Genesis 29:10

Jacob left home as a fugitive. He had taken his father’s blessing by deceit (Genesis 27), Esau had vowed to kill him, and Rebekah sent him away to her brother Laban until Esau’s anger cooled (Genesis 27:41–45). Isaac gave the journey a second purpose. Jacob was to go to Padan-aram and take a wife from his mother’s family, and keep clear of the daughters of Canaan (Genesis 28:1–2), just as Abraham had sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac among his own kindred (Genesis 24:3–4).

On the way, at Bethel, God met him in a dream of a ladder joining earth and heaven, and renewed to him the promises given to Abraham and Isaac: the land, offspring beyond counting, and God’s own presence and protection (Genesis 28:10–22). Jacob set up a pillar, named the place Bethel, “house of God”, and vowed to serve the LORD.

Genesis 29:1 is his first step after that promise. The Hebrew says that Jacob “lifted up his feet”, using nâsâʼ, a verb meaning to lift, bear or carry, and the English “went on his journey” gives the sense. He goes on at once, with God’s word behind him. His name, Yaʻăqôb, means “heel-catcher” or “supplanter”, and his life so far had matched it. God would one day rename him Israel, the one who wrestled with God and with men and prevailed (Genesis 32:28), and the years in Haran that begin here are part of the shaping that leads there.

“The land of the people of the east” is a general name for the lands of Mesopotamia, where Haran lay. “People” translates bên, “son”, so the Hebrew reads “the sons of the east”, meaning those who lived there. Jacob came to them across hundreds of miles of rough country, alone. He was leaving the land God had promised, as Israel would later leave it in exile and be brought back, and he went because God had sent him. Eleven of the twelve sons who become the tribes of Israel will be born in this land, so the promise of a great nation, first given when God called Abraham (Genesis 12:1–9), begins here to come true in numbers.

Scripture says that the steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD (Psalm 37:23–24), and that a man’s heart devises his way while the LORD directs his steps (Proverbs 16:9). Jacob’s flight began in his own sin, and God turned it to his purpose, as he works all things together for good to them that love him (Romans 8:28).

Jacob’s first sight in the new land is a well. “And he looked” uses râʼâh, the ordinary verb for seeing, and the little word hinneh, “behold” or “lo”, points to what he saw. The well (bᵉʼêr) stands in the field (sâdeh), open grazing land, and three flocks are lying beside it. The verb râbats means to lie down or stretch out, as animals do at rest. Two words stand behind “flocks of sheep”: ʻêder, a flock, herd or drove, which Strong’s explains as a muster of animals, and tsôʼn, the collective word for a flock of sheep and goats. Three flocks meant three shepherds or households drawing on one well.

Then comes the detail the story turns on: “a great stone was upon the well’s mouth.” The stone, ʼeben, is gâdôwl, great in size, and it lies on the well’s peh, the word for a mouth, used here of the well’s opening.

Verse 3 describes how the well was used each day. All the flocks gathered, the shepherds rolled the stone away, watered the sheep, and put the stone back. “Rolled” is gâlal, “to roll”. “Watered” is shâqâh, to give to drink. “Put again” is shûwb, to turn back or return, and “in his place” is mâqôwm, a place or spot. The words “the well’s mouth” come twice in verse 3, because the whole routine turned on opening the well and closing it again.

Jacob speaks first. “My brethren” uses ʼâch, “brother”, a word Hebrew uses in the widest sense: for blood relatives, for kinsmen, and as a courteous way to address other men. Here it is a friendly opening between strangers. “Whence be ye?” is a traveller’s practical question, and the answer, “Of Haran are we”, tells him he has arrived. Chârân is the name of both a man and a place, and it means “parched”. Haran was a well-known city of Mesopotamia on the routes travellers took from Canaan, and Abraham’s family had lived there before they went on to Canaan.

His next question narrows the search: “Know ye Laban the son of Nahor?” The verb yâdaʻ, “to know”, covers everything from simple acquaintance to close, personal knowledge, and the shepherds’ “We know him” means they know who Laban is and where to find him. Lâbân is the same as the Hebrew word for “white”. Laban was Rebekah’s brother (Genesis 24:29) and so Jacob’s uncle, and for the next twenty years he will be the central figure of Jacob’s life, first as a welcoming relative and then as a shrewd and deceiving master.

Jacob, who knew flocks himself, sees sheep lying by a well in the middle of the day and says so: “Lo, it is yet high day.” “Lo” is hên, an interjection like “look!” The Hebrew of “high day” says “the day is yet great”, with gâdôwl, the word used for the great stone in verse 2, and yôwm, “day”. Hours of daylight remained before evening, the usual time for gathering flocks for the night, so Jacob tells the shepherds to water the sheep and take them back to graze. “Water ye” is shâqâh again, and “feed them” is râʻâh, to tend a flock, pasture it and care for it. Between them these two verbs sum up a shepherd’s daily work.

Jacob’s eye for daylight that could be used echoes words Jesus spoke of his own work: “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4). Paul likewise tells believers to walk wisely, redeeming the time (Ephesians 5:15–16).

“And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep: for she kept them.” The word for “yet” is ʻôwd, “still”, and “spake” is dâbar, “to speak”, so Jacob was still in the middle of the conversation when she arrived. “Kept” is râʻâh, the same verb as “feed” in verse 7. Rachel was her father’s shepherdess, doing the daily work of the household. Daughters of prominent families did such work, and watering the flocks was often done by women, as Rebekah had once done.

Wells are where several of Scripture’s great meetings take place. Abraham’s servant met Rebekah at a well outside the city of Nahor, and blessed the LORD who had led him in the way to his master’s family (Genesis 24:10–27). Moses, a fugitive in Midian, met Zipporah and her sisters at a well and married her (Exodus 2:15–21). At Jacob’s own well, centuries later, Jesus offered a Samaritan woman living water (John 4:5–26).

Jacob’s journey ends where the journey of Abraham’s servant ended, at a well, among Nahor’s family, with God ordering the hour. The promise God made to Isaac (Genesis 26:3–4) and then to Jacob is at work in a talk with strangers: “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of” (Genesis 28:15).

Verse 10 names “Laban his mother’s brother” three times in verse 10: Rachel is his daughter, the sheep are his, and the flock Jacob waters is his. Everything Jacob sees tells him he has found his mother’s family. He “went near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth”, with the same verb gâlal the shepherds had used, and the same stone they said must wait for all the flocks. Jacob moves it himself, at once, and waters Laban’s sheep.

The act shows his strength and his readiness, and it is a service to his kin before he has said a word about who he is. It is also the first work Jacob does for Laban’s flocks, and many years of such work lie ahead, given for love of Rachel (Genesis 29:20–30).

“And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.” His tears came from a long and lonely road ending among his own people. They held relief at arriving safely after his flight, joy at finding his mother’s family and Rachel herself, and thankfulness to the God who had promised at Bethel to keep him on the way.

“Kissed” is nâshaq, to kiss, which Strong’s also gives as “to touch”, and a kiss was the usual greeting among relatives, as Laban’s kiss in verse 13 shows. “Lifted up” is nâsâʼ, the same verb as “went on” in verse 1, where Jacob lifted up his feet. The man who lifted his feet to go now lifts his voice on arriving. “Wept” is bâkâh, to weep, bemoan or lament, an outward act, and with “lifted up his voice” it means Jacob wept aloud.

This first meeting begins a love that will shape the rest of his life. “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing” (Proverbs 18:22), and “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy” (Psalm 126:5–6).

“Told” stands twice in verse 12: Jacob told Rachel who he was, and she ran and told her father. The verb is nâgad, to declare or report to someone face to face. Jacob calls himself “her father’s brother” with ʼâch, the word behind “brethren” in verse 4. He was Laban’s nephew, and ʼâch covers any close kinsman. “Rebekah’s son”, with bên again, settles exactly who he is. For a stranger, his family was his claim to welcome, protection and a place in the household, and Rachel runs home with the news.

Laban “heard the tidings of Jacob his sister’s son”. The verb shâmaʻ is to hear with attention and understanding, and the “tidings” are shêmaʻ, a report. Four actions follow quickly. He ran to meet him, embraced him (châbaq, to clasp in an embrace), kissed him, and brought him to his house. Years later Esau will run to meet Jacob and embrace him in the same way. In Laban’s house Jacob “told Laban all these things”, where “things” is dâbâr, a word, matter or affair. He would have told of his flight from Esau, of God’s promises at Bethel, and of why he had come.

Scripture holds hospitality in honour: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2).

“Surely thou art my bone and my flesh.” “Surely” is ʼak, which makes the statement emphatic. ʻEtsem, “bone”, and bâsâr, “flesh”, which also means body and kin, together name the closest kinship. Adam said it first, of Eve: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). The tribes of Israel said it to David when they came to make him king, “Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh” (2 Samuel 5:1), and Abimelech used it to win the men of Shechem to his side (Judges 9:2). Laban owns Jacob as his own family, with the duty of care that goes with it.

“And he abode with him the space of a month.” The verb yâshab means to sit down, and so to dwell or remain. A month was a customary span of first hospitality, in which host and guest came to know each other before any longer arrangement was made. The longer arrangement soon follows, and Jacob’s stay stretches through two marriages, the birth of his children, quarrels over flocks and wages, and at last his departure (Genesis 29–31). For now a fugitive with his brother’s threat behind him has a roof, a family and a welcome, just as God promised at Bethel.

The family Jacob begins in Haran is the line through which the Messiah came. Matthew opens his Gospel by calling Jesus the son of David and the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1). God told Abraham, “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18), and Paul says that the seed is Christ (Galatians 3:16). In Christ all who believe become children of God and Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:26–29), redeemed out of every kindred, tongue, people and nation (Revelation 5:9).

At Jacob’s well Jesus offered water that springs up into everlasting life (John 4:5–26). He called the thirsty to come to him and drink (John 7:37–38), and the Bible’s last invitation is to take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17). Jacob watered his kinsman’s flock, and Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep and gathers his flock into one fold (John 10:11–16). The heavy stone at the well’s mouth calls to mind the stone the angel of the Lord rolled back from his tomb (Matthew 28:2), and through his blood we have boldness to enter God’s presence by a new and living way (Hebrews 10:19–22).

Jacob asked after Laban’s peace. Christ is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), who made peace through the blood of his cross and reconciled all things to God (Colossians 1:19–20). Jacob found his bride at a well, and Christ loved the church and gave himself for her (Ephesians 5:25–27), who is pictured as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2).

Laban said “my bone and my flesh” of a nephew. The Son of God truly became our flesh, made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7) and sharing our flesh and blood so that he might destroy death and make reconciliation for our sins (Hebrews 2:14–17). Laban’s welcome lasted only until it no longer served him, and Christ’s welcome lasts for ever. In him we are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19–20), and he has gone to prepare a place for us in his Father’s house (John 14:2–3).

This passage shows God keeping his word to a man who had done little to deserve it. Jacob arrived as a deceiver on the run, and God brought him to the right well at the right hour, to the right family, while he was still speaking. God did it through ordinary things: a question to strangers, a custom about a stone, a young woman bringing her father’s sheep to water.

He also gives the lonely a home. Jacob set out with nothing but a promise, and by the end of these verses he has been kissed, embraced, brought into a house and called “my bone and my flesh.” What God said at Bethel, “I am with thee”, proved true at the well. The same God has given us, in Christ, a family and a Father’s house that no one can take away, and his promises are as sure for us as they were for Jacob.