God Reinforces His Promises to Jacob

Transcript

GRS 2-9
1/23/2005
God Reinforces His Promises to Jacob
Genesis 32-35
Gil Rugh

We are going back to the Book of Genesis and the 32nd Chapter. We are really the following the life of Jacob, and he becomes the dominant figure in the Book of Genesis, and number of Chapters in the word of God given to him and many of you have shared with me your amazement and what we would call today the dysfunction family life of a great patriarch like Jacob and were reminded as we go again through these sections that the 12 tribes of Israel are headed by the 12 sons of Jacob. All these sons were fathered by Jacob, but they were fathered by him with four different women, who served either as his wives or concubines all at the same time. And in some ways, it is strange to see the ways that God has worked, the people that God has used, that does not excuse us from seriously perusing a faithful walk with the Lord, because we have greater responsibility in our day, having greater like and having the added presence of the Holy Spirit within us. But nonetheless it is encouraging to realize that the purpose and plans of God are not frustrated, not brought to an end because of the unfaithfulness of man or their failures in a variety of areas. God has had work even in difficult situations, we saw that with Leah who had an ongoing battle with her sister for the affections of Jacob, but God in his grace used in a great and mighty way, the father of number of Patriarchs. Jacob has spent 20 years in a foreign land. He is required his wives all, but one of his children is born there. His great wealth is assembled there, now he is returning home. So he has left as an employ of his uncle Laban, and he is journeying back to what is the rally the Promised Land.

We come to Chapter 32, this is really the turning point in Jacob’s life, who is a man greatly blessed of God already and God has appeared to him and spoken to him on a verity of occasions. Back in Chapter 28, we have the account, we know of Jacob’s ladder in a dream. He saw the angels of God ascending and descending and recognized God was in that place. God has spoken to him on a variety of occasions up till now. But Chapter 32 marks a major turning point in the life of Jacob in a very real way. You will give up trying to do things in his own strength, his own scheming and realize his total dependents upon God as his strength and an able man. The first 21 verses deal with the preparation that Jacob is making to meet his brother Esau. You remember he originally left the land and left his family at the instructions of his mother Rebecca because Esau was making plans to kill him because he had, we might say deluded or deceived his brother into selling him his birthright, although Esau gets it at his own free will. And then Jacob had deceived his father into bringing the blessings, giving him the blessing, and he had acted deceitfully by presenting himself as his brother Esau, you remember that account. All of this the plan of God is accomplished and worked out, but you see deceitful scheming of Jacob. And Esau has determined once my father Isaac dies, I am going to kill my brother. And everyone seems to think that Isaac is on the verge of dying. We note background, Isaac had about 37 years to live. He is still living. He will be alive till down about Chapter 49 in the Book of Genesis. So even though he recedes into the background, he is still living and we will come to see him here shortly. But as Jacob returns back to the land, he is not sure what to expect of his brother Esau. So he prepares to meet Esau and soften him up with some gift.

And then the last part of the Chapter, one of the major sections in the whole Book of Genesis will deal with Jacob wrestling with God and being given the name Israel. Well the Chapter opens up as Jacob is journeying back. Now as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him. You see, he is a man greatly blessed of God and the angels of God meet him and evidently bring him encouragement, remind him that God is with him and God’s blessings is upon him. So we call the place God’s camp, Mahanaim. Then he sends messengers to Esau. Esau is living in the country of Seir. He has got to come close to Esau, one who some ways is going to try to avoid him, but he can’t avoid him. He is in the country of Seir, the land of Seir, which is the better known as Edam, on the west side of the Jordan river. He sends word that he is returning, he is going to prepare them because he just doesn’t want to show up. He doesn’t know what to expect.

Verse 3 Jacob sent messengers to his brother Esau. Verse 4, he tells him what to say. I have sojourned with Laban until now and now I have all my herds and I am returning. Verse 6, the messengers returned to Jacob and say, Yes, Esau is coming out to meet you and he is coming with 400 men to Jacob. This doesn’t sound good. His last counterattack with his brother has been in the context of he indents to kill him. Now when he hears Jacob’s returning, here he comes with 400 men. That sounds like a small army. So Jacob’s first thought is this may not be good. Now to Jacob’s credit at this point, he turns to God, offers a prayer to him and you have that prayer in Verses 9 to 12. Jacob said, Oh! God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, oh! Lord you said to me return to your country and relatives and I will prosper you. In this prayer you are the God of Abraham, you are the God of Isaac, my grandfather, my father, you are the God who told me to come back to the land and in all that, there is a reminder of the covenant promises given to his grandfather, reiterated to his father and passed on to him, for when Isaac sent him back to his realities, he blessed him and told him that the promises given to Abraham would be realized in him. So God, you are the God of the covenant, you are the God who is commanded me to return. You told me that you would prosper me when I returned. I am unworthy of all the loving kindness and of all the faithfulness, which you have showed to your servant. There you see his humility. And there is nothing wrong in the first part of that statement, that he is the God of Abraham, of Isaac. He is the God who has given the promises. He is the God who told him to return. And I am unworthy of all your goodness and all your faithfulness to me. When I cross this Jordan, he is on the verge of crossing. Coming up where you would cross the Jordan to go back into the promise land. All head was my staff. I didn’t have any possessions. Now I become two companies. He is a very wealthy man. He has a large family, which was a blessing and he has vast herds. So I left with nothing and I comeback with wealth. And I am unworthy of all that you have done for me. There have been a hard 20 years in many ways for Jacob. But he sees the hand of God in it and God is blessed him even though he is unworthy.

Verse 11, deliver me, I pray from the hand of my brother, the hand of Esau, for I fear him that he will come and attack me, the mothers with the children. Oh God! you are the God who has promised. You are the God who has blessed me an unworthy person. And God I ask that you intervene on my behalf in this situation. And now we come back to covenant promises. Verse 12: For you said, I will surely prosper you and make your decedents as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered. He is not telling God what to do, but he is calling on God to remember the promises and be gracious to him. It is not a attitude, God you have to do this, there is no arrogance evidenced in this prayer, but he does pray on the basis of what God has promised to do, which is consistent. So it’s a great prayer, a great prayer of faith on Jacob’s part. He is still going to have some of his plans and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s in God’s hands, that doesn’t mean I do nothing and just wait and see what Esau does when he arrives. So I will give Esau gifts and soften him up. In this way and you might see in this a little bit of the old Jacob. He sends these tremendous gifts to Esau ahead of him, so that Esau’s coming and Jacob’s journeying and in between the two will come Esau will meet the gifts that Jacob has given to him. And you know someone has just given you some rich gifts, it’s hard not to treat them properly. This sort of softens you up with the gift. You do something that you would think your wife will be upset with and you are ready for a little bit of trouble and well you come home from work and say honey I was thinking of you on the way home from work and here’s a gift. And you little deceiver, what you are really doing is softening her up. And that’s what Jacob is doing with Esau. Okay, God is at work. They come to cross a river, the ford of the Jaboch. Jacob sends all of this family across the brook. The river here, this is not the Jordan yet. And he stays behind for the night. Evidently, he still troubled, still burdened. He has talked it over with the Lord and that may be his purpose in staying behind. For the Lord met him in a special way, in a remarkable way, in a way that he meets no other individual, that Jacob is going to actually wrestle with the preincarnate Christ on this occasion and spent the night, struggling with him and out of that will come great blessings.

Verse 24, Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. And this is the preincarnate Christ, a theophany, a manifestation of God. And the theophanies of the Old Testament are basically manifestations of the preincarnate Christ. Also called the angel of God or the angel of the Yahova. And as a result of what happens here, we know it’s not just a man. This man tells him in verse 28, you have striven with God. Down in verse 30 Jacob will say I have seen God face to face. Turn over to Hosea Chapter 12 toward the back of the Old Testament, after the Book of Daniel through Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel and you come to the Hosea.

Hosea Chapter 12. And here God is speaking of judgment on Israel, called Jacob because Jacob will be Israel. It says in verse 3, in the womb he took his brother by the heel. Remember that’s who he got the name Jacob, the heel grabber, supplanter. Is maturity he contended with God. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed. When he wrestled with is called a man, he is called an angel and he is called God. He wept and sought his favor. He found him at Bethel and there he spoke with us. Even the Lord of hosts, the Lord is his name.

So back in Genesis Chapter 32, Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Jacob has a sense of who he is and his importance. He is wrestling with him. This is not a fight, thinking he is protecting himself. But he is intensely desirous of receiving a blessing from this man that he knows is more than just a man. And when the man with the angelity is referring with saw that he did not prevail against him. Jacob is intense about this. Lord, let him go. He touches the socket of Jacob’s thigh and it dislocates. And you realize the power of the one that Jacob is wrestling with. It is not a matter that he doesn’t have the power to end this struggle. I mean, all we have to do is touch him in a certain spot and his joins dislocation. So God has an intension obviously in this struggle with Jacob to bring Jacob to that intensity, a warning more than anything else, the blessings of God. Then he said, let me go for the dawn is breaking, so they have been wrestling, struggling through the night. Here Jacob now crippled in the thigh because it has been dislocated the socket there of the joint. He says I will let you go unless you bless me. So you see Jacob here desiring more than anything else, even his physical wellbeing. And as you could come to mind, I better let him go because who knows what will happen to me next. No, I won’t let you go without your blessing. So this man said to him, what is your name? Obviously, he knows his name. Jacob had to again be reminded of his own character, the supplanter, the deceiver on Jacob.

Well, your name shall no longer be Jacob. Now he will be called Jacob. We saw him called Jacob by Hosea of the prophet in Chapter 12 of Hosea. The idea here is a new name and this name now reveals new character. You are not the supplanter, but you are the one who struggles with God and prevails, not that you are greater than God, but you have prevailed with God to receive the fullness of his blessing. You shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed and Jacob’s life has been a struggle. And he struggled with Esau and he struggled with Laban and here he struggles with one who is manufactured himself as a man, but is really God manifesting himself. Then Jacob asked him and said please tell me your name. You know it’s like Abraham. When the men came to meet him, he is sitting in the shade and three men come and Abraham began to talk with them. He knew they were more than just men. Jacob knows he has been wrestling and struggling with one, more than a man, but now reveal yourself who it to me. And the answer is why is that you ask my name and he blessed him there, and Jacob knows who he is. So he named place Peniel. For he said I have seen God face to face. Peniel means the face of God. Yet my life has been preserved. We have to take this in the context of scripture. You just can’t look on the face of God in on sense, but here Jacob has been face to face with God, in the person of the son of God, who has manifested himself in human form as an angel as a man. And Jacob knows this has been the presence of God. Interesting, when he asks his name, thumb over to judges, chapter13 the father of Samson, Manoah as the angel who has appeared as the angel of the Lord in verse 15. then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord and he is with his wife on this occasion of course, but that account. The angel of Lord is appeared, given revelation to Manoah’s wife and now Manoah comes and here is the revelation from the angel of the Lord.

At the end of verse 16, Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord. And then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, what is your name? So when your words come to pass, we may honor you. The angel of the Lord said to him why do you ask my name? Seeing it is wonderful. It’s incomprehensible. It’s beyond understanding. The fullness of the revelation of his person in character goes beyond what could be unfolded in Jacob, there was the revelation of his person in his name, the heel grabber, the supplanter. Then in his new name the one who strive with God. But we cannot grasp the fullness the person in character of our God and the names that we have that he reveals of himself, reveals certain aspects of his character, but he here enter to the fullness of his person in that sense. So a similar kind of answer given by the angel of the Lord when he appeared to Manoah, why is that you ask my name? And Jacob is aware, as a result of this even as Manoah was, as the account went on in judge’s account.

So from this day on, now we have a name for the descendants of Jacob. They will be the nation Israel. The name goes back to the fact that the Jacob is the one who has wrestled with God and prevailed. He has come to the end of his own strength and acknowledged his total dependence upon God and the absolute necessity of having God bring his blessing on him, and not being satisfied with anything else, but the blessings of God in his life. A remarkable account nothing else likes it in the Bible where a man personally wrestles through the night with the preincarnate Christ and is said to prevail. He will prevail because of his greater strength, but because of the intensity of his desire for God’s blessings. You know what happens? Verse 31, the sun comes up, the man leaves, Jacob crosses over to be with his family again, he is limping. Say oh boy, I don’t know, that seems constant reminder. He is crippled to the certain extent Therefore to this date the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip, which is on the socket of the thigh because he touched the socket of the Jacobs’s thigh in the sinew of the hip. Constant ongoing reminder. So that’s what, when the children ask their parents why don’t we eat that portion, because our father Jacob wrestled with the Lord and prevailed and received with blessing that we are reminded.

Chapter 33 Jacob and Esau are reconciled and much to Jacob’s relief, verse 34. Esau ran to meet him, embraced, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept. So glad to see his brother again after all these years and his hard feelings have faded away. So Esau asked what’s all these animals that have come? Well Jacob says, these are gifts I want to give you. Esau says I have plenty of my own. You don’t have to give me. No, Jacob says I want to give them, it’s such a wonderful blessings for me to see you and so Esau takes the gifts. Then verse 12 Esau said let’s take our journey and go and I will go before you, we will travel together and I will go ahead of you and make sure everything is okay, we will travel along together. Jacobs lapses his into his old way. As you know, he is now Israel, but there is still some of Jacob in him and so he says oh Esau that wouldn’t be an easy trip, look I’ve got young children, I’ve got young animals, we have to go slow and take our time. If we drive them hard all day, then I will lose them, they will die. So verse 14, let my lord pass on before his servant, and I will proceed at my leisure, according to the pace of the cattle until I come t my Lord at Seir. Jacob has absolutely no intension of going to Seir that he is going to go a different direction. So you see the deception of Jacob, afraid to just trust the lord and be honest here with Esau that I have, God has directed me to return the Bethel. So it won’t be possible for me to come to Seir, as wonderful it is to see you and as much as I rejoice over this reunion, I have to go to where, you know, he has to be deceitful. The reason we cannot travel together is this and it’s a lie. And I will come to Seir and that’s a lie, being deceitful. And Esau said left me leave some of my men with you, they can help you on the way make sure that things go well. No, I have plenty.

So Esau returned in verse 16 to Seir and Jacob went to Succoth. He is not going in the direction of Seir at all. Esau is going down to Seir and Jacob is going over northern into the Promised Land. Now Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan. He is back in the Promised Land, back in the land of Canaan. But he is in Shechem, he is not back to Bethel yet. Being back in the land is a great blessings, but it has great dangers. God has promised the land of Canaan to the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, but it’s so populated by Canaanite people. So he comes to Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, he bought a piece of land there and there her erected an altar and worships the lord. The God of Israel. The verse 20. though good things here, but there are dangers being back in the land, is about a day’s journey from Bethel yet, place where God blessed him, the place that God has told him to return to.

Chapter 34: The end of Chapter 32 was a portion of great blessing. Chapter 34 is a great tragedy, great disaster. We called the rape of Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Remember he has this stage 11 sons and a daughter. Verse chapter 34 talks about the rape of Dinah and the revenge that the brothers of Dinah take on the men of the Shechem. Dinah is the daughter of Leah, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land. So they have settled down, they have bought land, they are living here. She is a young girl. She goes out into the land. When Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land saw her, he took her and lay with her by force, he raped her. But he has a deep affection for her. He was deeply attracted to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the girl. He spoke tenderly to her. So even in spite of what he had done, he wants to have her as his wife. So he told his father get me this young girl for a wife. And Jacob heard what had happened in verse 5, but he didn’t say anything. His sons are out in the fields with the animals. So he waits till they come in and then he will let them know. When in verse 7, when they came in from the field, they heard it, they were grieved, they were very angry and note this, because he had done a disgraceful thing in Israel, Shechem had, by raping Dinah. This is the first time that the name Israel has used in the national sense of way. Jacob was given the name Israel, but now a disgraceful thing has happened in Israel. And they are given that recognition in this, such a things are not to be done. Hamor, the father of Shechem comes and talks with Jacob and says my son would like to have your daughter as his wife. What can we do? How can we work this out?

Verse 9.intermarry with us, give us your daughters, take our daughters for yourselves. Thus you shall live with us and the land will be opened to you, trade it, acquire property. Let’s intermarry, intermingle. We will marry into your family, you marry into our families. You buy land here, we own land here. That would really, you know, frustrate God’s plans. Here you have the work of the devil. Assimilate Jacob and his family into the Canaanite, then the promises of God couldn’t be fulfilled. Well, Jacob’s sons have some of his character. Verse 13, Jacob’s sons answer to Shechem and his father Hamor with deceit because he had defiled Dinah, their sister. They said to them, we can’t do this thing. You are circumcised people. We can’t give our daughters to uncircumcised people. That’s defiling. So the only way we could intermarry with you is if you would agree to be circumcised. Well Shechem thinks so, that’s fine. We will do that second things that are fine will be there and I will give to marry Dinah and will all and I will get to marry Dinah and we will all intermingle and that will be fine. Well, we know that they have a plan and so all the men of Shechem were circumcised.

Then verse 25, He came about on the third day when they were in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers. So it’s not all the brothers, but the brothers are the four brothers of Dinah, not the half-brothers, the full brothers. Simeon and Levi take their sword, go into the city and slaughter every males in the city. It’s a gruesome Chapter, I mean sexual rape and now the slaughter of all the males that include Hamor and his son Shechem in verse 26 and then they take Dinah back into their household and they go and they plunder the city. Verse 27, they looted it, they took their flocks, their herds, their donkeys, everything in the city, in the fields, all their little ones, their wives, everything. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitance of the land, among the Canaanites, the Parasites. And my men being few in member. They are going to come and they are going to attack us and slaughter us and then what are we going to do? And Simeon and Levi’s responsible in verse 31, should he treat our sister like a harlot. When Jacob blesses his family in Chapter 49, he will pass over Simeon and Levi and he says it’s because of what they did here. Jacob reviews it as an act of rebellion against him going behind his back. So Jacob has again as he did with Laban been the object of deceit even as he had practiced deceit. But here God is using all of this. We get into this and say well is this right or wrong? Well the scripture doesn’t say it was right or wrong. Obviously, the rape of Dinah was wrong. But it was never God’s intention for his people to intermarry with the Canaanites. Furthermore, it was not his intention for his people to carry out the eventualistic program among the Canaanites. And ultimately, when he does bring them back as a nation into land, it will be to annihilate the Canaanites. So here you have the taste of what is to come.

Chapter 35, Jacob finally go to got back to Bethel, can’t stay here and thus God said to Jacob, arise, go to Bethel and live there where you should have gone in the first place. But there is a lesson to be learn here, There is danger for them in Canaan, and even what happens that Shechem will put a wall around Jacob and some distance from him and his family and the Canaanites around them and that will come out in this chapter. God said, arise, go to Bethel, live there, make an altar there to God, not in Shechem. Even though he had erected an altar there, but at Bethel, make an altar there to God who appeared to you when you fled for me your brother Esau, back in Chapter 28. Remember he slept there and saw the ladder and the angels ascending and descending. He set up a stone there and said God brought him back. Then he would worship God there and so on. So Jacob said to his household and all who are with him, put away the foreign Gods which were among you, purify yourselves and change your garments. Let us go to Bethel. Jacob recognizes that in his own family there are pagan gods and things that associate them with pagan worship. Even at this advanced stage, all the appearances of God to Jacob, Jacob having had his name changed to Israel as the one who strives with God and has won, but it’s true. Here he is telling his own family, you have to get rid of all the foreign gods, all the pagan gods, the earrings that evidently were associated with the worship of these pagan gods.

Verse 4, so they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which they had, the rings which were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the oak, which was near Shechem. So they gather as Rachel would have brought out the idols which she had stolen from her father Laban. Others who had these false god’s images to worship, the earrings which must have been associated in some way with the idols and they buried them at Shechem. Get rid of them. Now we can go to Bethel, prepare to worship the living God. As they journey in verse 5 there was a great terror up on the cities, which were around them and they did not pursue sons of Jacob. So God supernaturally intervenes. Jacob did need to be afraid of what the Canaanites would do. God put a fear and terror in the hearts of the Canaanites, so they don’t pursue them. They are afraid and Jacob and his family journey to Bethel, which was known as Luz. He built an altar there and called place El-Bethel, the God of Bethel, it’s the house of God. The God of the house of God. Because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. Note here that Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse died and we have no indication of why that’s brought up here. Interestingly Rebecca’s nurse died, there is no account of the death of Rebecca in the Bible. Later we will tell that her and Isaac are buried in the same tomb and the indication which will almost all commentators take to be the case as she is dead by the time Jacob comes back because there is a talk about meeting his father, but he is not mention of Rebecca at all. She is evidently died, that’s unusual. Abraham’s wife Sarah, her death is recorded in burial. Jacob’s prime wife Rachel and her death and burials recorded. Rebecca just face out of the seen after she sends Jacob away and there is a reference to the fact, she was buried where Isaac will be buried. But we have not records of her death. We don’t know how Deborah came to be here. When did she join Jacob? She would be quite elderly at this point. She could have been 107. Isaac’s going to live to 180 and they have been upon hearing of him coming to Bethel, she has come up to see him because she would have been like his nanny because she was his mother’s nurse and so she would been caring for him. But it’s insulted him at any rate.

We have told about Deborah and we are reminded of Rebecca and then in verses 9 and following, God again appears to Jacob repeatedly, through these chapters about Jacob, God has appeared to Jacob. He appeared to Jacob, he appeared to Jacob. God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan Aram and he blessed him. He said, God said to him your name is Jacob, you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name. Thus he called him Israel. So reiteration, we have already been told the significance of that and how in more detail he came to get the name. God also said to him, I am God of almighty, be fruitful and multiply a nation and a company of nation shall come from you. King shall come forth from you. The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you. I will give the land to your decedents after you. The reiteration Chapter 12 of Genesis, Chapter 15, Chapter 17, chapter 22, Chapter 28, repeated reinforcement of the Abrahamic covenant and its promises. And you will note, each of these account we are told the land, the land, the land. That is part of the promises given to Abraham talking about, they can spiritualize these promises. They will say well there is no future for Israel, all these reiterated promises, the land goes to your descendants doesn’t really mean the land goes your decedents. I get concerned if that’s the way you can handle scripture. I wonder of heaven will really be my home. I mean what happens if down the road your God changes his mind and wipes out the promises? Oh well, He wouldn’t do that. Well what makes to think He will change the promises given to Israel? You get the land. You get the land. How many times does God have to say something before we think God means it? But we could go through the Old Testament and find again and again and again. God reiterates the land, the land, the land belongs to Israel. And here we have people say, there is not future for Israel, now the land will be there, that will be making God a lair. So these reiterations make us to think oh is he keep repeating it? Why? Here we are. Thousands of years after this and there are people saying that there is no future for Israel. I don’t know this time but generally I am talking about by people who are believes. First believe the word of God, salvation is by grace to faith. They were guarding the nation Israel. They don’t believe there is any future for the nation. I shake my head and say how many times does God have to say something. He gives more promises to Israel regarding the land and he does me for heaven. So I believe that Israel is going to get the land. None of the promises of God are worth the paper they are written on. I say this with respect, if God is not going to do what he promised to Israel. So the repetition is not just meaningless repetition. It is important in the promises are reiterated here.

Down in verse 18, we come through this Chapter. Verse 13 God went up from him in the place he has spoken with him. Jacob set up a pillar in the place. He has spoken with him, poured out a drink offering, poured oil on it and Jacob called this place Bethel. So it has been reiterated as it was and it’s keeping the promise he mad when he was here in Chapter 28, leaving the land with nothing, but is stealth. God has brought him back and reiterated the promises. Verses 16 and following you have recorded Rachel’s death and Isaac’s death. It is their traveling now from Bethel, they are going down to Bethlehem Ephrath where we have Bethlehem. Verse 19 will tell us that. Rachel is giving birth to a child and she dies in childbirth. Verse 18, it came about as her soul was departing for she died, she named him Benoni, son of my sorrow. But Jacob called him Benjamin, son of my right hand. You know, it is the time of sorrow for Rachel, but it is a bless in the loss of wife. So Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath, that is the Bethlehem. He set a pillar over her grave and that’s the pillar of Rachel’s grave to this day. Then Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent. Now you see, now we talk about Jacob, we also talk about Ms. Israel. Verse 15, Jacob named place where God has spoken with him Bethel. Verse 20, Jacob set a pillar over her grave. Verse 21, then Israel journeyed on because some of the references we call him Jacob, some of the references we call him Israel.

Verse 22. Another sad occasion that while Israel was growling in that land, Reuben went in and lied with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. Sad occasion. There are no details given on many of these accounts, you know, we are just told the highlights. We are not told Rachel’s reaction to being pregnant with Benjamin as we did when her first son was born. Some of these things now we just get highlights. Here Reuben goes is. Well, what kind of man is Reuben. Later in the story he is going to seem to have some character, but here he commits an awful sin. For this he will forfeit the right of being the first born and receiving blessings.
]
Turn over to Chapter 49 of Genesis. Chapter 49, when Jacob blesses his 12 sons in Chapter 49 verse 3. Reuben, you are the firstborn, my might, the beginning of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power, uncontrolled as water, you shall not have preeminence. In other word, you have forfeited the right of the first born because you went up to you father’s bed, then you defiled and you went up to my couch.. Turn over the first Chronicles, Chapter 5, verse 1, now the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, going to talk about Reuben’s family, but there is a parenthesis here. Reuben, the firstborn of Israel meaning Jacob, for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the sons of Israel. And remember Joseph had two sons, they are blessed and so the double blessing goes to Joseph rather than to Reuben. So that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright. And here is further explanation. Though Judah prevailed over his brothers and from him came the leader, yet the birthright belongs to Joseph. So interesting how things develop here. I mean Judah is the preeminent son and the tribe of Judah becomes prominent and Jesus comes in the tribe of Judah, but you understand the birthright is passed on to Joseph and he gets the double portion by Jacob giving a portion to each of Joseph’s sons. A double portion is given to him. So that’s punishment that Reuben receives for his gross sin here.

Back in Chapter 35, verses 23 to 26, you have named again the 12 sons of Jacob according to their mothers. The Sons of Leah were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. So you see Leah is a very prominent and important person even though she did not experience the same affection from her husband as Rachel did. Rachel bears Joseph and dies with the birth of Benjamin. Then we go to the concubines, the maids of these wives, the sons Bilhah Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Zilpah Gad and Asher. We have the 12 tribes. These are significant men, are reunion with Isaac. Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, that is Hebron where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. So a reunion with his father after all these years. There is no mention of Rebecca and all are agreed she must have passed away by this time. So just be mentioned again regarding being Isaac will be buried where Rebecca is. The days of Isaac were 180 years, Isaac breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, a man of ripe old age and his sons of Isaac and Jacob buried him.

Now you have note something here. The death of Isaac is recorded here. But this is a summary of something will happen in the future. Isaac is going to live about 12 and 13 more years. He will come back into the picture. But you have a summary here because he doesn’t play a significant role in the ongoing story. We are about to move on to Joseph. God’s working with Joseph. We will have Esau and his family in Chapter 36.who is important only because the decedents of Esau’s become major enemies and opponents of Israel. But then in Chapter 37, we are going to pick up the account of Joseph, but Isaac is not out of the picture here. So we are told that Jacob’s reunited with his father Isaac and the Isaac will live a total of 180 years and then we he dies at a rippled age, his sons will bury him. But just keep in mind, he didn’t die at the end of Chapter 35. We have a summary of what will come up. Isaac will be alive when Joseph is sold into slavery into Egypt. But these things are not brought up as part of the story that the Bible doesn’t delve into, you know the impact, we find out impact on Jacob, but what about the impact on this elderly grandfather and it’s not in the picture. But he is going to come up later in the story. The account moves on, just getting the highlights. Jacob stands out as a mighty man. A man blessed with multiple revelations form God. A man given a unique experience of wrestling with a preincarnate Christ physically through the night and hanging on till he receives the blessing that he desperately desired from God. We now have the 12 sons with the birth of Benjamin. And we have the 12 tribes. They will be absolutely essential. The tribes of Israel develop out of these men and we get to the end of time. We come to the Book of Revelation, we are going to find what? Revelation 7. 12000 sealed from each of the 12 tribes of the Israel. These sons of Jacob give their names to the nation. And the purpose of plans of God continue. We read the Book of Genesis, going back so long and you know where 1800 years 2000 years before Christ in the times of the patriarchs, so close to 4000 years later. These descendants of Jacob, these 12 sons, their descendants d play a major role in the world.

When we come to Chapter 36.you will see something of Esau and his family and the problems of their descendants will continue to be for the Jews. They will reoccur throughout Old Testament history. We will see some of that. God is sovereign. His promises are assured. I am greatly encouraged to see him repeat again and again and again the covenant promises that he gave to Abraham, reiterated to Isaac, he reiterated to Jacob. I am glad in spite of the fact these men had feet of clay in many ways. The promises of God were set and sure and secure because they depend up on God’s faithfulness, not Abraham’s faithfulness, not Isaac’s faithfulness, not Jacob’s faithfulness. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t faithful in any ways. But we also see manifestations in their life of unfaithfulness. But God has faithfulness, so the promises secure and you and I hold on to those same promises, the promises that centered in Abraham. We are not in the Jewish line of those promises. But we are in the line of those promises that these Jews and the descendent of Abraham Isaac and Jacob ultimately Christ. All the nations of the earth will be blessed. And we look forward to the time when Israel will enter into the fullness of the blessings God’s provided to them, and we will rule and reign with the Jews Messiah when he established his kingdom.

Let’s pray together. Thank you Lord. For your work of grace in the life of Jacob, the sovereign work that You are accomplishing, Lord over many years through many trials and difficulties. Your hand was upon him for the accomplishing of your purposes, for the fulfilling of your promises. God, we are reminded again of Your greatness. Lord we are greatly comforted and greatly encouraged to know that You are a God who cannot lie, You are a God who cannot fail and the failures of men cannot bring about the failure of Your promises. And we recognize that we are saved by grace, we will live by grace, and we will enter into all the fullness of all that You have promised to us as the church, the bride of Christ because of Your grace. And Lord that would motivate us with a greater desire to be faithful to you. And we look forward to the ultimate culmination of all the promises given to Israel and given to us. We praise you in Christ’s name. Amen.