Laban's Omens Were Spelled Like the Serpent (Genesis 30:25–43)

Omens spelled like the serpent

Laban's word for learning by divination is nachash (H5172), to read omens, and a Hebrew listener heard in it the noun nachash (H5175), the serpent. The verb means looking for signs in the world to find out what the gods intend. The noun is the snake of Genesis 3, the first voice in Scripture to question what God had said. An English reader sees "divination" in Genesis 30:27 and "serpent" in Genesis 3 and never hears that they sound alike.

The law later forbade it: "You must not practice divination or sorcery" (Leviticus 19:26). Divination there is the same verb, so an Israelite heard Laban reach for a practice God had forbidden His people, named with the serpent's letters.

Heard on the plains of Moab

Israel first heard Laban's omens as a people Moses had commanded to have nothing to do with omens and to listen to the prophet God would raise up. Moses forbade anyone who "interprets omens" (Deuteronomy 18:10), using the same verb again. Then he said, "Though these nations, which you will dispossess, listen to conjurers and diviners, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so" (Deuteronomy 18:14), and, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to him" (Deuteronomy 18:15).

That same generation had seen a diviner on the hills of Moab. Balak hired Balaam to curse Israel, and Balaam ended up saying, "For there is no spell against Jacob and no divination against Israel" (Numbers 23:23). Spell there is nachash. Then, "when Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, he did not seek omens as on previous occasions" (Numbers 24:1). Two diviners, Laban in Haran and Balaam in Moab, read the LORD's blessing on Jacob and his children. Israel heard both stories as the people meant to hear the LORD's mind from the LORD Himself.

Peter stood in Jerusalem and named Jesus as that prophet: "You must listen to Him in everything He tells you" (Acts 3:22).

White wood and the man named White

Genesis 30 calls the branches white because the Hebrew for white, laban (H3836), is also the name of the man Jacob was dealing with, Laban (H3837), so a Hebrew listener heard Laban beaten by his own name. The first tree Jacob cut was libneh (H3839), poplar, a tree named for its pale bark, and he stripped it with patsal (H6478), to peel, into stripes of that white.

Laban had once sent Leah into Jacob's tent in the dark, and Jacob woke to ask, "Why have you deceived me?" (Genesis 29:25). Now the speckled (H5348) young went to Jacob in front of branches showing the colour of Laban's name. Jacob put the outcome down to God: "God has not allowed him to harm me" (Genesis 31:7).

A shepherd's wages in Haran

Shepherds in Jacob's world were often paid with a share of the young born in the flock they kept, and the law limited what they owed for lost animals. Hammurabi's laws in Babylon made a shepherd pay for losses through his own neglect and released him from losses to a lion or a plague. Jacob carried more than the law asked of him: "I did not bring you anything torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for what was stolen by day or night" (Genesis 31:39).

Most sheep in that region were white and most goats were dark, so speckled goats and dark lambs were a small share of any flock, and Laban said "Agreed" at once (Genesis 30:34). Jacob had asked for the wage an owner would value least. When God explained in a dream how that small wage had grown, He named Himself by the place the almond wood was named for.

Almond wood from Luz

The Hebrew for almond is luz (H3869), and Luz (H3870) was the old name of Bethel, where God first spoke to Jacob. After the ladder and the promise, Jacob "called that place Bethel, though previously the city had been named Luz" (Genesis 28:19). Years later he peeled branches that carried the name of the place where God had promised to bring him home.

In the dream God reminded Jacob of that place by what Jacob had done there, "where you anointed the pillar and made a solemn vow to Me" (Genesis 31:13). The God who had spoken at Luz gave Jacob those flocks. Jacob used a breeder's trick, and God, who had seen all that Laban had done, turned it into the wages He meant Jacob to carry home.

The God who tells His people

Jacob staked his case on his honesty as a future witness: "So my honesty will testify for me when you come to check on my wages in the future" (Genesis 30:33). Honesty there is tsedaqah (H6666), righteousness, the word Genesis 15:6 uses for what God credited to Abram: "Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6). Jacob claimed righteousness by his own honesty, and Abram received it by believing what God had said.

Laban had to read omens to learn what the LORD was doing. Jacob heard it from God in a dream, with his own name spoken first. Israel was forbidden the omens and promised a prophet to listen to, and the writer of Hebrews wrote, "But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:2). We know Him by listening to Him. When He speaks to you through Scripture or an encouragement, keep it the way Jacob kept Bethel for twenty years: put it in the Doxa app with the day it came, and come back to it while you wait. The God who sees all that is done to His people still speaks to them by name.

This goes with today's Doxa Daily Lift: Jacob Peels Branches to Win Laban's Flocks (Genesis 30:25–43)