Separate and United

DEVOTION

GENESIS

SEPARATE AND UNITED

Gen 31:43-55

43 Laban answered Jacob, "The women are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks. All you see is mine. Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about the children they have borne? 44 Come now, let's make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us." 45 So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. 46 He said to his relatives, "Gather some stones." So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap. 47 Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.   48 Laban said, "This heap is a witness between you and me today." That is why it was called Galeed. 49 It was also called Mizpah, because he said, "May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other. 50 If you mistreat my daughters or if you take any wives besides my daughters, even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me." 51 Laban also said to Jacob, "Here is this heap, and here is this pillar I have set up between you and me. 52 This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me. 53 May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac. 54 He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal. After they had eaten, they spent the night there. 55 Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then he left and returned home.

NIV

It is interesting after Jacob tells Laban he worked for him twenty years, fourteen for his two daughters and six for the flocks and still Laban claims his daughters, grandchildren and flocks are his, that all Jacob sees are Laban’s. He just dismissed all the labor Jacob did for the past twenty years as worthless, meaningless, without the right of any wages, or compensation. However, he also knows he can do nothing about it now. Jacob has gathered his own and is leaving and Laban cannot stop him. Still Laban uses the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to threaten Jacob. Although he chased them down to retrieve his gods, he uses Jacob’s God as a source to keep Jacob from taking any other wives. They make a covenant and Laban bids farewell to his daughters and grandchildren, blessing them and returns home. But our lesson is in the threat. From then to the present day God is referred to as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but not Laban. He had his own gods. He was a polytheist, or as some might call him, a pagan, or an unbeliever. Although he was from a line of Abraham’s brother, Nahor he did not have the same experience with God as Abraham did. So he maintained this polytheistic faith of his forefathers. Thus this unbeliever uses the God of a believer to threaten him. So often we find unbelievers expecting our behavior to be different than theirs and actually judge us by the standards of our God. They use our God in an effort to manipulate us for their own benefit. Laban used the God of Jacob to manipulate him into a treaty, an agreement. God is a witness between us. Jacob surely would keep his word before the Lord, but why would Laban, if he did not believe God was the one and only almighty God. What agreement can there be between God and Baal?

2 Cor 6:14-16

14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."  

NIV

It is not clear why Jacob agreed to this treaty, as he certainly knew Laban was not an honest, upright man. Yet we should be aware of not making treaties with unbelievers. We should not allow ourselves to be tricked into agreements with the world even when they use our God in an effort to make us form some sort of alliance. No, we are not like them, and we are not to enter into any agreement with them. Come out and be separate. Perhaps this was the motivation of Jacob. He may have thought this was his opportunity to come out from the influence of Laban and be separated from him forever. This should always be our goal, to be united with God and separate from the world.