Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #15 of Genesis, chapter 29, and we are going to read Genesis 29:21-30:
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her. And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid for an handmaid. And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid. And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.
We have been looking at this for a little while now, discussing the spiritual dimension of how Jacob’s marriage to Leah and Rachel points to the Lord Jesus Christ’s marriage to mankind, as all human beings (created in the image of God) are married to the Law of God, and the Law of God is the Word of God, the Bible. They are married to Christ in that sense. And, yet, Christ also entered into another marriage with certain ones that He chose before the foundation of the world. In saving them, He died for their transgressions and sins against the Law, and in dying for them, He purchased this “woman,” consisting, perhaps, of as many as 200 million people out of mankind. He bought her to be His wife, so she is “dead to the law,” and she has entered into another marriage with the Lord Jesus Christ.
So we see that God created man “good,” initially, and man was in a marriage relationship with the Law right from the beginning, and the one Law that God laid down was the Law regarding the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” So man was in a marriage with God’s Law, and for a short period of time, it was good. It was a beautiful marriage until man sinned and fell, and then the Law’s condemnation took effect. The day that they ate, they died, so man spiritually died, and was also subject to death in the totality of his being.
So the point here is that Jacob first married Leah, who was the “hated,” as God first married all human beings, and in His marriage to humanity, the majority would prove to be unsaved. God did not perform the work of atonement on their behalf, so they would perish and die. So it was necessary for man to first sin before the next marriage could take effect between the redeemed sinner and the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why the order of marriage was Leah, first, followed by Rachel. Rachel typifies the elect, and Leah typifies those that are not chosen. They are not loved as was Rachel, but they are hated, and it says that in the next verse, in Genesis 29:31:
And when JEHOVAH saw that Leah washated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.
We know that Jacob worked seven years, and then he was given Leah to wife. He complained, and then Laban, Leah’s father, said it had to be that way because in their country they could not give the younger before the elder, but if he worked seven more years, he could give him the younger daughter, too. That is, Jacob would marry Rachel as well. So he did. It was after the first seven years that he worked, and then after the seven-year mark, he was in a marriage with both Leah and Rachel, so he was already in a marriage with Rachel when he worked the next seven years for her. And one thing I think we can understand by that is that at the point the foundation of the world when Christ died for the sins of all His people and rose from the dead, justified and declared to be the Son of God, He at that point purchased His bride. It was certain and guaranteed that he would obtain her, but it was just a matter of the outworking of the application of the blood through the hearing of the Word of God to each of these elect people as they were born into their generations. Then they would enter into the actual spiritual marriage at that point. But it was a certainty, so Jacob was working that second seven-year-period, already assured that he has his wife. In fact, historically, he did have his wife, so he was working for something he already had, just as we could say that Christ worked in bringing the Gospel to the world for a wife He already had, due to the fact He had paid for their sins before the world began.
One other thing we should note in the text is that it says in Genesis 29:21:
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled…
That is, the seven years were fulfilled, but he is calling them “days.” It is also spoken of in the form of “days,” if we look at Genesis 29:27-28:
Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
A week is a seven-day period. We are all familiar with weeks: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Seven days is one week, and then we start the next week. But, here, Jacob is speaking of the seven years he had worked, and then it said, “Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.” It is like he fulfilled one week for Leah, and then he would fulfill another week for Rachel. He is using the word that is translated as “week,” and it is a word that is found 20 times in the Old Testament, and in 19 out of 20, it is translated as “week” or “weeks,” and one time it is translated as “seven.” But it is a word that means “week.” And that reveals in Biblical language that “seven years” can be viewed as a period of “one week.” As a matter of fact, 14 years can be viewed as two weeks, because Jacob worked one week and then he fulfilled another week, also.
So as we study the Bible, God has a lot to say about time, days, weeks, months, years, and even thousands of years. It is something we need to take note of and keep in mind, because it could come in handy at some point as we are searching the Bible and trying to understand a “time relationship.” It is just something for us to keep in mind.
What we want to do is spend a little time on something because we are curious and we wonder about these two relationships that point to Christ’s marriage to man and Christ’s marriage to the elect, as that accounts for everyone, does it not? Every human being that is not saved is married to the Law, and the rest of humanity, the elect, are also married to Christ, so every human being is married to God in one way or the other. And in this historical parable, God is speaking of two long periods of time in the life of an individual that he relates to these marriages. Jacob worked seven years to marry Leah, followed by seven more years for his marriage to Rachel, even though he was already given Rachel, and at the end of 14 years, he would fulfill his payment according to the contract he made with their father, and both would be his wives.
One other thing we need to point out is that Jacob needed to work those seven years in order to complete the transaction with Laban for Rachel. That is, he had already worked for and purchased Leah, but he had not yet worked to purchase Rachel until the seven years was completed. So although Rachel was his wife, his relationship to Rachel was conditional. If Jacob, after five years, had fled Haran, then Laban would have had a legitimate argument that Rachel was not his wife because he had not fulfilled her week. He had not made full payment for her. So that is something we also have to keep in mind. Even though he was married to Rachel, it is not “official” until the next seven-year period was completed, and the 14 years had been reached.
So God is doing something with these “14” years. We are not going to think about the 26 years that will come after that when Jacob would work 20 years in his house and then a final six-year period for cattle, and he is going to be in Haran 26 years after his initial purchase of his wives. But let us just concentrate on the 14 years or the seven years that was followed by another seven years.
Let us search the Bible to see if there is anything else there that fits or helps us, specially regarding the Lord Jesus Christ’s marriage to His elect. We would want to look for something in the Bible that would point to or extend to (as far as “time” goes) to the day in which Christ had obtained His bride and saved all to be saved and completed His salvation program. In doing that, it would mean that all those elect named in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the world was had their sins paid for at the foundation of the world, and then in “time,” the blood was applied through the hearing of the Word of God, and faith came. And every single one of them was saved. Is there anything in the Bible that could relate to that idea and which would fit with Jacob fulfilling his week? At the end of that second seven-year period, he would have both wives, and both belonged to him. So, as you can see, we could look in the Bible for a seven-year period, and that would be significant, especially in regard to the work for Rachel. And we could also look in the Bible for a 14-year period or two consecutive seven-year periods that would total 14 years.
There are a couple of possibilities. The first possibility is something we are familiar with because it is a time path God used to lock in the date of May 21, 2011, and that is the seven days we read about in Genesis 7, where the Lord was speaking to Noah, in Genesis 7:4:
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
Then it says further down in Genesis 7:11-12:
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Historically, the days of Noah, God came to him on the tenth day of the second month of Noah’s 600th year, and He said, “For yet seven days,” and He would bring the flood waters. Noah was given advanced notice. He had already been given advance notice of 120 years, but now it was right to the very day. He knew specifically the day when the flood would start.
By the way, I will not get into this, but I want to mention that in Matthew 24 where Jesus said, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man,” the very next thing He said was, “As it was in the days of Noah.” And if Jesus was trying to prove that we cannot know the day and hour Christ is coming (as the churches claim), then the historical example He gave would not be one wherein the central figure, Noah, was actually given the precise day the flood would occur. It seems to go contrary to the idea that the churches insist that Jesus was teaching that we cannot know the day. But this is the Word of God, and God said to Noah, “For yet seven days,” and then seven days later on the seventeenth day of the second month in Noah’s 600th year, the flood did begin. Noah knew the exact day.
We know from a passage in the New Testament where in the context of the flood and the context of the end of the world, God starts out speaking about the flood of Noah’s day, and then He leads into a discussion of the second coming of Christ and the final judgment on the world. And right in between is a very important verse, but I will start reading in 2Peter 3:4-7:
And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
That describes the destruction of the “first earth” by water, and then God refers to the impending destruction of this present world that is reserved unto that day, a destruction by fire. Then we read in 2Peter 3:8:
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Mr. Camping did a good study years ago. First, note that God is speaking to the elect, the “beloved,” because they are the only ones that have been given “ears to hear.” They are the only ones that can discern the voice of Christ from the voice of Satan or the truth from a lie.
Mr. Camping’s study was on the phrase of being not ignorant of “one thing,” and that one thing was an extremely important thing. I do not want to get sidetracked into this, but you can look up these two words for “one thing.” (Well, maybe I will get sidetracked a little bit here.) Let us go to Luke 10, where we read of the two sisters, Mary and Martha, and it says in Luke 10:38-42:
Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
You see, Mary was at the feet of Jesus – that “one thing” needful. There is nothing more necessary in the world than to sit at the feet of Jesus. And, unfortunately, many will put all kinds of things above that: “I have to do this. I have to run this errand. I have to fix this thing. I have to take care of this matter. I have to figure this out.” No, no, no! First, sit at the feet of Jesus, and Jesus is the Word of God. And “to sit at His feet” is to hear Christ teach. So hear the Word of God, first and foremost, as it says in the Gospel account, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” First, there must be Jesus. First, the Bible, and then the other things of the world will take care of themselves, and God will take care of those things for us. In other words, He will work it out for us, but “one thing is needful,” and it is the most important thing.
And that is what God is saying here in 2Peter 8, “But, beloved, be not ignorant,” and to be “ignorant” is to not understand or not know. There are people today that heard the message of May 21, 2011 as Judgment Day, and they heard it for years and they believed it, and they professed that belief. And now here we are years after that date, and they are saying, “Well, I do not know if it is Judgment Day, or not.” They are now ignorant of “time and judgment.” They are ignorant to what God has said as He visited His people, and God has nothing good to say in the Bible of those that remain ignorant of His visitation, just as Christ came to visit Israel in judgment. The judgment of God came upon them because they knew not the time of their visitation. We will have to pick this up when we get together for our next Bible study.