“THE EXCELLENCY OF JACOB”
R. Hibbert
Psalm 47: 4; Genesis 33: 12–14; 47: 7–10, It is in mind to speak about Jacob. That this verse in Psalm 47 speaks of ‘the excellency of Jacob whom He loved’, is very striking. You might have thought it would say ‘the excellency of Israel’, but it says “the excellency of Jacob”. Anyone that God loves is very interesting to us. Jacob is thus a very interesting and profitable person to think about, read about, and speak about. This verse is very impressive; it deals with our inheritance—“He hath chosen our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved”. It is very fine that God has chosen our inheritance. We have not chosen it. Our localities would enter into that. God has chosen our inheritance in our localities. He has chosen our neighbours, perhaps not the ones we would have chosen, but He has chosen them. I suppose Jacob was not the kind of man one would have chosen for a neighbour. He was, in some ways, a bit slippery, and you might have to be careful making a deal with him as you might come off second best! But, nevertheless, whatever else you might say about Jacob, what the scripture says more than once is that God loved him. He was a twin brother of Esau, but God hated Esau and loved Jacob.
So it is right that we should have a look at Jacob and see some of the features in him that God found lovable. We would like to be like him in that respect. He was loved because of that about him that was lovable. We might not think Jacob was a very lovable man, but he was.
There was something excellent about Jacob that God loved. One would
covet that there might be some elements with us like those which God loved in Jacob and that were victorious. In spite of his deficiencies—and who of us has not got them?—this is a very triumphant psalm—“All ye peoples, clap your hands; shout unto God with the voice of triumph!” (Psalm 47: 1). What a fine note with which to have Jacob introduced into a psalm!
There is nothing apologetic about this, it is triumphant! It shows what the work of God is, that in spite of any admixture there may be along with it, in itself it is triumphant. Nothing can overcome the work of God; it is going through and has elements that are practical and recognisable and that we can imitate.
Now the first thing we are told about Jacob is that he was a supplanter. His name means that, and that is a lesson we have to learn too; but what we have to supplant is in ourselves. Jacob had to supplant his brother, and we do not want to do that. But we have to learn that there is that in us that has to be supplanted. There was what had to be reduced in Jacob through God’s discipline until he arrived at this excellency; what you end with in Jacob is par excellence, that is, he is the blesser of the greatest man on earth, and it says, “the inferior is blessed by the better”, Hebrews 7: 7. And then he ends as a worshipper, which is the great end for all of us.
Then there is encouragement for the young brethren. I think one of the earliest features that God was pleased with in Jacob, so that He could put this label ‘excellence’ on it, was that he valued the birthright. Do we value it? Do you value your birthright? Do you value the fact, you dear young people, that you are born into an area where the light of God is known, where the work of God is seen, and where the saints are, our inheritance? This is no accident, “He hath chosen our inheritance
for us”; He has chosen it. So for all you dear young brothers and sisters, boys and girls, if God sees a boy or a girl who loves the company of the brethren, He loves that. If you have some interest in the truth I know how the brethren love it, and if we love it we can be sure that God loves it too.
If we see young persons beginning to make enquiries about God, that is evidence that God has begun His work. Then, too, if they love the brethren that is evidence that they have passed from death to life. So it is a good thing for young persons to look into themselves and see what is there, to see whether they have received the unction from the Holy One. They instinctively like to go to the meetings. I know some young brethren who consider it a penalty if they are not allowed to go to the meetings. Well, you may say, they just want to see the other young brethren. Well, suppose they do; there is nothing wrong with that. It shows there is some affinity; I do not mean a worldly one, or just a social one, but there is an affinity there in the work of God.
One of the next things we are told about Jacob is that he was obedient to his parents (Genesis 28: 7). He was a mature man then, so I am not just speaking only to the younger people now, I am speaking about the principle of obedience. Perhaps we have been a bit hard on Jacob, because God says about him that he was obedient to his parents in a most important matter, that is, marriage (see Genesis 22: 7). Now this is a vital matter for the young people that marriage must be in the Lord. Obedience must enter into it otherwise it is going to be disastrous. Esau saw that his parents were pleased with what Jacob had done and he did just the opposite. He chose a wife who was not in fellowship; that was not approved by his parents. Now, I know the young
people may be amused at this, but it is not a bad idea to ask your parents’ advice; you would like to be governed a good bit by their judgment in such an important matter as that, because it is an important matter.
So Jacob goes out, in obedience to his parents’ wish, to seek a wife in a limited circle. It is hard for young people, I know, to accept limitations, and it is hard for old people too. Each of us likes his own way, but it is specifically said in that section that Jacob obeyed his parents.
So he went out and what he found immediately was that he had God’s approval and was personally the object of the interest of heaven. What a wonderful thing to realise! His circumstances were difficult; he lay down and had a rock for a pillow—not a very comfortable one—but he got a wonderful appearing from God, as if God was approving him, approving the path of obedience in which he was, and God says, “I am with thee, and will keep thee”, Genesis 28: 15. What an assurance! And I can assure the young brethren that if you are moving on that path you can count on God’s support. He says, ‘I will be with you and I will bring to pass My thoughts for you’. ‘Oh’, you say, ‘I have not got much yet’, but God says, ‘I will bring it to pass; I will complete My work’, and He will. “He who has begun in you a good work will complete it unto Jesus Christ’s day”, Philippians 1: 6.
So then, as I say, Jacob is seeking a wife, and he comes across this flock of sheep. Then, what is even more interesting, he comes across this beautiful young woman. And the remarkable thing about it is that what affects him is that she belongs to the same family, the same kindred, she was “the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother”, Genesis 29: 10. It does not say he fell in love with her because of her beauty; it says he wept, he was greatly moved,
because of the sense of kindredship, the sense of family, and he kissed her and he wept. That is another thing about Jacob; he was a man who could weep, a man who had feelings. It says that God met with him and that he wept. “He wrestled with the Angel, and ... he wept” (see Hosea 12: 4). It does not tell us that in the history. It is a great thing to have this sense of family, this sense of kindredship, the sense that we are not part of a congregation but that we belong, and that we love, as we have already quoted, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”, 1 John 3: 14. So that is what marked Jacob, he had love for the family, you might say the divine family; it was the testimonial family, the family in which God was going to continue his testimony.
Then he considered for the sheep. That is another great thing; consider for the brethren, consider for what they need, consider for their refreshment. He took away the stone from the top of the well so that the water was made available. You know, the youngest brother in the meeting can do that; some of the best readings that we have are the result of a question from a young brother. A reading is not altogether a question of gift; of course gift enters into it, but it has been a concern with me whether we make enough room for what springs up out of the body of the brethren, particularly from the young brethren. Perhaps we are so busy getting on to our point and filling out what we have got before us that there is not room for the Spirit to get in, and yet there is a young brother there who has a question that is just the key question to, so to speak, take the covering off the well and get something fresh. So that we are not just coming together quoting the great worthies—we can do that to great advantage (but of course we could read them at home to great advantage)—but
we want to get more than that when we come together; we want to get something fresh and living and current. Where there is an honest enquiry we always get something. God will never overlook an honest enquiry.
When I was just a boy I used to find the meetings very difficult; I used to think, ‘Will I ever understand what they are talking about?’; it just seemed like Greek, and I told Mr. Lyon this.
Some of us here know what a man he was, and he said, ‘You know, Roy, every meeting, before you go, you ask the Lord for something and He will never fail you. There will always be a handful of purpose’. He was quoting from Ruth 2: 16. The Lord will always have something for you; you may not be able to give an outline of the reading, but you will get a handful, and if you get that, that is what you want, what you can hold in your hand.
There are some other features about Jacob here that are very important. He meets Esau, whom he had not treated rightly. He had slipped it over him (I suppose you use that expression here too) and he had to go through a great deal of exercise about it. He wrestled with God, he went to God about it. That is the thing to do if there is difficulty with a brother, go to God about it; and to quote dear Mr. Lyon again, he said, ‘You say, I have a difficulty?
Yes, you are the difficulty!’ That is what Jacob had to find out, that he was the trouble. God had something to say to him. As if God would say, ‘Never mind talking about Esau, I have something to say to you’, and He touched him on the spot where he needed to be touched. So instead of parading his wealth and showing how God had prospered him, he bowed himself seven times to the ground when he met Esau. What a way to gain a brother!
That is the solution to most difficulties, if there is someone willing to bow himself down seven times. That is a big order, is it not? You may say, ‘Well, I have been to see him once and I told him that I had not treated him just right, but he was pretty cool’. Well, Jacob bowed himself seven times, then he won the day. Esau did not say anything about the old trouble; he did not say, ‘You did me out of the blessing’. The fact is, of course, that Esau got some blessing too. God is so great; while Jacob got the blessing, Esau said, “Bless me—me also, my father!” (Genesis 27: 34), and God saw that he got a blessing too.
But what I wanted to draw attention to is what Esau said—Let us take our journey, and go on, and I will go before thee. And he (Jacob) said to him, My lord knows that the children are tender, and the suckling sheep and kine are with me; and if they should overdrive them only one day, all the flock would die. Let my lord, I pray thee, pass on before his servant, and I will drive on at my ease according to the pace of the cattle that is before me, and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord, to Seir”.
Now these are fine expressions; he says the children are tender. We have to remember that, dear brethren, about our children. We thank God for them, but we have to be careful with the children to avoid damaging them. It is not that you are unrighteous, no, but a child is a child, and it is often said, ‘You cannot put old heads on young shoulders’. So Jacob was a fatherly man. Abraham, of course, was a father outstandingly, from the standpoint of divine counsel and purpose, but Jacob was a family man practically. He had a large and a difficult family; he had a number of wives and he had a lot of difficulties with them too. Nevertheless, he was very considerate about the young, and we need to be. We do not want to
act in any way that will offend or hinder the young. The Lord indeed speaks very severely to anyone responsible for offending one of these little ones (see Matthew 18: 6). So we have to learn perhaps not to go quite so fast; we have to control ourselves somewhat in relation to the pace of the young. We may be clearer about things than they are; we must have a lot of patience.
If we read Jacob’s history we might not think he was a very patient man, and yet he was. He put up with a great deal from Laban, who was a difficult man. He changed Jacob’s wages ten times; I do not suppose it was a raise each time either, probably just the opposite, but he still went on serving him; and he had a lot of other difficulties. But what I am drawing attention to is the pace of the children. I am not saying that we should make wrong allowances for our young ones, but I do say that we must be patient. We must get down to their pace.
I speak very feelingly about this. I find it very hard to get near to young people, I might as well confess that. But some people do not, they get along fine with young people; I wish I had that ability. If we have not got it I think we should ask for it, to get to know the young ones, to get to understand their exercises. You might be surprised if you found out what some of them are going through. They may not say anything about it, but you get close to them and you will be surprised what exercises they are going through. So we have to get down to their pace. Then it mentions cattle, which reminds us that Jacob was a livestock man. He was not a mass production line man. A production line is no good in the assembly. Livestock teach you to have feelings. We have to deal with living persons, having living feelings and emotions and affections, and I am saying this humbly because I own that I fall short. I feel that, and I ask the Lord to help me,
and the Lord is helping me, I would say, to get nearer to the young ones, to get to know their names.
I have found that the young people value an interest; you remember their names, even remember what their hobbies are. You say, ‘Hobbies?’ Well, I know we must go easy on that, but still, what do they do in their spare time? What are they interested in? I feel sure if you have an interest in what they are interested in then you have a basis for trying to get them to be interested in what you are interested in. So we have to learn to go their pace. Jacob says, “I will drive on at my ease according to the pace of the cattle that is before me, and according to the pace of the children”. He also says, “If they should overdrive them only one day, all the flock would die”. It is a tragedy to overdrive. There is such a thing. We have been through a phase of that, overdriving; what tragedies have resulted from it!—divided homes, and the children saying they cannot put up with the pressure any longer. Thank God we have got help about that, and may we maintain the help that we have got.
In the end of Genesis Jacob really shines in his excellency. In Genesis 47 we read—“Joseph brought Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh”. What a scene that must have been!—
Joseph bringing up his old father, just a nomad! He would not have any insignia, or outward dignity, but he had divine dignity. Even then the excellency of Jacob was shining out. He was greater than Pharaoh: Scripture tells us that: “the inferior is blessed by the better”, Hebrews 7: 7. This great man, Joseph, is not ashamed of his father. Sometimes as men get on circumstantially they are ashamed of their fathers, but Joseph was not. He never forgot his father. He said to his brethren, “Is your father well—the old man of whom
ye spoke”, Genesis 43: 27. He always had his father in mind, just as the Lord was always thinking of His Father.
But now it is a question of dignity, bringing Jacob and setting him before Pharaoh, as if to say to Pharaoh, ‘There he is. What do you think of him? I know what I think of him’. Pharaoh might not have thought much of him. Still, he thought something of him because he was Joseph’s father, and so he said, ‘You can give him the best place in the land and do the best you can for him’. But Pharaoh could not patronise Jacob. You cannot patronise someone who is greater than you are, and that is the way the saints are. We do not need to be ashamed of being believers, we do not need to apologise, we do not need to feel that the world can patronise us, we are too great to be patronised. That is what the Lord said of His own—“They are not of the world, as I am not of the world”, John 17: 14. That is, you are too great to be worldly. The world cannot add anything to you because if you are a believer you are too great, and I think that was the case with Jacob here, that he was too great a man to be patronised by Pharaoh, and so the tables were reversed. Peter says, “Ye have been called to this (1 Peter 3: 9), called to inherit blessing, so that you are superior to the world in a spiritual sense. You have always got more than the greatest persons in the world have, so you are able to bless them.
So it says, “And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Jacob, How many are the days of the years of thy life? And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they do not attain to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their sojourning”. Then again it says,
“And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from Pharaoh”. He did not wait to be dismissed. If you were in the presence of a great dignitary and turned round and walked out, it would be an insult. You would have to wait to be dismissed; but Jacob did not wait to be dismissed. He was in charge of the situation. Poor old man as he was outwardly, yet what was dignified was there; it was the excellency of Jacob shining out, refinement, the work of God. There had been all the ups and downs, the heat by day and the cold by night, all the different things that he had had to meet, all the days that he says were few and evil, but what a result from it all!
So may it be with us, dear brethren; our days are only few and evil at the best, but in spite of all that Jacob went through the work of God in its excellency was there and it could go on.
And it does go on and we can be conscious of being dignified persons, because the greatest dignity of all is to be sons of God. That is what we are, sons of God, and so we can bless, and we can be before God, as Jacob is at the end of the chapter, as worshippers. That involves sonship and kinship and the liberty of the family, and dignity. So it says, “And Israel worshipped on the bed’s head”. He did not die in weakness, he filled out his days. He says they were few and evil, but they were full to the very last one, and he went out in glory—
“Israel worshipped”. It is Israel now; that is, the Jacob side comes to equality with the purpose side. There is not any disparity; he is equal to the new name that God had given him.
Well, that is the greatest privilege we have, beloved brethren, the greatest dignity that we have. And it is not separated from the practical testings of the ways of God with us. It is the product of that. So it comes to light; you can tell in a
brother’s part in the service of God what substance he has in his soul, what he has gained in his exercises in the ways of God, the glorious result of the sufferings and the testings, all brought out in the dignity of a son. It is really what you have in Jacob at the end—Israel—his new name. So in the service of God we can abstract ourselves from all the difficulties and all the sorrows and all the pressures and we can be in God’s presence in complete liberty and dignity, in freedom to worship. God is seeking it—“The Father seeks such as his worshippers”, John 4: 23. What a favour it is, what a reward it is, to touch that in any measure and thus arrive substantially at God’s end in His ways with us. May He bless the word.
Address at Birmingham
7 October 1978