Genesis

God’s discipline for man sometimes takes the form of a lengthened process, like the years of Jacob with Laban. At other times it is experienced in the form of a short and perhaps sharp crisis, as at Bethel. We are now to consider another of these crises in the life of Jacob, a turning-point, a pivot in his career. Freed from the trammels endured at Haran, he soon becomes aware once again of the hand of God upon him and the Divine purpose concerning him. The grace of God which had never left him, is now to work upon him as never before. Let us mark closely the various stages of the process. Now and henceforward we shall see very clearly the conflict of nature and grace, and the way in which grace overcomes nature. There is scarcely any character in Scripture which is more full of profound yet practical lessons for the spiritual life.

Delivered from the thraldom of Laban’s service Jacob goes on his way towards the old home, only to realize before long that another difficulty confronts him in his brother Esau. But between the two difficulties comes this timely revelation from God; "the angels of God met him." How and by what way this manifestation was vouchsafed, whether by waking vision or midnight dream, we know not. Suffice it to say that it was one more proof of the Divine assurance that Jacob should not be left until the purpose of God had been accomplished in him (Gen 28:15). The angels of God had come to him at Bethel (Gen 28:12) and in Haran (Gen 31:11), and now met him again.

The ministry of angels to the children of God is one of the most interesting and precious elements of the Divine revelations in Scripture. No details are given to satisfy curiosity, but the fact is certain and the blessedness is real (Psa 34:7 -note; Dan 6:22 -note; Heb 1:14 -note). And it is worth while remembering that angels, as they are brought before us in Holy Writ, are invariably depicted as the servants of the saints-their inferiors, not superiors. It is probably a mistake to think of angels as occupying an intermediate place between men and God, as something more than the one and less than the other. It may have been this error that has led to the worshipping of angels and the thought of them as mediators between an impure humanity and a holy God. Scripture, on the contrary, reveals them as always ministers, servants, of those who are higher than themselves in spiritual place and privilege, of those who are "heirs of salvation." (Cf. Heb 1:14 -note; 1Pe 1:12 -note)

This manifestation from God Jacob was quick to see. He recognized the Divine hand, and said, "This is God’s host." Whatever may have happened during those years in Haran, Jacob still retained sufficient spiritual discernment to apprehend God’s action in this meeting. And he at once raises a memorial of the occasion by calling it "Mahanaim"-"Two Hosts" or "Two Camps"-God’s heavenly host and his own earthly host of possessions granted to him by God (Gen 31:9) and now to be protected by God. "Whether visible to the eye of sense or, as would appear, only the eye of faith, they are visible to this troubled man; and, in a glow of confident joy, he calls the name of that place "Mahanaim," Two Camps. One camp was the little one of his own down here, with the helpless women and children and his own frightened and defenceless self; and the other was the great one up there, or rather in shadowy but most real spiritual presence around about him, as a bodyguard making an impregnable wall between him and every foe" (Maclaren).

On the first great occasion of his life he had raised his memorial and called it "God’s House" (Gen 28:17). On this, the second great occasion, he is conscious of "God’s Host." He has still a deeper experience to pass through before he can raise his third and crowning memorial to "God’s Face."

It is impossible to avoid seeing the connection and contrast between God’s messengers to Jacob and Jacob’s messengers to Esau. The pity of it is that Jacob did not fully learn the simple yet profound lesson of the connection. As he nears the borders of the old country, memory begins to move and conscience to work. He knows that there can be no peace and quiet until his relations with Esau are assured and put on a proper footing. Not until that matter was settled could Jacob feel certain of his future. Is not this a great principle of the spiritual life? We must put right what we know to be wrong before we can enjoy settled peace. Unconfessed sin, unforgiven wrong, must be dealt with and put right. Righteousness must precede peace (Isa 32:17; Psa 85:10 -note and Psa 72:3 -note).

Jacob’s despatch of an embassy to his brother was obviously to feel his way, to learn Esau’s mind towards him. But the obsequiousness of the message, with its repeated emphasis on "my lord Esau" and "thy servant Jacob," does not sound well from one who had met the angels of God. The words indicate a servile fear that seems strange and surprising in one who had already been assured of the birthright and blessing, and whose personal position as the owner of great possessions surely warranted a higher tone. There is a world of difference between genuine repentance and grovelling humiliation. Jacob could have shown the one without the accompaniment of the other. The message is throughout marked by a spirit of fear of Esau which is unworthy of one who had received such assurances from God. But Jacob was probably not the first, as he certainly was not the last, to fail to realize the direct and causative influence of his intercourse with God on his intercourse with man. While he is in God’s presence he seems to be learning aright his spiritual lessons; but when he is face to face with a crisis he forgets the assurances derived from God and proceeds to act for himself as though his own initiative and natural powers were everything.

The messengers return and bring news of the coming of Esau to meet his brother, accompanied by 400 evidently armed men. Not a word of friendly greeting in response to the fawning message, not a single indication of reconciliation in spite of all the intervening years. Not even Jacob’s reminder of his long sojourn with Laban "until now," with its implication of having left Esau free all this time, had sufficed to put matters right. The old hostility which had died down by lapse of time seems to have been roused up, and the impulsive, easily-stirred Esau sets out to meet Jacob with a retinue which appears to bode nothing but ill. It may have been done merely to frighten Jacob, or it may have been prompted by a genuine determination to take revenge, but it had the immediate effect of driving Jacob into an exhibition of his old natural self, and thereby afforded a fresh proof of the small extent to which God’s assurances of grace had as yet laid hold of his inner life.

Jacob’s intense fear and distress were evidently due to his conviction that Esau’s coming meant hostility, that the past had not been forgotten or overlooked. But he soon recovers his balance, though, instead of at once casting himself on God, he begins his characteristic work of planning. Esau’s host had for the time driven out of his mind the host of God, and now again he proceeds to display that natural resourcefulness which characterized him all his days from the beginning to the very end. He divided his possessions into two parts, so that in case Esau fell on one of them the other might escape and at least something be left. The employment of this stratagem clearly shows that with all his possessions armed resistance was quite impossible, and, still more, it shows that once again Jacob was not using for his own peace and assurance the real meaning of the revelation that God had vouchsafed to him. At that moment the "angels of God" were not in his mind, or he might easily have remembered that they who were with him were more than all Esau’s host (2Ki 6:16).

And yet, in spite of all his clever planning, he cannot help turning to God, even though, like many others since, he arranges matters before he begins to pray (Act 1:23-24). He called God to help him in the due execution of his own projects, instead of reversing the order and asking, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Let us now look at his prayer. It is worthy of careful consideration on several grounds; both for what it contains and also for what it lacks.

It is a prayer of real and yet partial faith (Gen 32:9).

He calls on God, and so far well; yet is it not strange, after Bethel and Haran and Mahanaim, that he does not rise to the height of calling God his own God, but contents himself with the thought of God as the God of his fathers? Then, again, his faith is clear and true in his reminder to God of His commands and promises about the return from Haran, but is it not curious that he does not see that after these promises God would surely take care of him? By all means let us put God in remembrance and plead His promises, but let us also expect that God can and will fulfil His own word (Act 27:25). His faith, then, was real, but partial; true, but inadequate; and yet, though it is easy for us as we read the narrative to see where he failed, let us not forget that we are often doing the very same ourselves, with far greater light than Jacob had, and therefore with infinitely less reason. We must take care lest we miss the lesson for ourselves in all this, "lest we forget."

The prayer was also marked by true humility (Gen 32:10).

He acknowledged his own unworthiness of all that God had done to and for him, and with heartfelt gratitude he testifies to the way in which blessings had been showered on him. There is perhaps nothing wanting here unless, as some think, it be a consciousness of sin. Certainly we find no indication that he realized any connection between his present fear of Esau and the events associated with the surreptitious possession of the blessing. But in any case the spirit of this humility is a marked advance on anything we have hitherto seen in Jacob. God was indeed at work in his soul.

The prayer was also one of intensely earnest entreaty (Gen 32:11).

He cries out for fear of Esau, and craves deliverance. He assigns as his reason for protection the fear lest he, his wives, and children should be destroyed by his passionate and ruthless brother. The reference to the "mother with the children" is very touching and beautiful, revealing the tenderness of Jacob’s nature. And yet it is impossible to overlook the characteristic lack of faith whereby, after expressing this fear of losing his children, he quotes God’s promise about those very children being "as the sand of the sea." How like Jacob was this failure to draw the true conclusion of faith from the premises of the Divine promise! And if we call attention to it we are not desirous of blaming him, so much as of using his failure to point the moral for ourselves. "Hath He said, and shall He not do it?"

As we review this prayer we seem to see in it a revelation of a genuine work of grace after years of apparent fruitlessness. Like a stream that emerges into day after running for a long distance underground, Jacob’s spiritual life comes out now after those years at Haran; and, though there is still much to seek, we can see the clear marks of the work of God directing, deepening, and purifying his soul. God had never left him (Gen 28:15), as these spiritual experiences abundantly indicate.

Once again we seem to be brought face to face with the other and less worthy side of Jacob. After prayer he is planning again. What is the connection between his praying and his planning? Was the latter the due use of precautions? Was it the proper way of answering his own prayer? It would hardly seem so. It appears rather to be an expression of his intense fear. He proceeds to arrange his possessions into droves of cattle, with distances separating them. He is intent on appeasing Esau with a present, and with remarkable skill he brings train after train to lay siege to his brother. He piles present upon present to break down opposition. When he first sent messengers to Esau (Gen 32:3) there was no indication of any present, for he thought perhaps none would be needed; but now his great fear compels him to take these steps. He is still concerned to manage Esau, instead of letting God do it for him; and the message to the servants breathes the same spirit of obsequious cringing to his brother. Truly "the fear of man bringeth a snare," (Pro 29:25) and it is only "he who trusteth in the Lord" that is set on high above all such dread.

It seems clear that all this careful preparation was unwarrantably made. We can see it now in the sequel (Gen 28:9), but it was equally unwarranted before Esau appeared. The man who prayed that prayer (Gen 32:9-12) surely ought not to have spoken as he afterwards did (Gen 32:20). Had he not already forgotten his prayer? He was so filled with his own fears and prospects that he quite failed to rest his heart on God and trust Him to plan and protect. If we express our needs in prayer, it is obviously unfitting to go on arranging and scheming as though we had never prayed. It is one thing to seek wisdom from God and trust Him for it; quite another to ask God’s blessing on our own wisdom. And it was this that Jacob had to learn before he met Esau. Only when God had brought him to an utter end of himself could the true position be taken and the full blessing granted. Meanwhile we pause here to gather up some of the most obvious lessons for ourselves.

The angelic host appeared just after Jacob had left Laban and before he encountered Esau. God is never too soon and never too late. "Thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness." The old theological phraseology of "prevenient grace" embodies one of the profoundest and most precious truths of the spiritual life. God anticipates our need, and provides His grace just when we require it. He sees beforehand, what we cannot see, the needs of the soul, and comes in love to meet them. Whatever the circumstance or emergency, God will be there; for wit only has He said, "I will not forsake thee" (that is, when once He has come), but also "I will not fail thee" (that is, when the need first arises). As we go on our way we may rest assured that God’s host will meet us.

Not only when, but as; not only timely, but appropriate. What was Jacob’s one great need at that moment? Surely it was protection. And so God sent His host to assure him of it. God always suits His grace to His people’s needs. When Israel was in Egypt they needed deliverance, and obtained it. When they reached Sinai they required instruction, and received the Law. When hostility from surrounding nations was at hand, then, and then only, came the entirely new title "the Lord of hosts" (1 Sam. i. 3). So it is always. "As . . . so" is God’s great principle for His people. Whatever the need, that will be the nature and measure of the supply.

The Divine revelation to Jacob was intended to do for him exactly what he needed most, and yet he never really lost the fear of his brother. He could not fully trust God. He "committed his way to the Lord," but did not "trust also in Him." He still carried his burden himself, even after God’s angels came, and after his own prayer to God. And yet God’s grace is intended to be a reality in our lives. We miss very much when we do not trust Him fully. If only the swimmer yields to the water, the water bears him up; but if he continues to struggle, the result is disastrous. Let us learn to trust, just as we learn to float.

There is a very true sense in which everyone who prays must also use means. "Trust in God and keep your powder dry." But there is an equally true sense in which anxiety about means and methods is the very reverse of the right attitude for the believer. Jacob’s heart was more set on planning than on praying. He plans before and after his prayer. He asks God, it is true, but almost at the same time he seems to feel that he must depend entirely on his own resources. He leans on his plan more than on his prayer; indeed, as we read of the plans, we forget that he ever prayed, and he apparently forgot it also. To the true believer, the man of real faith in God, there will be no real difficulty as to the relation of prayer and work. His work, as well as his prayer, will be manifestly permeated by trust in God. There is a very real sense in which orare est laborare; for the man who prays trustfully, restfully, hopefully, will find heart and mind so taken up with God that instinctively he will be led to adopt such methods as will reveal his trust and answer his own prayer. The soul that is truly and fully occupied with God will never be at a loss to know the true relation between prayer and work, work and prayer; for in answer to prayer comes the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of a sound mind, the spirit of courage and fearlessness, the spirit of calm restfulness and equally calm progress. It will know when to "stand still" and when to "go forward," because God is its all in all.

NOTE.-The word rendered "appease" in Gen 32:20 is kipper, the word afterwards used for "covering" or "atonement." This is its first occurrence in the Bible (Gen 20:16 is different, but allied in thought), and, according to the principle of first occurrences in Scripture (see on Gen 16:1-4), the usage here helps to interpret the true meaning of atonement.