A Word about Jacob's Family Values

 

Today I want to share a word about Jacobs’ family values. Let’s begin with Genesis 29:9-20:

While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. ¹⁰ As soon as Jacob saw his uncle Laban’s daughter Rachel with his sheep, he went up and rolled the stone from the opening and watered his uncle Laban’s sheep. ¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept loudly.  ¹² He told Rachel that he was her father’s relative, Rebekah’s son. She ran and told her father. ¹³ When Laban heard the news about his sister’s son Jacob, he ran to meet him, hugged him, and kissed him. Then he took him to his house, and Jacob told him all that had happened. ¹⁴ Laban said to him, “Yes, you are my own flesh and blood.” After Jacob had stayed with him a month, ¹⁵ Laban said to him, “Just because you’re my relative, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.” ¹⁶ Now Laban had two daughters: the older was named Leah, and the younger was named Rachel. ¹⁷ Leah had ordinary eyes, but Rachel was shapely and beautiful. ¹⁸ Jacob loved Rachel, so he answered Laban, “I’ll work for you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” ¹⁹ Laban replied, “Better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay with me.” ²⁰ So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.

Family relationships are often a topic for discussion, in all kinds of ways. For example, once, when I was reaching down behind a door to pick-up something that I had dropped there, the door bounced off the door stop just in time for me to slam my head against it as I bent down. This collision raised a large, egg-shaped swelling on my forehead. Needless to say, I was the butt of several jokes made by my fellow pastors.

 One said, “So, you thought Geri said stand-up when she really said shut up.”

 Another quipped, “It’s your head, your wife, and your business.”

 For the record, while I have irritated Geri many times, she has never hit me, nor I her. We have exchanged cross words from time to time, however!

 A few years ago, some politicians took pains to appeal to “family values voters.” This sounds good until you ask the follow-on question, “Whose family values?” In this message we will consider some lessons from Jacob’s family’s values, some of which are positive, but many of which we would do well to avoid!

 The Good:

 Jacob loved Rachel with all his heart, and he sacrificed for her.

 Many people will glibly make statements like, “I’d do anything to play the piano” or “I give anything to be able to lose weight.” The truth is, however, they are not willing to do what it takes to achieve such goals. Jacob, however, was different. He worked for Laban not just seven years, but he actually worked for him for fourteen years so that he could have the love of his life.

 Jacob’s passion and sacrifice for his wife Rachel is a model for husbands to follow. Let’s read Ephesians 5:25-33,

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. ²⁷ He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, ³⁰ since we are members of His body. ³¹ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. ³² This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

God’s unambiguous will is for husbands to love their wives the way that Christ loves the church, who is the bride of Christ. What kind of love is this? 

• It is a sacrificial love.  
• It is an uplifting love. 
• It is a saving love.
• It is a steadfast love.
• It is a cherishing love.

The kind of love which the Scriptures refer to as Christ’s love is an active love. Christ’s love is not only emotional, it is also operational. It requires us to do what is right, and good, and best for the one loved. So, husbands must love their wives even when they don’t feel like it!

Why are we to do this? Just like the Lord’s Supper and Baptism are audio-visual sermons about our Christian faith, so is marriage! Marriage is a sermon about Christ and the church. There is one Savior and one church. The Savior loves the church sacrificially and the church honors the love of the Savior.

 So far, so good. But now let's read Genesis 29:21-31,

 ‘Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time is completed. I want to sleep with her.” ²² So Laban invited all the men of the place to a feast. ²³ That evening, Laban took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and he slept with her. ²⁴ And Laban gave his slave Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her slave. ²⁵ When morning came, there was Leah! So he said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Wasn’t it for Rachel that I worked for you? Why have you deceived me?” ²⁶ Laban answered, “It is not the custom in this place to give the younger daughter in marriage before the firstborn. ²⁷ Complete this week of wedding celebration, and we will also give you this younger one in return for working yet another seven years for me.” ²⁸ And Jacob did just that. He finished the week of celebration, and Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife. ²⁹ And Laban gave his slave Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her slave. ³⁰ Jacob slept with Rachel also, and indeed, he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years. ³¹ When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was unable to conceive. ³² Leah conceived, gave birth to a son, and named him Reuben, or she said, “The Lord has seen my affliction; surely my husband will love me now.” 

The Bad:

 Jacob had two wives, and he could not love them both.

 As we see in this passage, the trickster got tricked. As the saying goes, “live by the sword, die by the sword.” Or, as Galatians 6:7-9 says,

Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap, ⁸ because the one who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. ⁹ So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.

Jacob loved Rachel, but he wound up with both Rachel and Leah. To give Jacob some credit, he did not intend to find himself in that situation, but due to the practices and customs of the day, he did. And try as he might, he was unable to love them both. 

To be truthful, it doesn’t seem as if Jacob tried to be fair to Leah. He was bound to her, but he never gave his heart to her. Some men develop a resentful attitude towards their spouses, even to the point of calling them “a ball and chain.” I could see Jacob having this attitude towards Leah, and he definitely preferred Rachel. This caused much conflict in their home, as we can see in Genesis 30:1-2:

When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she envied her sister. “Give me sons, or I will die!” she said to Jacob. 2 Jacob became angry with Rachel and said, “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld children from you?”

We also see this conflict in Genesis 30:14-16,

Reuben went out during the wheat harvest and found some mandrakes in the field. When he brought them to his mother Leah, Rachel asked, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” 15 But Leah replied to her, “Isn’t it enough that you have taken my husband? Now you also want to take my son’s mandrakes?” “Well,” Rachel said, “you can sleep with him tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.” 16 When Jacob came in from the field that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must come with me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So Jacob slept with her that night.

I think those verses speak for themselves.

In the home, there is no room for multiple lovers. When a man and a women join in matrimony, they become one, and there is no room for another. This is like what Jesus said in Matthew 6:24,

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Jacob was only human, and he played favorites, just like his father and mother did.  Not only did he play favorites with his wives, but we will also soon find out that he played favorites with his children. The results of both were devastating!

Next let's read Genesis 34:1-7,

Dinah, Leah’s daughter whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see some of the young women of the area. 2 When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, a prince of the region, saw her, he took her and raped her. 3 He became infatuated with Dinah, daughter of Jacob. He loved the young girl and spoke tenderly to her. 4 “Get me this girl as a wife,” he told his father Hamor. 5 Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his daughter Dinah, but since his sons were with his livestock in the field, he remained silent until they returned. 6 Meanwhile, Shechem’s father Hamor came to speak with Jacob. 7 Jacob’s sons returned from the field when they heard about the incident and were deeply grieved and angry. For Shechem had committed an outrage against Israel by raping Jacob’s daughter, and such a thing should not be done.

The Ugly:

Jacob had a dozen children, but he failed to nurture them.

Jacob demonstrated that physically procreating was not the end of the task of being a parent. Parents have a sacred responsibility from God to raise up their children in the way that they should go. As Ephesians 6:4 instructs us,

Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

A large part of the task of parenting is the protection of the children. Jacob failed to protect Dinah from the evil culture in which they lived, which was devasting.

We, too, must protect our children, both from others and from themselves. A 2001 survey of students revealed that 50% had drunk alcohol and 1% consumed it daily. The results also showed that 23% had been inebriated at least once and 8% had been inebriated in the last 30 days before date the survey was taken. Those numbers are bad, but they are worse when we realize that the subjects of the survey were 8^th grade students!

Another survey of youths revealed that 7% carried weapons to school, and one-third drank alcohol regularly. About half had used marijuana, 15% had sniffed glue, and 10% had used cocaine.

Our children need our protection, and we need to model a Godly lifestyle for them to emulate!

The task of parenting also so involves discipling our children. Jacob failed to teach his sons to guard their passions. Let's read Genesis 33:24-31,

²⁴ All the able-bodied men listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and all the able-bodied men were circumcised. ²⁵ On the third day, when they were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords, went into the unsuspecting city, and killed every male. ²⁶ They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with their swords, took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went away. ²⁷ Jacob’s other sons came to the slaughter and plundered the city because their sister had been defiled. ²⁸ They took their sheep, cattle, donkeys, and whatever was in the city and in the field. ²⁹ They captured all their possessions, children, and wives and plundered everything in the houses. ³⁰ Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me, making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. We are few in number; if they unite against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.” ³¹ But they answered, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”

It is easy to understand how angry Dinah’s brothers got over how she was attacked and abused. Despite this, their father had a plan to resolve this situation. Was Jacob doing the right thing? We will never know, because his sons took the law into their own hands. And when they did, they took things too far.

Few of us would have objected to punishing or even killing Shechem, but Jacob’s sons committed mass murder. And, like Jacob and Leah and Rachel, they would go to any lengths to get what they wanted. Despite what the popular saying asserts, the ends do not justify the means. However, that seems to be the lesson these boys learned from their dad and their moms, and their grandparents as well. Jacob, himself, knew how bad things could have been for his family, and, no doubt, only God’s protection preserved them after that stunt!

It was ironic as well as creepy that Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar pretended to be a prostitute with him so she could have a child. That’s a story for another day, but it demonstrates the level of morality that Jacob had fostered among his sons.

One other task of parenting that we find Jacob struggling with was loving all his children equally. Let’s read Genesis 37:2-4,

² These are the family records of Jacob. At 17 years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brothers. The young man was working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought a bad report about them to their father. ³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age, and he made a robe of many colors for him. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.

It seems to be a true statement that some families develop strong multi-generational patterns. Today we might say that those patterns are a part of their family “DNA”. Sometimes it is the result of unconfessed and unrepented sin. Numbers 14:18 tells us that,

The Lord is slow to anger and rich in faithful love, forgiving wrongdoing and rebellion. But He will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children to the third and fourth generation. 

One consistent pattern of failure in Joseph’s family tree is the habit of playing favorites among the children. Abraham did. Isaac and Rebekah did. Jacob did. As each generation perpetuated the failures of their ancestors, the consequences continued to echo down the ages.

One thing that was surprising to me about Jacob doting on Joseph is that he was oblivious to the fact that his other sons were murderers with a tendency to be hot-headed and violent. In his old age, Jacob lost his ability to “read the room,” and this was to result in serious consequences within his family and much heartache for himself as well.

The saying that the ground is level at the foot of the cross is a true one. The ground should be level in the home as well!

Conclusion

In conclusion I believe that there are some very important takeaways from our study today.

First, we need to set our families up for success. We need to leave our fathers and mothers and cleave to our spouse and to them only. We need to love each other passionately, but also practically. Finally, we must nurture our children in the Lord, loving them equally, protecting them equally, and disciplining them equally.

Second, we need to realize that all of the Old Testament patriarchs were real, flawed human beings. Paul, in the New Testament called himself the “Chief of Sinners,” but I think Jacob could give him a run for his money. In fact, some have noted that after God renamed his Isreal, the Bible still refers to him as Jacob. This could be because his walk with God was so uneven. When he was speaking prophetically, he was called Israel, but when he was acting as the old trickster, he was called Jacob. We all struggle with a consistent walk with God, but Jacob’s story reminds us of the consequences of that unfortunate habit.

Finally, if God could love Jacob, despite all his foibles, there must be hope for us all! This is even more true when we realize that as children of the New Covenant, God comes to live within us as the Holy Spirit once we commit ourselves to Him!  What an encouraging promise to us all!

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt