Now while Laban was out shearing his sheep, Rachel stole her father's household idols. Sermons
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.) 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.) 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, RachelPlaces Canaan, Euphrates River, Galeed, Gilead, Jegar-sahadutha, Mizpah, Paddan-aramTopics Belonged, Cutting, Father's, Flock, Gods, Household, Idols, Images, Laban, Rachel, Secretly, Shear, Sheep, Stealeth, Stole, Stolen, Teraphim, WoolOutline 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 Library Gen. xxxi. 11Of 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. How the Rude in Sacred Learning, and those who are Learned but not Humble, are to be Admonished. Epistle Xlix. To Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch . The Great Shepherd And He had Also this Favour Granted Him. ... A Treatise of the Fear of God; Meditations for the Morning. 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