WEEKLY SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
An international Sunday school lesson commentary
For Sunday November 25, 2018
Over 180,000 readers worldwide
larrydalexander.blogspot.com
GOD’S BLESSING
(GOD works through difficult circumstances)
(Genesis 30)
In Genesis chapters 30-31,
GOD begins to set the stage for Jacob’s decision to return to the “Promised
Land” of Canaan. Competition between Leah and Rachel for Jacob’s affections now
intensifies as Rachael, who is down four babies to none, decides to get into
the game by giving Jacob her maidservant, Bilhah to wed and bear him a son
through her. Rachel, by now, had become so frustrated that she had begun to
blame Jacob for her barrenness. This, of course, was ridiculous, and her silly
accusations angered Jacob very much. He then reminded his beloved Rachel that
only GOD has power over childbirth.
And so her maidservant slept with Jacob and became pregnant, and bore
him a son, and Rachel named the boy “Dan”, which comes from the Hebrew word
“dananni”, which means “GOD has vindicated me”. Then Bilhah became pregnant
again and gave Jacob a second son, and Rachel called his name, “Naphtali” from
the Hebrew word “niptalti”, which means “I fought”, because she fought with her
sister, Leah.
Leah, now realizing that she wasn’t getting pregnant anymore, decided to
use her sister’s strategy and she gave her maidservant, Zilpah, to Jacob to wed
and bear him children in her stead. Zilpah became pregnant and bore Jacob yet
another son, and she named the boy, “Gad”, which means in the Hebrew,
“fortune”, because it expressed “how fortunate she felt she was” to have so
many sons. Then Zilpah bore Jacob another son, whom she named “Asher”, which
means “blessing”, and so the name expressed “the joy that Leah felt” to have
given Jacob six sons.
Now a “mandrake is the root of a plant, historically found
in the Mediterranean region where Jacob and his family lived at that time. The
plants from which the root is obtained are also called "mandrakes".
Mediterranean mandrakes are perennial herbaceous plants with ovate leaves
arranged in a rosette, with a thick upright root, that is often branched. It
blooms bell-shaped flowers and ultimately produces yellow or orange berries.
Because
mandrakes contain “halucenogenic tropane alkaloids”, and the shape of their
roots often resembles human figures, they have been associated with a variety
of superstitious practices throughout history. For centuries mandrakes have
been used in witchcraft and magic rituals, and, as a fertility drug, and in
many cases, by ordinary people as an aphrodisiac. Even today mandrakes are still
used in pagan traditions such as Wicca and Odinism.
Here in this passage of Genesis it is both Leah’s, and Rachel’s obvious intent,
to use mandrakes as either a fertility enhancement, or, at the very least, as
an aphrodisiac so that they can bear more children for Jacob. Here in verse 14,
we see Reuben stumbling upon some mandrake plants while he was harvesting the wheat
fields. Knowing what these plants were used for, he brought some to his mother,
Leah, as an offering to give her a leg up, if you will, on Rachel in the
ongoing baby-making contest.
When Rachel, who was more enamored by paganistic practices than Leah,
saw Leah with the plants, she begged her to give some to her, but Leah angrily
replied, “NO! Wasn’t it enough that you stole my husband? Now will you steal my
son’s mandrake roots too?” Not giving up that easy, a desperate Rachel offered
Leah her appointed night with Jacob, if she would give her the mandrake roots,
and it is on those terms that Leah finally agreed.
That evening as Jacob was coming home from the fields, Leah went out to
meet him to tell him that she had traded some mandrakes to Rachel in exchange
for her appointed night with him. And so Jacob slept with Leah that night and
she became pregnant with her fifth son, and she named him “Issachar” which is
derived from the Hebrew word “skartika” which means “my hire”. This suggests
that she felt that GOD had blessed her with another son because she gave her
servant girl, Zilpah, to Jacob for a wife (v.18). However, GOD was actually
trying to show her that it is “HE”, not “mandrakes and witchcraft”, that have
power over the births of, not just all people, but indeed, as we shall eventually
see in this chapter, over animals, and, all things that come into this world.
To prove HIS point further that HE has power over childbirth, GOD allows
Leah, who didn’t eat the mandrakes, to become pregnant again by Jacob, and she
bore him another son and called his name “Zebulun” which means “honor”, because
she felt that now Jacob would finally honor her the way she thought he should.
Later she also gave birth to a girl, and she named her Dinah.
Meanwhile Rachael, who ate the mandrakes, had not become pregnant
anymore for about three years at that point, and it was because GOD was also
showing her HIS sovereignty over childbirth. Apparently after she had learned
her lesson by watching Leah give birth to three more children, without the aid
of mandrakes and witchcraft, she repents and GOD, as a result of her repent,
shows her mercy after she prayed to HIM for HIS help. Here GOD finally allows Rachel to become
pregnant and she bore her first son for Jacob, and she named him “Joseph”.
And so GOD took away the disgrace of Rachel’s attempt to use witchcraft
to produce children for herself, and, after she repented, GOD finally gave her
a son of her own flesh. And the name “Joseph” which suggests “another son”,
shows her faith in GOD that he would deliver to her, yet again, another son, in
the future (Benjamin).
JACOB’S WEALTH INCREASES
Genesis 30:25-43
It was not long after
Joseph was born that Jacob told Laban that he was ready to go back home to
Canaan. However Laban, not wanting Jacob to leave, because of how rich he had
become since Jacob had been there (Vs.29-30), begged Jacob to stay, and in
fact, offered him to “name his own price”.
However,
despite the great offer by Laban, Jacob declined it, and then, he came up with
a suggestion of his own, which actually has him going back to work for Laban
for “a percentage of the gate” as we might say here in 21st century
vernacular. Here in this passage Jacob requests that Laban;
“Don’t
give me anything at all (in other words “open up the door, I’ll get it myself”).
Just do one thing, and I’ll go back to work for you. Let me go out among your
flocks today and remove all the sheep and goats that are “speckled” or
“spotted”, along with all the dark colored sheep. Give them to me as my wages.
This will make it easy for you to see whether or not I have been honest. If you
find in my flock any white sheep or goats that are not speckled, you will know
that I have stolen them from you”.
Speckled
animals and dark colored animals were much more of a rarity among sheep and
goat, than white ones were, at least in those days, and so here in verses
34-36, we see Laban pounce on that offer, seeing only advantages for himself.
Also, Laban, being the crook that he was, quickly came up with a scheme to
cheat Jacob out of his newly “agreed to” wages. Here he greedily, and
connivingly, sends his sons out into the fields to remove all of the existing
speckled, spotted, and dark colored animals out of the flocks, and then, drive
them three-day’s journey away from where they lived, so Jacob would not find
them.
However, Jacob, whether or not he realized it at the time, had come up
with a plan that ultimately, can only be controlled by GOD. His plan relied
solely on “birth”, something that I said earlier, “Only GOD can control”. And even
though Jacob would use “witchcraft” (Vs.37-43) as a part of his plan, and may
have thought at the time, that it was what was going to do the trick for him,
later on (Genesis 31:7-12) we’ll see him confess that it was not his “human
ingenuity” or expert use of witchcraft and tricky, and nor, was it his use of
“selective breeding” (Vs.41-42), that caused his success, but rather, it was
“GOD’s OWN Divine Intervention” that extricated him from Laban’s web of deceit.
Stay tuned.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official Website
No comments:
Post a Comment