Scripture Daily

Context No. 4315 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 31:25-30: in context

25Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain, and Laban with his relatives encamped in the mountain of Gilead. 26Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword? 27Why did you flee secretly, and deceive me, and didn’t tell me, that I might have sent you away with mirth and with songs, with tambourine and with harp; 28and didn’t allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now you have done foolishly. 29It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.’ 30Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?”

Jacob has fled from his father-in-law Laban, and Laban, angry, pursues and overtakes him with his kinsmen. Laban has both the will and the means to harm Jacob: it is in my power to do you harm, he says. But then he adds something revealing: the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad. God had intervened, warning Laban and restraining him from harming Jacob.

What stands out is God's unseen protection over Jacob. Laban had the strength and the anger to do Jacob real harm, and Jacob may not even have known how much danger he was in. But God had gone before him, warning Laban in a dream, restraining the hand that could have struck him. Jacob was protected not by his own strength but by God's hidden intervention on his behalf.

We often do not know the dangers from which God has shielded us, the harm restrained, the hands stayed, the threats turned aside before they reached us. As God went before Jacob and restrained Laban, so God watches over his people, often protecting us in ways we never see. Much of God's care for us is hidden; we are kept safe from more than we know by the God who goes before us and restrains what would harm us.

Do I trust that God protects his people in ways I often never see, going before me and restraining what would harm me as he warned Laban not to touch Jacob, so that I am kept safe from more than I know by the hidden care of God?

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