Genesis 31:19
Now while Laban was out shearing his sheep, Rachel stole her father's household idols.
Sermons
TeraphimJ.F. Montgomery Genesis 31:19
LessonsG. Hughes, B. D.Genesis 31:17-21
LessonsG. Hughes, B. D.Genesis 31:17-21
LessonsG. Hughes, B. D.Genesis 31:17-21
LessonsG. Hughes, B. D.Genesis 31:17-21
The TeraphimM. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.Genesis 31:17-21














Rachel had stolen the images that were her father's. This the first direct mention of images in connection with worship, though tradition speaks of Nimrod as an idolater (cf. Joshua 14:2). Laban calls them his gods (ver. 30); yet he and his family knew the Lord. His use of them was a corruption of worship.

I. THE IMAGES. Teraphim. Had some resemblance to the human form (1 Samuel 19:13). Of different sizes and materials. The manner of their use not very clear, but used in some way for worship. Apparently not as intentional rebellion against God. Rather as a help to worship him, but a help chosen in self-will. It was the error forbidden in the second commandment; a departure from the way of Abel, Noah, Abraham; the device of a soul out of harmony with spiritual things, and unable to realize God's presence in worship (cf. Exodus 32:4; Judges 8:27; Judges 17:3; 1 Kings 12:28). We live in midst of things claiming attention. Necessities of life compel it. And the good effect of diligence is quickly felt. This not evil, but becomes a snare unless spiritual life vigorous (Matthew 13:22; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31). The habit of looking earthward grows. The walk with God becomes less close. Then unreality in worship. Then the attempt by material aids to reconcile worship with an unchanged life. Hence, in the old time, teraphim; in our days, will worship.

II. THE EFFECT OF THIS ON THE MORAL CHARACTER AND ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE; exemplified in Laban. Compare him as presented in Genesis 14. with what he now appears. There he is hospitable, frank, and liberal; here he is sordid, ungenerous, deceitful even to his own nephew. There he acknowledges the Lord as the Guide of actions (Genesis 14:50, 51); here he speaks of "the God of your father," and of "my gods." The love of wealth had made God no longer first in his thoughts (cf. Psalm 10:4; Philippians 3:19). Thus worship became a thing of times and seasons, a thing separate from daily life, and therefore possessing no influence on daily life. So in the Christian Church great attention to external aids and extravagant symbolism were the resources of a pervading spirit less spiritual than in times before; and these too often were as clouds hiding the face of God.

III. RACHEL'S ACT. Stole teraphim. Why? Some have thought to wean her father from them. More probably wished to make use of them. Had not escaped her father's influence. Hence the want of a submissive spirit (cf. Genesis 30:1 with 1 Samuel 1:11). The evil spread in Jacob's household (Genesis 35:2). The necessity for making a stand against it (Joshua 14:23).

IV. THE LESSON FOR OUR TIMES. The second commandment meets a real danger in every age - of leaning upon secondary means in religious service. Teraphim no longer tempt us. But amid whirl of active life, danger of leaning too much on outward impressions for spiritual life; of cultivating the emotions in place of spiritual earnestness (Psalm 130:6; Matthew 11:12); of putting religious services (1 Samuel 15:22) or work (Matthew 7:22) in place of walk with God. Amid much apparent religious activity the striving against self (Luke 9:28) and growth in grace may become languid (1 John 5:21). - M.

Then Jacob rose up.
1. Concurrence of all things with the call of God points out the time of man's obedience to him.

2. He that hath God's call for himself and others to any undertaking should prepare first for it.

3. It concerns husbands and fathers to provide for convenient motions of wives and children upon God's call (ver. 17).

4. Prudence teacheth men to order all their substance as motions rightly upon God's call.

5. Justice will suffer no man to take anything but that which is his own.

6. Courage becometh God's servants to break through all difficulties to follow God (ver. 18) and go where He calleth them.

(G. Hughes, B. D.)

1. Providence finds work to call off such as would hinder obedience to His work from His servants.

2. Hard it is for souls bred up in superstition to be wholly taken off from it.

3. There may be a temptation upon children to rob parents, but it is grievous wickedness.

4. Hearts not purged will have their superstitions and means of will-worship, though they steal them.

5. God suffers such irregular practices in good families sometimes for the trial of His own (ver. 19).

(G. Hughes, B. D.)

1. Providence directs God's servants to prudence for escaping the hands of wicked men at His call.

2. It is no iniquity, not to declare God's call and way to such as would oppose them (ver. 20).

3. Flight is not unbeseeming saints from under the hands of oppressors when God calleth to

4. Difficult passages God's servants find sometimes in following God's call.

5. No difficulties should discourage where God appears to warrant man's motions.

6. Man's face should be set to that mark which God points him out in his pilgrimage (ver. 21).

(G. Hughes, B. D.)

1. Providence ordereth tidings of His delivering His servants, to come to their enemies when they are not to be hindered by them (Job 5:12, 10).

2. Tidings of mercy to saints may come to the wicked soon enough to try them (ver. 22).

(G. Hughes, B. D. .)

Rachel stole the Teraphim, either, as has been advanced, because she wished to prevent Laban's consulting them on the direction of their flight, or to secure their guardianship for a journey apparently fraught with difficulties and dangers. The value of the precious metal of which the idol might have been made was certainly a temptation subordinate to the superstitious motive. The example given by Jacob with regard to the worship of God, had manifestly exercised a greater influence upon Leah than upon Rachel; though both, therefore, acknowledged, in Jacob's blessing, the will and favour of God, and urged him to follow the Divine directions (ver. 16), Rachel continued to attach a high value to dumb images, and regarded herself safe only under the guardianship of her own gods. Our knowledge concerning the shape of the Teraphim is very limited. They resembled the form of man (1 Samuel 19:13), either consisting of the entire human body, or only of head and breast. They were made of various materials, and not unfrequently of silver, two hundred shekels of which were employed for one statue (Judges 17:4). Our information is more accurate respecting the use and nature of the Teraphim. But we must distinguish between the earlier and later history of the Hebrews. The origin of the Teraphim seems to have been in Mesopotamia or Chaldea, a supposition probable from our passage, and from a later allusion in which the Babylonian king is related to have consulted them (Ezekiel 21:26). Although no doubt comprised amongst the idols which Jacob is recorded to have removed in Shechem (Genesis 35:4), they long remained in favour among his descendants; and while the Hebrews were always conscious of their crime whenever they worshipped other gods, they do not seem to have regarded the adoration of the Teraphim as equally reproachful. On this point, the history of Micah is highly instructive (Judges 17.; 18.). It shows clearly, that the Teraphim were considered as tutelar deities, fully compatible with the homage solely due to the Lord; that they were used, by many, as oracles, like the Urim and Thummim, or like the Ark of the Covenant; and that they were deemed sacred and lawful, if but a descendant of Aaron performed the ministerial functions: they implied a transgression of the second, not of the first commandment. Thus we account for the fact, otherwise most strange, that the prophet Hosea enumerates the Teraphim among the boons of which the disobedient Israelites would be deprived (Hosea 3:4); he threatens them with the dissolution of national and of family life; he predicts, that princes and sacrifices will disappear, and together with them their own domestic gods, the Teraphim, who, therefore, have there a political and social rather than a religious import. The prophet does not hesitate to mention them, because they were evidently in his time still considered as the mildest and most harmless form of idolatry. But gradually, when the pure doctrines of Mosaism began to be enforced with greater rigour, the Teraphim were naturally included among the objects of religious aversion; even the author of the Book of Judges, who wrote in the latest times of the monarchy (Judges 18:30), inserted in his truthful narrative a remark of disapproval: "in those days there was no king in Israel, every one did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6); when king Josiah established the strict worship of monotheism, he destroyed among the other idols, the Teraphim also (2 Kings 8:24); and, perhaps, exactly because they were considered as almost innocent images, the later writers were extremely severe in denouncing them: the crime of obstinacy against the Divine will is compared to the idolatry of the Teraphim (1 Samuel 15:23); they are classed among the "detestations and abominations" (2 Kings 13:24); their oracles are described not only as falsehood, but as wickedness; they lead astray those who consult them like sheep which have no shepherd (Zechariah 10:2); and they are attributed to the Babylonian monarch together with his other absurd modes of divination, as the auguries taken from "looking in the liver" (Ezekiel 21:26, 28).

(M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)

People
Aram, Isaac, Jacob, Laban, Leah, Nahor, Rachel
Places
Canaan, Euphrates River, Galeed, Gilead, Jegar-sahadutha, Mizpah, Paddan-aram
Topics
Belonged, Cutting, Father's, Flock, Gods, Household, Idols, Images, Laban, Rachel, Secretly, Shear, Sheep, Stealeth, Stole, Stolen, Teraphim, Wool
Outline
1. Jacob, displeased with the envy of Laban and his sons, departs secretly.
19. Rachel steals her father's household gods.
22. Laban pursues after him, and complains of the wrong.
34. Rachel's plan to hide the images.
36. Jacob's complaint of Laban.
43. The covenant of Laban and Jacob at Galeed.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Genesis 31:19

     4684   sheep
     5277   criminals
     5555   stealing
     5568   suffering, causes
     7384   household gods
     8716   dishonesty, examples

Genesis 31:1-24

     5095   Jacob, life

Library
Gen. xxxi. 11
Of no less importance and significance is the passage Gen. xxxi. 11 seq. According to ver. 11, the Angel of God, [Hebrew: mlaK halhiM] appears toJacob in a dream. In ver. 13, the same person calls himself the God of Bethel, with reference to the event recorded in chap. xxviii. 11-22. It cannot be supposed that in chap xxviii. the mediation of a common angel took place, who, however, had not been expressly mentioned; for Jehovah is there contrasted with the angels. In ver. 12, we read: "And behold
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Appendix xvi. On the Jewish views About Demons' and the Demonised,' Together with Some Notes on the Intercourse Between Jews and Jewish Christians in the First Centuries.
IT is not, of course, our purpose here to attempt an exhaustive account of the Jewish views on demons' and the demonised.' A few preliminary strictures were, however, necessary on a work upon which writers on this subject have too implictly relied. I refer to Gfrörer's Jahrhundert des Heils (especially vol. i. pp. 378-424). Gfrörer sets out by quoting a passage in the Book of Enoch on which he lays great stress, but which critical inquiries of Dillmann and other scholars have shown to be
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

How the Rude in Sacred Learning, and those who are Learned but not Humble, are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 25.) Differently to be admonished are those who do not understand aright the words of the sacred Law, and those who understand them indeed aright, but speak them not humbly. For those who understand not aright the words of sacred Law are to be admonished to consider that they turn for themselves a most wholesome drought of wine into a cup of poison, and with a medicinal knife inflict on themselves a mortal wound, when they destroy in themselves what was sound by that whereby they ought,
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Epistle Xlix. To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch .
To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch [35] . Gregory to Anastasius, &c. I received the letters of thy Fraternity, rightly holding fast the profession of the faith; and I returned great thanks to Almighty God, who, when the shepherds of His flock are changed, still, even after such change, guards the faith which He once delivered to the holy Fathers. Now the excellent preacher says, Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus (1 Cor. iii. 2). Whosoever, then, with love of
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

The Great Shepherd
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. I t is not easy for those, whose habits of life are insensibly formed by the customs of modern times, to conceive any adequate idea of the pastoral life, as obtained in the eastern countries, before that simplicity of manners, which characterized the early ages, was corrupted, by the artificial and false refinements of luxury. Wealth, in those
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

And He had Also this Favour Granted Him. ...
66. And he had also this favour granted him. For as he was sitting alone on the mountain, if ever he was in perplexity in his meditations, this was revealed to him by Providence in prayer. And the happy man, as it is written, was taught of God [1112] . After this, when he once had a discussion with certain men who had come to him concerning the state of the soul and of what nature its place will be after this life, the following night one from above called him, saying, Antony, rise, go out and look.'
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

A Treatise of the Fear of God;
SHOWING WHAT IT IS, AND HOW DISTINGUISHED FROM THAT WHICH IS NOT SO. ALSO, WHENCE IT COMES; WHO HAS IT; WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS; AND WHAT THE PRIVILEGES OF THOSE THAT HAVE IT IN THEIR HEARTS. London: Printed for N. Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, over against the Stocks market: 1679. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and "a fountain of life"--the foundation on which all wisdom rests, as well as the source from whence it emanates. Upon a principle
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Meditations for the Morning.
1. Almighty God can, in the resurrection, as easily raise up thy body out of the grave, from the sleep of death, as he hath this morning wakened thee in thy bed, out of the sleep of nature. At the dawning of which resurrection day, Christ shall come to be glorified in his saints; and every one of the bodies of the thousands of his saints, being fashioned like unto his glorious body, shall shine as bright as the sun (2 Thess. i. 10; Jude, ver. 14; Phil. iii. 21; Luke ix. 31;) all the angels shining
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Genesis
The Old Testament opens very impressively. In measured and dignified language it introduces the story of Israel's origin and settlement upon the land of Canaan (Gen.--Josh.) by the story of creation, i.-ii. 4a, and thus suggests, at the very beginning, the far-reaching purpose and the world-wide significance of the people and religion of Israel. The narrative has not travelled far till it becomes apparent that its dominant interests are to be religious and moral; for, after a pictorial sketch of
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Links
Genesis 31:19 NIV
Genesis 31:19 NLT
Genesis 31:19 ESV
Genesis 31:19 NASB
Genesis 31:19 KJV

Genesis 31:19 Bible Apps
Genesis 31:19 Parallel
Genesis 31:19 Biblia Paralela
Genesis 31:19 Chinese Bible
Genesis 31:19 French Bible
Genesis 31:19 German Bible

Genesis 31:19 Commentaries

Bible Hub
Genesis 31:18
Top of Page
Top of Page