at the place called Luz, the Lord meets him. This was not his father's
bed-side, where he was sinning, but a lonely, dreary, distant spot where
his sin had cast him, and where the discipline of his heavenly Father
was dealing with him. In such a place God can meet us. He cannot appear
to us in the scene of our iniquities, but He can in the place of His
correction. And such was Luz to Jacob. It was a comfortless spot. The
stones of the place were his pillow, and the sky over his head his
covering; and he had no friend but his staff to accompany and cheer him.
But the God of his fathers comes there to him. He does not alter his
present circumstances or reverse the chastening. He lets him still
pursue his way unfriended, to find, at the end of it, twenty years' hard
service at the hand of a stranger, with many a wrong and injury. But he
gives him heavenly pledges, that hosts on high should watch and wait
around him.
The Lord had made, as we know, great promises to Abraham: the same were
repeated to Isaac, and are now, at Bethel, given to Jacob. But, to
Jacob, something very distinct from these common promises is added:
"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." _v._
15. This was a new promise, an added mercy; just because Jacob needed
it, as Abraham and Isaac had not. Jacob was the only one of the three
who needed that the Lord would be with him wherever he went, and bring
him home again. Jacob, by his own naughtiness, had made this additional
mercy necessary to himself, and, in abounding grace, he gets it; and the
vision of the ladder pledges it. The promises to Abraham and to Isaac
had not included this providential, angelic care. They had remained in
the land; but Jacob had made himself an exile, that needed the care and
watching of a special oversight from heaven, and he gets it. And it is
to this, I believe, that Jacob alludes, when he says to Joseph, The
blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my
progenitors. Chap. xlix. 26. This angelic care, that watched over him,
under direct commission from heaven, in his days of exile and drudgery,
which his own error had incurred, _distinguished_ him as an object of
mercy, and gave him "blessings" above those of his "progenitors." And in
this character he reached "the bounds of the everlasting hills." He was
heir of the kingdom as a _debtor to special mercy_, through that
abounding grace that had helped him and kept him amid the bitter fruits
of his own naughtiness. As David, in his day, triumphed in "the
everlasting covenant" made with him, though for the present his house
was in ruins through his own sin. 2 Samuel xxiii.
This is God's way, excellent and perfect in the combination of grace and
holiness. And upon this, let me observe, that in all circumstances there
are two objects, and that nature eyes the one, and faith the other.
Thus, in divine discipline, such as Jacob was now experiencing, there is
the _rod_, and also the _hand that is using it_. Nature regards the
first, faith recognizes the second. Job, in his day, broke down under
the rod, because he concerned himself with it alone. Had he eyed the
counsel, the heart, or the hand that was appointing it (as we are
exhorted to do, Micah vi. 9), he would have stood. But nature prevailed
in him, and he kept his eye upon the rod, and it was too much for him.
So in _failures_, as well as in circumstances, there are two objects.
Conscience has its object, and faith again has its object. But
conscience is not to be allowed to rob faith of its treasures, the
treasures of restoring, pardoning grace, which the love of God in Christ
has stored up for it.
There is great comfort in this. Nature is not to be over-busy with
circumstances, nor conscience with failures. Nature is to feel that no
affliction is for the present joyous, and conscience or heart may be
broken; but in either case, faith is to be at its post and do its duty;
and much of the gracious energy of the Spirit in the epistles is engaged
in putting faith at its post, and encouraging it to do its duty. The
Apostles, under the Holy Ghost, take knowledge of the danger and
temptation we are under by nature; and while it is abundantly enforced,
that conscience is to be quick and jealous, yet it is required that
faith shall maintain itself in the very face of it.
To know God _in grace_ is His praise and our joy. We naturally, or
according to the instincts of a tainted nature, think of Him as one that
_exacts obedience and looks for service_. But faith knows Him as one
that _communicates_, that speaks to us of privileges, of the liberty and
the blessing of our relationship to Him.
But Jacob's soul was not quite up to this way of grace. He found the
place where the ladder and the angels were seen, and where the God of
his fathers spoke to him, to be "dreadful." In some sense it was too
much for him. As it was long afterwards with Peter on the holy hill. God
is true to the aboundings of His grace. Jacob may say, "How dreadful is
this place!" Peter and his companions may have their fear; but the
ladder, nevertheless, reaches to heaven, and angels are up and down upon
it in the sight of the patriarch; and the glory on the Mount still
shines. For the grace of God is richer than the apprehensions of the
soul about it. God shines in Himself above our experiences. And it is in
Himself He is to be known, and not in the reflections of our experience.
Still, like Peter on the hill, Jacob, in some sense, found it good to be
at Luz, and he called the place Bethel. It was the house of God to him,
for God had there been with him, and spoken to him; it was the gate of
heaven in his eye, for there the angels had appeared, as descending from
their own place on high. "This is none other but the house of God," says
he, "and this is the gate of heaven."
God both _records_ His name and _glorifies_ it. He records it or reveals
it at first, and faith accepts Him. In due time He verifies that record
or testimony, making it all good, and thus glorifies His name. And
wherever He records His name there is His house. Ornan's threshing-floor
got the same dignity long afterwards, which Luz now gets, and on the
same title. "This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of
burnt-offering for Israel," says David of that spot of the Jebusite. 1
Chron. xxii. 1. For it was the place, like this Bethel of our patriarch,
where mercy had rejoiced against judgment, where God was revealing
Himself in the aboundings of His grace, and there faith descries the
house of God. Jacob and David, each in his day, were saints under
discipline; but the Lord met them in the rich provisions of His love,
thus revealing Himself or recording His name; and this was His house to
them. But it is easier thus to consecrate the house, than to learn the
lesson that is taught there. Jacob rightly uttered his heart under force
of the impressions which the vision could not but awaken; but there is
something of old Jacob in his spirit still. The faulty way of his heart
is at work still, and he seems to calculate, and to make bargains, and
to enter into conditions, though the Lord had spoken to him there in the
language of the promise, in free, sovereign, abounding goodness. For
nature still stirs itself after many a rebuke and defeat, and outlives
what for a moment may have appeared a death-blow. Jacob no more now
leaves it behind him at Bethel, than before he had left it behind him in
his mother's tent.
But he goes on. Grace sets the chastened saint on his journey, and with
some alacrity too, till "he came to the land of the people of the east,"
till he reached Padan-aram, where his mother's counsel had appointed
him, and, doubtless, where the hand of God had now conducted him.
His introduction to Rachel was at the well, and in the midst of the
flock, like that of Eliezer to Rebecca; and Eliezer was but Isaac's
representative. But Jacob was the poor man, Isaac the wealthy. Isaac
could enrich Rebecca with earrings and bracelets of gold, pledges of the
goodly estate he had for her. Jacob has but his toil and sweat of face.
The one was as the son and heir, the other a man who had beggared
himself, and must find his own way through the wear and tear of life as
best he may, with God's help. Israel served for a wife, and for a wife
he kept sheep. Hosea xii. 12. And a hard service he was about to find
it. But he enters on it at once, and continues at it for twenty long
years. Chap. xxix.-xxxi.
The scene is laid in the house of Laban his mother's brother, and a
scene of various moral action it quickly becomes, and so continues. We
have not only Jacob himself and Laban, but the two wives Leah and
Rachel, and their two handmaids Zilpah and Bilhah.
Jacob had been but a little while under the trials and sorrows of his
sojourn with Laban, ere he was visited after the very pattern of his own
offence at home. He had deceived his father touching his brother and the
blessing. Laban now deceives him touching Rachel and the marriage. But
in much of his behaviour during the twenty years he spent with Laban, we
see what was excellent in him. For the force and influence of knowing
_that we are under the hand of God for correction_, is necessarily felt
by a mind that has anything right towards God in it. It is not that
nature will be changed or broken under such a pressure, but it must, in
measure, more or less, be controlled. David when under rebuke, sore and
humbling as ever saint had exposed himself to, carries himself
beautifully. His words to Ittai, to Zadok, and to Hushai, his resentment
of the motion of the sons of Zeruiah, his humiliations, his lamentations
over Absalom, and his using his victory as if it had been a defeat, all
this and more than this of the same kind, show us a blessed work of the
Spirit in his soul. In Jacob at Padan-aram we get nothing so fine as
this, I know; but, if I mistake not, we get a saint under discipline
conscious of the discipline, well understanding the character of the
moment under God's hand, and the righteousness of the rebuke of the
Lord, carrying himself meekly and watchfully. He submits to the wrongs
of an injurious master in silence. He serves patiently, and suffers
without complaint. His wages were changed ten times, but he answers not
again. In all this he is humbled under the mighty hand of God, as one
who would fain remember his own past ways. And at the end of twenty
years' hard drudgery and ill usage, he is able to testify of his
fidelity, and God Himself seems to seal the testimony. By the
providences of His hand, and the revelations in visitations of His
Spirit, and also by direct interferences with Laban himself, the Lord
shelters and blesses and vindicates Jacob.
There is beauty in this. I say not that nature was mortified, that the
root of bitterness was judged. We shall find, I know, that after this,
Jacob is old Jacob still, sadly betrayed by the same leaven that had
been working in him from the beginning. But, while in the house of the
Syrian, Jacob was as one who knew himself to be under the mighty hand of
God as for correction, and carried himself accordingly, neither
justifying himself against reproaches, nor contending for his rights in
the face of wrongs and injustice.
Such a one I judge Jacob to have been in the house of Laban. As to
Laban, he was a thorough man of the world when Jacob entered his house,
and so he was when Jacob left it. In all his dealings, from first to
last, he eyes his own advantage. He is constrained to own that the hand
of God was with Jacob; but he would make that hand, through Jacob,
minister to himself, and turn Jacob's interest in God to his own
account. For twenty years he had the witness of the hand of the Lord,
and the operation of His grace and power, under his eye and in his
house, and that daily; but he continued a man of the world still. God
came near to him, as afterwards to Bethsaida and Chorazin in the doing
of His mighty works; but there was no repentance. And Jacob's departure
from his house at the last, was like an escape out of the enemy's hand,
or from the snare of the fowler. It was a kind of exodus. In a family
way it was what was afterwards known by Israel in a national way. Laban
was as Pharaoh, and Padan-aram as Egypt to our patriarch. He would fain
have kept Jacob a drudge still, or at best have sent him away as a
beggar; but the Lord pleaded for Jacob with Laban, as He afterwards
pleaded for Israel with Pharaoh. Laban and Pharaoh had each in his day
_witnessed_ the operation of God, but neither of them became the
_subject_ of it.
A thorough lover of the world he surely was, and never anything better;
a crafty one, and a hypocritical one too--common companions. At the end,
when all his devices are broken to pieces, and no enchantment is allowed
to prosper, as against Israel, he does what he can, according to the
miserable, disgusting style of a crafty heart, to cover the purpose
which had now failed, and to give himself a fair character. He pretends
that Jacob's leaving him was mere fondness for home, while his
conscience must have told him many a very different reason. He affects
grief and indignation at not having an opportunity of kissing his
daughters and grandchildren, and of sending them away honourably, while
his conscience must have reminded him how he had sold them again and
again. He seems to be concerned for them, now about to be in Jacob's
hand, as if his own hand had been that of a father to them. He pretends
to spare Jacob through religious fear of God's words, while he must have
felt himself to be completely restrained by God, willing or unwilling,
religious or profane; as Balaam afterwards. And he gives a serious air
to the last bargain between him and Jacob, introducing the name of the
God of Abraham, though he had just been searching for his idols, and was
preparing to return to that land out of which God had called Abraham,
and to continue there a thorough, heartless man of the world still, a
worshipper of his own god.
Miserable man! pointing a holy, serious lesson for us.
But we have the women and the children of Padan-aram, as well as Laban
the Syrian. The women and the children of the Book of Genesis are all
mysteries. We see this in Eve and her three children--in Abraham's
Sarah, and Abraham's Hagar, and Abraham's Keturah, and the seed of each
of them. And we noticed in Isaac (see page 152) the same mystic
character in Rebecca his wife, and Esau and Jacob his children. Each and
all tell out parts and parcels of the purpose of God, as in figures. And
now, in the women which become connected with Jacob in Padan, whether it
be his wife the elder sister, or his wife the younger sister, or the
handmaids given to them, and in the children of each of them, there are
mysteries again.
In the children of Israel, that is, the nation, the seed of Abraham, we
find three classes. 1. There has already been Israel _after the flesh_,
set in the land under title of their fleshly alliance with Abraham. 2.
There is now, at this time, the nation _in bondage_, made to know the
service of the Gentiles. 3. There will be, by-and-by, the nation _set in
grace_, Israel redeemed and accepted, established in the promises made
to the fathers.
These are three generations in the nation of Israel, as that nation
either has been, now is, or is to be hereafter. And the shadowing of
this, I judge, we see in the families of Jacob in Padan; that is, in the
children of Leah, who had her title in the flesh; in the children of the
handmaids; and in the children of Rachel the beloved, who had no
strength in nature, but whose seed was all of promise or of God.
The way of the wisdom of God is thus learnt in the women and children
here, in chapters xxix.-xxxi., as it had been in the earlier family
scenes of this wondrous book.
As soon as Joseph, the child of promise, the son of Rachel the beloved,
is given to him, Jacob speaks of leaving Padan, the place of his exile
and bondage. See xxx. 25, 26. And this, simple as it seems to be, has
character in it. The condition of an alien and servant did not suit him,
as soon as he got the seed that witnessed to him the power of God in his
behalf. He may have felt somewhat instinctively, that it became him now
to assert his freedom, and to bethink himself of his home and his
inheritance. I say not whether Jacob really entered into this, or
whether it was something of an inspiration that he breathed, and which,
in its full meaning, was beyond him. But so it was that he said to
Laban, immediately upon the birth of Joseph, "Send me away, that I may
go to my own place and to my country."
It had been very much after this manner with Abraham in an earlier day.
As soon as Isaac was weaned, the scene around Abraham immediately
changed. The child of the bondwoman has to leave the house, and Abraham
takes precedence of the Gentile. See chap. xxi. The weaning of Isaac was
the turning-point in Abraham's condition. In spirit, for a moment, he
enters the kingdom, raising a new altar, an altar to the "everlasting
God," and planting a grove. This was very fine, and the character of it
I have considered in its place. See "Abraham," page 126. But so was it
now with Jacob, as then with Abraham. As soon as Joseph, the child of
promise, that witnessed the grace and strength of God, is given to him,
he conceives the thought of freedom and of home.
This was a fine, striking instance of the intelligence of a new mind in
Jacob. The way of faith, I may add, is seen in Rachel on the same
occasion, for she calls her son "Joseph," that is, "adding;" assured
that the Lord, who had now _begun_ His mercies towards her, would _go
on_ with them and _perfect_ them. As faith now in our hearts and on our
lips, in like spirit, says, "He that spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give
us all things?" From His gifts, Rachel not only "drew a plea to _ask_
Him still for more," but in still bolder, happier faith, drew a
conclusion to _trust_ Him still for more.
But though this was so, the connection between Laban and Jacob is
continued for a while after Joseph's birth, till the separation takes
place under force of other circumstances altogether, leaving Laban,
still more than before, a kind of pillar of salt, or a solemn
remembrance to us of what our wretched hearts are capable.
_Part III._--The time of his servitude closes in chap. xxxi. He is then
on his way back from Padan-aram to Canaan; the principal scenes of his
journey being at _Mount Gilead_, shortly after his setting out, and
_Mahanaim_, near the brook Jabbok, a little before he entered the land.
It was at Mount Gilead that the parting between him and Laban took
place, for Laban had pursued him so far. But there they make a covenant,
offering sacrifice, and then eating together as upon the sacrifice.
Such a scene, in mystery, exhibits our blessing. For we enjoy a covenant
of peace, secured by a sacrifice, and witnessed by a feast. So, in the
night of redemption from Egypt, the altar and the table, that is, the
sacrifice and the feast, are there again. The blood is upon the
door-post, and the household, thus ransomed and sheltered, are within,
feeding on the lamb, whose blood was protecting and delivering them.
But there is another thing on this occasion to be noticed--_it is Jacob
who offers the sacrifice_.
This has a great character in it. It tells us that Jacob knew his place
and dignity under God. Laban had all the claims which nature or the
flesh or relationship could confer, but Jacob acts in spite of them.
Laban was the elder; he was the master and the father-in-law. But still
Jacob takes the place of the "better," and offers the sacrifice, in the
like spirit of faith as Abraham when entering into covenant with the
king of Gerar (chapter xxi.); or like Jethro at Horeb, in the midst of
the Israel of God, and in the presence of Aaron. Ex. xviii.
Such cases are among the triumphs of faith; and they are no mean
triumphs either. To know our high title in Christ, and by no means to
surrender it, even when circumstances may humble us, this is no easy
thing. Jacob was under discipline in Padan-aram. He had no altar there.
Before God he was rather a penitent than a worshipper. But before Laban
he knows himself as a saint, and here, at the Mount Gilead, he has his
pillar, his sacrifice, and his feast, and he exercises that faith which
emboldens him to act according to his dignity as a saint and priest of
God, in the presence of all the claims of flesh and blood. Elihu, in the
book of Job, though renouncing _himself_ before his elders, asserts the
title of _the Spirit in him_, in the face of the highest claims of
nature.
It is very encouraging to witness such fragments of the mind of Christ
in the saints. Jacob never suspected his title in Christ, from first to
last, though under discipline all his days. And this is blessed--blessed
to take the place that grace, in its riches, in its exceeding riches, in
its glory and in its aboundings, gives us. I do not believe, if Peter in
John xxi. had purposed to reach the Lord as a _penitent_, he would have
_hurried_ towards him as he did. A penitent would have approached with a
more measured step. But Peter was not thinking of his late denial of his
Lord, but of his Lord Himself. His step was therefore hurried and
earnest. He had sinned against his Master, it is indeed true, and might
have been backward and ashamed. But, wondrous to say it, as Peter _the
penitent_ would not have taken so ready and so earnest a journey, so
Peter the penitent would not, at the end of it, have been so welcome to
his Master, as the confiding though erring Peter. In this is the grace
and heart of Him "with whom is _all_ our business now."
These are but fragments however, broken pillars in the temples of God.
Nature is nature still; and Jacob, quickly after all this, betrays
himself as _old_ Jacob still.
One has said, that had the Lord slacked His hand with Job, when the
_first_ trial was over, Job would have come short of the blessing. There
was respite; and it might have been thought that all had ended. But
God's end in grace was not yet reached; and we may be sure that Satan's
malice was not yet satisfied. The unweary adversary begins afresh, the
Lord gives him place again, and Job is visited a _second_ time.
And nature is just as unwearied as Satan. Expel it and it will return.
We have just had this little respite from the way of nature, in Jacob at
Mount Gilead, and seen for a moment the better mind in him, and some
expressions of the glory, but we are quickly, too quickly indeed, to see
the old man again.
Jacob goes on his way from Mount Gilead, and as he approaches the
borders of the land, the angels of God meet him. Jacob at once
recognizes them. "This is God's host," says he, and he called the place
Mahanaim.
This was holy ground. The undertakings of chapter xxviii. had been
fulfilled--the pledges of Bethel had been redeemed. Accordingly, we have
no ladder here. Providential, angelic guardianship had fulfilled its
ministry; Jacob had been kept in the distant land, and brought home to
his own land. The ladder may, therefore, be taken down, and instead of
angels ascending and descending as between heaven and the patriarch,
angels _meet_ him. They are standing before him, just to salute him, or
to welcome him on his return. The Lord God of his fathers and of the
promises was welcoming our patriarch home, and ministers of the heavenly
courts were sent to express the mind of their King towards him.
This was "piping" to Jacob, and Jacob ought to have "danced." He should
have breathed an exulting spirit. He should have been already in
triumph, ere the battle was fought, or even the armies were arrayed. He
should have entered the field with songs, like Jehoshaphat. If the hosts
of heaven thus waited on him, what had he to fear from the hosts of
Esau? "If God be for us, who can be against us?" But this was not so
with him. He "laments," rather than dances, at this piping. He trembles,
and prays, and calculates. He marshals his force, as though the battle
were his. This is all _religious_, but it is all _unbelief_ too; and all
this the Lord resents. Surely He does. It was all out of harmony in His
ear. He had welcomed Jacob home with every token of an earnest,
honourable welcome, but Jacob was out of spirits.