BOOK
BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com
BIBLE
STUDY LESSON
For
the week beginning Sunday January 13, 2019
JACOB’S
MANY CHILDREN
Genesis
30:1-24
In Genesis chapters 30-31, GOD
begins to set the stage for Jacob’s decision to return to the “Promised Land”
of Canaan. Competition between Leah and Rachel for Jacob’s affections now
intensifies as Rachael, who is down four babies to none, decides to get into
the game by giving Jacob her maidservant, Bilhah to wed and bear him a son
through her. Rachel, by now, had become so frustrated that she had begun to
blame Jacob for her barrenness. This, of course, was ridiculous, and her silly
accusations angered Jacob very much. He then reminded his beloved Rachel that
only GOD has power over childbirth.
And so her maidservant slept with Jacob and
became pregnant, and bore him a son, and Rachel named the boy “Dan”, which
comes from the Hebrew word “dananni”, which means “GOD has vindicated me”. Then
Bilhah became pregnant again and gave Jacob a second son, and Rachel called his
name, “Naphtali” from the Hebrew word “niptalti”, which means “I fought”,
because she fought with her sister, Leah.
Leah, now realizing that she wasn’t getting
pregnant anymore, decided to use her sister’s strategy and she gave her
maidservant, Zilpah, to Jacob to wed and bear him children in her stead. Zilpah
became pregnant and bore Jacob yet another son, and she named the boy, “Gad”,
which means in the Hebrew, “fortune”, because it expressed “how fortunate she felt
she was” to have so many sons. Then Zilpah bore Jacob another son, whom she
named “Asher”, which means “blessing”, and so the name expressed “the joy that
Leah felt” to have given Jacob six sons.
Now a “mandrake is the root of a plant, historically found
in the Mediterranean region where Jacob and his family lived at that time. The
plants from which the root is obtained are also called "mandrakes".
Mediterranean mandrakes are perennial herbaceous plants with ovate leaves
arranged in a rosette, with a thick upright root, that is often branched. It
blooms bell-shaped flowers and ultimately produces yellow or orange berries.
Because mandrakes contain “halucenogenic
tropane alkaloids”, and the shape of their roots often resembles human figures,
they have been associated with a variety of superstitious practices throughout
history. For centuries mandrakes have been used in witchcraft and magic rituals,
and, as a fertility drug, and in many cases, by ordinary people as an
aphrodisiac. Even today mandrakes are still used in pagan traditions such as
Wicca and Odinism.
Here in this passage of Genesis it is both
Leah’s, and Rachel’s obvious intent, to use mandrakes as either a fertility
enhancement, or, at the very least, as an aphrodisiac so that they can bear
more children for Jacob. Here in verse 14, we see Reuben stumbling upon some
mandrake plants while he was harvesting the wheat fields. Knowing what these
plants were used for, he brought some to his mother, Leah, as an offering to
give her a leg up, if you will, on Rachel in the ongoing baby-making contest.
When Rachel, who was more enamored by
paganistic practices than Leah, saw Leah with the plants, she begged her to
give some to her, but Leah angrily replied, “NO! Wasn’t it enough that you
stole my husband? Now will you steal my son’s mandrake roots too?” Not giving
up that easy, a desperate Rachel offered Leah her appointed night with Jacob,
if she would give her the mandrake roots, and it is on those terms that Leah finally
agreed.
That evening as Jacob was coming home from
the fields, Leah went out to meet him to tell him that she had traded some
mandrakes to Rachel in exchange for her appointed night with him. And so Jacob
slept with Leah that night and she became pregnant with her fifth son, and she
named him “Issachar” which is derived from the Hebrew word “skartika” which
means “my hire”. This suggests that she felt that GOD had blessed her with
another son because she gave her servant girl, Zilpah, to Jacob for a wife
(v.18). However, GOD was actually trying to show her that it is “HE”, not “mandrakes
and witchcraft”, that have power over the births of, not just all people, but
indeed, as we shall eventually see in this chapter, over animals, and, all
things that come into this world.
To prove HIS point further that HE has
power over childbirth, GOD allows Leah, who didn’t eat the mandrakes, to become
pregnant again by Jacob, and she bore him another son and called his name “Zebulun”
which means “honor”, because she felt that now Jacob would finally honor her
the way she thought he should. Later she also gave birth to a girl, and she
named her Dinah.
Meanwhile Rachael, who ate the mandrakes,
had not become pregnant anymore for about three years at that point, and it was
because GOD was also showing her HIS sovereignty over childbirth. Apparently after
she had learned her lesson by watching Leah give birth to three more children,
without the aid of mandrakes and witchcraft, she repents and GOD, as a result
of her repent, shows her mercy after she prayed to HIM for HIS help. Here GOD finally allows Rachel to become
pregnant and she bore her first son for Jacob, and she named him “Joseph”.
And so GOD took away the disgrace of
Rachel’s attempt to use witchcraft to produce children for herself, and, after
she repented, GOD finally gave her a son of her own flesh. And the name
“Joseph” which suggests “another son”, shows her faith in GOD that he would
deliver to her, yet again, another son, in the future (Benjamin).
JACOB’S
WEALTH INCREASES
Genesis
30:25-43
It was not long after Joseph was
born that Jacob told Laban that he was ready to go back home to Canaan. However
Laban, not wanting Jacob to leave, because of how rich he had become since
Jacob had been there (Vs.29-30), begged Jacob to stay, and in fact, offered him
to “name his own price”.
However, despite the great offer by Laban,
Jacob declined it, and then, he came up with a suggestion of his own, which
actually has him going back to work for Laban for “a percentage of the gate” as
we might say here in 21st century vernacular. Here in this passage Jacob
requests that Laban;
“Don’t
give me anything at all (in other words “open up the door, I’ll get it myself”).
Just do one thing, and I’ll go back to work for you. Let me go out among your
flocks today and remove all the sheep and goats that are “speckled” or
“spotted”, along with all the dark colored sheep. Give them to me as my wages.
This will make it easy for you to see whether or not I have been honest. If you
find in my flock any white sheep or goats that are not speckled, you will know
that I have stolen them from you”.
Speckled animals and dark colored animals
were much more of a rarity among sheep and goat, than white ones were, at least
in those days, and so here in verses 34-36, we see Laban pounce on that offer,
seeing only advantages for himself. Also, Laban, being the crook that he was,
quickly came up with a scheme to cheat Jacob out of his newly “agreed to”
wages. Here he greedily, and connivingly, sends his sons out into the fields to
remove all of the existing speckled, spotted, and dark colored animals out of
the flocks, and then, drive them three-day’s journey away from where they lived,
so Jacob would not find them.
However, Jacob, whether or not he realized
it at the time, had come up with a plan that ultimately, can only be controlled
by GOD. His plan relied solely on “birth”, something that I said earlier, “Only
GOD can control”. And even though Jacob would use “witchcraft” (Vs.37-43) as a
part of his plan, and may have thought at the time, that it was what was going
to do the trick for him, later on (Genesis 31:7-12) we’ll see him confess that
it was not his “human ingenuity” or expert use of witchcraft and tricky, and nor,
was it his use of “selective breeding” (Vs.41-42), that caused his success, but
rather, it was “GOD’s OWN Divine Intervention” that extricated him from Laban’s
web of deceit. Stay tuned.
A Sunday school lesson
by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official Website
No comments:
Post a Comment