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Jacob at Jabbok
Look at the headlines of not too long back: thousands of Jews have been transported from Ethiopia and the collapse of the USSR. Who would have thought it? At the centre of it all is Israel! Jacob is at the ford of Jabbok. "He (Jacob) rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok. And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him." In the Hebrew, rather as it comes over in the English, the name Jabbok is a phonetic word‑play on the name, Jacob. It denotes, we are told, "wrestling," an appropriate setting for the struggle that is here to take place. (Gen 32:22‑24) The ford of the river Jabbok was the place where there was a conflict between two paths. It was at the confluence between two streams. It was also the only place where it is possible to brave and wade through the torrent that crosses the path of the road or trek that passes on further into the land of Israel. At certain times of year this was quite a struggle, and especially if there were goods to be carried over, and cattle and flocks to be got across, not to mention family and children...a lot of children at that! (Twelve with his daughter, Dinah.) The very youngest arrival was Joseph, the very precious first‑born of Rachel, and it was his coming into the world that seemed to mark the fresh surge in the old urge to return to the land. Now, after so long a time, that return was taking tangible shape. It appears to have been shortly after Joseph arrived (prefiguring Jesus,) that the Lord tells Jacob to return to the land of promise. "Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee." (Gen.31:3) Now Israel, or rather Jacob, is on the march. He is already in the land. The very place he now walks on is within the boundaries. But there is a very important sense in which Jacob has yet to arrive, yet to know and receive the full blessing the Lord intends to bestow. What Mt. Moriah was to Abraham, Jabbok is to Jacob. It is here that the Lord’s work on human trust and faith is to reach its peak. Jacob is to leave that place a changed man, ready, prepared for the full blessedness of his role in the divine purpose—an instrument of blessing and happiness for all. But at this moment he sits there at sundown, the effort of getting his family and flocks thus far across those troublesome waters has wearied him, and he is glad to now wait behind on the former bank alone with his thoughts, his conflicts, his fears of what awaits both him and his seed. Doubtless he recalls the experiences of past years, and the memories of former days, and looks for some pattern, some meaning in his life. Perhaps he remembers how he once laid himself down in loneliness and foreboding that very first night of exile when he fled from his family home for fear of his life. The cause of his plight, his estranged brother, Esau. It does not yet occur to Jacob even now that his twin brother represented part of himself, his own flesh and blood. Esau and Jacob Esau seems to represent that within each human mind and character which tends always to resist the ways of the Lord his God. It is that which despised the birthright given him and values the promises of God and His declared purpose far below the exigencies (demands) of the moment, the appetite that demands immediate though, oh so transitory, a satisfaction. "The babies (Esau and Jacob) jostled each other within her, and she said, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ So she went to inquire of the LORD." (Gen.25:22 NIV) "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." (Gal.5:17) Jacob was not himself defiant of the divine promises, nor did he undervalue them. He simply lacked the faith to believe that the Lord could fulfil them without Jacob’s human scheming, craftiness, wiles, and cunning. So, he had found himself ready to comply with the idea to deceive to obtain. How many Christian people have still this same lesson to learn who glory in appearance? Jacob put on a skin with the intent to deceive even his own father with that which was superficial and pretentious. Oh, what a lesson to us all! The promise was his. The blessing would be his. The Lord would see to that in His own way regardless of Isaac’s intent. But Jacob trusted his own wiles and craftiness, his own judgment and ability to achieve this, rather than the Lord’s. Thus, for lack of faith in his God to bring about that full blessing, Jacob had found himself running for his life, cast out of the land of promise. Ladder up to heaven Yet even this was overruled, and the very first night of his exile the Lord had granted Jacob that first vision of heavenly involvement in Jacob’s life. In total, seven visions, according to the records, were granted to Jacob. This was the first. There in weariness he had fallen asleep, a pile of small stones for a pillow in that rugged stony place. Then, in his dream, he had seen stone laid against stone, ascending, and ascending still upwards till the very topmost step of this great stairway reached, it seemed, into heaven itself. There, above all, stood the Lord. Jacob had found himself gazing up at the Lord. Then, as he watched with great awe this astounding spectacle, angels appeared. First he noticed their ascent up that stairway, then that others came down to replace them here on earth, right next to where he lay...and he heard the voice of God, and received that message from His own lips, a message specially for Jacob, personal and reassuring. "I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." (Gen.28:13‑15) Next morning early Jacob rose knowing he would never forget that experience or that place where human thought is drawn up that steep ascent to the thoughts of God. How could he forget that continual ascending and descending of angels, overruling, intervening, a vision so transforming of the daily trial of human life. Have we seen that stairway? Can we forget once we have glimpsed that vision of the Lord’s concern in our life? "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." (Gen 28:20‑22) This may sound a rather mercenary attitude as it reads, a kind of "ten per cent" agent’s fee, but the word "If" at the outset should read rather "since," and this statement seems to be prophetical of Israel’s future appreciation of divine overruling, when they will pay to the Lord their dues of gratitude and trust and loving obedience. As Mal.3:10 says, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Meditating on the bank of Jabbok Jacob listened to those waters dashing through the rocks, rocks that seemed to stick out and intrude in the life, just to demonstrate that conquering overcoming power of that relentless flow of the river of God’s pleasure. Nothing that great purpose can thwart. Over the sound of those many waters Jacob may have thought he could still hear that voice of God speaking above the troubles of his mind, the travail of his soul. "The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed." Certainly, the Lord had fulfilled His word thus far, though the path for Jacob had been sorely trying to his faith. Jacob with Laban at Padan‑aram As an exile from the land Jacob had spent the years in servitude. He had known no place of his own, not even a home life, for he had been a shepherd for Laban, a most menial task of a slave, and this had entailed much hardship. As shepherd, Jacob had been held responsible for the flock of that mean and grasping master, and that was the story behind the tanned face of Jacob. Through the burning of the noon‑tide heat of the sun he had watched against the wild beasts culling the flock. When Jacob said to Laban, "That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes." (Gen 31:39‑40) Isa.42:24‑25 "Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? Did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart." (Cp. Isa.49:10 "They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.") That was an awful moment too, so recently behind him, for after the Lord had told him to depart from alien lands and return to the land of promise such animosity arose in Laban’s heart that he threatened to completely wipe out the chosen race, Jacob’s seed. Only the Lord’s intervention achieved Jacob’s escape. Antisemitism first reared its ugly head in Gen.31:1&2, because even in those adverse conditions the Lord made Jacob to prosper. For "he heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, Jacob hath taken away all that was our father’s; and of that which was our father’s hath he gotten all this glory. And Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and, behold, it was not toward him as before." Laban was prevented from his evil design to destroy the people of Jacob, "It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad." (Gen.31:29) We cannot miss the parallel here to the similar attempt of Hitler after the Lord had said it was time for the return of Jacob to the land of promise. Satan is at enmity with the seed to this day, both the natural and the spiritual. Oh, why was life so hard? Looking back Jacob would recall how it was, as it were, his own nature that had been played back upon him. He now found what it was like to be at the receiving end of deceit, and pretence, the victim of scheming and plots against him. What it was like to be taken advantage of, as when he had taken advantage himself of his brother’s weakness to his own ends said, "Sell me the birthright"? (See Isa.42:24‑25 p155) To be continued |
Israel in turmoil. The time to favour Zion is come. Israel returns exactly on time and according to the prophetic Word of God. Why then the struggle now taking place?