As a young fugitive, Jacob had encountered the God of his fathers at Bethel. He had been surprised by the magnificent revelation, saying, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not’, Gen. 28. 16. On that occasion he made a vow; if God would be with him, would keep him in the way he would go, would give him bread to eat and clothes to wear, so that he could return eventually to his father’s house in peace, ‘then shall the Lord be my God’, v. 21. In fairness, Jacob did promise to give back to God one tenth of what He had already given him!
If the arrangement seems to be rather one-sided, with the benefits all in one direction, it was probably because Jacob had nothing to give the Lord – except himself, and he was not prepared at this point to include that in the arrangement.
At least 20 years pass in Haran, Gen. 31. 38, 41. Jacob returns to Canaan and lives there until he is an old man. In the intervening years, he has lost the apple of his eye, Joseph, supposedly to a wild animal somewhere in the hill country of Samaria. Then to make matters worse, a famine hits the region, forcing his sons to travel to Egypt where some far-seeing public servant, anticipating the food shortage, has stored plenty of grain to survive the lean years.
But tragedy strikes again. Through a mix-up in making payment for their grain, his sons are forced to leave their brother Simeon in Egypt as guarantee until their return. But worse, the Egyptian ruler (before whom they bowed) having enquired about other family members, was insisting on their bringing Benjamin, Jacob’s last link with his beloved Rachel. ‘All these things are against me’, 42. 36, wailed the old man. Yet never were things more for Jacob than when he said that!
Had God forgotten to be gracious? Had the rash vow of his youth meant nothing to Him? Listen to Jacob’s testimony once restored to his sons in Egypt, ‘… the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, The Angel which redeemed me from all evil …’, 48. 15-16. No wonder, in the last view we have of him in Scripture, we read, ‘By faith, Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff’, Heb. 11. 21.
