Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #9 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.

We have been looking at verse 19, and we spent some time in our last study talking about how Laban going to shear his sheep ties in with the exposure of the nakedness or uncovered condition of the churches and congregations of the world that were turned over to Satan at the time of the end during the Great Tribulation, as judgment began at the house of God.  We will not go any further into that.  If you have questions, review the last study where we looked at the word “shear” and how it is used in the New Testament.  So God used this word in 1Corinthians 11 regarding if a woman is not “covered,” then let her be shorn.  It is a shame to her, so to be “shorn” would make her head “naked,” lacking a covering, which points to spiritual nakedness.   It also relates to Jeremiah 7:29 where God said, “Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem…”

Now we are going to look at the second part of Genesis 31:19:

… and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father's.

Laban had left the house, and his sons were probably gone, and maybe much of the staff was gone, so that allowed Rachel to go through the house and locate the images that were her father’s.  They belonged to him, and she stole them.  She took them without permission, and that is theft.  That is exactly what stealing is, and we see later in Laban’s reaction that he was very attached to these idols, and they were something that was of value to him.  So Rachel certainly did a very wicked thing.  Just the act of stealing anything would be sinful and an evil thing to do, but to steal these images was certainly stealing something that was neither wholesome nor good, as they were products of rebellion against God.  So to want them and to take them just compounds the sinful act that Rachel was involved in, and we do not want to “gloss over it” in any way. 

This is the Word of God, and God often reveals the nature and true character of the people we read about in the Bible.  Even with someone like Jacob, who was an elect child of God, we read of things he did that were underhanded and deceitful, and yet, the Bible is clear that Jacob was saved.  On the other hand, Rachel is doing something wicked and deceitful, but the Bible is not clear about her spiritual condition.  She may have been an unsaved person.  As we have discussed a few times already, the Lord uses her as a type of the elect, regarding the fact that Jacob loved her as her husband, and he worked for her just as Christ worked for His spiritual bride.  She will claim credit for four of the 12 children born to Jacob, which is “one third,” which is also a figure of the elect.  But just because God uses someone to typify the elect does not mean that a particular individual is saved.

There are many examples of that in the Bible.  We could just look at the Lord Jesus Christ’s miracles and the people He performed miracles on.  Some He saved, and many were not saved, but the act of giving them sight or legs – or whatever the miracle was – typified salvation.  Probably the best example is how all Israel came out of Egypt, and it was a glorious picture of salvation’s great deliverance.  And yet, the majority of men that were 20 years and older perished in the wilderness due to unbelief.

So Rachel did this wicked thing, and we will find later on that she hides them when Laban came to look for his images, and she never revealed what she had done.  And it is something that we do not see any conclusion to, as God just tells us that Rachel stole these images, and she hid them.  After Laban searches and is unable to find them, that seems to be all God will tell us about the images.  We do not read that at some point Rachel threw them away.  As far as I am aware, there is nothing the Bible will say further about those images.  Then Rachel will soon die as she is giving birth to her second son Benjamin.

So from what we can tell, she stole the images.  She kept the images.  She never got rid of them, and she never repented of this sin, as far as biblical information.  Maybe she did (repent), but God did not tell us, and we can only go by what the Bible says, or does not say, so it does not look good for Rachel as far as her spiritual condition.

Let us look at the word “images.”  This Hebrew word is Strong’s #8655, and it is found 15 times in the Old Testament.  We find it used in Judges 17:5:

And the man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

This man Micah, of course, is in rebellion against God.  He had his own “house of gods.”  It was not God’s house, and the Lord in His Word commands not to have any type of idol, image, or god that one bows down to and worships.  Also, Micah compounded his sin by taking one of his sons and making him a priest.  The Lord is clear that there was a certain tribe from which the priests would come, the tribe of Levi.  Those who performed this ministry in the proper worship of God would have been sons of Aaron of the tribe of Levi.  You cannot just pick someone from other tribes and make him a priest.  That is contrary to the will and command of God.  It is contrary to the Law of God.  It is transgressing the Law of God. 

This was the sin of Jeroboam, the first king of Israel in the tribes of the North after they split with Rehoboam, son of Solomon.  Rehoboam had ruled over all Israel, but he unwisely made a decision that resulted in the breaking up of the 12 tribes, and 10 tribes would become their own nation of Samaria, and the other tribes would be under the banner of Judah.  Jeroboam considered the whole situation, and he realized that Jerusalem was in Judah, and that is where the temple was, and it was the place where God commanded that He be worshipped.  And Jeroboam realized that the people in the 10 tribes were commanded to go to Jerusalem three times a years for the feasts to worship God in the temple at Jerusalem, so he feared that it would lead people back to Rehoboam and Judah.  So he set up his own house of God and his own worship system, and we read that he made priests of the “lowest of the people.”  When we read of Jeroboam, God repeatedly points out that he never repented of that sin, and of the kings that followed him the Lord would say of the evil kings that they “departed not from the sins of Jeroboam.”  They continued to allow worship in a city and house with priests that were not ordained and commissioned by God. It was all out of the minds of men.

And that is exactly what Micah did in his “house of gods,” and he made an ephod and teraphim, and the word “teraphim” is our word from Genesis 31 where Rachel stole the “images” of her father.  The word “teraphim” is transliterated here.  That is, they took the Hebrew word and how it would be pronounced and spelled using the English alphabet, and they transliterated it, so this is how the Hebrew word would sound: ter-aw-feme'.  We can also see that this is a plural word, and it was translated as “images” in Genesis 31:19, so it was more than one image that Rachel took.  We do not know how many, but it was at least two, or possibly three or four, but it was more than one.  Whenever we read of that “m” ending, it is plural in the Hebrew, like the word “el-o-heem', the word for God.

So this word “teraphim” indicates something that is plural.  The word “el-o-heem'” is the plural name for God, which we find hundreds of times in the Old Testament.  When applied to the God of the Bible, it is often translated in the singular as “God,” where it says, “…God created the heaven and the earth,” because the translators understood that God is One.  He is not multiple Gods, but one God: “Hear, O Israel: JEHOVAH our God is one JEHOVAH.”  But when “el-o-heem'” is used in relationship to false gods, then it should be understood in the plural way, and that is actually what God says in Exodus 20.  I am going to read Exodus 20:1-3:

And God spake all these words, saying, I am JEHOVAH thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

The Hebrew word translated as “gods” is “el-o-heem'.”  It is not referring to the God of the Bible, but to other gods, so it is correctly translated as “gods.”

Then it says in Exodus 20:4-5:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I JEHOVAH thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Again, in verse 5 of Exodus 20, it says, “I JEHOVAH thy God am a jealous God,” and the first reference to God is “el-o-heem',”  and the second reference is “'êl,” and that is the singular name for God.  So in one statement, God is referring to Himself in both the plural and singular.  “…for I JEHOVAH thy God am a jealous God.”  It would be incredibly inconsistent and would make no sense whatsoever unless God was One God in three Persons, the Triune God.  So calling Himself “el-o-heem'”  indicates God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and yet, One God.  So the translators correctly translate this word in the singular, and they did an outstanding job of that.  It could have become a mess if it were not for God’s oversight, I am sure, just as He guides His people into truth and into hearing His voice.  He had His hand upon the translation of His Word, the Bible.

But what we read here in Exodus 20 is “bad news” for Rachel.  It is very bad news for Rachel because God had said, “Thou shall have no other gods before me.”  Someone might say that since the teraphim were called “images,” then maybe they were not necessarily gods.  No – that is not true because we read further on in Genesis 31:30-32:

And now, though thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father's house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods? And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because I was afraid: for I said, Peradventure thou wouldest take by force thy daughters from me. With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live: before our brethren discern thou what is thine with me, and take it to thee. For Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them.

Laban’s reference to “gods” and Jacob’s reference to “gods” is that word “el-o-heem’.”  And Exodus 20:3 is clear: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”  These teraphim were “gods” or “idols.”  Obviously, they were not the true God, but the were viewed by Laban and his household as gods.  From the circumstances, we can gather that they were viewed by Rachel as being deities of some kind.  Maybe at certain times of the year, like harvest time, they somehow credited these gods for the rain and for a fruitful harvest.  Who knows?  But they attached definite meaning and value to them, and it had to do with “religious purposes.”  That was the value of these teraphim, and that is why it was such a horrible thing that Rachel took them.

Also in Judges, Micah and his “house of gods” was raided by a party of Danites, in Judges 18:14:

Then answered the five men that went to spy out the country of Laish, and said unto their brethren, Do ye know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and a graven image, and a molten image? now therefore consider what ye have to do.

Also, it says in Judges 18:17-21:

And the five men that went to spy out the land went up, and came in thither, and took the graven image, and the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image: and the priest stood in the entering of the gate with the six hundred men that were appointed with weapons of war. And these went into Micah's house, and fetched the carved image, the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image. Then said the priest unto them, What do ye? And they said unto him, Hold thy peace, lay thine hand upon thy mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest: is it better for thee to be a priest unto the house of one man, or that thou be a priest unto a tribe and a family in Israel? And the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people. So they turned and departed, and put the little ones and the cattle and the carriage before them.

This priest was actually a Levite that was sojourning, and he found his way into that area, and Micah took him to be the priest of his “house of gods.”  So at least they had a Levite to be a priest, although it is unclear whether he was a descendant of Aaron, or not.  But the tribe of Dan was engaged in the same idolatrous practices Micah had engaged in, wherein they were doing things contrary to the Law of God.

We may wonder as we read these things, “You know, God’s Law is very clear regarding how He is to be worshipped, and who is to perform certain acts of worship, and things that were not to be worshipped, like idols and images and false gods.  So how could it be that Israel would fall into this sin?  How could Micah or the tribe of Dan or the ten tribes of the North be deceived into thinking there would be any blessing from God toward them when they were obviously doing wrong?”  They were not following the statutes of the Bible. 

But when we wonder about that, all we have to do is look around us today at the churches.  God’s Law is equally clear regarding His commandments about the way the churches should be run, where the Lord indicated that the pastor must have certain qualifications.  He must be a married man and be raising his children well and have one wife, and the elders and deacons also had qualifications, and there were certain Laws of God governing the ceremonial Laws of baptism, the Lord’s Table, and so forth.  And yet, when we look around, what do we see in the churches?  They are just “doing their own thing,” and they are making their own laws.  They say, “Well, this man is a single man, but we will ruin this man if we do not let him be a deacon or an elder.”  I remember a pastor saying that once, and that was it.  That was basically the justification for violating God’s command that those who hold these positions of authority must be married and have children: “Oh, we will ruin the man.”  It is amazing how the deceitful, desperately wicked mind of man operates to justify his sins and his transgressions in a religious way, and they still think that God is pleased with them and that God will bless them.

So the Israelites of old were doing exactly what the New Testament churches have done, and continue to do.