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

Before we continue to discuss verse 52, I would like to go back to verse 50.  The reason is that a listener sent us an e-mail and wrote, “In the last part of verse 50, Laban said, ‘No man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee,’ so what do these two statements refer to?”  So let me read Genesis 31:50-51:

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.

When we looked at this verse, I do not think I did discuss the second part of verse 50; I focused more on the first part where he said, “If thou shalt afflict my daughters,” and we went to several Scriptures that show that God “afflicts” His people, and it is a good thing because then people pay heed to His Word.  God uses it as part of the process of salvation.  But, here, Laban (a type of Satan) and Jacob (a type of Christ) are making a Judgment Day covenant that ends the warfare over the battle of souls, because all that were to be saved have become saved.  Christ has completely ransacked the house of Satan and spoiled it totally, and there are no more souls to save.  Therefore Christ, as represented by Jacob,  can make this covenant.  And Satan, as typified by Laban, is looking at the rest of the people of the world that have not been saved and are still in darkness, and he is saying, “If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters,” that is, as long as there is no more seeking of a bride by the Lord Jesus Christ.  “You agree you will enter no more into my land (of this world) and go after other people to transfer out of darkness into the light.” 

And that fits because we know that Satan never wanted God to come and deliver anyone, so now he can have his share in this covenant, while Christ is completely unconcerned because He has already accomplished all He wanted to do, as far as the saving of souls.  So that is the spiritual picture.

And then it continues, with Laban, a type of Satan…and remember that Satan is a representative of the world.  If we go back to Mark 3, this is important for us to understand so we can see that when Satan is speaking, it is really the unsaved people of the world that are speaking.  It says in Mark 3:24:

And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.

In this context, a kingdom, a house, and Satan are synonyms.  We know his kingdom is the world.  His house is the people of the world, the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.  And Satan would be synonymous with “house” and “kingdom.”  That is, if the kingdom of this world cannot stand, Satan cannot stand, just as if we were speaking about God and His kingdom, as God is completely identified with the kingdom of God.

So when Laban, a type of Satan, says, “No man is with us,” he is referring to his house, his kingdom, and the whole world, on the spiritual level.  So we want to try to understand who is in view in regard to it saying, “no man,” and someone is definitely in view, and we will see that when we go to other Bible verses.  There are many verses, and we will go to a lot of them, but I had to condense it because there are so many more.  Let us go to Isaiah 4:1:

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

We realize that this “one man” is Christ, and the seven women typify the churches, as the Lord addresses the seven churches in the book of Revelation.  So the corporate church takes hold of Christ, but they want to eat their own bread, meaning they want to develop their own gospel.  They want to wear their own apparel, or develop their own salvation program and their own righteousness through their works, like “believing on the Lord Jesus.”  Then it says, “…only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.”  So they want everything out of their own minds – their own gospel and their own doctrines, confessions, and creeds – but they want Christ’s name so they can continue to call themselves “Christians.”  So the “one man” here is the Lord Jesus.

It says in Isaiah 32:2:

And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

Again, the “man” is Christ Jesus, and He is God and man, so God can correctly refer to Him as “man” because he is the Son of man.  He is the man who is unnamed, and just going by “man.”

By the way, this is the same Hebrew word “'ı̂ysh” that we find in Genesis 31:50, and it will be that same word in all these verses.  It is Strong’s #376, and it is found hundreds and hundreds of times.  It is translated as “man” or “men” over 1,200 times in the Old Testament, as well as in other ways.  But there is no doubt it is referring to a “man,” and this “man” would be as a hiding place.  He is the Lord Jesus.

In Isaiah 53, a great Messianic chapter, we read in Isaiah 53:3:

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

A man of sorrows, the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, is a man.  And, again, he is not named in Isaiah 53, but it is obvious who is being referred to, but He is still simply identified as “a man.”

In Jeremiah 5, God uses “a man” in conjunction with His judgment on Old Testament Israel or Judah, which in turn (and we always have to say this because it is true) is a spiritual picture of His judgment on the New Testament churches and congregations.  It says in Jeremiah 5:1:

Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.

God said, “If ye can find a man,”  That is, if you can find the Spirit of Christ, and we also read in the book of Revelation where Christ says He is in the midst of the “candlesticks,” or the churches.  Over the course of the church age, He dwelt therein.  But at the end of the church age at the time when judgment began at the house of God, He departed out, as we are told several times in Daniel, and also in Matthew.  The daily was taken away, and the “daily” represents the light of the Gospel as Christ dwelt in the midst of the candlesticks.  But once that judgment began on May 21, 1988 and lasted for the next 23 years of the Great Tribulation, “no man” dwelt within the earthly spiritual city of Jerusalem (the New Testament churches), so God could not “find a man.”  If He could have found that man…that is, if He found the presence of Christ still in the churches, He would pardon it.   He would have overlooked their sins as He did for the entire 1,955 years.  The church sinned during that time and erected their “high places.  That is, they taught falsehoods, and the tares were sown among the wheat.  There was a great deal of sin going on there over the almost 2,000 years of the church age, but God did not entirely destroy them and end His relationship with them during that time because He found “a man” there, and He found them to be a faithful city due to the presence of the Lord Jesus.  But once the faithful man departed, immediately the faithful city became a harlot.   Then God saw their sin because Christ’s presence had meant that God would not look upon their sins, but once Christ abandoned the churches, God saw it all, and He immediately came to bring judgment.

If we go to Jeremiah 49, we will see where God speaks of “Edom,” which can be a picture of the churches at times, and a picture of the world at times.  God says in Jeremiah 49:17-18:

Also Edom shall be a desolation: every one that goeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith JEHOVAH, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.

Here, God is adding an additional statement, which is really an assist to the reader to help us understand who “the man” or the absence of “the man” is actually referring to here.  Of course, Jesus Christ has the name “Son of man,” and He is referred to as the “Son of man,” repeatedly, in the New Testament.  Here, God is indicating that Edom is a desolation.  A desolate place is spoken of as a place “without an inhabitant,” and sometimes we read that phrase in the Bible.  Of course the “inhabitant” that is missing is the man, Christ Jesus.  If Christ Jesus is there, it would not be considered a desolate place.  God does not care if other people are there – that is not what He is looking at when He makes an assessment whether a place is desolate or not desolate.  It is simply the presence of the Spirit of Christ or the lack of the presence of Christ.  Without Christ, it is as Sodom and Gomorrah, and “no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.”

We also see this in Jeremiah 50 concerning God’s judgment on Babylon.  Babylon represents the kingdom of Satan, just as Laban is a type of Satan, and when he said, “No man is with us,” he is really referring to the whole world.  It says in Jeremiah 50:35-40:

A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith JEHOVAH, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men. A sword is upon the liars; and they shall dote: a sword is upon her mighty men; and they shall be dismayed. A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be robbed. A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols. Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith JEHOVAH; so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.

It is the same language as used concerning Edom, but here it is the judgment of Babylon, the entire kingdom of Satan of this world.  And again, we see it says, “…so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.”  There is no presence of Christ.

Someone asked me a question on EBible Fellowship’s Open Forum program about Revelation 18:2:

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

This person was asking the meaning of this verse and how we should understand it.  I gave an answer, but I do not think it was that good now that we are going over this topic, and I now see it much clearer.  In Jeremiah 50, we are reading of the fall of Babylon, just as in Revelation 18:2.  Again, it said in Jeremiah 50:39-40:

Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.  As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah …so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.

And this matches up with Isaiah 13, a chapter that begins by telling us it is “the burden of Babylon.”  We then read of “the day of JEHOVAH” in verse 6.  And verse 10 tells us, “For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine,” and we can pinpoint the time as being immediately after the Tribulation, May 21, 2011.  Then it says in Isaiah 13:11 that God will punish the world, which all has to do with “the burden of Babylon,” because Babylon represent the world.  Then in verse 19, after God transitions from Babylon to the world, then He transitions back to Babylon again, and it says in Isaiah 13:19-22:

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

Here, we have a match with Jeremiah 50, as it refers to Babylon as “Sodom and Gomorrah,” and as it also tells us that it will never be inhabited.  In that way?  “…no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein.”  Therefore, we then read of beasts and unclean birds because it is basically telling us that without Christ, there is spiritual desolation, and the land is not inhabited by the God-Man any longer, but it is inhabited by unclean and hateful birds, and beasts that roam where man is not.  So that language is simply describing the “desolation,” which is the absence of the “man,” the Lord God.  Jesus Christ is not in the world any longer.  He has absented Himself. 

It also says that once Judgment Day began, the salvation program of God and the work of Christ in saving is present no longer.  We read in Jeremiah 51:43, which also describes Babylon.  It says in Jeremiah 51:43:

Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

And one last verse, in Zephaniah 3:6:

I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passeth by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant.

Again, it is referring to Jesus.  Jesus does not inhabit the world any longer.  Someone might say, “Oh, come on!  Are you not the one who is also saying that Christ is judging the earth, and that He has returned as Judge, and taken His judgment seat, and ruling the nations with a rod of iron?  How can He be King of the earth and Judge of the earth, and yet, be gone from the earth?”  The answer is Christ has come (invisibly) as Judge and to destroy and punish, but He has finished His work of salvation.  That is why we read some extremely important verses in John 9 that have to do with our time.  It says in John 9:4:

I must work the works of him that sent me…

And if you go back to John 6:28-29, you will see what work He was given: “…This is the work of God, that ye believe…”  That is the work that Christ was given by the Father.  Again, it says in John 9:4:

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day…

And the “day” identifies with the “day of salvation,” which was a prolonged day that stretched for many, many centuries.  So the idea of a prolonged day is not just confined to Judgment Day, as we have come to learn that Judgment Day will stretch for several years from the May 21, 2011 to the year 2033, according to biblical evidence.  What was the “day of salvation,” if you do not believe that God would make the Day of Judgment last 22 actual years or 22 inclusive years?  Why do you believe the “day of salvation” lasted for centuries, but you do not think the Day of Judgment could be a prolonged period of time?  Would that not mean there is inconsistency in your understanding?

Well, anyway, again it says in John 9:4:

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

See the reference to “no man,” and Christ is referring to Himself.  He must work the works of God, and since He is clearly referring to Himself in the first part of the verse, He is also referring to Himself in the second part of the verse: “…the night cometh, when no man can work.”  But He does not refer to Himself by name, but He simply refers to Himself as “man,” which is consistent with all these other Scriptures we saw.  Then look at John 9:5:

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Of course the light shines in the “day,” and He says that He works the work of His Father (that ye believe) within the confines of the day of salvation, and that is when He was in the world as the Light of the world.  He is typified by the sun that shines in the sky to light the day.  The obvious implication is that the night comes, and the sun goes down and is no longer shining, and the work of God (that ye believe) is no longer being performed, and no man can do that work because He is not in the world.  During the “day,” He was in the world, and while He was in the world, He was the Light of the world.  Therefore, it was necessary that He go out of the world in order for the “night” to come.  If He remained in the world, it would still be “day.” 

And that tells us something, does it not?  Christ always had a plan to leave the world, and there is no doubt that the “night” is referring to Judgment Day, our present time when “man” will leave and no longer perform the work of salvation, leaving the world without an “inhabitant,” where “no man dwells.”

So Laban makes the statement, “…no man is with us.”