“Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me.” Psalm 139:5     

Back in the 1930’s there was a popular nighttime radio show called One Man’s Family. That title would be an appropriate label for the whole second half of the book of Genesis. The latter 25 chapters of the Bible’s first book of fifty chapters focus on one man, Jacob, the younger brother of Esau, his multiple wives and his family of twelve sons and one daughter, Dinah. 

So many primitive characteristics and qualities of character found in all humans are so clearly dramatized in this lengthy story, it could be helpful to summarize at least some of them. The prejudices and preferences of the parents, godly people though they were, seem to have encouraged a spirit of competition, an effort so highly esteemed among men, but so deadly to true spiritual life and progress. Isaac doted on Esau, the elder; while Rebekah favored Jacob.

Esau is presented as an undisciplined intimidator; his younger brother, a conniving manipulator. Most of us are familiar with the stories of Jacob first conning his brother out of his birthright, then later deceiving his faltering father in order to obtain the special blessing reserved to the eldest son by the right of primogeniture. Esau’s rash vow to murder Jacob forces the younger son to flee the country and take risky refuge with his uncle, Laban. For twenty years Jacob reaps to himself what he has sown. His mother’s brother affords him the same sort of deception that Jacob had perpetrated on his own immediate family. But all the while God’s hand is upon him – promising Jacob better things to come, protecting him from Laban’s threats and connivens, prospering him in all that he undertakes.

Finally, God calls this unwilling prodigal back to his ancestral home in Canaan. But taking leave of Mesopotamian Padan-Aram; removing his expanding family and multitudinous possessions from the influence of his domineering, possessive uncle places Jacob “be­twixt the Devil and the deep blue sea”. Like the Psalmist he can rightly exclaim: “Thou hast beset me behind and before” (Psalm 139:5). Trying to slip away from his uncle by stealth, Laban and his fiery sons pursue him with a vengeance. Up ahead awaits his cheated, offended and disgruntled brother, Esau, who still might have murder in his eyes! Here God intervenes mightily on Jacob’s behalf. In a dream He warns Laban not to harm his fleeing nephew. Crossing over into the land of promise this prosperous son of Isaac is graced with a personal, powerful encounter with the God who had revealed Himself to him many years before at Bethel.

Jacob emerges from this supernatural contest defeated and surrendered, but a new man with a new name, Israel, meaning “God Commands”. Miraculously, all is forgiven between Esau and Jacob. The elder brother graciously accepts the peace offering proffered by the younger. The new man, Israel, deftly disentangles himself from any dealings or further dependence on either uncle or brother. At long last Jacob finally strikes out on his own a free man, the lord and master of his own personal family and possessions. Down deep, though, he knew he was a dead man. Laban could have easily snuffed out his life. Esau might have greeted him with a dagger between the ribs instead of a fraternal hug. But now Israel was a new man, the past was all behind. He didn’t exactly come racing into Shechem ready to carve out a whole new, independent existence for himself and his progeny. He knew he was a dead man walking; well, limping, to remind him of the serious implications of his surrender to God.

In Hebrew, the word shechem means “a ridge”. It also signifies the neck and shoulders as the place for a yoke to bear heavy burdens. Spiritually, often when we think that we are “all set”; the truth of the matter is that we are really “all wet”. Jacob-Israel settled in Shechem, a place of his own choosing, still exulting in his favored position with God. He had made his peace with God but was unaware he had still yet to reap so much of what he had sown.

The noted British bible expositor, Oswald Chambers, explains it this way:

“In the meeting with Esau and the marvelous experience of reconciliation with him Jacob had an expansion of heart, but he did not pay for it afterward in concentration. He lived loosely in the exalted peace of the expanded life, and suddenly a terrible tragedy breaks up the whole thing.

“In our personal lives every expansion of heart … must be paid for by watchfulness; if it is not, looseness, ending in moral collapse, is sure to result. Because people do not under­stand the way they are made, havoc is produced in the lives of those who really have had times with God and have experienced expansions of heart. But they have forgotten to.

“In our personal lives every expansion of heart … must be paid for by watchfulness; if it is not, looseness, ending in moral collapse, is sure to result. Because people do not under­stand the way they are made, havoc is produced in the lives of those who really have had times with God and have experienced expansions of heart. But they have forgotten to concentrate, and the general feeling of looseness is a sure sign that God’s presence has gone.

“Jacob settled down in the peace of Shechem. Dinah went to hell, and her brothers to the Devil. Then God spoke to Jacob. If you forget to concentrate on God, the thing that happened in Jacob’s domestic life on the big scale will happen in your bodily life on the narrow scale. The vision of what God wants must be paid for by concentration on your part; if it is not, in come ‘the little foxes’, in come a hundred and one things that were never there before and down you go. It is not that these things may happen; they will happen as sure as God is God, unless you watch and pray – that is, unless you concentrate until you are confirmed in the ways of God.” (Knowing Not Whither, The Story of Abraham, published by Christian Literature Crusade, Ft. Washington, PA)

For all that he had gone through; for all he had learned and been delivered from; for all the very real encounters with the Living God and the deep life-changes these had affected, Israel – a name and a reality that would bless the whole world – was yet to be confirmed in the ways of God! What more would it take? Further personal loss. His beloved wife, Rachel, dies in childbirth just outside of “the little town of Bethlehem” (Gen 35:19). Stricter obedience to God. “And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there; and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother”  (Gen 35:1). This command was tantamount to “go back to START!”

I still keep and treasure the stained and torn cover to a pad of stationery that was on the night table beside me when the Lord once spoke powerfully to my heart. The writing paper was called “Softouch Stationery”. In the middle of the night, I grabbed a felt pen and in the dark scribbled a most important word of wisdom the Lord had just imparted to me. “Do it right the first time without fear of personal error or other’s condemnation.” That precious word came to me more than two decades ago. Whenever I’ve been faithful to follow it, I have been spared mountains of difficulty and frustration.

Jacob also needed to be disabused of a fallacious fatalism: “Che sera, sera” (What will be, will be), as the Italians says. Going up to Bethel (house of God), dwelling in the presence of God, allows for a lot of things, but a laissez-faire attitude is not one of them. Another very early warning from the Lord keeps me examining my motives, intentions and attitudes when­ever and wherever I attend a prayer meeting. If I truly believe the Holy Ghost is present and moving among us when we come together in the name of Jesus, who am I to interrupt Him, let alone contradict or try to exploit His precious presence and awesome power? Besides starting all over again, the Lord demanded of Jacob that He pay more attention to and take stricter charge of his own family. “Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him,

– put away the strange gods that are among you;

– be clean;

– and change your garments” (Gen 35:2).

Jacob-Israel’s intimacy with God at Bethel would be a peaceful end to a turbulent saga; a satisfying scene of this patriarch being daily blessed by God and surrounded by his remaining loved ones, especially his favored sons, Joseph and Benjamin. But the drama does not end there. Like an intriguing mystery, the plot continues to thicken. I won’t give away the ending for those who haven’t yet read through the book of Genesis. I’ll simply close with a couple of lines from a highly respected bible teacher with the hope that his comments will spur the reader on to solve the Jacob-Israel mystery for himself. E.A. Bullinger remarks: “Thus the book of Genesis begins with God and ends with man. It begins with the creation of the heavens above, and ends with ‘a coffin in Egypt’.”