Laban searches the tents
22 Laban was told on the third day that Jacob had fled. 23 He took his relatives with him, and pursued him seven days’ journey. He overtook him in the mountain of Gilead. 24 God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.” 25 Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain, and Laban with his relatives encamped in the mountain of Gilead. 26 Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword? 27 Why did you flee secretly, and deceive me, and didn’t tell me, that I might have sent you away with mirth and with songs, with tambourine and with harp; 28 and didn’t allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have done foolishly. 29 It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.’ 30 Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?” 31 Jacob answered Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I said, ‘Lest you should take your daughters from me by force.’ 32 Anyone you find your gods with shall not live. Before our relatives, discern what is yours with me, and take it.” For Jacob didn’t know that Rachel had stolen them. 33 Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two female servants; but he didn’t find them. He went out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent. 34 Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt around all the tent, but didn’t find them. 35 She said to her father, “Don’t let my lord be angry that I can’t rise up before you; for I’m having my period.” He searched, but didn’t find the teraphim. 36 Jacob was angry, and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? 37 Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, that they may judge between us two. 38 “These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not cast their young, and I haven’t eaten the rams of your flocks. 39 That which was torn of animals, I didn’t bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. 40 This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes. 41 These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. 42 Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”
A furious pursuit is disarmed by a dream before it arrives, the search finds nothing, and Jacob finally says twenty years' worth out loud.
Laban gets the news on the third day and pursues for seven, which measures both his speed and his anger. And before he can use either, God intervenes: Be careful that you don't speak to Jacob either good or bad.
The warning is the reason the confrontation stays a confrontation. Laban says so himself, and the admission is remarkable: It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night. He had the men and the intent and was stopped by a dream, and he tells his victim as much to his face.
His opening speech is a performance of injury. He complains that he was denied a farewell party — with mirth and with songs, with tambourine and with harp — from a man who has just admitted he meant harm. And then the real question, which he has been carrying for seven days: why have you stolen my gods?
Jacob answers both charges. The flight was from fear that Laban would take his daughters by force. And on the theft he is emphatic and, as it turns out, reckless: Anyone you find your gods with shall not live. The narrator adds the line that makes the rest of the scene unbearable: For Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen them. He has pronounced a death sentence on his favorite wife.
The search is described tent by tent, which draws it out — Jacob's, Leah's, the two servants', and finally Rachel's. And Rachel, sitting on a camel saddle with her father's gods inside it, does not move: Don't let my lord be angry that I can't rise up before you; for I'm having my period.
The scene is doing something beyond the comedy of a man rummaging through cushions. The gods that Laban divined by and pursued for a week across a mountain range are underneath a woman who cannot be asked to stand, and they cannot make themselves known. Their owner cannot find them, and they cannot help him.
Then the search fails, and Jacob loses his temper — the first time in twenty years — and the speech that comes out is the best thing he says in the book.
It is an itemized account of two decades. The ewes did not miscarry. He did not eat the rams. When an animal was killed by predators he bore the loss himself rather than producing the carcass as the law of that world allowed — Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. He worked in drought by day and frost by night and did not sleep. Fourteen years for two daughters, six for the flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.
And he ends where he began, giving the credit away: Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.
God has seen. It is the third time in Genesis that phrase carries the weight of a whole life — Hagar's God who sees, Yahweh seeing that Leah was hated, and now twenty years of unpaid labor.
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