Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #26 of Genesis 31, and we are going to read Genesis 31:48-53:

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. 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.

I will stop reading there.  We have been looking at this passage for the last couple of studies, and we have seen that the “stone” points to Christ, as well as the pillar, and Jacob set it up for “a heap of witness.”  And that is what the word “Galeed” means.  The compound word is comprised of “gal” or “heap,” and “ayd” or “witness.”

We were looking at the word “heap,” which is Strong’s #1530, in our last study, and I think I mentioned it is found 35 times in the Old Testament, and translated as “heap” 18 times, and as “wave” 14 times.  We saw in at least 10 Scriptures that the word “heap” is repeatedly used to signify the wrath of God.  A couple of places stood out because they also speak of stones being heaped together.  One of the places is in Joshua 7, concerning Achan and his family, in Joshua 7:26:

And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So JEHOVAH turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto this day.

Also, we read in Joshua 8:28:

And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.

As I mentioned before, that is a different word for “heap,” but our word is in Joshua 8:29:

And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide: and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day.

The reference to “unto this day,” establishes that it is an eternal principle.  It will continue for all eternity.  That is, when God judges the wicked by destroying them, that destruction will be an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.

And that is what this word “heap” has to do with.  If you did not catch our last study, I would recommend that you look at study #25 and all the many references that refer to this word.  It is the same word God uses in Jeremiah 9:11 to describe the judgment on the corporate church, spiritually.  It is the same word He uses in Jeremiah 51, verses 37 and 42, to describe the judgment on Babylon, representing the nations of the world, or the kingdom of Satan.  It is the word He uses in Jonah 2 to describe the judgment that came upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and there it is translated as “waves.”  I will read that before we move on.  It says in Jonah 2:1-3:

Then Jonah prayed unto JEHOVAH his God out of the fish's belly, And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto JEHOVAH, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

There is an obvious connection made there to hell or the grave (death) that the waves (heaps) typify the wrath of God.

Then when we go back to Genesis 31, we find it says in Genesis 31:48:

And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed;

We have looked at “Galeed,” and we understand it as “heap of witness,” and the word “witness” has to do with testifying or being a witness to the truth, as when two or three witnesses agree, and the truth is established. 

And, of course, the judgment of God’s wrath was brought to pass upon the churches when judgment began at the house of God (May 21, 1988) and also on the world when judgment transitioned on the date of May 21, 2011 to include all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.  That judgment is being carried out by the Word of God.  It is the “witness.”  The Scriptures are the testimony or witness of God.  Christ is the faithful witness, and He is the Word. 

And this “heap” is a witness.  It is the Word of God pronouncing the judgment between Laban and Jacob.  But, again, the spiritual picture is that of Satan, as typified by Laban, and Christ, as typified by Jacob.  We also discussed Abimelech and the covenant he made with Isaac, and King Abimelech of the Philistines was an evil king that also typified Satan.

And here, God is making a covenant with Satan at the point when all the spoil of Satan’s house had been taken.  That is what is going on in the deeper spiritual level as Jacob has fled with great wealth, and it all came out of the house of Laban.  Even his wives and children can be traced back to Laban, just as the Lord Jesus Christ entered into the world to save a people for Himself and obtain His bride, and He gathered a great multitude of sheep.  The Bible likens us to sheep, and Christ gathered all that wealth out of the world, and the world had belonged to Satan.  He was the ruler of this world, the prince of the power of the air, as he had won the right to rule in the Garden of Eden when he deceived mankind, making them servants to sin and to Satan.

But now it is all accomplished.  God had spoiled the house of the “strong man” and taken away the spoil, as Jacob is fleeing to Canaan, typifying the Promised Land of the new heaven and new earth.  Laban pursued him and caught up to him, but he could do nothing.  He had accusations, but he could prove nothing.  He finally realized that all he could do was to try to make peace with his son-in-law, and that is what this covenant between the two of them is about, historically.  And the “heap of stones” was set up for a witness and called Galeed, but then it was called another name in Genesis 31:49:

And Mizpah…

That is, there is another name for Galeed that God has given it, and that is Mizpah.  The word “Mizpah” is Strong’s #4709 in the Hebrew Concordance.  It is found 32 times, and it is translated either as “Mizpah,” with the “a” sound, or as “Mizpeh” with the “e” sound, which would indicate the vowel pointing,  So it is basically just in the translating, whether it is the “a” sound or the “e” sound, but it is referring to the same place, Mizpah.  There is also a related word, Strong’s #4708, which has identical consonants, which means it is the identical word.  It, too, is translated either as “Mizpah,” or as “Mizpeh,” with either the “a” or the “e” sound, but it is the same word.  All these places are the same Hebrew word.  Strong’s #4708 is translated 15 times in these ways.

And there is another related word, and this is where it gets interesting, and that is Strong’s #4707, and it has the identical consonants, which makes it the same Hebrew word.  We have to keep in mind that the vowel points were added later.  As God moved holy men of old to write down His words of the Old Testament, they wrote only consonants.  The vowel points were added later.  That is why when we see a word with identical consonants, we can be sure it is the same word.  Strong’s #4707 is the same word, and it is only used twice in the Old Testament, and the places it is found are eye-opening. 

Let us go 2 Chronicles 20, and we will see this word “Mizpah,” which is the word that the “heap of stones” can be called.  In 2 Chronicles 20, we see the wonderful and incredible account when God told Jehoshaphat and the army of Judah to go forth as three enemy armies were approaching them in the wilderness, but He also told them they would have no need to fight in this battle because JEHOVAH would fight for them.  It says in 2Chronicles 20:22-24:

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.

“Watch tower” is our word that can also be translated as “Mizpah.”  It is Strong’s #4707, and that is the identical word to our word in Genesis 31:49.  The reference to “none escaped” has to do with what we read in 1Thessalonians 5 concerning Christ coming like a thief in the night, in 1Thessalonians 5:2:

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

None will escape Judgment Day.  None of the wicked will escape the wrath of God, and all these dead bodies were fallen to the ground long ago in the day when Jehoshaphat marched his army to the watch tower in the wilderness – to Mizpah.  They could look down and see all the dead bodies of the enemies.

Notice the similarity between Laban and Jacob here.  It is not immediately evident, but Laban had come after Jacob, and Jacob was afraid of doing battle with Laban.  But God intervened the night before by coming to Laban in a dream saying to watch what he said to Laban, and to speak to him neither good nor bad.  And Laban understood that he could not come and smite his son-in-law, even though Laban told him, “It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.”  So God had intervened.  God fought for His people Israel, Jacob and his sons and his wives, and God protected Jacob. 

Then we see that a “heap of stones” was set up.  And here is another similarity.  Judah and King Jehoshaphat came toward this watch tower in the wilderness, and the watch tower would have been high up so that they could look down.  And when they viewed the scene below, they saw the destruction.  They saw that the enemy armies were already defeated, and Judah did not have to fight or engage them in battle.  In other words, there was no warfare between Jehoshaphat’s men  and the enemy’s men.  And the enemy’s men would represent the forces of the devil, the unsaved are under the power and control of Satan  They came against Judah, but they never got to do battle with the kingdom of God because God intervened.  God destroyed them.  So there was no conflict between those three armies and Judah that day.  Likewise, there was no conflict between Laban, his sons, and his servants and Jacob, his sons, and his servants.  There was no fighting in either case at “Mizpah,” the watch tower.

Now we know that 2Chronicles 20 is revealing the true historical event.  But, spiritually, there is no doubt it points to the final judgment of the world because God tells us that in Joel 3:1-2:

For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

The Hebrew word translated as “plead” is found over 200 times in the Old Testament, and about 179 times it is translated as forms of “judge” or “judged.”  So it is saying, “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will judge with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.”  It is the identical reason that God judged Babylon.  Babylon had destroyed the city of God and the people of God.  God allowed it.  It was according to His will, and it accomplished His purpose, but once the time frame for that judgment was complete, God turned around and judged Babylon.  And here, we see it refers to “all nations,” which would be the world or kingdom of Satan, typified by Babylon, and God will bring them into the valley of Jehoshaphat to judge them.  Further on in Joel 3, we read in Joel 3:11-15:

Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O JEHOVAH. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of JEHOVAH is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

Again, we do not have to wonder when we see the language here.  We can see the link God is making here.  He will judge the “heathen,” and the word “heathens” are the nations.  He will judge the nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and in 2Chronicles 20 we read the account.  There are three nations, but they are representative of all the nations.  They are in unison with one goal, which was to fight against the people of God.  But something happened that was very strange, and just out of the ordinary.  They never got the chance to fight God’s people.  Instead, they fight one another.  And Jehoshaphat, a type of Christ, and his army, a type of the saints, come to Mizpah, the watch tower in the wilderness, and they can see the whole thing.  It is all laid out before them.

You see, in order for Judgment Day to take place, God had to first save all of His people, the whole company of the elect, prior to May 21, 2011.  And that is exactly what the Bible tells us did happen, and then Judgment Day came, and, immediately, the battle was over.  The battle ceased between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan because the battleground was always for the souls of men.  It was always Satan seeking to prevent God from saving sinners that were held captive in the dark dungeon of the kingdom of darkness in Satan’s house, the world.   And here was Christ, going forth conquering and to conquer, delivering the captives and setting them free.  And Satan was resisting and fighting Him at every turn, seeking to snatch peace from the earth.  But he was unable to do so, and then, finally, it was over.  That is the same picture with this 40-year period of Jacob in Haran, working for a wife and for cattle.  He finished the contract, and He completed the thing He set forth to do, and then God said it was time to go.  The time span allotted for obtaining a wife and gathering the sheep of God had expired.  Christ did what He came for in this world, and that is the spiritual picture when God told Jacob to pack up and gather his riches – his flocks, children, and wives – and go back to Canaan, the Promised Land.  You see, there was no more spoil to be had from Haran in Laban’s house, and Laban is a type of Satan.  Just as there was no conflict or battle with the enemy armies in the valley of Jehoshaphat, there was no battle between Laban and Jacob.  What could Laban do?  It was all over and done with, but there was the setting up of the stones, and that is something extremely significant for us to learn. 

But before we do that, we are going to look at the one other place that this Hebrew word translated as “Mizpah” is use.  Again, it is Strong’s #4707, and it was translated as “watch tower” in 2Chronicles 20.  It is also translated as “watchtower” in one other place.  And, not surprisingly, it is in a context that can only identify with Judgment Day that began on May 21, 2011, and has been continuing in a prolonged judgment time period.  And according to biblical evidence, we expect it to continue until the year 2033.