Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #8 of Genesis 31, and we will read Genesis 31:19-24:

And Laban went to shear his sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father's.  And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled. So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river, and set his face toward the mount Gilead. And it was told Laban on the third day that Jacob was fled. And he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days' journey; and they overtook him in the mount Gilead. And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.

I will stop reading there.  We have been going through this passage, trying to learn what we can, as we are always looking for the deeper spiritual meaning.  And we do know this is a historical parable because the whole Bible is a parable in the sense that God has hidden spiritual truth everywhere in the Scriptures.  These are the mysteries of God, and He would have us, as His servants and Bible students, to spend time searching the Scriptures to see what we can learn.  And even though we put forth effort, comparing scripture with scripture, which is the biblical method of coming to truth, it is always dependent on the will of God and the Spirit of God.  God still has to open up our eyes to understand, or we never will, and it also needs to be according to God’s timetable of opening up Scriptures.

For example, we could do this Bible study together and go through the whole book of Genesis, but then a couple years from now, we could find out that there was a verse or passage opening up that we never saw in our earlier studies.  That is just the nature of Bible study, and we always have to wait on the Lord.

We have been discussing Jacob’s flight from Haran as he took his wives, children, and the cattle he got from his father-in-law in the last deal they made, which was a great multitude of cattle.  Jacob is going to pack them all up and flee, and he is selecting a time to do this, as we read in Genesis 31:19:

And Laban went to shear his sheep…

I made a comment in our last study regarding flocks or sheep being identified with people.  The Bible says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way…”  And Laban went to shear his sheep, and as we discussed, this spiritually identifies with the time when Satan overcame the camp of the saints, took his seat in the temple, and he ruled over the corporate church.  And in those churches, there were multitudes of tares that it was said were sown by the devil among the wheat, according to the parable of the wheat and the tares.  An enemy had sown them, and of course Satan is that enemy of God that did that work, so they belonged to him.  They were of their father the devil, and they were his flock, and he was “shearing” the sheep. 

In our last study, I mentioned something a little hesitantly, but after looking at it some more, I think it is spiritually correct to say that the “shearing” of these sheep was making them “naked” in the sense of having their sins exposed, because that was what happened when Satan took over the congregations of the world.  God had departed out, and it was God’s presence that was shielding the corporate church from the terrible, all-seeing gaze of God seeing the iniquities that the churches were engaged in throughout their history.  They had spiritual high places of false doctrines and false gospels, and they had these things built into their confessions and creeds, which they lifted up and exalted far above the Scripture itself.  And God had overlooked these things as He gave space for the churches to repent. And, primarily, when the Lord looked down upon the churches when the Spirit of Christ was in the “midst of the candlesticks,” He saw a “faithful city.”

But at the end of the church age, the transaction took place wherein the “daily” was taken away and the abomination of desolation was set up.  That is, the Spirit of God departed out, and Satan’s evil spirit entered in and ruled over the entire corporate church, and not just over an apostate denomination or a few apostate churches, but over the entirety of the church world.  All the churches and denominations established under the umbrella of “Christian churches” were turned over to him, and he made them “bare.”  The judgment of God was to use Satan and bring them to a condition of “spiritual nakedness.”  They had no head (Christ).  They were like the two witnesses lying dead in the streets.  They had no covering or protection any longer, as the Lord tells us in Revelation 2 that He gave them space to repent, but when they did not repent, He cast them into “great tribulation.”

So I think that would be the spiritual picture in view when we read that Laban went to shear his sheep.  He made those in the churches to be as “naked,” with all the evil and wrong things they had done open to the eyes of God.  That is what I said in our last study, and we went to Jeremiah 7, and I want to go there again.  It says in Jeremiah 7:29-30:

Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for JEHOVAH hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

Clearly, these verses and this whole chapter, as well as much of the book of Jeremiah, identify with the apostasy of the churches at the time of the end, and God’s judgment upon them.  Basically, this is a similar picture because the word “cut off” is the same word as “shear,” where Laban went to shear his sheep.  And that is what it means to shear sheep – you cut off the covering of wool.  Jerusalem is often typified by a woman, and she is having her hair cut off.  She is shorn.  It is as if her head is “naked” or uncovered.

Let us turn over to Isaiah 53, and this is the same word as “shear” in Genesis 31.  Isaiah 53 is a Messianic chapter where the Lord is revealing the atoning work of the Messiah that He had performed, and it is spoken of in the “past tense,” pointing back to the foundation of the world.  The atoning work of Christ was performed then for the sake of His people, and we read in Isaiah 53:6-8:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and JEHOVAH hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

Again, it is absolutely clear.  It is showing us what Christ did for His people, and we also know that Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  And verse 7 tells us that He was oppressed and afflicted, and He opened not His mouth, and He was “brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”  And this word “slaughter” would also direct us to the wrath and judgment of God, in Isaiah 34:1-2:

Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of JEHOVAH is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

A little further down, it says in Isaiah 34:5-6:

For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of JEHOVAH is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for JEHOVAH hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

Slaughter is when God has wielded His sword, striking with it, and the “sword” of JEHOVAH is the Word of God, and there are supporting Scriptures that God uses His Word to bring judgment and execute wrath upon the sinner.  The word “slaughter” is used here in Isaiah 34, as well as Isaiah 53:7, in referring to the Lord Jesus who opened not His mouth: “…he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb…”  See how God relates this idea of a sheep before her shearers being “dumb.”  That is, the sheep is just allowing it to happen.  She was not making a ruckus or any noise as she is allowing her wool to be cut off.  And God relates that to the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ when He “opened not his mouth,” as the Lamb of God and was brought to the slaughter as He went through the terrible punishment of the wrath of God for the sake of His people.

So, here, we see that the idea of “shearing” the sheep can carry a pretty heavy spiritual connotation.  It can picture something Christ went through regarding payment of the penalty the Law demanded – death.  Again, He experienced that awful judgment of God.

Now it so happens that this passage in Isaiah 53 is quoted in the New Testament in Acts 8.  And because it is quoted in the New Testament, it will provide us with the equivalent Greek word for “shear,” which is the word we are searching out in Genesis 31, as far as Laban going to shear his sheep.  The quotation from Isaiah 53 will use the Greek word for “shear,” as it says of the Ethiopian eunuch, in Acts 8:28-35:

Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.

That certainly clarifies the fact that Isaiah 53 has everything to do with the Lord Jesus Christ.  But, again, in verse 32, he was reading Isaiah 53:7: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth…”  Now we can take this word, “shearer,” and see where that leads us.  And when we do, it leads us to 1Corinthians 11 where we find an interesting passage.  It says in 1Corinthians 11:3-6:

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

Again, this is in interesting passage where God is speaking of “headship,” and the way to understanding this is back in verse 3, which is key to understanding the rest of the passage.  “The head of every man is Christ.”  So later when we read, “Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.”  And the reason is that the head of every man is Christ, and does Christ require a covering for sin?  No – He is all righteous and holy, and He has no need of covering for sin.  And that helps us to understand that it has everything to do with a covering for sin. 

Then the next statement in verse 3 says, “…and the head of the woman is the man…”  This word “man” is also translated as “husband,” and the word “woman” could be “wife.”  The head of the wife is the husband, which is what we read in Ephesians 5 where God reveals the mystery of the marriage relationship as He speaks of Christ and the eternal church, consisting of everyone that would ever be saved as the “bride of Christ.”  And that is the key here: “…and the head of the woman is the man.”  And while it is correct that the word “man” can be understood as “husband,” in this case the husband is still Christ, but Christ in the form of the Law of God, the Word of God, as mankind is married to the Law of God, as Roman 7 explains to us in the first few verses.  So the head of the woman (mankind, in general) is the man, the Law of God.  The Law of God is married to mankind.  With that idea alone, we see that mankind being spiritually married to the Law has cast all human beings into the “feminine form,” as a woman. 

Then it says in 1Corinthians 11:5:

But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered…

This is because from conception and birth into life in this world, the people of the world are married to the Law, and the Law needs a covering because the Law condemns us, and it is necessary for the blood of Christ to cover over sin.  It is just as the illustration God provided for the Day of Atonement inside the Holy of Holies where the high priest would enter once a year, and he had to sprinkle blood over the Ark of the Covenant.  And what was inside the Ark of the Covenant?  It was the Ten Commandments, representing the Law of God.  The blood covered the Law.  It was necessary that there be a covering of Christ’s atoning blood over the Law.  If it was not there…especially as people of the world entered into the churches and congregations, and they prayed and prophesied and conducted themselves as Christian in that way, and yet, they were still under the authority and power of the Law, and, therefore, they were dishonoring their head, as it goes on to say in 1Corinthians 11:5:

… for that is even all one as if she were shaven.

If a woman’s head is shaven, it makes her head bare or naked.  That is, God is indicating that when a woman without the covering (because the man is her head) of the blood of Christ, she is spiritually naked before God.  It is as if she is shorn.

And, finally, it says in 1Corinthians 11:6:

For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

And that is our word “shorn.”  Here, we see a very obvious relationship between this statement and Jeremiah 7:29 and the Lord’s command, “Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem,” and He uses the word for “shear” that has to do with shearing sheep. 

So, too, in the New Testament, God uses the word “shearer” in Acts 8:32, and He also uses it in association with the woman who lacks a (head) covering.  She has no covering for sin, or no true salvation.  A mere profession of salvation is not true salvation, and calling oneself a Christian is not being a true Christian.  Therefore, they have no covering, so let them be “shorn” or “sheared” by the Devil, as Satan took over the churches and congregations and made them “bare,” exposing their sinful condition.  And the sins of the multitudes within the churches and congregations of the world have been exposed, and they have been put to humiliation before the eyes of God for failing to hearken and obediently respond to God’s command to depart out.  Instead, they rebelliously decided to remain behind, proving themselves to have no covering for sin.