Why Jacob Used the Word for Sin About Torn Sheep (Genesis 31:25–42)

I bore the loss myself

When Jacob said "I bore the loss myself" (Genesis 31:39), his Hebrew verb was chata (H2398), the ordinary word for sin, in a form that means to make good what was missed. The root picture is missing a mark. The left-handed slingers of Benjamin "could sling a stone at a hair without missing" (Judges 20:16), and without missing is that same verb. Jacob said anokhi achattennah, I myself made up its loss, three verses after he asked Laban, "For what sin of mine have you so hotly pursued me?" (Genesis 31:36). Sin there is chatta'ah (H2403), from the same root.

Israel's worship uses the same form of the verb. When Moses put the blood on the horns of the altar, "purifying the altar" (Leviticus 8:15), the verb was chata. David prayed, "Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean" (Psalms 51:7), and purify me is techatte'eni, the same form again. An English reader hears a shepherd settling an account. A Hebrew hearer heard Jacob ask what his sin was, and then answer with the verb for taking sin's loss away, used for the dead sheep he had paid for himself.

Under the law Israel later received, Jacob would have owed nothing for those animals. A man keeping another man's animal owed nothing for one killed by a wild beast: "If the animal was torn to pieces, he shall bring it as evidence; he need not make restitution for the torn carcass" (Exodus 22:13). The laws of Hammurabi in Babylon, older than Moses, gave a herdsman the same protection when a lion took an animal from the fold. Jacob could have carried the remains to Laban and walked away clear. He said, "I did not bring you anything torn by wild beasts," and he paid for every one.

Last night He rendered judgment

"Last night He rendered judgment" (Genesis 31:42) is vayokach emesh, from yakach (H3198), to decide between two parties and set right the one who has been wronged. Jacob had used the same verb five verses earlier, when he told Laban to lay out anything he had found, "Put it here before my brothers and yours, that they may judge between the two of us" (Genesis 31:37). He asked for human arbiters. His closing line told Laban the case was already settled, the night before, by God, in a dream.

Job reached for the same verb when he longed for someone to stand between him and God: "Nor is there a mediator between us, to lay his hand upon us both" (Job 9:33). Mediator there is mokiach, the one who decides, from yakach. The LORD Himself used it to call His people back: "'Come now, let us reason together,' says the LORD" (Isaiah 1:18). Paul named the arbiter Job could not find: "there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). The God who decided between Jacob and Laban in a single night has put His own Son between Himself and us.

A wandering Aramean

The first readers of Genesis heard Jacob's words in Gilead echoed in their own worship, because every Israelite worshiper said words like his at the harvest. Bringing firstfruits to the LORD, each one declared, "My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt few in number" (Deuteronomy 26:5). The father who went down to Egypt was Jacob, the man who had served Laban the Aramean for twenty years. Then they said, "the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, toil, and oppression" (Deuteronomy 26:7).

The word for affliction there, oni (H6040), is the word Jacob used: "God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands" (Genesis 31:42). Scripture uses it for the people God sees. The angel told Hagar, "the LORD has heard your cry of affliction" (Genesis 16:11). Leah named Reuben because "The LORD has seen my affliction" (Genesis 29:32). At the burning bush God told Moses, "I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt" (Exodus 3:7). A Hebrew hearer heard the same word used for a servant girl at a desert spring, for Jacob's nights in the frost, and for a nation making bricks for Pharaoh, and each year Israel spoke it back to God with the firstfruits in their hands.

They heard one more thing in Rachel's tent. Their law said of a woman in her period, "Anything on which she lies or sits during her menstruation will be unclean" (Leviticus 15:20). Rachel claimed that very condition while she sat on her father's gods. A people who had heard God's voice from the fire at Sinai heard Laban's gods sat on, hidden and unclean, and heard the scorn in it.

The God who saw

God sees the affliction of His people and speaks into it, and knowing that God, and being known by Him, is what Jacob had carried through twenty years. In the Hebrew, Jacob put his own hardship first and God last: my affliction and the toil of my hands, God saw, and then, He decided last night. Twenty years of heat, frost and changed wages ended on God's name and God's verdict. Jacob had watched God at work in those years closely enough to say it to Laban's face, and Israel spoke his word for affliction back to God at every harvest.

When God speaks to you through Scripture or through an encouragement someone shares, and when He carries you through a hard season, record it in the Doxa app with the date, and read it back when you are tempted to think nobody saw. The Fear of Isaac saw Jacob in the frost, settled his case in one night, and gave Israel words to remember it by. He still sees, and He still speaks.

This goes with today's Doxa Daily Lift: Rachel Sat on the Stolen Gods While Laban Searched (Genesis 31:25–42)