Ruling With God


by


Philip du Nard

The next 6 chapters of Genesis ( chapters 28-33) deal mainly with Jacob's experiences and tests of faith and endurance that God subjects him to over a 20 year period as he leaves his parental home and sojourns with his relatives in Haran. It was during this time that Jacob married Leah and Rachel and begat his sons who became the progenitors of the tribes of Israel. At the beginning of this period, God extended promises to Jacob that are essentially the same as those made to Abraham and Isaac. We have the familiar story of angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. God also assured Jacob of this in Gen. 28:15, "And, behold, I [am] with thee, and will keep thee in all [places] whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done [that] which I have spoken to thee of."

Jacob must have thought on this very much when things were not going well. Part of Jacob's worshipful response to this vision was to set up a stone pillar of the stone he had used as his pillow and refer to it as God's house. Here is the beginning of scriptural symbolism that we see throughout the Scriptures, the stone being associated with the house and kingdom of God. The reader may recall that it would be the stone kingdom of Daniel (Daniel chapter two) that would crush the Babylonian succession of empires and the Gentile order of things.

But it was not until the end of this trying time during which Jacob had to endure some rather humbling circumstances that God changed his name to Israel which, from the Hebrew, we understand means, "ruling with God." or "He will rule as God." as Strong;'s Concordance says.In Gen. 32:28 we read, "And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."

This example can therefore be of great comfort to individual Christians as we see how the Lord operates in our lives and, no doubt, many of us feel at times that we, like Jacob, are laboring under the yoke of Laban. Laban changed Jacob's wages ten times we are told. But in the end, God blessed Jacob so that he prospered and He brought him out from all of this.

This might also be considered a preview of how God would mold the descendants of Jacob, the children of Israel. They had to endure 400 years of Egyptian bondage before they could be somewhat fit for use by God as a people. This, no doubt, has had many repeat fulfillments.

We should not regard Jacob's name change as insignificant. We all have names. Some of us may know the meaning of our personal names. Our parents may or may not have given consideration to the meaning of our names when bestowing them upon us but even when they do, there is no assurance the meaning of our names will have any relevance in our lives or turn out to be appropriate for us. But when God changes a person's name as He did with Abram, Sarai, Jacob, and later Simon who became Peter, we can be sure that what the name signifies will come to pass and the name will indeed be representative of God's work in that individual or nation. The name of Israel was conferred not only upon Jacob but also upon the nation that came from his loins. This signified the use that God would make of this people and it is an exalted position indeed. That God should so favor and exalt a whole people in His plan to bless all the families of the earth and continue to do so is such an offense and a stumblingblock to those who have been influenced by the propaganda of the wouldbe builders of a modern Tower of Babel that even many Christians feel compelled to say that it's not so and that instead of signifying God's finished work for this people, it only signified a step along the way and is now in the past. But the Almighty will not be deterred by the thoughts of mankind.

In an earlier article in this series entitled, A Wife for Isaac, we briefly considered the significance of Abraham's commandment to not allow Isaac to marry into the Canaanite line which seemed to be a matter of great and farreaching importance and whether or not this command was ethnic and racial in nature or strictly religious in nature. It was concluded that while Moses later made it plain that there were indeed religious or spiritual implications for the nation where this was concerned, the way the commandment was stated was not a prohibition against marrying someone who did not worship Jehovah but rather a prohibition against marrying into a certain line period. No exceptions were given in the law but many Christians conclude from later examples that the law given to the nation really means, Don't marry an unbeliever or, it is allowed to marry into a forbidden lineage so long as the individual concerned is a believer. Of course, it is true that as St. Paul later shows, Christians are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers but we do not tell our unbelieving neighbors who happen to be married that it is against God's law for them to be married.

The experience of Jacob during the period of his life that we are considering may shed a little more light on this and give us food for thought. Isaac walked in obedience to Abraham's command and married Rebekah who was from among his own people. His son, Esau, despised his birthright and disobeyed this command by taking Canaanite wives. Isaac stressed to Jacob that he should not do this but marry within his own people. Jacob obeyed and was in conformity with this command when he married Leah and Rachel.

Yet what was the spiritual state of the family into which he married? At the end of the twenty year period of Jacob's life that is under consideration when he is making his departure with his family to return to Canaan, we read in Genesis 31:19,"and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father's." Laban, her father, did not know who was responsible and demanded of Jacob in verse 30, "yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods?" Later, in chapter 35:2, when Jacob is fearful of his brother Esau, he commands his household, "Put away the strange gods that are among you..." If the whole idea was that Abraham did not want his descendants to marry idolaters and unbelievers, did Jacob do any better than Esau? And if it was a simple matter to tell his family to put away the strange gods, could he not have done this with a Canaanite wife? Maybe, maybe not. Pagan idolatry was certainly an issue but there seems to be a recognition of some fundamental differences between peoples. The worship of the true God was to be more intimately linked with the line of Shem as we learned earlier and though Jacob's family was clearly in a backslidden state, they were of that line.