Genesis 31:21

Verse 17 is the moment a decision becomes action, and the decision was made in the verses before it. Laban’s sons complained that Jacob had taken what belonged to their father, and Laban’s face toward him changed (Genesis 31:1–2). Then the LORD spoke to Jacob: “Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee” (Genesis 31:3). Jacob talked the matter over with Leah and Rachel, and they agreed to go, saying that their father had sold them and devoured what should have been theirs (Genesis 31:4–16). So when Jacob rises up, he acts on God’s word with his household behind him.

That command keeps a promise God had made to Jacob at Bethel: “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest” (Genesis 28:15). It also echoes the call of Abraham, who was told to leave his country and his father’s house for the land God would show him (Genesis 12:1–3). Abraham’s grandson is now called back to that same land of promise.

“Rose up” is qûwm, the common Hebrew verb for rising, used here for getting up to set out. The same verb comes back in verse 21, “and he rose up, and passed over the river”, so the passage opens and closes with Jacob rising to go. “Set” is nâsâʼ, to lift: Jacob lifts his sons and his wives onto the camels himself. The wives are Leah and Rachel and also Bilhah and Zilpah, and with them come all the children. The whole household goes together, the family from which the nation of Israel would grow.

Camels, gâmâl, are the animals for this kind of journey, able to carry people and heavy loads over long, dry distances. Strong’s ties the name, tentatively, to a root used in the sense of labour or burden-bearing. Their mention gives us a picture of how large Jacob’s move was, with a big family and great possessions going a long way at once.

Verse 18 takes stock of what goes with Jacob, and it lingers over it. “He carried away” is nâhag, to drive or lead, the word for driving animals before you, and here Jacob drives his herds and flocks ahead of him. “Cattle” is miqneh, livestock, a word that also means a possession or something purchased. It stands for both “all his cattle” and “the cattle of his getting”, and in the days of the patriarchs livestock was the chief form of wealth. “Goods” is rᵉkûwsh, property as it has been gathered together. “Which he had gotten” is râkash, to lay up or collect, and “getting” is qinyân, acquisition or wealth.

The phrase “which he had gotten” comes twice in this verse, and the verse speaks of his “getting” as well. That weight of words makes plain how much Jacob had and where it came from. He gained it in Padanaram over his years of work there, so it was his, and he took only what was his own. This matters because Laban had changed his wages ten times (Genesis 31:7). The story of those twenty years runs through Genesis 29 and Genesis 30, and Genesis 30:25–43 tells how Jacob’s flocks grew in spite of Laban’s schemes. Scripture credits that growth to God’s blessing on Jacob’s labour. Moses later reminds Israel that it is the LORD who gives the power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18), and Jacob’s flocks are an early example of it.

Padanaram, or Paddan-Aram, means the plateau or table-land of Aram. It lies in northwestern Mesopotamia, a long way from Canaan. The verse ends with the purpose of the whole move: “for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.” Jacob is going back to his father, who is still living, and to the land God promised to Abraham and Isaac and their descendants.

Sheep-shearing was a large task for a shepherd household. “Shear” is gazâz, to cut off, used for shearing a flock or shaving the hair, and figuratively for destroying. The work would take Laban away from home and fill his attention, and so it gave Jacob the time to leave before he was missed. Jacob chose his moment with care, and in God’s providence the moment was there to choose.

While Laban is away, Rachel takes his “images”. The Hebrew is tᵉrâphîym, teraphim, household idols of the kind common in that land. Laban himself calls them his gods when he catches up with Jacob and asks why he has stolen them (Genesis 31:30). Their exact purpose is uncertain. They were linked with divination and consulting the future, with the protection of a household, and possibly with family ownership and the right to inherit. They could range from small figurines to larger statues.

“Had stolen” is gânab, to steal, a word that can also mean to deceive. The verse calls Rachel’s act a theft, done in secret, and it sets up the search and the angry meeting that fill the rest of Genesis 31.

Teraphim turn up again in Israel’s later history. Micah in the time of the judges made an ephod and teraphim for his shrine (Judges 17:5), and Hosea says that Israel would abide many days without king, sacrifice or teraphim (Hosea 3:4). Closer to home, before Jacob goes up to Bethel he tells his household to put away the foreign gods that are among them (Genesis 35:2). The family of promise had to deal with idolatry within its own tents.

Verse 20 uses the same verb for Jacob that verse 19 used for Rachel. Rachel stole the images, and Jacob “stole away”, gânab again, so that father-in-law and daughter both lose something to stealth on the same day. Under “unawares” stands lêb, the heart, a word used widely for the feelings, the will and the mind. In the Hebrew the verb of stealing is joined to Laban’s heart, and the sense is that Jacob kept Laban’s mind in the dark. The verse then says how: “in that he told him not that he fled.” The word for “not” there is bᵉlîy, and Jacob’s deception was carried out by silence.

“Fled” is bârach, to flee, moving in haste to escape danger. The same verb opens verse 21. Jacob is leaving quickly to put distance between himself and a man he had every reason to fear.

Laban is called “the Syrian”, ʼĂrammîy, an Aramaean, a man of Aram. The name marks Laban off from Jacob by people and by land. Laban belongs to Aram, and Jacob is heading for Canaan as the heir of the promise given to Abraham.

“So he fled with all that he had” gathers up the whole household: wives, children, servants and the herds and flocks God had blessed. Jacob leaves nothing behind that might tie him to Laban.

“Passed over” is ʻâbar, to cross over, a verb used very widely for any kind of transition. “The river” is widely understood to be the Euphrates, “the great river, the river Euphrates” named in the LORD’s promise to Abram. It formed a great boundary between Mesopotamia and the lands to the west, including Canaan. Once Jacob was across it, Laban’s country lay behind him. God would later bring his people through greater waters still, when Israel crossed the sea on dry ground (Exodus 14:21–22).

“Set his face” is a Hebrew idiom, sûwm (to put or set) with pânîym, the face. Pânîym is plural in form but always used as a singular, and the idiom speaks of firm resolve toward a goal. Jacob knew where he was going. Gilead is a region east of the Jordan, and mount Gilead was a landmark on the way back to Canaan. There Laban would overtake him, and there God would protect him (Genesis 31:22–42). The psalm says that the steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, who upholds him when he falls (Psalm 37:23–24), and Jacob’s road from here to Canaan bears that out.

Jacob leaves a house of servitude, deceit and strife at God’s command and goes toward the land God promised, and that journey points ahead to what Christ does for his people. Luke tells us that Jesus “stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51), set on the road that led to the cross and the empty tomb. He had left the glory of heaven and humbled himself in obedience to death (Philippians 2:6–8), and he is himself the way to the Father (John 14:6).

Jacob was brought out from under Laban’s hand, and Christ brings us out from under sin. The Son who sets us free makes us free indeed (John 8:36), the Father has delivered us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his Son (Colossians 1:13), and in Christ God has reconciled us to himself and made us new (2 Corinthians 5:17–19). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and that includes the idols we carry in our hearts, as Rachel carried hers.

Jacob went home to an earthly inheritance. Christ is the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2), and we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with him (Romans 8:17), already blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3). A rest remains for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9–11). Abraham went out by faith, not knowing where he was going, and looked for a city whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:8–10). That city comes at the end, in the new heaven and the new earth, where God dwells with his people and wipes away every tear (Revelation 21:1–4).

These verses show us a God who keeps his word. He told Jacob at Bethel that he would be with him and bring him back, and twenty years later Jacob is on the road home with wives, children and flocks that God had given him in a hard place. The wealth that goes with him came from God’s blessing on honest labour under an unfair master.

They also show us how patiently God works with his people as they are. Jacob leaves by stealth, Rachel hides her father’s gods, and God still brings the household to the land he promised, and later he calls them to put their idols away. The God who guided Jacob’s steps toward Gilead orders the steps of his people still, and the One who set his face toward Jerusalem has gone ahead of us to the inheritance that cannot be taken away.