Jacob Worse

“ Great anxiety was felt for Jacob by all his friends, and they watched him daily to see whether he would show the same meek and quiet spirit, and as highly honour religion in the world, as he had done in his prison. He must necessarily meet the temptations of life, which might be found too strong for his, as yet untried, moral principles, and in an evil hour he might fall from his steadfastness. Of this he seemed to be well aware, and to have fortified his mind by reliance upon the grace of God. No, one was apparently more alive to his own weakness and dangers. ”

“ Some men look back and say, with Jacob in one of his moods, 'Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life!' Yes! and the same man, when he was in a better spirit, said, and a great deal more truly, 'The God that fed me all my life long, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil.' Do not paint like Rembrandt, even if you do not paint like Turner. Do not dip your brush only in the blackness, even if you cannot always dip it in molten sunshine. ”

“ Jacob was fully sensible of the ignorance in which he had grown up, and the manner in which he had been led astray and tempted to the commission of sin, yet none of the circumstances attending his crimes ever induced him to plead the least justification. His clear perceptions of sin and deep agony of heart, arose from the conviction that he had offended not against man alone, but against God. ”

“ How meanly and humbly he speaks of himself, disclaiming all thought of his own merit, "I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies, much less am I worthy of so great a favour as this I am now suing for." Jacob was a considerable man, and, upon many accounts, very deserving, and, in treating with Laban, had justly insisted on his merits, but not before God. I am less than all thy mercies; so the word is. Note, The best and greatest of men are utterly unworthy of the least favour from God, and must be ready to own it upon all occasions. ”

“ Jacob deceived his father with the skin of a kid, and his sons deceived him with the blood of a kid. Jacob lied to his father, and his sons lied to him. The lie came home. Every lie is bound to come back to you. You cannot dig a grave so deep but that it will have a resurrection. Tramp, tramp, your sins will all come back.
“Be sure your sin will find you out.” You may think you are very shrewd and far-sighted, and can plan and cover up, but it is the decree of high heaven that no sin shall be covered; God will uncover it. You cannot deceive the Almighty. Jacob found that out. ”

“ But it was Jacob's affliction, a damp to the mirth of the marriage-feast, when in the morning behold it was Leah, v. 25. It is easy to observe here how Jacob was paid in his own coin. He had cheated his own father when he pretended to be Esau, and now his father-in-law cheated him. Herein, how unrighteous soever Laban was, the Lord was righteous; as Judges i. 7. Even the righteous, if they take a false step, are sometimes thus recompensed on the earth. Many that are not, like Jacob, disappointed in the person, soon find themselves, as much to their grief, disappointed in the character. ”

“ Jacob, did you ever see that old gentleman sail too close to the wind before?”
“I never did—I do not think that he was ever tipsy before last night.”
“Then I pities him—his headache, and his repentance. Moreover, there be his nose and the swallow-tail of his coat to make him unhappy. We shall be down abreast of the Hospital in half-an-hour. Suppose you go and give him a shake, Jacob. Not you, Tom; I won’t trust you—you’ll be doing him a mischief; you haven’t got no fellow-feeling, not even for dumb brutes.” ”

“ With the lonely night, in a wheeling mist,
Went round by river and hill.
And Jacob strove as the dying strive,
In the woe of that awful place.
Yea, he fought with the desperate soul of one
Who fights in evil case:
And he called aloud in the pauses dread,
“O give me sight of thy face.
“Yea, speak thy name, what art thou, spirit,
Or man, or devil, or God?
[Pg 25] Yea, speak thy name!” But no voice came,
From heaven or deep or sod:
And the spirit of Jacob clave to his flesh
As the dews in a dried-up clod. ”

“ Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep,
flies from the guilty conscience; and there was no rest for Jacob.
Oh! Why had he so easily and so weakly yielded to that strong temptation to obtain by fraud the coveted blessing? Why had he not, like Abraham, patiently waited for the fulfilment of the [Pg 307] sure promise made on his behalf? Why had he not waited till God Himself had brought it about—that the elder should serve the younger—instead of faithlessly and sinfully hurrying it on himself, and bringing down upon himself and his home all this misery? ”

“ And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee."
THE MEANING OF THE STORY
31. No man is altogether good and no one is wholly bad. Good and evil struggle for the mastery in us. Jacob is a man in whom this is very clearly seen. ”

“ Jacob never asked himself any such questions, to judge by the way he laced his boots; shaved himself; to judge by the depth of his sleep that night, with the wind fidgeting at the shutters, and half-a-dozen mosquitoes singing in his ears. He was young—a man. And then Sandra was right when she judged him to be credulous as yet. ”

“ Now, sir, I’ll tell you a secret, to prove it to you. I love Jacob—love him very much, and he does not care for me—I am sure he does not; so, you sir, you are not the only one—who is—very unhappy;” and Mary commenced sobbing with the Dominie.
“Poor thing!” said the Dominie; “and thou lovest Jacob? truly is he worthy of thy love. And, at thy early age, thou knowest what it is to have thy love unrequited. Truly is this a vale of tears—yet let us be thankful. Guard well thy heart, child, for Jacob may not be for thee; nay I feel that he will not be.” ”

“ Because there is some right in you—because you are on the whole on the right road—the Lord will visit you with disappointment and affliction, and make your own sins your punishment.
If you deceive other people, other people shall deceive you, as they did Jacob. If you lay traps, you shall fall into them yourselves, as Jacob did. If you fancy that because you trust in God, God will overlook any sin in you, as Jacob did, you shall see, as Jacob did, that your sin shall surely find you out. The Lord will be more sharp and severe with you than with Esau. ”

“ It it Jacob's case that is in this prayer spread before the God of Jacob. [2.] Jacob is small, very small already, weakened and brought low by former judgments; and therefore, if these come, he will be quite ruined and brought to nothing. The people are few; the dust of Jacob, which was once innumerable, is now soon counted. Those few are feeble (it is the worm Jacob, Isa. xli. 14) ; they are unable to help themselves or one another. Sin will soon make a great people small, will diminish the numerous, impoverish the plenteous, and weaken the courageous. ”

“ If Jacob will over top his brother out of Gods time and way, he will so hamstring him, that hee shall make legs whether he will or no, at his brothers approach: and such as over-run all humane measure, shall seldome returne to humane mercy: There are sins besides the sin against the Holy Ghost, which shall not be expiated by sacrifice for temporall revenge: I mean when they are boyled up to a full consistence of contumacy and impenitency. ”

“ The keeper and the chaplain took him affectionately by the hand for the last time as an inmate of the prison, and Jacob went out, overwhelmed with emotion, as he bid adieu to these friends, and turned his eyes from the impressive memorials of his crimes and of the mercy of God to his soul.
Jacob was now to try the strength of his new principles. As he looked, the first time for years, upon the heavens and the earth, a free man, he actually felt more lonely than when buried at night in his narrow cell. ”

“ Most of the earnest and generous students of the Old Testament would, we imagine, if they were to make frank confession, sympathise with Esau as a wronged and ill-used man. A sentiment of pity for the big, burly hunter, so helpless in the hands of the subtle and masterly Jacob, takes possession of us as we read the history. It seems a hard penalty to pay for a moment's weakness under the pressure of the pangs of hunger; while the crafty treacherous falsehood by which the blessing as well as the birthright was won from him enlists us wholly as to that transaction on his side. ”

“ One of the favorite characters that they brought up was Jacob. Many a time I have had men say, “You think Jacob was a saint, don’t you? He was a big rascal.” Many have said they thought Jacob wasn’t as good as Esau. Notice this fact. You read in the Bible, “I will punish Jacob according to his doings.” This law of retribution runs through his Life; although he was a friend of God, a kinsman of Abraham, and was third in the line of the covenant, yet God made Jacob reap the same kind of seed he sowed. ”

“ He was of a revengeful disposition. He never forgave an injury, forgetting, poor, sinful mortal, for how much he had need to be forgiven. He quarrelled with his relations; he was shot in a duel with his friend! I mention this, Jacob, as a lesson to thee; not that I feel myself worthy to be thy preceptor, for I am humbled, but out of kindness and love towards thee, that I might persuade thee to correct that fault in thy disposition.”
“I have already made friends with Mr Drummond, sir,” answered I; “but still your admonition shall not be thrown away.”
“Hast thou, Jacob? ”

“ So taught Jesus the Jew, in after time, and in this earlier age Jacob the Jew, in practice, anticipated the later doctrine. It is one of the misfortunes of theology, if not its crime, that profession of love to God is often accompanied with bitter and active hate of man. Jacob was one of the founders of the Jewish race, and even in this their prehistoric age, the instinct for driving a hard bargain seems strongly developed. “Jacob said” to Esau, “Sell me this day thy birthright.” The famished man vainly expostulated, and the birthright was sold for a mess of pottage. ”

“ Out of this condition Jacob was roughly awakened. Sinning by unfaithfulness and softness towards his [314] family, he is, according to the usual law, punished by family disaster of the most painful kind. The conduct of Simeon and Levi was apparently due quite as much to family pride and religious fanaticism as to brotherly love or any high moral view. In them first we see how the true religion, when held by coarse and ungodly men, becomes the root of all evil. We see the first instance of that fanaticism which so often made the Jews a curse rather than a blessing to other nations. ”

“ Taking his Bible, the only article that belonged to him, he walked out to have his last, parting interview with his keeper and the chaplain. And it was one truly affecting to them all. He was one whom they regarded as the first, fruits of their experiment upon the new plan of prison discipline. Jacob stood before them, the murderer, the ignorant, wretched African; but how changed! Intelligent in the knowledge of God, a man of prayer, blessed in the hope of eternal life. ”

“ There is a world of contempt, rage, and fear in the questions, 'Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?' The conviction that Joseph was marked out by God for a high position seems to have entered these rough souls, and to have been fuel to fire. Hatred and envy make a perilous mixture. Any sin can come from a heart drenched with these. Jacob seems to have been wise enough to make light of the dreams to the lad, though much of them in his heart. Youthful visions of coming greatness are often best discouraged. ”

“ Do you see how Jacob begins to reap the harvest of the sins of his early days? For twenty long years he mourned that beloved boy. He deceived his own father, and his own sons, in turn, deceived him.
What a bitter life! What was Jacob’s dying testimony to Pharaoh? It would take ten thousand Jacobs to get one convert like Pharaoh. “Few and evil,” said [67] Jacob, “have my days been.” He started with a lie in his mouth. He died in exile. He died in Egypt—not in the land which God had promised him. He would not let God choose for him. ”

“ I trust thou wilt no longer stand in thine own light, but accept the offers which, in the fulness of his heart to make redress, he may make unto thee.”
“Nay, sir, I cannot promise that; I wish to be independent and earn my own livelihood.”
“Then hear me, Jacob, for the spirit of prophecy is on me; the time will come when thou shalt bitterly repent. Thou hast received an education by my unworthy endeavours, and hast been blessed by Providence with talents far above the situation in life to which thou wouldst so tenaciously adhere; the time will come when thou wilt repent, yea, bitterly repent. ”

“ Jacob, who had with him the majority of the most vile and corrupt of the nation, those who had been most officious and relentless in persecuting the servants of God, did not despair. He imagined that in course of time he would be so greatly strengthened by dissatisfied members of the tribes that he would eventually be able to conquer them and establish his supremacy. ”

“ Jacob, though he went from his own nation to another people, and passed through famine, fear, and many afflictions, yet lived till old age, and died sweetly, and rested in the Lord, as numberless other of God’s servants have done, and still shall do through God’s goodness, notwithstanding all the malice of their enemies: “When the branch of the wicked shall be cut off before his day”— (Job xv, 32) —“and bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.” ”