Simon retold more of Jacobs story on Friday and this brought up an interesting question.
In Gen 30:37-43 we learned how Jacob stripped the bark from branches and arranged them in such a way before the watering troughs of the sheep, that they somehow brought about the mating and subsequent birth of speckled & spotted sheep from a herd of plain coloured ones.
So the question is raised about Jacobs actions. Did he use some sort of conjuring, superstition or old wives tale ?
What do you think?
10 comments:
Hi everyone - sorry I missed last Friday.
The commentaries I've looked at so far on this passage seem to sidestep the question about how Jacob's little ruse actually worked - but I will try to do some more digging this week!
From bible.org:-
From everything that has been said, we would naturally conclude that the great prosperity of Jacob (verse 43) was due to his shrewd techniques for manipulating the outcome of the mating of the flocks. So it would seem. So it seemed to Jacob. There is only one problem: it didn’t work because it couldn’t work. From a spiritual perspective, it did not work because God does not bless carnal effort. From a physical point of view all of Jacob’s schemes were of no avail because they operated on one assumption, and that assumption was scientifically erroneous. Each of the three techniques Jacob employed was predicated on the belief that visual impressions at the time of conception affected the outcome at birth. In the first and third techniques it was the peeled poles which were thought to produce striped offspring. No one believes that this is true today, and no farmer uses this technique to upgrade his cattle. The second device of Jacob was based on the same premise, but it employed the black and striped of the flock to create the visual impressions.
In other words, Jacob used wrong superstitions to gain his way. He thought he was being clever but it was actually God blessing him...
So does this mean that Jacob mixed and matched Gods blessings and superstition to meet his own ends? (In the same way that Saul consulted a medium)
Did he think it was OK to dowse for water (for example)?. Maybe he did not think of it as hocus-pocus!!
It means that Jacob (as he did for most of his life) tried to achieve things by deception and tricks but God blessed him anyway as he had promised from the womb.
Something about grace there, I think....
How awesome this God character is eh !
In Jacob's defence he was willing to work long and hard for what he wanted and went the extra "mile" quite a business man really! He was the deceived for a substantial amount of time with Laban and the Jacob of old (pre-God encounter) wouldn't have coped with it - Grace in action? But then he reverts back to being the deceiver (heel Grabber)for a while
before "grabbing" hold of God again - sorry straying into this weeks edition...
Just like many church leaders I guess Nigel
Wise words - I think :) - got me to thinking about how we can want to hand on to God's "apron strings" too much sometimes rather than facing the world in faith through Grace.
The trick is in recognising God's blessings - "trick" mmmmmmm - dangerous language?
That should be hang on, by the way... but then again we do need to hand them on to others too - all good missional stuff!
Picking up from last night, during and after Barbara's retelling of the tale there was a question about the phrase "the Fear of Issac" which appears twice in the story and yet nowhere else in the Bible.
I promised to explore it further so here's what I've gleaned:
Jacob uses the phrase first when explaining to Laban how God has cared for him and he gives God the title "The God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac". Later he swears an oath by God, giving Him just the second half of the same title.
We we are in the early stages of God's progressive revelation in which there is no written scripture yet and when what these people know of God is in it's early stages So they refer to Him as "The God of Abraham" or similar titles, to distinguish Him from other gods that others worship.
So Jacob is swearing his oath in the name of this distinctive God who revealed himself to his Grandfather and Father.
The use of "fear" is debated by scholars who think it might be another word that has been mispelt but the consensus is that it is "fear" and that Jabob is showing a healthy respect for his God or (more likely!) making sure that Laban is fearful of doing anything to Jacob, on whom God's blessing rests.
Post a Comment