
And we? How much do most of us resemble him in this! Yet with him and us
"tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope,
and hope maketh not ashamed."
The next chapter follows with a long list
of Esaus generations, prematurely ripening into dukes and kings. The
world must have its day; and yet amid it all a significant sign is given of
fulfillment of that divine purpose "which is not of works, but of Him that
calleth;" for we read that "Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his
daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle and his beasts, and
all his substance, which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the
country from the face of his brother Jacob."
While in chapter xxxvii.
one verse contrasts Jacobs portion, its very brevity speaking volumes to
the ear that hears: - "And Jacob dwelt in the land in which his father was a
stranger, in the land of Canaan."
Go To Next Part
Home | Links | Literature