Read with Me
Genesis 31:36-42 (HCSB)
Then Jacob became incensed and brought charges against Laban. “What is my crime?” he said to Laban. “What is my sin, that you have pursued me? You’ve searched all my possessions! Have you found anything of yours? Put it here before my relatives and yours, and let them decide between the two of us. I’ve been with you these 20 years. Your ewes and female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams from your flock. I did not bring you any of the flock torn by wild beasts; I myself bore the loss. You demanded payment from me for what was stolen by day or by night. There I was—the heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes. For 20 years I have worked in your household—14 years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks—and you have changed my wages 10 times! If the God of my father, the God of Abraham, the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, certainly now you would have sent me off empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and my hard work, and He issued His verdict last night.”
Listen with Me
Jacob had been seething the whole time that Laban had been searching through his tents. Jacob knew that he had not taken anything from Laban that was not legally his (although he had no idea that Rachel had indeed taken the gods from her father’s house).
Finally, when the search had turned up nothing, all his anger surged to the surface. He demanded that Laban bring anything he had found that was his and lay it before everyone present as evidence of Jacob’s guilt, knowing full well that Laban had found nothing.
Once that was clear, twenty years of mistreatment and unfairness surged to the surface. The accusations Jacob made were enough to tarnish Laban’s reputation among the witnesses he had brought for the rest of his days. His inability to deny what Jacob said proved that he was not a man of honor, but a cheat and a scoundrel who had treated his own flesh and blood in ways it wouldn’t have been honorable to treat a slave or a mere hired man.
At the end of the tirade, Laban was left with no defense. Weakly, he suggested that everything Jacob had had come from him. That was true enough. But Jacob had stolen nothing. He had worked hard, and all those things, the daughters as well as the flocks, had been his legitimate pay.
Laban realized at that moment that he had officially lost the moral high ground in the argument. He also realized that Jacob, his teenage sons, and his hired men greatly outnumbered him and the few men he had brought with him. Jacob was angry enough to attack him and kill him, and with the men of his household, he would likely win. So, Laban proposed a covenant instead, one in which both sides agreed to do the other no harm. It was a weak suggestion, but if Jacob agreed, then Laban could at least return home with an agreement that would guarantee the safety of himself and his extended family.
Pray with Me
Father, it is often the case where the one in the wrong makes the first attack, and it is only when it fails or turns against them that they look for a way to save face. Laban was a scoundrel and a bully who tried to win the day by bluster, and ended up losing everything, including his own reputation, instead. But this is not your way. Jacob seems to have learned something from this, as is shown by the way in which he humbly approached his brother Esau, whom he had grievously wronged, when they finally met. Lord, help me to always keep my pride in check so that it can never lead me to wronging someone else, or to defending my own unrighteous actions instead of repenting. Amen.