Day 10, January 10 Bible Reading

Day 10,  January 10

Gen. 28:10 – 29:30 Jacob’s dream and vow / Jacob marries Leah and Rachel

Gen. 29:31 – (chap) 30 Jacob’s children / Jacob skillfully multiplies his flocks

Gen. 28:10 – 29:30

Jacob's Ladder

• We read about Jacob’s ladder.  It is a supernatural structure that reached heaven from earth.  What does that remind you of? Recall that we already observed an attempt at a structure whose objective was also to reach heaven from earth - The Tower of Babel.

• Contrast both structures.  One was man made, out of bricks, sweat from the brown illegitimate.  The other was God initiated, out of stone, not hewned, not with man effort while he rested.  One was a Tower, the other a ladder.  Only one was declared to be His House.

• It is interesting to note how Christ declared that he is the ultimate fulfillment of Jacob’s ladder [John 1:46-51]. 

• Christ in his interaction with Nathanael, identified Himself as the Stone, as the Land, as the Gate of Heaven, from which God resides.  Christ identified Himself as the Land where God Dwells and to Which Jacob/ Israel would be gathered to. Christ is the Land to which Jacob would be returned to.  Did you hear that? Think on that for a while.

• The next day, early in the morning Jacob was at a well.  There was a large stone. Jacob told the men who had gathered with 3 flocks of sheep, it is too early to gather the livestock and they should water them and feed them.  The men replied we have to wait until “they”, the proverbial “they”, the mysterious “they”, move the large stone. Don’t you hate it when someone says we have to wait for “they” and you have no idea who “they” are?

• Well forget about “they”.  As soon as Jacob saw vava voom  Rachel, he moved the large stone all by himself.  Hercules, I mean Jacob was smitten.

Jacob's Trouble

• Jacob seemed to have met his match in Laban.  He conned Jacob, or perhaps selectively left out certain details when he had Jacob married Leah, under the cloak of darkness, when clearly, Jacob worked for Rachel.  

• Jacob had 21 years of trouble - 7 years resulting with the Leah deception, another 7 years for Rachel. Then he spent a final seven years [Gen 29:30]  before he fled from Laban.

• Many people say Jacob’s trouble is a future tribulation of 7 years.  But Jacob’s trouble was 21 years. It represents the time that Jacob was in hard labor away from the land.

   

Gen. 29:31 – (chap) 30

• We observe some dysfunction in Jacob’s home.  

• It’s a sad thing when a woman does not feel loved and is having children to get the attention of a man.  Leah certainly experienced this.

• Then the dysfunction kicked in when Rachel, seeing she had no kids, and in a fit, tried to manipulate her husband by telling her “Give me children or else I die”, give Jacob her handmaiden, Bilhah.  Mind you, Bilhah was originally Laban’s handmaiden.

• This continued ad nauseum even with Leah offering her maid Zilpah, also to Jacob, to Rachael offering Jacob as a gigolo to Leah in exchange for Mandrakes, a plant that is said to be an aphrodisiac.  Things cannot become more dysfunctional than this. This is a far cry from how Abraham ordered his house.

• Yet through it all, in spite of Jacob’s mess and trouble, God was with him. God can accomplish his purpose in spite of our dysfunction.

• Jacob was blessed with 11 sons, a daughter and great wealth supernaturally acquiring the brown lambs, and spotted speckled sheep, while Labor received the weak livestock