Genesis 31:36-42: a reflection

36Jacob was angry, and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? 37Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, that they may judge between us two. 38“These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not cast their young, and I haven’t eaten the rams of your flocks. 39That which was torn of animals, I didn’t bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. 40This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes. 41These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. 42Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

After years of being exploited by Laban, Jacob finally pours out his grievance. He recounts twenty years of faithful, grueling labor: guarding the flocks through scorching days and freezing nights, bearing every loss himself, never cheating his uncle, and being repaid with changed wages and suspicion. It is the honest complaint of a man who worked hard and honestly and was treated unfairly for it, and who has finally reached the end of his patience.

But Jacob does not credit his own survival to his own toil. Unless the God of my father had been with me, he says, you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands. Jacob recognizes that through all the years of hard, unrewarded work, God had been watching, and God had preserved and provided for him. His deliverance from an exploitative situation was not his own doing but God's, who had seen his affliction and acted.

If you have labored hard and honestly and been treated unfairly, taken advantage of, underpaid, unappreciated, Jacob's words are a comfort. God has seen your affliction and the labor of your hands. Nothing of your faithful, unrewarded work is hidden from him. He sees what others overlook or exploit, and in his time he provides and vindicates. You do not have to grow bitter or fight for your own recompense; entrust your cause to the God who sees, and trust that he has not missed a single day of your labor.

Lord, Jacob worked hard and honestly for years and was exploited, yet he knew that you had seen his affliction and the labor of his hands. When I am treated unfairly for my faithful work, remind me that nothing of it is hidden from you. Keep me from bitterness. You see what others overlook, and in your time you provide and vindicate. I entrust my cause to you, the God who sees. Amen.