Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #7 of Genesis 30, and we are going to read Genesis 30:5-8:

And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son. And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan. And Bilhah Rachel's maid conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son. And Rachel said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed: and she called his name Naphtali.

We have been spending some time looking at Dan.  And we have seen, especially in Genesis 49, that God ties him with “a serpent by the way, an adder in the path.”  We went to several Scriptures, and we saw that was not a good thing because it points to Satan’s assault against the churches and congregations, especially at the time of the end when judgment began at the house of God.

So we followed those verses, and I just want to cover one last thing before we move on, so let us go to Revelation 7 where God uses the 12 tribes of Israel as a figure of those that He would save over the course of the New Testament church age.  We read in Revelation 7:3-9:

Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.

Twelve tribes, each with 12,000 sealed, totals 144,000.  And “to be sealed” means to be saved, as we are sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.  This 144,000 point to the firstfruits unto God, and we know that because in Revelation 14:1-4 it refers to the 144,000 and calls them “the firstfruits unto God.”  And that is why in this chapter in Revelation 7, God is looking at His overall salvation program, and from verse 4 through 8, which we just read, these 144,000 out of the tribes of Israel represent all those that would be saved over the course of the New Testament church age, because they are the firstfruits.  And, remember, the church age began on the Day of Pentecost, and Pentecost has everything to do with firstfruits, and the church age ended the day before Pentecost, May 21, 1988, after the 1,955 years of the church age.

You may be wondering, “What does this have to do with Dan?”  Well, the tribe of Dan is the one tribe that was not mentioned here, but all the other tribes are mentioned.  Keep in mind that God refers to the 12 tribes of Israel often, but there were actually 13 tribes because Joseph received the blessing, and Joseph’s two sons, Manassas and Ephraim, each became a tribe – he received a “double portion,” turning the 12 tribes into 13 tribes.  And in this passage in Revelation 7, Manasses was mentioned, plus the tribe of Joseph (which would be Ephraim), so both those tribes were mentioned, but the one tribe that is not there is Dan.  As a matter of fact, Dan is not mentioned in the whole New Testament. 

You know, it is not that God did not save individuals from the tribe of Dan, and it does not mean that there was not a good faithful man from that tribe, occasionally.  Sampson’s parents were Danites, and he came through the tribe of Dan, and he was one of God’s elect.  I will not say “always,” but God often uses Dan as a type and figure of the assault of Satan upon the people of God that were the outward representation of God’s kingdom on earth – Old Testament Israel and the New Testament churches and congregations. 

Let us go back to Genesis 30.  It says in Genesis 30:7-8:

And Bilhah Rachel's maid conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son. And Rachel said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed: and she called his name Naphtali.

And, again, this is not very pleasant to see regarding this competition between these two sisters, Leah and Rachel.  It is rather uncomfortable, awkward, and not very godly.  It would not be godly at all for sisters or brothers or anyone to compete in this way, but God is allowing it to paint various pictures. 

And now Bilhah had a second son, after Leah had born four sons.  Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid whom Rachel gave to Joseph to wife is bearing sons, and Rachel is counting them for her own, and she claimed victory.  She had prevailed in this “wrestling match” with her sister, so she called his name Naphtali.

And Naphtali is a word that is Strong’s #5321 in the Hebrew Concordance, and it comes from the word used here one time, translated as “wrestling.” 

The word “wrestled” is the past tense, and it is Strong’s #6617, and it is spelled the same as “Naphtali,” except that Naphtali has the “Nun,” like the letter “N” in front of it, and we can hear that with the name, but the word “wrestled” does not have that letter, the “Nun.”  But other than that, it is identical, and we know because she used this word and called his name “Naphtali,” which was following the pattern of the names being given to the children having to do with a statement that they made, like Judah meaning “praise” and Dan meaning “to judge,” and so forth.  So it is clear that Naphtali does mean “to wrestle,” and it is derived from #6617. 

And “wrestlings” is closer to the name Naphtali, but it is a different word.   It is #5319, and it is only found here, and it also has that “Nun” consonant, but it is the plural form of “wrestled,” #6617 in the concordance.  I hope everyone is using a concordance.  They are online if you do not have the physical book.  You can find it online by typing in “Strong’s Concordance,” and there is various software out there that I think you can even download.

But this word “#6617 is found five times in the Old Testament.  It is only translated as “wrestled” here.  The other times it is translated as “froward,” and it is translated as a whole phrase in one place, if we go to 2Samuel 22:26:

With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful, and with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright.   With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavoury.

And it is not the word “froward” here, but it is the rest of that statement: “shew thyself unsavoury.” And that is the translation of the same Hebrew word translated as “wrestled.”  And it is difficult to know what it means to “shew thyself unsavoury.”  It seems unpleasant.  It does not sound good, especially where it says, “with the froward.”   Now the word “froward” is a different word.  It is  #6141 in the concordance, and it is translated as “froward” six times; “perverse,” four times; and “crooked,” one time, where it says, “a perverse and crooked generation.”  The wicked or evil man is froward or perverse in his sins.  So with the forward or perverse, “thou wilt shew thyself unsavory.”  If we take that picture of “wrestling,” God will fight or contend with the wicked, and we know that is the case.

Maybe that is a way of understanding this word “wrestled.”  Of course, our English word “wrestled” does mean to battle another person to try to win the competition, and it appears to be similar here.  The word translated as “wrestled,” #6617, is also found in Proverbs 8:8:

All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them.

This is the same word as “wrestled,” so, again, this word is connected to that which is wicked or evil.  And, certainly, what Rachel was doing is a wicked thing.  Again, Rachel can typify God’s elect, but as far as her own personal spiritual condition, we do not know because there is evidence she was not saved, and we are seeing such evidence here, as well as later when she stole her father’s “gods.”

But she was trying to beat her sister.  She wants to win the contest of bearing sons to her husband, and she was claiming that she had prevailed because her handmaid had born sons, so she called his name Naphtali.  Historically, I think it is a weak claim.  She herself had not born any children, and even her handmaid had only born two.  Leah bore four sons, so it sounds as if Rachel was trying to make herself feel better.  But whatever the historical reason, she named this boy Naphtali.

Naphtali is referred to in Genesis 49, as are all the sons of Jacob, and there is one verse that refers to him.  This was when Jacob was dying, and he is saying what will happen “in the last days.”  He was moved by God to say, in Genesis 49:21:

Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.

Naphtali is a hind let loose, and that is helpful because Naphtali is linked to a “hind.”  God is saying he is a “hind let loose.”  So we follow that trail as God directs.  The Lord is the one who picked this particular animal, the hind, and He said that Naphtali is like that.  The word “hind” is Strong’s #355, and it is used eight times.  We find in a couple of places that it is used in a similar way, once in Psalm 18.  Psalm 18 is a chapter that mirrors a chapter found in 2Samuel, so this statement is also in 2Samuel.  But speaking of God, it says in Psalm 18:33:

He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places.

Here, again, there is a picture used where God is making his feet like “hinds’ feet.”

A very similar statement is found in Habakkuk 3:19:

JEHOVAH God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

We wonder what this is referring to, and what is this trying to teach us.  What is God trying to make us understand?  Let us think about the word “feet.”  In the Bible, we have this beautiful statement in Isaiah 52:57:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

The masculine pronoun “him” refers to Christ.  This verse is quoted in Romans 10:15:

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

Here, it is not the feet of him (singular), but the feet of them (plural), and that is because the elect are the body of Christ.  The elect are the messengers of the Gospel that was sent into the world during the day of salvation (which is now past), and as we went forth evangelizing the world, it was as if Christ went forth evangelizing the world.  So the “feet” are a picture of the movement of the people of God as messengers of God carrying the Word of God, the Gospel.  Therefore, when we read, “He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet,” we will learn a little later that “hind” is related to “hart.”  The “hind” is the feminine form of the “hart,” and the hart is a deer.  And deer run very fast.  So these statements of feet being made as “hinds’ feet” are true of the Lord Jesus Christ, as David wrote this Psalm, and David is a great type of Christ, and it is true of God’s elect: “He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet.”  The people of God were sent forth into all the nations of the world.  That was the Great Commission for the church age, and for the time of the second part of the Great Tribulation when the Gospel went out to all the nations, as we read in Matthew 28:19:

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

:Go forth, and as you go, run the way of my commandments, like a deer or a hind, with quickness.  Do not delay.  Do not hesitate.  Do not be idle.  Do not let your feet drag.  Pick up your feet and run the way of my commandments.”  That is the idea.

We also find this word “hind” a couple of times where it speaks of calving, in Job 39:1:

Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve?

And it says in Psalm 29:9:

The voice of JEHOVAH maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests: and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory.

The word “calve” means to travail or bring forth when the animal is having a calf, so there would be a doe with her little baby deer.  So it is the voice of JEHOVAH that makes the hinds to calve, and the hinds would picture the Lord’s people being sent forth with the Word of God and, as a result, they are fruitful and bearing children.  That is, people are becoming saved, and they become new messengers of the Gospel, like new baby deer, roes and harts that will also run the way of God’s commandments. 

It is just like the illustration Christ gave in the Gospel of John where He spoke of “angels of God ascending and descending,” and the way to understand that is that those “angels” are messengers.  So some messenger brought me the Gospel, and some messenger brought you the Gospel.  It was sent by God, and through the hearing of that Gospel, others became saved.  And, of course, this was where it was important that the messenger be a human being, because we were not going to hear it through a divine voice from heaven.  That is, God did not break the barrier of the supernatural to bring us the Gospel, but He mainly used the airwaves, and maybe you heard it on Family Radio or in a tract, or however it was, but it was a human being who, like a hart or a hind, was obeying God’s command.  We heard the Gospel, and through it we became saved, and we were immediately lifted up and transported into the heavenlies to be seated in Christ Jesus.  We “ascended” and then we were dispatched right back down.  And this would have been prior to May 21, 2011.  And then we were commanded to go forth (with the Gospel).  We were like a “calf” born of the hind, and we had to get our legs about us a little bit, and grow in the grace and knowledge of God.  And God tenderly and gently takes care of His young, but He is also gently “pushing” us to walk the way of His commandments, and then to run the way of His commandments.  So we went forth and shared the same Word that had saved us, and that is the beautiful picture.

As I mentioned, the word “hind” is #355, and it is related to the word “hart,” which is #354 in Strong’s Concordance.  The word “hart” is found eleven times, and a very beautiful passage is in Psalm 42:1-2:

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

As the hart pants, so my heart pants after thee.  We thirst for God, like the hart thirsts for the gently flowing waters of a brook on a hot day, and the hart or deer goes to the brook and drinks.  And that is the desire of God’s people, as we go to the Word of God, the Bible, and drink.  Of course, there is a “thirst” that the Lord’s people have for righteousness, which God prompts within us and stirs up within us.  It is a desire to be right with Him and to have our sins forgiven.  He is the One who gave us that thirst, and He is the One who quenched that thirst through His grace, mercy, and faith of Christ in salvation, so we no longer thirst in that way.  And this is why it says of the great multitude in Revelation 7:16:

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;

That is because the desire for righteousness has been met, and their spiritual thirst has been quenched, and it is quenched eternally.