Genesis 30 — Thoughts

How Much of Our Fate Is In Our Hands?

This is one of the weirder stories in Genesis — and it's a book of weird stories.

Jacob's father-in-law, Laban, cheats him (again) by telling Jacob he can have all the speckled sheep and then giving most of them to his own sons before Jacob can claim them. So, Jacob decides to multiply his herds for himself. And he does this by ...putting three kinds of wooden branches with the bark peeled off in stripes by the sheep's watering troughs.

Jacob's herd becomes both large and strong — but is this because of Jacob's trick with the tree bark? No. In the next chapter, God will take credit for Jacob's herd growth.

This story makes a little more sense in context because it comes right after an account of Leah and Rachel competing to provide Jacob with children. It unfolds a bit like a reality TV show. They trade "turns" with Jacob to try to get ahead and ⁠ even rope their servants Bilhah and Zilpah into the madness.

In the end, Jacob has 12 sons and one daughter. But was this because of Leah and Rachel's schemes? Nope. No more than Jacob's herd growth was because of his amateur carpentry.

In both cases, it was God who made the difference. It was God who grew Jacob's flocks, and it was God who gave children to Leah and Rachel.

This is a good reminder to us that our fates are in God's hands. Yes, we want to be faithful, and do our best, and be wise. But what happens in the end, that's ultimately up to God.

Our salvation is only because of God's grace and not because of anything we do (Ephesians 2:8-9) — it should come as no surprise that the same is true for our day-to-day lives as well.⁠

(Originally written August 1, 2020)