Genesis 31

Bible Gateway link Chapter 31





Rachel stole her fathers Gods. I have been perplexed by exactly why she stole of all things Gods……I have read several different commentaries form people who have spent a lot more time on the bible and the it seems that they all have different takes on the situation as well. However I found one that makes the most sense to me. I will paste the brief explanation below, then the link to the page that has the full commentary. It is pretty nice, not only does it go over why she stole the idols, but it reasons why many of the other theories do not stand up to the text.



Also as we closed out yesterdays chapter Jacob is doing very well for himself, and is pretty sure that it is his own plan that has made that happen, notice 6 years later (7 in service for the first wife, 7 in service for the second, then 6 years after the deal for the flock, in verse 38 Jacob counts 20 years total) , The Lord lays it out to him that the reason why he has been so sucsessful is due to the Lord, not his own deceptive practices. You have to wonder if Jacob now felt a little foolish for spending so much time manipulating the flock. In the end it was the Lords doing, and would have happened anyway. Don’t we find our selves in the same situation; working so hard, perhaps even using some trickery, to try and make something happen. Only to realize in the end that we have wasted time and treasure for something that the Lord was making happen! If Jacob had spent more time reflecting on the Lord, and how He had protected Jacob, and provided for Jacob all of this time; Jacob would have had more time to glorify the Lord, and would not have had to spend so much time out with the flock. This is something I think we can all do better at,( I know I can). It is when we put the Lord first, and our own desires second that we will see all of the good that he has in store for us.





Here is the overview:



Once again, though, Rachel's theft of the idols makes this break more conditional, more equivocal. It implies a powerfully felt, indeed instinctual, bond to Laban's habits of worship, to the customs of his home, to his spiritual tradition. This type of link, we know, continues to exist in the form of teraphim at least through the time of David. So the theological incongruity we immediately identify in the text actually functions as its central lesson: we cannot so easily separate our theology from our ancestors, or from their possibly divergent spiritual traditions. More broadly speaking, property and theological and lineal concerns do not run on parallel tracks; they emerge together from the mesh of family history, and cannot be disposed of even in the course of a dramatic breach such as that of Genesis 31.



Peace,

Brian