In Genesis 30:25-31:21 we read how Laban again tries to swindle Jacob. Laban learns by divination that he has prospered because of Jacob and so he wants to exploit this. So, although Jacob is keen to leave, Laban persuades him to stay telling him that he could name his own price. Jacob asks that he receive from Laban’s flocks only those animals which have certain markings on them – markings that would have been unusual for sheep and goats in that area. We are told in the next chapter that Jacob received this idea from God (31:10-13). Laban would have been delighted, thinking that Jacob had made a big mistake. And yet to make sure that Jacob loses out, he secretly removes all the marked and speckled animals from his flocks. But you simply can’t lose out when God has promised to bless you. It so happens that Laban’s flocks begin, unusually, to produce large numbers of young with the very markings that Jacob had specified. Laban was determined to defraud Jacob of his blessing but God’s determination to bless Jacob won the day. The fact that Jacob resorted, in the process, to a superstitious folk custom using the tree branches (vss.37-39), simply shows his faltering faith. But God blessed him anyway and, in the end, he acknowledges that God did it in spite of the fact that, like his grandmother before him, he tried to help God along (31:8-9). It’s amazing what blessing God can bring out of the most deplorable circumstances!
Ask God to bless you in your present circumstances.
Read Genesis 30:25 to 31:21
