31:3
“Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.”
The chapter at a glance
- 1–3The LORD says returnGod’s promise sets the time to leave
- 4–16In the field with Rachel and LeahGod, not Laban, gave Jacob the flocks
- 17–21Flight and the stolen godsJacob deceives Laban; Rachel steals
- 22–35Pursuit and searchGod restrains Laban; the idols sit hidden
- 36–42Jacob’s complaintTwenty hard years, and God on his side
- 43–55Galeed and MizpahA covenant of distrust, then a parting
The chapter in brief
After twenty years in Paddan-aram, Jacob hears Laban’s sons complaining that he has taken their father’s wealth, and sees that Laban no longer regards him with favor. Then the LORD tells him to go home. Jacob calls Rachel and Leah into the field and tells them how their father cheated him and changed his wages ten times, and how the angel of God, who says “I am the God of Bethel,” showed him in a dream that God had been prospering the flock. The sisters agree, bitter that their father “sold” them. While Laban is away shearing, Jacob slips off without a word, and Rachel steals her father’s household gods. Laban pursues for seven days, but God warns him in a dream to say nothing to Jacob, “either good or bad.” Laban searches the tents in vain, because Rachel is sitting on the gods in the camel’s saddle. Jacob, who knows nothing of the theft, pours out twenty years of grievance. The two men set up a pillar and a heap of stones as witnesses, swear not to harm each other, eat together, and part.
This chapter is the hinge of Jacob’s exile. At Bethel God had promised, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land” (28:15), and now He begins to do it. Every turn in the chapter is credited to God rather than to Jacob’s cunning: God did not let Laban harm him (v. 7), God took the livestock and gave it to him (v. 9), God saw his affliction (v. 42). Much is still crooked: a household that carries idols, rival sisters, a covenant held together by suspicion. But the God who keeps His promise to a flawed man is the God who keeps every promise in Christ. “I will be with you” (v. 3) runs through the whole Bible to Immanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), and to the risen Lord’s “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
Points for discussion
vv. 1–3
The time to go
Jacob has reasons enough to leave: resentful brothers-in-law and a father-in-law whose face has turned cold. But he moves when the LORD speaks, and what the LORD says is the Bethel promise repeated: “I will be with you.” Twenty years have passed between the promise and this moment (v. 38). Providence makes the place uncomfortable, and the command tells Jacob what the discomfort means. The pattern is common in Scripture: God’s people rarely see His timing while they wait, but His promise does not lapse in the waiting.
vv. 4–16
Who made Jacob rich?
Chapter 30 told of peeled rods and careful breeding, and a reader might credit Jacob’s skill. Here Jacob tells his wives it was God: “Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me” (v. 9). Readers fit the two accounts together in different ways. Some think Jacob’s methods were folk belief that God overruled; others think they were ordinary herding that God blessed. Either way the chapter’s verdict is the same, and the reason is moral: “I have seen all that Laban is doing to you” (v. 12). The one who speaks in the dream is “the angel of God” (v. 11), yet he says, “I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me” (v. 13). Many Reformed readers see in the angel who speaks as God an appearance of the Son before His incarnation; others read a created angel speaking in God’s name. On either reading the Son did not become anything He was not; He took our flesh only at the incarnation (John 1:14). Rachel and Leah add their own grievance: their father “sold” them and “devoured our money” (v. 15), often explained as the value of Jacob’s fourteen years of labor, which should have come to them as brides and never did.
vv. 17–35
The stolen gods
The same Hebrew verb, ganav, “steal,” runs through the scene: Rachel “stole” her father’s household gods (v. 19), and Jacob “tricked” Laban (v. 20), literally “stole Laban’s heart.” Laban accuses him of both (vv. 26-27, 30). Why Rachel took the teraphim the text does not say. They may have been household gods kept for protection or for divination (Laban has “learned by divination,” 30:27); an older theory that they carried inheritance rights is now questioned by many scholars. What the text does is mock them. Gods that can be stolen, stuffed into a saddle, and sat on by a woman who says “the way of women is upon me” (v. 35) cannot protect anyone (Isaiah 46:1-2). Jacob’s rash oath, “Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live” (v. 32), leaves a shadow some readers see falling on Rachel’s death in 35:16-19, though the text draws no link. The idols will be buried at Shechem before the family goes up to Bethel (35:2-4).
For discussion
Laban asks, “Why did you steal my gods?” (v. 30). What do believers carry out of an old life that should have been left behind? Test the answer against Genesis 35:2-4 and 1 John 5:21.
vv. 36–42
Jacob’s complaint
Jacob’s anger is twenty years deep, and his facts are hard to deny. He bore the loss of animals torn by beasts himself (v. 39), where the later law let a shepherd bring the torn animal as evidence and pay nothing (Exodus 22:13). He worked through heat by day and cold by night, years Hosea remembers (Hosea 12:12). The deceiver has been deceived (29:25) and exploited. But the speech ends with God: “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” (v. 42). It is the same God who will say at the burning bush, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people” (Exodus 3:7).
vv. 43–55
A heap of witness
Laban still claims everything: “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children” (v. 43). The covenant gets two names in two languages, Laban’s Aramaic Jegar-sahadutha and Jacob’s Hebrew Galeed, both meaning “heap of witness.” Then Laban adds Mizpah, “watchpost”: “The LORD watch between you and me, when we are out of one another’s sight” (v. 49). The words are often used today as a tender blessing between friends who are apart. It is not wrong to commend absent loved ones to God’s care, but in context the line is a warning: since I cannot watch you, God will. The next verse says why: “If you oppress my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters... God is witness between you and me” (v. 50). Laban swears by “the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor” (v. 53); Jacob swears by the Fear of Isaac alone. The meal ends the quarrel, but not the distrust. This is the best a truce between suspicious men can do: a boundary and a watcher. The peace Christ makes is of another kind. He “has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14).
Threads across the chapter
God’s voice at every turn. God’s command opens the chapter (v. 3), the angel’s dream explains the flocks (vv. 11-13), God’s warning restrains Laban (vv. 24, 29), and God is called as witness at the close (v. 50).
A family of takers. Rachel steals the gods (v. 19), Jacob steals Laban’s heart (v. 20), Laban has “devoured” his daughters’ money (v. 15) and claims everything as his (v. 43).
Seen by God. “I have seen all that Laban is doing to you” (v. 12) and “God saw my affliction” (v. 42) frame the account of Laban’s wrongs.
Witnesses. The pillar, the heap, and God Himself are named as witnesses (vv. 44-53), because the two men cannot trust each other.
Key words
- 31:19
- תְּרָפִים teraphim“Household gods”; small images kept in the home, carried off by Rachel and mocked by the narrative
- 31:19–20
- גָּנַב ganav“Steal”; Rachel steals the gods and Jacob “steals the heart” of Laban
- 31:42, 53
- פַּחַד יִצְחָק pachad yitschaq“The Fear of Isaac”; a name for God as the One Isaac feared and worshiped
- 31:49
- מִצְפָּה mitspah“Watchpost”; the boundary where God is called to watch between two men who distrust each other
Cross-references
- Genesis 28:15The Bethel promise that this chapter begins to fulfill
- Genesis 30:37-43Jacob’s breeding methods, which this chapter credits to God’s blessing
- Genesis 35:2-4The foreign gods put away and buried at Shechem
- Isaiah 46:1-2Idols that must be carried as burdens and cannot save
- Exodus 3:7The God who sees the affliction of His people
- Hosea 12:12Jacob’s years of service for a wife remembered by the prophet
- Matthew 28:20“I am with you always,” the promise of presence fulfilled in Christ
- Ephesians 2:14Christ breaks down the wall of hostility that a boundary heap can only mark
- 1
Chapter 30 seemed to credit Jacob’s own methods for his wealth; why might chapter 31 insist so firmly that it was God’s doing?
- 2
What does the scene of Rachel sitting on her father’s gods say about idols, then and now?
- 3
Jacob’s complaint against Laban is largely true. How can we tell when our own just grievances have become the center of our story instead of God’s faithfulness?
- 4
The Mizpah words are used today as a blessing. What is lost and what is kept when a verse is lifted out of its setting like that?
- 5
Where have you seen God keep a promise only after a long wait, and what did the waiting teach you?
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