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13. Jacob's Flight.
When Rebekah heard
that Jacob was in mortal danger, she hurriedly sent him away to
Mesopotamia to Laban, her brother, who lived in Haran. When he had
travelled for a long time through strange, lonely regions where he knew
no one, he also came to a well in the field. Three shepherds were lying
by the well, waiting for the others to water their sheep together.
Flocks were already travelling from there and from there, and a maiden
was also coming from afar with her sheep. Jacob stopped for a while at
the well and said to the shepherds, ‘Where have you come from?’ The
shepherds said, ‘We are from Haran.’ That was a joyful word in Jacob's
heart, that these shepherds were from the home town of his relatives and
that he was now so close to the destination of his journey. ‘Do you also
know Laban, the descendant of Bethuel?’ he asked the shepherds. They
said, ‘We know him well, and he is well,’ and the maiden who was
travelling with her sheep was Laban's daughter. ‘Look,’ said the
shepherds, ’this is Rachel, his daughter.’
A wonderful joy flashed through Jacob's heart when he saw the virgin,
the daughter of his mother's brother, and the beautiful flocks of his
mother's brother. He hurriedly lifted the stone from the mouth of the
well - there was a stone lying on the mouth - and watered Laban's sheep
as if they were his own, because they were the sheep of his mother's
brother. The maiden might well have been disconcerted that such a
stranger should do her this service of his own free will; but as she
looked at him he told her that he was her kinsman, and kissed her with
brotherly love, and wept with the emotion of his heart.
Rachel hurried home to tell her father. Laban came out and brought him
into the city. There was great joy again when the relatives saw each
other, and Laban saw the son of his sister Rebekah, who had divorced him
many years before, and he also had grown sons and another daughter, who
was older than Rachel, named Leah. When Jacob had been staying with his
friends for some time and was serving Laban, Laban said to him, ‘If you
are already my flesh and my blood, it is not right that you should serve
me for nothing.’ Jacob had fallen in love with Rachel. He served Laban
seven years so that he would then give Rachel to him as his wife.
But Laban was an uncertain and arbitrary man in all this. For when the
seven years were up and Jacob wanted to marry his betrothed, he said to
him, ‘It is not customary in this country to marry the younger daughter
before the older,’ and gave him Leah. If he wanted Rachel, he had to
serve Laban for another seven years. It was a well-deserved justice that
from the time he thought he was lord over his brothers, he himself had
to serve for fourteen years in the house of a stranger, even though it
was his father-in-law. But Jacob stayed with Laban for a long time and
acquired great wealth during this time, until finally the peace between
him and his fine father-in-law could no longer exist.
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