Image: Ferdinand Bol, Jacob and Rachel, c. 1645-1650, Harvard Art Museums.
Note: Devotion based on last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 29.
Then Jacob went on his journey… And
he looked, and behold a well in a field…” (Genesis 29:1).
Genesis 29 continues the inspired
account of the Patriarch Jacob. He had been chosen by God to carry forward “the
blessing of Abraham” (28:4). If Jacob was going to fulfill these covenant
promises, then he must have a wife and he must have children. His father Isaac
had sent him to seek out a godly wife (28:1), and the LORD promised Jacob that
he would be with him (28:15). At the well where he “happened” to stop he will
meet Rachel, just as Abraham’s servant had met Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, by a
well.
Election is one of the great themes
of this narrative. God chooses Jacob and Jacob must choose a wife. Providence
is also one of the great themes of this narrative. God will provide for Jacob,
his chosen. I suggested as a title for this chapter, “The LORD’s provision for
Fallen Saints in a Fallen World.”
This is a post-Genesis 3 world, a
fallen world. Jacob is a fallen saint, with remaining corruptions within him. Some
of the things that transpire in this narrative fall short of God’s glory. God’s
design was for one man and one woman to be united in a one flesh union (see
Genesis 2:24), but Jacob will have two wives, sisters, Leah and Rachel, in his
household, as well as their respective maids.
The moralist has a hard time with a
passage like Genesis 29, because it is not some simplistic moral story in which
the protagonist always behaves in an upstanding manner. We need to make again
the distinction between the descriptive and the prescriptive.
Sinful actions are recorded here but not promoted.
The
overarching point here is that God is providing for him, and that provision
began with him stopping at a well. As Solomon will later record, “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth
his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). As one commentator put it:
We are too apt to forget our actual dependence on
Providence for the circumstances of every instant. The most trivial events may
determine our state in the world. Turning up one street instead of another may
bring us in company with a person whom we should not otherwise have met; and
this may lead to a train of other events which
may determine the happiness or misery of our lives” (R. Cecil as cited by
Currid, Genesis 2: 78).
And
what will be the end of Abraham’s line through Isaac and then Jacob? From him
will come David, and from David will come the LORD Jesus Christ (cf. Matthew
1:1: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of
Abraham”). God is working out his plan of salvation across many generations. He will
indeed provide most excellently for fallen saints in a fallen world.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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