29:1-3
This is a somewhat bemusing story. It starts off well, with some similarities to Abraham’s servant’s trip. This isn’t too surprising as Jacob is going to Laban. It is referred to as the “land of the people of the east”, it might be that this implies the people did not worship the Lord, which they almost certainly didn’t anyway. We then get a description of how the shepherds would roll away a stone from the well in order to water the sheep, the point of the description is that Jacob would do this later for Rachel.
29:4-8
Jacob speaks to the shepherds and inquires of Laban. They tell him that Laban’s daughter Rachel is coming with her sheep. The phrase “son of ...” does not necessarily denote a father-son relationship, it can be any descendant, and Nahor was Laban’s grandfather. Jacob seems to want to get the shepherds out of the way so he can speak to Rachel.
No comments:
Post a Comment