Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Genesis · About this commentary
Flight, and the household gods
Genesis 31:1-21
1 Jacob heard Laban’s sons’ words, saying, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s. He has obtained all this wealth from that which was our father’s.” · WEB
Three signals tell Jacob to go, his wives agree for reasons of their own, and one of them takes her father's idols on the way out.
The decision to leave is prompted by three things arriving together, and the narrative gives them in ascending order of authority.
First, gossip. Laban's sons are saying Jacob has taken away all that was our father's — an accusation that is false in law and understandable in feeling, since the flocks did change hands.
Second, a face. Jacob saw the expression on Laban's face, and, behold, it was not toward him as before. Twenty years of reading a difficult man across a table, and he can see the weather changing.
Third, and decisive: Yahweh said to Jacob, "Return to the land of your fathers, and to your relatives, and I will be with you."
What follows is Jacob's account to his wives, and it is the most religious speech he has made. He credits nothing to himself. Laban deceived him and changed his wages ten times, but God didn't allow him to hurt me; and the flocks moved because God has taken away your father's livestock, and given them to me.
The dream he reports is the key to the previous chapter. An angel showed him the flocks and said I have seen all that Laban does to you, and identified himself: I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you vowed a vow to me. God is holding Jacob to a night twenty years earlier that Jacob has evidently not mentioned to anyone. The vow made by a frightened fugitive on a stone is being called in.
Rachel and Leah agree, and their reasoning is worth hearing because it is not piety. Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? Aren't we considered as foreigners by him? For he has sold us, and has also used up our money. They are describing the bride price — fourteen years of their husband's labor — which should have been held for them and which their father spent. The two sisters who have fought each other for a decade are united by a shared grievance against Laban, and their conclusion is unqualified: whatever God has said to you, do.
Then the departure, and the narrative places two sentences side by side without linking them.
Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father's. Household gods — small figures whose possession may have carried claims on inheritance, and which were in any case objects of worship. The covenant family is leaving for the promised land with idols in the baggage, and the wife of the patriarch put them there. Nobody in the chapter knows except her.
Jacob deceived Laban the Syrian, in that he didn't tell him that he was running away. The word is the family's word, used of Jacob at his father's bedside and by Jacob of Laban at the wedding, and here it is used of Jacob again. He is right to be afraid and he is still doing what he has always done, which is leave without saying so.
He crosses the river and sets his face toward Gilead — running, at last, in the right direction.
settled What this mark means