Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #24 of Genesis 31, and we are going to read Genesis 31:43-52:

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. 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.

We have gotten to the point where Laban had caught up to Jacob.  He had searched all of Jacob’s stuff, and he found nothing to satisfy his accusations or to prove them.  Then Jacob basically declared Laban’s unfaithfulness, his untrustworthiness, and his deceitfulness.  Then after telling him that God had rebuked Laban yesternight, we come to verse 43.  And there is really nothing Laban can do because God is on Jacob’s side, and he knows that, and he cannot speak good or bad.  The only thing he could do was to make an accusation about the stolen images.  When that did not work out, he was left with nothing, and now he is reconciled to his fate, and he is ready to make a covenant with Jacob.  That is what he said in Genesis 31:44:

Now therefore come thou, let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee.

We have seen this word “covenant” before as we went through previous chapters in Genesis, and here it is again being used where a man of God, Jacob, is making a covenant with Laban, who is a wicked man that typifies Satan.  We also have seen that Jacob can be a type of Christ, and, once again, we find a covenant in view on the spiritual level between Christ and Satan.  If you remember, we saw this a couple of times having to do with Abimelech, the king of a Philistine city.  We read in Genesis 21:28-32:

And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves? And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them. Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.

Abimelech was also a type of Satan.  Remember, he was the king who took Sarah into his house to be his wife, and she was basically captive.  Then God came to him in a dream and said, “Thou art but a dead man…for she is a man's wife.”  Then Abimelech said, “…in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.”  And God said, “…for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.”  We saw through that phrase, “not to touch her,” that Abimelech was a picture of Satan.

Then it happened a second time with Abraham’s son Isaac, and the same King Abimelech is in view, in Genesis 26:26-29:

Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol the chief captain of his army. And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you? And they said, We saw certainly that JEHOVAH was with thee: and we said, Let there be now an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee; That thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but good, and have sent thee away in peace: thou art now the blessed of JEHOVAH.

Again, it is interesting that in both places we read of Abimelech.  The first time he took Abraham’s wife, but God suffered him not to touch her.  In this instance, he had his eye on Rebekah, and the same thing probably would have happened, but he looked out a window and saw Rebekah sporting with her husband.  If you recall, when we went through Genesis 26, we saw the word “sporting” related to “laughter.” Isaac is a type of Christ, and Rebekah is a type of the elect, and they were laughing together.  We saw how the Bible reveals that God will laugh and the people of God will laugh in the Day of Judgment.  Then we understood why Rebekah was not taken into Abimelech’s house.  If she had been taken into his house, then she would have to be set free – the captive would have to be delivered.  But in the Day of Judgment, there are no more elect captives in the house of Satan, so that was the reason for the difference.  But, again, the emphasis is on the fact that Abimelech was not able to touch her.  And here, he said, “As we have not touched thee,” and that would apply to Isaac, Rebekah, and, spiritually, to the body of Christ.

The Scripture that really confirms that Abimelech is a type of Satan is in 1John 5:18:

We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

The wicked one is Satan, and, ultimately, he cannot touch the elect children of God because we are safe and secure in the salvation that Christ had purchased for us.  We had our sins forgiven, guaranteeing that God would save us and grant us eternal life.  Now salvation has been applied to everyone that was to become saved. 

This is really a very comforting Scripture for the Day of Judgment.  As Abimelech sees Isaac with his wife Rebekah, and they are sporting with one another, he cannot touch them: “We have not touched thee.”  And that tells us that Satan cannot harm any of God’s elect, ultimately, in any lasting way.  This was true at any time in the history of the world, and it is true in the Day of Judgment.  We are as safe as anyone could be in the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We are protected.  We cannot be touched by him.

Does that mean that we cannot die or that wicked men could not kill us, or that we cannot be put in prison for our beliefs?  No – that can still happen.  But that does not “touch” us.  Our “treasure” is in these earthen vessels because our soul is still in our body, but nobody can touch our soul.  Man cannot harm our eternal, born-again soul that God has given us.

Getting back to our study in Genesis 31, we see from these previous instances, Abraham is a type of God, and Isaac is a type of Christ, and they also made covenants with Abimelech, a type of Satan.  So too, in Genesis 31 we have seen how well Laban fits as a type and figure of Satan, so let us go back again and look at Genesis 31:44-45:

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.

Jacob took a stone and set it up for a pillar, and this sounds familiar.  It was not that long ago that we saw him do the same thing, in Genesis 28:16-19:

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely JEHOVAH is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

We know that Bethel means “house of God,” as Jacob declared: “This is none other but the house of God.”  When he rose up early in the morning, he took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and he set it up for a pillar, and he poured oil on the top of it.  Now God reminded Jacob of this in Genesis 31:13:

I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.

That is when Jacob decided he had to go, and he obeyed God, and he fled Laban’s house and land and headed back home.  The stones that Jacob set up for a pillar is a picture of Christ.  The word “pillar” itself is used to represent the Lord Jesus Christ, if we go to the New Testament, and I am sure this is a familiar verse to many.  It says in 1Timothy 3:15:

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

Notice it says, “house of God,” which is exactly what “Bethel” means, and that is one of the reason that Bethel in the Old Testament, as well as Israel itself, are types of the New Testament church.

There has been controversy over the ages concerning the statement about “the pillar and ground of the truth,” and the churches have stated, “That is referring to us.  We, the church, are the pillar and ground of the truth.”  Then they take that and apply it to decrees by popes, and to their edicts and counsels.  When they get together in a gathering of churches or a gathering of bishops, they discuss and pray and then they conclude that their decisions are basically “the truth of God,” due to their belief that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth.  Their erroneous doctrines undergird their confessions and creeds, and they do not want to change them as their denomination had made those decisions long ago.  So when the elect child of God comes with a Bible verse, and he says, “That statement in the confessions does not line up with what the Bible says.  I do not think it is correct,”  then they respond, “Who are you to try to change what a counsel of the church has arrived at in their wisdom?”  And if they do not say it outright, it is implied that they are the pillar and ground of the truth.  The Catholic church will outright state that they are the pillar and ground of the truth, as they say that the pope speaks infallibly.  But the Reformed churches hold onto that same belief, but they know how that sounds, and since many of them came out of the Catholic church, they are not as bold, but they infer and imply the same thing in an underhanded way.

But the teaching of this verse is not that the house of God, the church, is the pillar and ground of the truth, but it is the living God, as it says, “…know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”  It is referring back to the living God.  Of course it is!  It is obvious to the one whose eyes God has opened.  Christ is the foundation.  Christ is the stone.  Christ is the rock that the house is built upon.  He is “the pillar and ground of the truth.”

We are also told that in Revelation 3:12:

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God…”  It is all in the singular tense because it is referring to Jesus Himself.  He is “the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”

So in Genesis 31, Jacob takes the stone and sets it up for a pillar.  Let us go back there.  This was in conjunction with what Laban said, “…let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee.”  And Jacob was going along with it, and he took a stone and set it up for a pillar.  Then it says in Genesis 31:46-47:

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.

According to some theologians, Jegarsahadutha is a Chaldean word, and I think this is also indicated in Strong’s.  It is not a Hebrew word, and it apparently means a similar thing to Galeed, and Jacob called it Galeed.  And the word “Galeed” is made up of two Hebrew words.  It is made up of the word “heap,” as in verse 46: “…and they took stones, and made an heap,” and “heap” is the Hebrew word “gal,” Strong’s #1530.  And in verse 48, Laban said, “This heap is a witness between me and thee,” and the word “witness” is the Hebrew word “ayd,” Strong’s #5707.   And when we put the two words together, we have “gal-ayd,” or “Galeed.”  It is a “heap of witness.”  And Jegarsahadutha has more a meaning of “gathering together,” or something like that.  It is only found here, and the commentaries on it are a little confusing.  I would like to look into that word a little bit more, but it is not all that important.  It is just what Laban called it, which has to do with his country and his language, but Jacob gave it the name “Galeed,” which is highly significant: “heap of witness.”  Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, that is what we are going to discuss.

But the word “witness” is from the usual word for “witness,” as far as how the Bible uses it.  It has to do with such things as a “faithful witness,” and how two or more witnesses must agree.  But it is the word “heap” that is really telling.  It is a word that is found about 35 times in the Old Testament, and it is translated 18 times as “heap,” and 14 times as “wave,” like the waves of the sea.  And that makes sense because if you are on land and you pile up rocks, you have a heap of rocks, but if you are on the sea and the waves pile up, you have a heap of water.  So a wave is really just like a heap that is on the land, and we will actually see that the spiritual meaning of this word has a similar meaning whether it is a wave of the sea or a heap of stones.  Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will look into this word “heap.”