Genesis 31:18: Twenty years of wages, on the road between two countries
Read it →Commentary on Genesis 31:18
Jacob came to Paddan-aram twenty years earlier with nothing but a staff. Now he loads his family onto camels and drives every animal he owns toward Canaan and his father Isaac. Two questions follow. Who made this man rich? And why did a man with orders from God leave in secret?
The Word That Started the Journey
Jacob moves because God called him. The call reached back to the night at Bethel, where Jacob anointed a stone pillar and made a vow.
God called him back to the land of promise. In doing so He revealed Himself as "the God of Bethel," reminding him of the pillar he anointed and the vow he made. So He called him back to the beginning of his direct dealings with God. This is always God's way with His people. We may wander away, but we have to come back to the original spot we departed from. The point of departure proves to be the place of recovery.
Who Made Jacob Rich?
The verse repeats itself: property he had gained, livestock he had acquired. One writer sets that repetition beside Jacob's vow at Bethel — if God gave him bread and clothing, he would give back a tenth. (The older translation quoted here reads "his getting, which he had gotten.")
How does it stand with God's name — God's house — God's dues? In Jacob's view that depends on whether he recognises that God had been with him, giving him bread and clothing. If he did, Jacob would return a tenth, set up the house, and acknowledge Jehovah. Jehovah has taken him at his word, and He faithfully does His part. But notice Jacob's thought! Has God given him anything? No, nothing. It is all his getting, which he had gotten. If he had not looked after himself, he would have ended up with nothing.
But what Jacob counted as his own earning was a settling of accounts by a hand he had not seen.
In some five or six years, God's providence paid Jacob the wages Laban had cheated him out of for twenty years. They wanted to get rid of Jacob, but held back from saying so. After all, what was Laban's wealth before Jacob appeared?
Livestock, and the Place It Came From
The word used here for livestock says something about how a herdsman held his wealth.
The word miqneh, however, often used for 'cattle,' means 'possession,' because the main property of nomadic tribes consisted of their cattle. The word also includes sheep and goats, but not horses and donkeys.
The verse names where the wealth was gathered. Paddan-aram was already home ground for Jacob's family.
A cultivated district in Mesopotamia, which held the city of Nahor. Terah and his family moved there from Ur of the Chaldees. Rebekah, Leah and Rachel, the wives of Isaac and Jacob, came from there. It is strictly Paddan-aram, meaning 'table land of Aram.'
Driving the Herds Away in Secret
Jacob had a command from God, so he had nothing to hide. He hid anyway.
He makes up his mind at once. He gives a touching explanation to Rachel and Leah, and then sets out in secret. He did not have the kind of confidence in God, with a clear conscience, that frees a man from fear. God's unseen hand was in it. But such a course could not rightly show the power and the honour of God.
The secrecy also gave Laban a real complaint against him.
He did not deal openly with Laban. He never met him face to face and left with proper notice. Instead he stole away unnoticed while Laban was away shearing his sheep. In doing so he gave Laban fresh ground for complaint. He had accepted the place of a servant working for wages, even though he was son-in-law to his master.
A Full Man on an Empty Man's Road
He is back on the road he once fled along. But the traveller has changed, and not only for the better.
It is a different Jacob as well as a different journey. He was an empty Jacob at Bethel; he is a full Jacob at Peniel. Flocks and herds and servants and wives and children tell of his prosperity. Twenty years before, he had walked that road friendless and alone, with a staff in his hand. Now we see him surrounded like this. He has become a rich man. He has a stake in the world. He has something to lose, and may become a prey to others, as he must certainly be an object of interest to them.
Summary
- Called. God's word sends Jacob back toward Bethel, where he first dealt with God face to face. The place of departure becomes the place of recovery.
- Credited. Jacob counts the herds as his own earning. Without his own care, he thinks, he would have had nothing.
- Compensated. God repaid twenty years of withheld wages in five or six. Before Jacob came, Laban had little worth counting.
- Concealed. He had a command and a clear case, yet slipped away in secret. God's hand was in the move. God's honour was not in the manner of it.
- Carrying. The man who once walked that road alone with a staff now walks it rich, with a stake in the world and something to lose.
