Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #20 of Genesis 30, and we will read Genesis 30:25-36:
And it came to pass, when Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country. Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, and let me go: for thou knowest my service which I have done thee. And Laban said unto him, I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry: for I have learned by experience that JEHOVAH hath blessed me for thy sake. And he said, Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it. And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and how thy cattle was with me. For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is now increased unto a multitude; and JEHOVAH hath blessed thee since my coming: and now when shall I provide for mine own house also? And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me any thing: if thou wilt do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock: I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of such shall be my hire. So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen with me. And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to thy word. And he removed that day the he goats that were ringstraked and spotted, and all the she goats that were speckled and spotted, and every one that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep, and gave them into the hand of his sons. And he set three days' journey betwixt himself and Jacob: and Jacob fed the rest of Laban's flocks.
I will stop reading there. Now we have come to the point where Jacob wants to leave the land of Haran. He has 11 sons and one daughter, Dinah. It was after Joseph had been born, and it says in Genesis 30:25:
And it came to pass, when Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away…
The way this written, it appears that the moment Joseph was born, Jacob wanted to return to Canaan, his own country. However, if that were so, it would be very unwise because you would not want to take a newborn child and travel long distances. Back then, journeys were not the same as they are today. And even today, if a mother had a child, she would not want to travel immediately. She would want to settle for a little bit, and let the child grow and feed and be weaned, and that would have been the case back then. Really, three years of time had passed since the birth of Joseph until the point when Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country.”
We can know this, and it is only partly based on the fact that you would not take a baby on a journey like that, but you would wait until he was weaned at two or three years old. But more than that, we can know it due to the information the Bible gives us regarding the duration of Jacob’s stay in Haran. The Bible reveals it as 40 years, and we see it laid out in Genesis 31, and this would be after Jacob had fled after the six years had passed in which he had worked for the cattle. He obtained a multitude of cattle through that contract. The Lord was working to “spoil” Laban and to give Jacob that spoil, but we will not get into that now. We will look at that later, Lord willing. But this is after Jacob had fled Haran, when Laban and some of his servants had pursued them and caught up to them. The Lord had forbidden Laban from harming Jacob, but they had a conversation where Joseph said in Genesis 31:41-42:
Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times. Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.
So as far as the service that Jacob did for Laban his father-in-law, we find he said in Genesis 31:41:
Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times.
Theologians (practically all of them) look at this verse and they see the statement about 20 years, and they see it as the total length of time Jacob spent in Haran. And they believe that the 20 years is broken down in the next part of the verse: “I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle.” If you add 14 and 6, you get 20, so it seems to make sense. It seems reasonable, and as we look at this verse, we might even think of it that way. “I have been 20 years in your house.” And then we could look at the 14 years and the 6 years as a breakdown of that 20 years.
But it just will not fit when we look at all the children that his wives and concubines bore. It just will not fit because Jacob worked 14 years for the two daughters, but for the first seven years he was a single man. It was not until he had worked a full seven years that he entered into marriage for Rachel, but then Laban substituted Leah. Jacob’s statement, “Thou hast changed my wages ten times,” also applies to this first marriage because that was the first time that Laban deceitfully changed the “wages,” because the agreement was that his wages for working seven years would be Rachel. But he ended up receiving Leah. But the first seven years no children were born because he had no wives. But then he was married to Leah, and the morning after he realized it was Leah, and he was very upset and came to Laban, and Laban said, “Well, work another seven years for the younger sister.” So Rachel also became his wife at the same time, and the next seven-year period was a time when he had these two wives. And if these theologians were correct, then from the eighth year to the 14th year that Jacob was in Haran all 11 sons and one daughter were born. It would have had to be within the span of those seven years because we know that the six-year contract (for the cattle) was not offered until after the birth of Joseph, the eleventh and last son that would be born in Haran. So all eleven would have had to be born prior to Laban offering the contract for the cattle, which was for six years. So that only leaves that seven-year span – from the eighth year to the fourteenth year – for all those births to have taken place.
Let us say that on the wedding night with Leah, Rueben was conceived, and in that eighth year, son number one was born. You know, after a child is born, marital relations do not commence right away. A woman has to recover a bit, and I think the Bible speaks of a period of 40 to 80 days where it would be good for a woman to recover, so that would take it to almost a full year. And then say she is right away with child, and then another nine months passes, and that would be the ninth year concerning the second child. And, again, a little time passes after that child is born, and then a third child comes, placing it in the tenth year. So when the third child is born, you are in the tenth year and then it would more than likely be the eleventh year when the fourth son was born. Then we know Leah stopped bearing for a period of time, which was related to Rachel’s action. But anyway, Rachel got upset because her sister had born four sons, and it was at least four or five years into this second seven-year period, and then Rachel demanded, “Give me children, or else I die.” Then Jacob corrected her and admonished her: “Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?” It is completely of God. So she is already desperate? It has only been four years, but according to theologians, it would have to work out this way, and in desperation, she gives Jacob her handmaid to wife, and he has two sons with that handmaid. So this would be the fifth year and the sixth year. Then after that, Leah, who had not been bearing, notices that the handmaid of Rachel has born two sons, so she tries to match it and gives her handmaid to Jacob, and her handmaid also bore two sons. After Leah’s handmaids had born two sons, then she made a deal with Rachel for her son’s mandrakes, and she conceived twice again, and bore two sons. We are well beyond seven years, and we have not even gotten to Joseph. You know, we do not have to make a case for it being 15 years or 18 years; all we have to prove is that these events are not possible within seven years. And if it is not possible in seven years, then the conclusion of the theologians is wrong. It is not correct, and there is nothing that would cause us to think that any of these children were born simultaneously. It is very clear that no other children were born when Leah had her first four, and Rachel had not had any children, so those first four sons were born in that order. Then when Rachel gave her handmaid, we should not think that Leah immediately gave her handmaid. Yes, that would speed up the process, but we should not think that. Remember when Joseph was second in command in Egypt, and the children of Israel entered into Egypt to buy corn, Joseph sat them down at the table according to their order of birth, as it says in Genesis 43:33:
And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth: and the men marvelled one at another.
They marveled because they were lined up (in birth order). There was Rueben, the oldest, and Benjamin, the youngest, with all the others lined up between them down the line, and that indicates that any two of them were not the same age, but they were born at different times.
It is just too crowded and too “jammed” to have happened in seven years – all these sons, and do not forget Dinah. Dinah was born before Joseph. So there is just no way. It is not hardly possible for all this to have happened within seven years, which means that idea is wrong. Let me read Genesis 31:41 again: “Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle.” It is not 20 years, and then the same 20 years broken into these two segments. But it is three contracts or three agreements. Jacob first worked seven years and received Leah, and then an additional seven years for Rachel as his wages were changed. That was the first agreement, which God identifies as 14 years. Then he worked six years for the cattle, and that was the last contract. So we know that 14 years was the first, and six years was the last, and in between those contracts, he was 20 years in Laban’s house. God does not specify exactly what that meant, but he was serving Laban for 20 years, which is why we know it was the year 1913 B. C. when the last contract was being made, and Jacob and his family would leave Haran in 1907 B. C. (On the Old Testament side, we count down, so 1913 minus 1907 is six years.) And then his name was changed to Israel.
Everything then harmonizes, and many other things, too, that will relate to the year 1907 B. C. You know, God tends to do things with key biblical figures when they reach certain points of age, and they will spend time in a land, or they will reign as a king, for very precise periods of time (if it is a key biblical figure). For example, David was age 30 when he became king, and he reigned for 40 years. Solomon reigned for 40 years. So when we understand the proper breakdown here, it is 20 years, plus 14 years, plus six years, for a total of 40 years, that is in keeping with how God operates in the Bible in many cases. Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Prior to that, Moses was in Haran for 40 years tending sheep. And prior to that, Moses was 40 years in Egypt when he grew up in pharaoh’s house, and then he fled at age 40. There are equal breakdowns of Moses’ lifetime into three 40-year periods. And there is nothing to indicate that God would not follow that pattern, like Abraham having a son at age 100, and so forth. It is just all over the Bible, and God tends to operate with these precise times. You know, the Bible is difficult enough, but this is one area that helps the Bible student to lay out the biblical calendar and see the various spiritual pictures that are in view.
So everything points to this last contract being made when Jacob was 94 and Joseph is age 3. And Jacob wanted to leave at that point because the 20-year contract just expired. He worked 14 years, then 20 years, for a total of 34 years. He had entered into Haran at age 60. He was now 94. Conveniently, Joseph was now three, and he would have been weaned, so it was time to go. “The contract is over. Send me away. I am ready to go.” And then Laban made the final deal. He said, “I have been blessed through your service, and I want you to stay longer. Tell me what you want, and I will give it.” Then Jacob presented this last contract where he would work six more years for the cattle. This really helps us. Lord willing, in our next Bible study, we are going to see several strong tie-ins to another historical situation where the people were strangers in a land that was not theirs, and they were servants, and it was time to let them go. You can probably guess what I am referring to, but we will take a look at a similar historical situation in the history of Israel, and that will help us get a better fix on who Laban typifies. It has been very difficult to determine who he represents as a type and figure. And I am not saying this is always the case when we find Laban mentioned, but it is the case in this particular portrait. Remember that Mr. Camping used to say that the Bible was like going to a portrait gallery, where you see one painting and admire its beauty, and then you go immediately move on to a completely different portrait. Well, we have just come across a portrait that is a recurring theme, and we have already seen this theme at least two or three other times. But here it is again, and God will bring it to our remembrance one more time through Jacob’s relationship to Laban and his desire to depart. Lord willing, we will discuss this more in our next Bible study.