Following on the heels of yesterday’s post, Jacob has fled Mesopotamia due to the growing hostility between him and his Uncle Laban.
While secretly preparing to leave, Rachel has some devious plans of her own and decides to steal her father’s household gods and hide them with her on their journey.
Understand this was a huge deal during this era.
Laban didn’t care so much that Jacob had run off with his daughters and grandchildren without saying a word.
But stealing his gods was a whole other can of worms altogether.
Why?
Because in those days, the person who possessed the family gods possessed all of the wealth and legal inheritance of the family.
In other words, the gods that Rachel secretly made off with were the ticket to all of her father’s possessions when he passed away.
This would not only affect Laban but impact his children as well.
So we can see why Laban went absolutely hog wild nuts and formed a posse to chase down Jacob and his family.
When he caught up with them, he did a thorough search of the area but could find nothing.
Rachel, being the clever girl she was, had hidden the gods by sitting on them while on top of her camel and telling her father she couldn’t get off the camel because she was in the midst of her cycle.
Long story short, after agreeing to Laban’s demands that he not take any more wives, Jacob is allowed to move on and return to Canaan.
But waiting for him in his homeland is more big trouble.
He has to now face his brother Esau who he deceived so many years ago and is really not sure if he’ll survive this reunion or not.
Feeling a sense of dread, Jacob continues on his journey but midway he has a life-changing encounter with a spiritual being that some Bibles describe as an angel and others describe as the Lord Himself.
Jacob finds himself wrestling with this spiritual being all night long until daybreak.
Finally, at the end of this encounter, two things happen to Jacob that changes his life forever.
FIRST, Jacob suffers a permanent hip disability and alongside this injury his heart is transformed.
SECOND, the Lord informs Jacob that because he has struggled and triumphed against both God and men his name will be changed from “Jacob” to “Israel”.
This is huge folks!
It’s from this point in history that a group of people called “the Israelites” was born.
From here onward, all those descended from Jacob would rightfully identify themselves as Israelites.
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