Jacob VI: Masters of Deception at Odds

Gen. 30-31

God promised Jacob that He would bless him and take care of him wherever he went. In the years since he arrived in Paddan-aram, God certainly was good to His word and caused Jacob to prosper. Because he worked for his father-in-law, Laban prospered as well.

After he has worked for fourteen years in order to take Laban's daughters for his wives, and after he has started a family of his own, Jacob asks Laban to release him from his service in order to take his family somewhere else and start a life of his own. However, because God had blessed Laban because of Jacob, he doesn't want him to leave. He asks Jacob to stay and work for him, and even tells Jacob to name his own wages. Jacob says he will keep Laban's flock as long as he can take as his own any lamb that is striped or spotted. Laban agrees to this deal and quickly hides all his striped and spotted lambs from Jacob.

But Jacob is an experienced deceiver. It is in his very name. And so, Jacob tends to Laban's now exclusively white flock. Jacob put poplar and almond rods in their troughs and when the flocks came to drink and then mated, they began to give birth to spotted and striped lambs. This, of course, had more to do with God's blessing than it did with the rods. But nevertheless, God favored Jacob and helped him to increase his own flock in this manner. Jacob uses his rod trick when the stronger lambs are drinking, rather than have them give birth to week offspring. He does this for six years, and by that time, Jacob has a large flock of sheep that's even stronger than Laban's own flock. Needless to say, Laban doesn't like this turn of events and stops being friendly toward Jacob.

One day, twenty years after Jacob had first arrived in Paddan-aram, God speaks to him, and tells him to return home . He goes to his wives and tells them the situation: that Laban has become bitter with him and has changed Jacob's wages ten times in the last twenty years, but that God had watched out for him and blessed him. He tells them that they need to leave, and they quickly agree with him. So, in secret, Jacob takes his family and his flocks and leaves.

When Laban learns that Jacob has fled, he quickly pursues him and catches up with him in Gilead. But God came to Laban in a dream and told him to be careful not to "speak to Jacob either good or bad". So when Laban catches up with Jacob, he confronts him, asking why he fled in the night without letting him say goodbye to his daughters and grandsons. Jacob answers honestly, saying that he was afraid that Laban would have taken his wives away from him in anger. Jacob pleads to him, stating his case that Laban had mistreated him all those twenty years and would have left him empty handed had God not been faithful to him. Laban tells him that he feels powerless against Jacob to take his family and flocks away from him.

They make a covenant in a place called Mizpah that they would not pass that place in order to harm one another and that God would watch over them when they were apart. After twenty years of deception and aggravation from both sides, they came together and healed their relationship. The next day, Laban leaves to return to Paddan-aram, and Jacob turns toward home once again. He knows that he left on some bad circumstances and begins to worry about facing his brother, Esau again.