Robbing A Blessing Series

I began by stating that actions have consequences, making Jacob’s successful theft a mixed blessing at best. Outraged Esau intends to kill his scheming brother. The only thing holding him back is knowing the grief this would cause his father…but Isaac has told Esau that he didn’t think he would live much longer (verse 2). Esau could wait--then act. Not much escapes Rebekah, who learns of Esau’s murderous intentions and warns Jacob: “Your brother Esau is consoling himself with the thought of killing you” (42).

Jacob couldn’t stay home to enjoy his prosperity; so as the chapter closes, he departs under the false pretense of finding a suitable wife. He is maneuvered out of danger by his mother who plays on Isaac’s fear that Jacob might marry a Hittite. Jacob departs in haste, never to see his mother again, a painful separation for them both. Things would’ve been far different if mother and son trusted God’s watch-care. Jacob will endure 20 lonely years of exile and hard labor under his uncle Laban, who will trick him into marrying the wrong wife; and Jacob will be deceived by his own sons when they sell his favored son Joseph into slavery while claiming that he was killed by a wild animal. They stain Joseph’s coat-of-many-colors with goat’s blood, the very animal Jacob used to deceive his father. Jacob deceives with a goat and is later deceived by a goat. After all his trials, he confesses: “Few and full of trouble have been my days.” He got what he wanted but lost what he had.

We all need to be wary of becoming envious of others. We may start out wanting what they have, but then we want them not to have it. When we’re not content with life we can fall prey to the temptation of obtaining our desires in unethical ways that are not in line with God’s way. We lower our values when we’re consumed by selfish ambition.

Jacob got what he wanted by deceit. We might respond to this story by asking, “So, is it sometimes OK to lie?” I can think of a better question: “Is it ever not wrong to lie?” First we need to know whether there is such a thing as right-and-wrong. If there isn’t, then it hardly matters what anyone does. If there are no moral absolutes, do whatever you like. But if truth and morality are real, then it matters how we live. If we think God can’t intervene--that we can’t achieve our goals unless we lie--we don’t have the God of the Bible. There are no degrees of honesty; it is never right to do wrong, even with good intentions. Sin has a built-in punishment. Jacob receives “the liar’s punishment, which is not being able to believe anyone else” (Yancey). He assumes everyone he meets will be as devious as he (and many are).

God never approves of Jacob’s deception but allows Jacob to succeed in spite of his lack of character. We might object, but then back off when we examine our own lives. Should God be truly “fair”, none of us would be blessed. God in His grace gives us what we don’t deserve. God loves us as we are--not as we should be. We are all “unentitled beggars at the door of God’s mercy” (Manning). It’s hard to think of anyone less worthy of a blessing than devious Jacob. But because undeserving Jacob had the chutzpah to ask for God’s blessing, we may too.