18 Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, ‘I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.’ Genesis 29
Jacob’s mother Rebekah had conspired with him to get Isaac’s blessing, rather than it going to their firstborn, Esau. Then she convinced Isaac to let him go to her brother Laban’s people and take a wife there, and not marry a Canaanite woman. There is no record that Rebekah ever saw Jacob again, she was not mentioned when he returned to Canaan, twenty one years later. (Rebekah is honoured as a righteous woman and a prophet in Jewish tradition)
Jacob had no material wealth to offer Laban for his daughter Rachel, so he offered seven years of his life as payment for her hand in marriage. Many people, like Jacob, enter into agreements which may end up taking years of their lives but they’re not aware of it at the time. Training for jobs and careers, our work, can certainly take up a large part of our early lives. Jacob’s life in Paddan Aram also saw the coming of his family, including the birth of eleven of his sons. (Benjamin, the youngest was born on the way back to Canaan and Rachel died giving birth to him. Jacob still spoke of her death while blessing Joseph’s sons near the end of his life. Genesis 48:7)
Jacob acknowledged that if God had not been with him all the time that he worked for his uncle Laban, that he would have left with nothing. But Jacob had a Covenant with God and his descendants still do to this day.
3 Jacob said to Joseph, ‘God Almighty (El-Shaddai) appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me 4 and said to me, “I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.” Genesis 48
Jacob worked for a long time, building his family, without seeing much prosperity, however God’s Covenant with him did come to pass. God blessed Jacob and he left with much of his uncle’s wealth and his two daughters.
19 God is not a man, that he should lie,
nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfil? Numbers 23
The same mighty God who worked all things together for good in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is still working in the lives of His children today. Though we may not see much evidence or progress of it for a time, He is faithful and seeks to bless those who belong to Him.
May the Lord bless and keep you today. Immanuel, God is with us.