Genesis 29:1: The only geography in three chapters, and it is deliberately vague

Here the second period of Jacob's life begins. He is now a stranger, a servant working for wages, the victim of deceit and self-seeking on the part of Laban, his relative — and a close relative in character too. You cannot mistake the payback that runs all the way through it: the measure he used on others is measured back to him. But you also cannot miss that in the way it is handed out, God is speaking to the heart and conscience of the wanderer. There is justice in God's government, but also the correction of a holy love.

But he goes on. Grace sets the corrected saint on his journey, and with some eagerness too, until "he came to the land of the people of the east," until he reached Padan-aram, the place his mother's advice had sent him to — and no doubt the place God's own hand had now led him to.

Jacob, strengthened by his dream, goes on with his journey to the land of his relatives. The opening phrase is a rare one. The nearest thing to it describes the priests leaving the bed of the Jordan for Canaan (Joshua 4:18), and that does little to support the eagerness people read into it here.

In Genesis 29 we find Jacob taking up his journey again, and God's merciful hand shows itself at once, directing him and opening his way. God guides his steps to the very well where his uncle Laban's sheep were watered, and where he met his cousin Rachel. Laban's house gave him a warm welcome, but there he found himself in the hands of a man who matched him in trickery.

As we have just seen, in Genesis 28 Jacob completely fails to grasp what God is really like. He meets all the rich grace of Bethel with an "if" and a poor little bargain about food and clothing. We now follow him into a scene of non-stop bargain-making. "Whatever one sows, that will he also reap." There is no escaping this. Jacob had not yet found his true level in God's presence, and so God uses circumstances to correct him and break him down.

He met Rachel at the well, among the flock, just as Eliezer met Rebecca — and Eliezer was only Isaac's representative. But Jacob was the poor man, Isaac the wealthy. Isaac could enrich Rebecca with gold earrings and bracelets, a pledge of the fine estate he had waiting for her. Jacob has only his hard work and the sweat of his face. Isaac was the son and heir; Jacob was a man who had made himself poor, and must find his own way through the wear and tear of life as best he can, with God's help. Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep (Hosea 12:12). It was about to prove hard service. But he starts at once, and keeps at it for twenty long years.

Jacob's life divides into three parts: in the land, exiled from it at Padan-Aram, and returning again. These match, very plainly, the three great periods of Israel's national life. We know the last one only from prophecy, but we know it as surely as any history could tell us.