Genesis 31:36-51

A bad reputation can be made overnight. They can take a lifetime to live it down. It doesn’t seem fair, but it is reality. I realized this clearly reading these verses. I was still thinking of Jacob as the deceiver. I did not realize how far he had come on the pathway of righteousness.

Jacob was confident that he had dealt rightly with Laban. He asked Laban, “How have I wronged you…?” While watching Laban’s flocks, he had never eaten any of them. When wild beasts killed Laban’s animals, Jacob paid the cost himself. He put in more hours than Laban had a right to expect. In other words, Jacob had been dealing with Laban in a righteous fashion.

In the midst of all his hard labor, Jacob had also began to develop a right relationship with his God. He had come to recognize that God was blessing him and he was thankful. He recognized that God was protecting him and he was trusting God.

Laban still does not trust Jacob. Untrustworthy people like Laban have a hard time trusting anybody else. He tells Jacob to remember that when they are apart God will be watching them. He tells Jacob not to mistreat is daughters. He also tells Jacob not to take any more wives. They build two boundary markers/witness heaps to set between them. They pledge that neither will cross the mark to harm the other. They take the pledge with the God of Abraham as their witness.

After 20 years of faithful service, Jacob was still not trusted by his uncle. That had to hurt. At times Jacob may have been tempted to live down to his uncle’s low expectations or his uncle’s bad example. Jacob never gave into that temptation. Righteousness does not always change our reputation. Righteousness will always change our reality.