Genesis 31 Study Notes

31:1-3 Jacob’s overwhelming success created deep resentment in Laban’s sons; their father’s loss meant less inheritance for them. It also changed Laban’s attitude to the point where Jacob no longer felt welcome. As the situation deteriorated, the Lord gave Jacob a command and a promise: he was to return to his clan and to the land promised to his grandfather (12:7), armed with the assurance that the Lord would be with him.

31:4-16 Jacob presented Rachel and Leah with three reasons for making a major move away from the only home they had ever known to a land they had never seen: (1) their father Laban had an unfavorable attitude toward Jacob; (2) Laban was unethical in business, having cheated Jacob and changed his wages ten times—almost every time a new generation of sheep and goats was born (there would have been about fourteen breeding cycles for sheep in six years); and (3) most important of all, the God who had taken their father’s herds and given them to Jacob had now ordered him to return to his native land . . . Rachel and Leah were agreeable to the idea since their father had treated them like “foreigners” (outsiders).

31:17-21 Jacob now began the journey back to the land of Canaan, to his father Isaac. Though he had left twenty years earlier alone and with no possessions, he now returned with a family and an abundance of property. Even as Jacob “stole the heart of” (deceived) Laban by leaving secretly, his wife Rachel had also stolen her father’s household idols (Hb teraphim). The group crossed the Euphrates in what is now Syria, then headed south for Gilead (part of modern Jordan).

31:22-30 Learning of Jacob’s secret departure, Laban gathered a posse and set out to catch the group. Laban intended to harm Jacob, probably because he believed Jacob had stolen his household gods, but the God of Jacob’s father kept the promise of protection made twenty years earlier (28:15) and warned Laban in a dream not to harm Jacob. Laban was frustrated not only because he had lost his household gods, but because he had no opportunity to kiss his grandchildren and . . . daughters good-bye and send the group off with a joyful celebration.

31:31-35 Jacob was apparently afraid that Laban would treat him as a slave and take his wives away by force (Ex 21:3-4). Ignorant of what his favorite wife Rachel had done, Jacob promised death for the person possessing Laban’s household gods. As shrewd and deceptive as her father Laban, Rachel prevented him from checking the saddlebags by claiming she was having her monthly period. During that phase of a woman’s monthly cycle, anything she sat on became ceremonially unclean and was not to be touched by others (Lv 15:26).

31:36-43 Jacob unleashed a torrent of pent-up anger at Laban, noting seven ways in which he had helped his father-in-law and labored selflessly on his behalf. Then Jacob confessed that Yahweh, the God of his grandfather Abraham, alternately known as the Fear of Isaac (vv. 42 and 53 are the only use of this term in the Bible), saw Jacob’s affliction, protected him from financial ruin, and issued a verdict on his behalf. In response, Laban expressed his disgust by insisting that everything Jacob had was rightfully his.

31:44-55 To end the dispute, Laban proposed that he and Jacob make a covenant that would bring peace and a separation between the Israelite (Jacob’s) and the Aramean (Laban’s) branches of the Terah clan. In classic ancient Near Eastern treaty tradition, the covenant-making event consisted of building a sacred stone and a mound (Jegar-sahadutha, or Galeed [“Mound of Witness”]), the calling of witnesses (the covenant itself, the marker, and the mound), a preliminary ceremonial meal, expression of the covenant terms, invocation of deities that would oversee the covenant (the God of Abraham, and the gods of Nahor), and a concluding ceremonial meal.