QT 11/11/2025 Gen 31:33-42, Seeing the results of God's hand

Genesis 31:33–42 (ESV) —

33 So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find them. And he went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s. 34 Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel’s saddle and sat on them. Laban felt all about the tent, but did not find them. 35 And she said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the household gods.

36 Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. Jacob said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? 37 For you have felt through all my goods; what have you found of all your household goods? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, that they may decide between us two. 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 flocks. 39 What was torn by wild beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it myself. From my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. 40 There I was: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. 41 These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. 42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.”

 

NOTE: I wonder if this is the first time Jacob ever rebuked his father-in-law in anger. His daughters were not on Laban's side (vs 14-16), and in some ways, Rachel achieves a certain payback for the marriage deception. I'm not saying what Rachel did was right, it was clearly wrong. And if she actually believed those gods helped in some way, she was very wrong. For his part, Jacob is growing spiritually. It took 20 years, but he leaves Haran with a family, many children, and wealthy. And he recognizes that it was God who had blessed him. Without God, he says, he would have walked away empty-handed. That is a huge step for a man who thought he could scheme his way through life. He thought his scheme won him an inheritance and a blessing, but he was rich without any of his father's wealth. And God blessed him, not because he pretended to be Esau to Isaac, but because God chose to work through him. The climax to the story is still coming, but we are now seeing how God used the last 20 years to change Jacob.

 

PONDER:

1. Have I ever looked back on life to see how God has blessed?
2. Or do I look back on life and see it as the things I achieved in my own strength?

 

PRAYER: Father, I was a mess and without your constant intervention in my life, I am not sure where I would be today. I can honestly say the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places (Ps 16:6).