With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, he shall not live. Before our brethren discern what is thine with me, and take [it] to thee. But Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
Jacob is fleeing from his father-in-law Laban. Laban catches up and accuses him of stealing his gods. Sure of his own household, Jacob offers a full search and calls for the death of the thief. He has no idea that his beloved Rachel is the one who took them.
These "gods" were household images. One writer explains what such images were, and how Jacob judged them.
The image (teraphim) ranks a little below the idol. It is a lesser god whose domain is the household. People treated it as important, and at times they even consulted it. Superstitions like this soon lead to real idols. That is how Jacob judged the matter when he told Laban to take back his gods.
Another writer says what the images were used for, and why Rachel wanted them.
Teraphim were small images, used for purposes of divination. The incident shows us how far spiritist practices had spread. People revered and valued these little "household divinities", and women often valued them most. That explains why Rachel was eager to keep them with her as they travelled away from her old home. Pagan practices spread very easily.
Jacob's challenge shows how much he trusted his own camp.
Jacob did not suspect anyone in his company of stealing Laban's idols. Rachel was probably the last person he would suspect. He invites Laban to search through everyone's goods and to put the thief to death (v. 32). What a shock it would have been to him if Laban had found her!
His ignorance was real, and it explains how freely he spoke.
How little Jacob knew that Rachel had stolen Laban's teraphim, to her own shame! She had already shown herself a victim of low, vile superstition, and that kind of superstition opens the way to secret idolatry. But Jacob had no suspicion that his beloved wife was guilty. If he had, he would not have been so quick to propose that such a person should not live.
Her theft showed what she was leaning on.
Rachel had stolen the teraphim (household images) that belonged to her father (v. 19). She had not learned to walk by faith in the living God, but like her father, she needed to depend on what she could see. She was a beautiful woman. Yet her desire for a religious atmosphere allowed her to indulge in stealing, idolatry and deceit.
The verse holds up a mirror. The one person Jacob never suspected was sitting on the stolen images.
Rachel was like most of us. We know well how to hide our idols and to deceive even our own loved ones! In fact, Rachel was the last in Laban's search, evidently the least suspected. She was sitting on the images and had a good excuse for not standing.
Jacob spoke a sentence of death without knowing where it fell.
Rachel had sinned greatly. She kept her husband in the dark when he unknowingly said that anyone guilty should not live. Her theft was not only a sin against her father. In what she stole it was a serious insult to God. There is no evidence that she ever judged herself properly. It is plain that Jacob became aware in time of idols in his household. God's call to go up to Bethel laid that sin on his conscience. To take his beloved away was a chastening, not to her only but to him also.
Another writer asks what part Jacob's own love played in the failure:
Rachel stole the images from her father; was it his love for her that led Jacob to allow them in his house? Christian parents sometimes allow things in their homes that they know are wrong. It is a sin to them. When human affection interferes with faithfulness to God, it always brings sorrow.
Searching tents did not remove the images. Something else did.
The thought of God's presence made Jacob remember the false gods. It woke in his soul the conviction that the gods this world worships can never be kept alongside a faithful God. Nothing else can wake this conviction. No amount of experience can ever have the effect that the presence of God produces on a soul. ... Only the presence of God, as light, makes us condemn ourselves. It gives us power to purify ourselves from our deepest idols — the ones we know well but keep hidden.
- Small gods. Teraphim were small household images used to seek guidance. Small enough to sit on, serious enough for Jacob to tell Laban to take them back.
- Hidden. Rachel walked by what she could see, not by faith. Her craving for a religious atmosphere carried her into theft, idolatry and deceit.
- Unsuspected. Jacob offered a full search and a death sentence. He never imagined the guilt was in his own tent, least of all in Rachel.
- Costly. A rash word spoken in ignorance still stood. Writers link Jacob's loss of Rachel to it. Affection that shields wrongdoing brings sorrow.
- Cleared. Laban's search never found the images. Only God's presence brings hidden idols to light, and only that clears a household of them.
And Laban went into Jacob's tent, and into Leah's tent, and into the two handmaids' tents, and found nothing; and he went out of Leah's tent, and entered into Rachel's tent.
Laban searches the camp tent by tent, hunting the household gods that went missing from his house. He finds nothing — and the reader already knows why: the thief is the one wife he has not yet reached.
Laban calls the missing objects his gods. One writer explains what they were, and warns against keeping such things around.
The teraphim was not really an idol, and the Word is careful to keep the two apart. The image (teraphim) ranks below the idol. It is a lesser god whose domain is the household. It carries a certain importance, and people even consult it at times. Such superstitions soon lead to true idols. Jacob judged the matter this way when he told Laban to take back his gods. Often the believer lacks the energy to drive these causes of stumbling out of his family. Each one of us must take this to heart.
The search shows what Laban really came for.
If he dreaded being robbed or attacked, he complained of his stolen gods. He prized them next to his profits, and felt no shame in owning his worship of false gods. Where this is found, Satan has already brought in darkness and death.
Rachel carried the images herself. Commentators see a pattern here, not a one-off slip.
There is a grave lesson lost by those who think there can be no danger of tampering with idols even for believers. There is no reason to suppose that Rachel intended to give up the one true God; even Laban scarcely went so far as that. Yet here, and all through Scripture, we meet the same fact. From the earliest days to the latest, those who acknowledged the living God showed a clear tendency to indulge more or less in idolatry. The case of Solomon is the clearest proof of how great a snare this was for Israel in its brightest days.
Jacob had offered a death sentence for the thief, not knowing who it was.
Jacob did not suspect anyone in his company of stealing Laban's idols — probably least of all Rachel. He invites Laban to search through the goods of everyone with him, and to put the thief to death. What a shock it would have been to him if Rachel had been discovered! But Rachel was like most of us. We know well how to hide our idols and to deceive even our own loved ones. In fact, Rachel was the last in Laban's search, clearly the least suspected.
A tent search can turn up nothing. God's light misses nothing.
You keep some part of your heart shut up from Him. You do not want the light of God's presence to enter that dark room, because it is a secret idol-shrine. You do not want the idol exposed to the light of a rightly jealous God, who says, "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me." And remember, an "idol" is anything preferred to Christ and allowed to slip in between Him and the soul. It is useless to hide one corner of your heart from God's searching light while keeping the other part lit up!
Jacob said nothing about the images then. Later, God's call to Bethel did what Laban's search could not.
As soon as God called him back to Bethel, he realised there were evil things in his household, even strange gods. In Genesis 31 we saw how Rachel had carried off from Laban the "gods," or teraphim, that he valued, and there is no record of Jacob objecting to them at that time. But with God before him, he at once became alive to the evil of them. They were to put the things away and to be clean themselves, even down to the clothes they wore.
- Searched. Laban walks through four tents and finds nothing. He came for images he prized next to his profits.
- Small. Teraphim were household images, a step below full idols. People consulted them, and such superstitions lead on to real idolatry.
- Inside. Rachel never meant to give up the true God, yet she carried the images. All through Scripture, people who acknowledged Him still dabbled in idols — Solomon above all.
- Hidden. Laban searched Rachel's tent last, because he suspected her least. We hide our idols well, even from those closest to us.
- Surrendered. No human search found them. God's call to Bethel brought them out, and with them came a demand for cleanness reaching even to the clothes they wore.
Now Rachel had taken the teraphim and put them under the camel's saddle; and she sat upon them. And Laban explored all the tent, but found nothing.
Laban has ransacked tent after tent looking for his household gods, and the search ends at the saddle Rachel is sitting on. How did stolen idols end up inside the family God had chosen, and stay hidden so long?
The Hebrew word behind "household gods" is teraphim.
This is a Hebrew word in the plural. It refers to household idols, like the ones Rachel stole from her father. There, as elsewhere, some Bible versions translate the word "images" and put "teraphim" in the margin. Gen. 31:19, 34, 35. Michal the wife of David had one in her house, and laid it in the bed when David escaped. 1 Sam. 19:13, 16. Micah also had them in his house, and regarded them as "gods." Judges 17:5; Judges 18:14-20. They were used in some way for divination.
Their size is part of the story.
Teraphim were small images, used for purposes of divination. The incident gives us a sidelight on the way spiritist practices had spread. People honoured and valued these little "household divinities," and women often most of all. That is why Rachel was anxious to have them with her as they travelled away from her old home. Heathen practices are very infectious.
Commentators differ on her motive. One writer rejects the kinder guesses:
Rachel's theft brings personal and family idolatry to light — the kind that so often went along with professing the true God. What can be more offensive to God than to make Him a senior or a silent partner in a partnership of gods? The good commentator Matthew Henry makes a strange note: "We are willing to hope that she did not take them away out of greed for the rich metal they were made of… She might have meant to convince her father of the folly of treating as gods things that could not even protect themselves." This is all kindly but unwise. We can learn the true reason from Israel bowing down to the golden calf right after the solemn scenes at Sinai, and from Israel's history down to the captivity in Babylon. We must believe in the godless, evil obsession of the human heart instead of imagining other reasons.
Another reads her as a woman who never let go of what she could see:
Rachel had not learned to walk by faith in the living God. Like her father, she needed to depend on what she could see. Though she was a beautiful woman, her desire for a religious atmosphere allowed her to indulge in stealing, idolatry and deceit. This is common with all human religion: only the true knowledge of the Lord Jesus will preserve us from such things.
The search failed for a reason we should recognise in ourselves.
Rachel was like most of us. We know well how to hide our idols and to deceive even our own loved ones! Rachel was the last in Laban's search, and the least suspected. She was sitting on the images and had a good excuse for not standing.
Jacob had sworn death on the thief without knowing who it was.
How little Jacob knew that Rachel had stolen Laban's teraphim, to her own shame! She had already shown herself the prey of low and vile superstition, which paves the way for idolatry in secret. But Jacob had no suspicion that his beloved was guilty. Otherwise he would never have been so quick to propose that such a person should not live. And she who had played false to God had few scruples about deceiving her father as well as robbing him.
Why would a believing household put up with such a thing?
The image (teraphim) ranks below the idol. It is a half-god whose realm is the home. It carries a certain importance, and people even consult it at times. Such superstitions soon lead to true idols… Often the believer lacks the energy to drive these causes of stumbling out of his family. Each one of us must take this to heart.
Years later, the presence of God did what no experience could.
Rachel, out of fear of Laban, had hidden them under the camel's saddle… The thought of God's presence made Jacob remember the false gods. It awakens in his soul the conviction that the gods this world worships can never be kept alongside a faithful God. Nothing else can awaken this conviction. No amount of experience can ever have the effect that the presence of God produces on a soul.
- Small gods. The teraphim were household images used for divination. They were small enough to hide, so they travelled undetected.
- Sight, not faith. Rachel needed something she could see. That appetite produced theft, idolatry and deceit.
- Well hidden. Laban searched her last because he suspected her least. We too know how to hide our idols from those closest to us.
- Costly ignorance. Jacob swore death on a thief, never imagining it was his beloved wife. Hidden sin endangers a whole house.
- Only light exposes. Tolerated images grow into real idols. No experience removes them. Only the presence of God brings them out.
And she said to her father, Let it not be an occasion of anger in the eyes of my lord that I cannot rise up before thee, for it is with me after the manner of women. And he searched carefully, but did not find the teraphim.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.