Slices
Prepare
The peace walls in Belfast are barriers which were set up to minimise violence between communities. The peace flame in Hiroshima will burn until the world is free of nuclear weapons. Can you think of other monuments celebrating or attempting to keep peace?
Bible passage
43 Laban answered Jacob, ‘The women are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks. All you see is mine. Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about the children they have borne? 44 Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us.’
45 So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. 46 He said to his relatives, ‘Gather some stones.’ So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap. 47 Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.
48 Laban said, ‘This heap is a witness between you and me today.’ That is why it was called Galeed. 49 It was also called Mizpah, because he said, ‘May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other. 50 If you ill-treat my daughters or if you take any wives besides my daughters, even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me.’
51 Laban also said to Jacob, ‘Here is this heap, and here is this pillar I have set up between you and me. 52 This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me. 53 May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.’
So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac. 54 He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal. After they had eaten, they spent the night there.
55 Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then he left and returned home.
Explore
After their angry dispute, Laban suggests forming a covenant or binding agreement between himself and Jacob (vs 52,53). Was the formality of the covenant, set up in front of human witnesses and God, an indication that they still did not really trust each other?
As Jacob set up the stone pillar, I wonder if he remembered doing something similar on his way in the opposite direction around 20 years earlier, as God made a covenant with him (28:18). God has certainly kept his promise – the empty-handed fugitive is now a rich man with a large family.
Laban and Jacob both make an oath in the name of God. Laban calls him the God of Abraham, the God of Nahor (Abraham’s brother and Laban’s grandfather) and the God of their father (Terah); Jacob makes his oath in the name of ‘the Fear of his father Isaac’ (v 53). Abraham, Nahor and Terah are all dead, but Isaac is still alive. Jacob is stating that he worships the God of the living, not the dead.
Respond
In a non-literate culture, the symbol of the stone pillar was important in helping people remember the agreement that was made in this place. How do you remember important things that God has said to you, or significant things that he has done?
Deeper Bible study
‘If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.’1 Bring any situation of conflict to the Lord, seeking his forgiveness and compassion.
The novelist PD James characterised her detective novels as mysteries ‘bringing order out of disorder’.2 Not so much ‘whodunnit’, more ‘whydunnit’. As the Jacob–Laban story draws to a close, some resolution emerges. Each has complaints about the other – but apportioning blame is not going to solve anything. Rather than allowing animosity to last, it is better to find some means of agreeing to part on reasonable terms. The result is a solemn agreement, witnessed by a pillar of stones, expressed in the fellowship of a common meal and sealed by oaths. It is not a statement of loyal, committed friendship, more a commitment not to cause each other trouble in the future. Sometimes a low common denominator is all we can attain. When Christians of different stripes commit to speak well of one another,3 it is not the highest expression of unity, but it’s considerably better than we sometimes manage! The contrast between this covenant and the fulsome, grace-filled, loyal and permanent covenant of the Lord is there for all to see.
There is another contrast in the way the two men affirm their covenant. Laban, in an ambiguous oath, calls on ‘the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor’ (v 53). Nowhere else is the Lord linked to Nahor, the brother of Abraham.4 Laban had experienced the Lord speaking to him (v 24) but he also retained household gods (v 19). Is the reference to Nahor a nod to the gods that Abraham’s family worshipped prior to the Lord calling him? It certainly sits awkwardly alongside Jacob’s unadulterated oath ‘in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac’ (v 53), accompanied by the offering of a sacrifice. No other gods must come before or even alongside the Lord.
Are there lessons for us here, as we seek to chart a path in our relationships that aims to live in peace with everyone whilst rejecting the idols they worship?
1 Rom 12:18 2 Interview in Salon, 1998 3 James 4:11 4 Gen11:27
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Job 18,19; Luke 19
Pray for Scripture Union
A team from the central region would have been at New Wine this week running the youth sports outreach programme and engaging with guests to give them a picture of SU’s ministry. Take the opportunity to pray for our relationships with those who organise large events.
