43. Laban answered Jacob, "The women are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks. All you see is mine. Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about the children they have borne?
44. Come now, let's make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us."
45. So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.
46. He said to his relatives, "Gather some stones." So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap.
47. Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.
48. Laban said, "This heap is a witness between you and me today." That is why it was called Galeed.
49. It was also called Mizpah, because he said, "May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.
50. If you mistreat my daughters or if you take any wives besides my daughters, even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me."
51. Laban also said to Jacob, "Here is this heap, and here is this pillar I have set up between you and me.
52. This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me.
53. May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac.
54. He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal. After they had eaten, they spent the night there.
55. Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then he left and returned home.
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3 comments:
These oaths that Jacob and Laban make to one another seem to be their solution to amicably but formally parting ways. At first I wondered why this formality was
necessary but the study notes in my Bible have clarified some things for me. First, at the time of Jacob/Laban, marriages were governed mostly as business contracts so that's why there's so much written in these passages about what Jacob and Laban owe each other. Also, Laban had originally adopted Jacob as an heir to his estate but it seems that Laban may later have had more children (namely sons) to whom he wanted to also share his wealth. Finally, the household idols were prized possessions because they indicated who had primary rights to a family's inheritance. So the need for Jacob and Laban to formalize their future expectations of one another through an oath was necessitated by the culturally-driven contractual obligations that had governed their relationship until that point in time.
Hmm this makes much more sense. So the "household gods" only represented who had the control of material possessions not false gods. That means Laban, Rachel, and others all did believe in the Jacob's God.
We can see the faith of God through Jacob's stay in Laban. I can raise many questions to Jacob's decisions and acts but despite the unwise choices Jacob might have made, God is still faithful to Jacob. Once God made that promise, even though Jacob's questionable actions, God still blesses him and his family members.
This shows how much love and mercy God pours onto us. Again it isn't that if we do something good, God will reward us or if we do something bad God will punish us. The grace of God is far beyond that. Just as God is faithful to His promise to us, God wants us to be faithful to Him despite our failures. We must not let our failures come in between the relationship with God for He is always calling us.
actually, the household gods were false idols. it's sad to think they played such an important part of both secular and religious culture at that period in history.
i think M's comments about God being faithful to jacob despite jacob's questionable actions are right on -- we must remember (as hard as it is) that God's plans for us go beyond our everyday actions. as christians, we must remember that no matter how sensible concepts like "earning reward" and "deserving punishment" may be from a secular perspective, God uses a different framework and He wants us to operate likewise.
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