Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #23 of Genesis 31, and we are going to read Genesis 31:42-49:

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. And Laban answered and said unto Jacob, These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and these cattle are my cattle, and all that thou seest is mine: and what can I do this day unto these my daughters, or unto their children which they have born? Now therefore come thou, let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee. And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there upon the heap. And Laban called it Jegarsahadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed. And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed; And Mizpah; for he said, JEHOVAH watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.

We are continuing to move through this chapter and to learn what we can as read this historical parable.  It is very clear that it is a historical parable, as we have seen several spiritual pictures formed and revealed as we follow the guidance of God to look for the deeper spiritual meaning of the Word of God.

In verse 42, Jacob was speaking to Laban, and he has “turned the tables” on him.  Laban had made his accusation, accusing Jacob of stealing his household goods.  We spent some time looking at how the people that were in the kingdom of Satan – but were taken out of Satan’s kingdom when Christ saved them – are likened to “goods.”  They are “vessels,” according to Romans 9.  They are “stuff.” 

Spiritually, this is what the whole thing is about.  It was a contest between the Lord Jesus Christ, typified by Jacob, and Satan, typified by Laban.  Laban could not prove or verify that any of his “stuff” was taken.  That would spiritually point to the fact that Christ had bought us.  He owns us, as He purchased us with His own blood at the foundation of the world.  We were never truly Satan’s, in that sense, even though we were “children of wrath even as others.”  We had already been designated and chosen by God.  Our sins were already paid for, but it was a matter of the application of the blood of Christ at some point in our lives within the timeframe of God’s salvation through the hearing of the Gospel. 

So this represents the end of God’s salvation program, and Christ is taking His people, the great multitude, out of the hands of Satan.  The Lord is the Shepherd that is guiding and directing us to the Promised Land.  We are going to the kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth.  That is the spiritual picture, and because Laban cannot confirm that his “images” have been stolen, and he cannot find the “image of the beast” on any of the people within the camp of Jacob, it means that he cannot verify his ownership, and his accusations are falling silent. 

And now it is time for Jacob to speak, and Jacob told him how long he had served him and how well he had served him as a shepherd.  He laid out the timeline of the 40-year period as 20 years in his house, plus another 20 years.  He served 14 years of service for the two daughters and six years for the cattle.  Jacob was in Haran for 40 years, and now he is 100 years old, and it is time for him to go back to Canaan. 

Then it says in Genesis 31:42:

Except the God of my father…

And Isaac was his father, the father of Jacob and Esau.  Again, it says in Genesis 31:42:

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.

Jacob was referring to the God of Isaac his father, and the God of Abraham, and they are one and the same God, not two different Gods.  Then he said, “and the fear of Isaac,” and we wonder why he referred to Isaac again.  The God of his father is Isaac, and the God of the Bible had already been said to be the God of Isaac, but Jacob brings up Isaac a second time, and he referred to “the fear of Isaac,” rather than the God of Isaac.

And the thing that God is getting across…and the “fear of Isaac” has nothing to do with Laban fearing Jacob’s father Isaac.  But it is the “fear of Isaac,” or Isaac’s fear (the One that Isaac fears), and that would be the God of the Bible.  It would be JEHOVAH, who is the “fear of Isaac.”  It says later in this chapter, in Genesis 31:50-53:

If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee. And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold this pillar, which I have cast betwixt me and thee; This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac.

You see, it was Laban who brought up the God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, but Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac.  And, again, the fear of Isaac is the Lord God Almighty, the Almighty, all powerful God of the Bible.  He is the One that Isaac feared.

And that is a good thing.  God’s people are to fear the Lord.  We are not to fear man.  God often contrasts those two, and He brings up the point of not fearing man because if a man kills you, he has no power to throw you into hell (eternal death), but God has that power and might.  So God is the One to be feared, and not man, the creature.  Man is not worthy of fear, but God is worthy of fear.

We will go to a few verses where we will see the “fear of God” come into view.  It says in 2Chronicles 14:9:

And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and came unto Mareshah.

An army of “a thousand thousand” would be one million men.  Then it says in 2Chronicles 14:10-15:

Then Asa went out against him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. And Asa cried unto JEHOVAH his God, and said, JEHOVAH it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O JEHOVAH our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O JEHOVAH, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee. So JEHOVAH smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled. And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them unto Gerar: and the Ethiopians were overthrown, that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before JEHOVAH, and before his host; and they carried away very much spoil. And they smote all the cities round about Gerar; for the fear of JEHOVAH came upon them: and they spoiled all the cities; for there was exceeding much spoil in them. They smote also the tents of cattle, and carried away sheep and camels in abundance, and returned to Jerusalem.

The fear of JEHOVAH came upon the cities round about.  They heard the news and the report that an army of million men were routed and easily defeated because JEHOVAH was with His people.

We read something similar in 2Chronicles 20, regarding the battle of Jehoshaphat in the valley.  Jehoshaphat marched his army toward this valley, and God had told him that they would have no need to fight because JEHOVAH would fight for them.  We read in 2Chronicles 20:22-29:

And when they began to sing and to praise, JEHOVAH set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another. And when Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped. And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much. And on the fourth day they assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah; for there they blessed JEHOVAH: therefore the name of the same place was called, The valley of Berachah, unto this day. Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy; for JEHOVAH had made them to rejoice over their enemies. And they came to Jerusalem with psalteries and harps and trumpets unto the house of JEHOVAH. And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries, when they had heard that JEHOVAH fought against the enemies of Israel.

Again we see through God’s triumph in defeating the enemy armies of these three nations that had gathered together against Judah that the fear of God came upon all the kingdoms of those countries.  Again, it was the fear of JEHOVAH.

It is similar to what we read in Esther 9 after the orders of Haman had been changed by Mordecai and Esther, and the enemies of the Jews became the objects of wrath on the day of Purim.  Previously, it had been the Jews that were to be destroyed, but instead it would be their enemies.  It says in Esther 9:1-4:

Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king's commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, (though it was turned to the contrary, that the Jews had rule over them that hated them;) The Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, to lay hand on such as sought their hurt: and no man could withstand them; for the fear of them fell upon all people. And all the rulers of the provinces, and the lieutenants, and the deputies, and officers of the king, helped the Jews; because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them. For Mordecai was great in the king's house, and his fame went out throughout all the provinces: for this man Mordecai waxed greater and greater.

Mordecai was a type and figure of the Lord Jesus.  They feared Mordecai and they feared all the Jews.  But did they actually fear the Jews?  No – they feared the fact that the King was married to Esther, a Jew, and Mordecai, who was the king’s second in command, was also a Jew.  So they feared the association.  They feared Mordecai, and because of that, they feared the Jews. 

And this all ties into the fear of God, and the people of God fear the Lord.  We fear the God of the Bible.  In these Scriptures we have been reading, it identifies with various judgments of God, and when God comes to judge, there is a fear that can be said to overtake the ones being destroyed by Him as they are experiencing the judgment.  Let us go to Psalm 105:36-38:

He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength. He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes. Egypt was glad when they departed: for the fear of them fell upon them.

Egypt was glad when Israel departed because the “fear of them” fell upon them.  That is, the fear of Israel fell upon Egypt.  But is that a right way of understanding this verse?  Did the Egyptians fear the Israelites who had been their slaves?  Was it the people of Israel they feared, or what it the “fear of them,” who was God?  That is, the fear of who the Israelites feared (God) fell upon them, the Egyptians.  That is how it would have to be understood.

Egypt was ruling over their slaves, the people of Israel.  They did not fear them.  They had no weapons.  They had no organization.  They had no strength or power to fight against the powers of Egypt, but the “God of them” did arise and show Himself, and He brought Egypt to their knees.  For all intents and purposes, He destroyed the nation of Egypt with the plagues, and then He finally brought the plague of the firstborn that brought much death in the land of Egypt.  Many sons were killed by the plague, and God was not done until He had destroyed Pharaoh and the mighty Egyptian army and their chariots in the Red Sea.  So it was not the fear of the Israelites themselves, although there was probably a sort of “reflective” fear because the Israelites identified with this fearsome, true God.  The gods of the Egyptians were just idols.  They were just things laying around, but they could not live or breathe or have any being.  But the God of Israel was a different story.  He actually is God, and He made Himself known through the experience of His wrath as He brought plague after plague on the people of Egypt.

And this is the idea when we come to these two statements in Genesis 31 concerning the fear of Isaac: “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.”   I do not know if Jacob is referring to his wives and children when he said that he would have been sent away “empty,” or with nothing. That is what the word “empty” means.  He would have had nothing at all for his service.  He had worked seven years for a wife, which turned into 14 years.  He worked six years for the cattle.  I think it is pretty obvious that Jacob was correct, given the fact that Laban had already changed his wages 10 times.  Laban would have sent him away “empty,” and this is the same word that is translated as “void” in Isaiah 55:11:

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

We can tie this in because we must remember that Jacob is a type of Christ.  Jacob had been putting forth intense effort, and he had performed work.  And what is the work of Christ?  We read in John 6:29: “This is the work of God, that ye believe…”   The work of Christ is that you believe the work of God.  The works were finished at the foundation of the world, but then there was the follow up work of sending forth the Gospel into the nations to gather those whose sins had been paid for before the world began.  This was all part of the work of God.

And Jacob tended sheep for a wife, and both the obtaining of the sheep and the obtaining of a wife point to the work of God in obtaining a spiritual bride for Himself, which consists of the whole company of the elect that were predestinated to receive His mercy and grace in salvation.  In other words, the Word of God is definitely in view here because it was through the Word of God that all these things would be accomplished.  God sent forth His Word and it would accomplish the purpose He sent it forth to do, which was to save His people. 

But Laban would have sent Jacob away “empty” or “void.”  He would have the Word of God to be of no effect in accomplishing what God had sent it forth to do.  So, once again, we see Jacob in the role of Christ and Satan in the role of opposition as enemy of the kingdom of God, trying to snatch the Word away, as we find in the parable of the sower.  Christ is the Sower who sows the Word, and Satan comes to snatch it away.  He wants to make the Word void and empty and not able to accomplish the salvation of those that God willed to be saved, but Satan is not able to do it.  Jacob has the great multitude of cattle.  He has his bride.  He has his children.  And now he is leaving, having spoiled Laban’s house.

Another place we want to go is Exodus 3:21-22:

And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty: But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.