The story is in Gen. 31:20-55. After twenty years of servitude, Jacob decided to flee from Laban his devious uncle and father-in-law at an opportune time; with his wives, children, servants and all the livestock God had blessed him with in Syria to return to the land of Canaan. He had carefully planned this exodus with Leah and Rachel his wives, but Jacob had no inkling the latter was an idolater and had stolen her father’s portable household gods. He was to later pay a costly price for this lapse when he unknowingly placed a deadly curse on whosoever stole the gods and brought them with his property in the mistaken believe his family was clean.

Where was Jacob when Rachel contrived to steal her father’s objects of idolatrous worship? Better still, did Jacob know Rachel at all? If he did, how is it that after living with Laban for 20 years, he did not locate her spiritual loyalties? Should we not go back in history and ask a few more similar questions when husbands thought they knew their spouses well enough, only to discover later to their dismay, they were thoroughly mistaken? Where was Adam when his wife engaged Old Slew foot in an examination of what God meant by “ye shall surely die”? What in the world was Eve doing near that tree at all or should we surmise the Serpent went to Adam’s living quarters to invite her to follow him to the tree? In any case where was Adam? If he was with her as the Bible indicates, what happened to his tongue when his wife was being cornered by the devil? He deliberately ate the fruit his wife gave him in trust. Do you see where that blind trust got us all? 7.5 billion souls are heading pell - mell into hell as we speak, to join untold more billions already there. Let us fast forward a little. Why did Abraham not ask God’s opinion on Sarai’s “go into my handmaid Haggar” suggestion? Did he think through the consequences of that misadventure before he consented? He trusted it would end well in his desperation to help God didn’t he? Did he know God would stop speaking to him for thirteen years on account of Sarai’s suggestion and the action he took? Has it ended well for Israel or for the rest of the world for 4000 years? Did he not bring into the world “a wild ass of a man “whose descendants are terrorizing the whole world today? Where did Abraham leave his famed unshakable confidence in God when he hearkened to the voice of his wife?

Did Lot really know of the deep seated attachment of his wife to the worldly pleasures of Sodom? That her heart could not accept the judgment of God in the destruction of that city? That she would look back and damn her soul and her posterity forever? Don’t you suppose he would have blindfolded her if he suspected? He assumed she would stay the course and obey the angels’ instructions didn’t he?

Did it ever occur to Isaac that the starry eyed girl Eliezer of Damascus brought home from Padan-aram would one day plot a monumental scheme of deception against him with this same Jacob the subject of this article? If he had the slightest hint, would he have fallen for that subterfuge carefully executed by Jacob? Did it occur to him that as a result of this lapse, there would be an eternal enmity between his two sons that still lingers?

Could it ever have crossed Job’s mind that one day the beautiful damsel he courted and married would advise him to curse God and die? Could Job, a perfect man have married such an undiscerning and godless woman if he knew her at all? How did himself characterize her advice? She spoke out of the abundance of her own heart and that is the part of her Job knew nothing about. Only God knows the human heart.

Many a husband in the Bible days assumed they had a correct reading or knowledge of their spouses before marriage, only to run into jolting experiences that opened their eyes to the dark sides of their spouses when it was too late.

Ahab was a simple minded young man who couldn’t hurt a fly. When Naboth refused to sell his garden to him, what did the king do? Sulky, went home deflated, lay down on his bed and refused to eat until his ‘husband‘came in to find out what was ailing him. Jezebel turned Ahab into a monstrous murderer, under whose watch thousands of the prophets and priests of Jehovah were wiped almost clean out of Israel and the nation of God was turned over to Baal, the despicable abomination of the Zidonians and several Canaanite nations. Ahab incurred the eternal hatred of God and a bloody retribution at the hands of Jehu the son of Nimshi who destroyed his lineage forever because of impudent, shameless and morally bankrupt and unrestrained Jezebel. Ahab thought he knew her but nay. He did not know her at all. And this error persists in many marriages till now. But, let us return to Jacob.

Twenty years he knew about Rachel but not her person at all. Her heart and her core personality were completely hidden from him. Jacob’s knowledge of Rachel was only superficial as it did not go beyond his unquenchable attraction to her physique. That certainly blinded him to any hint he might have caught of her idolatrous inclinations. There is something inscrutable about the average woman and her relationship with supernatural entities and her easy devotion to them. Again many Bible examples can be cited for this phenomenon, like Eve’s dialogue with the Devil in-dwelt snake, human women marrying fallen angels, the witch of Endor and her necromancy, the women worshippers of Tammuz, weeping in God’s temple in the night in Ezekiel. 8:13-14, the woman named Wickedness in Zech 5 or the Woman called Babylon the Great, the Mother of all Prostitutes and Obscenities in the World in Rev 17. The list is long. How is it Satan chose Eve to tempt and not Adam? How did he know he would more easily succeed with her? Because she is weaker? I don’t think. Did not Sarai lead Abraham to bring Ishmael and the Arabs into the world? Didn’t Delilah overpower Samson, the strongest man? Did Rebecca not take the blessings out of Isaac’s mouth for her own favorite son? Did Bathsheba’s intervention not make Solomon king? Did Deborah not lead Barak into battle? Did Jael not kill Sisera an army general? Did Solomon’s wives not win his heart for their own gods? Was Jezebel not the “ husband “ of Ahab? Did Esther not prevail against Haman and the laws of the Medes and Persians that cannot be altered? It started as Aquila and Priscilla and ended with Priscilla and Aquila. Who is weaker really?

What can we say about a convert to Jehovah called Rachel who could steal her father’s household idols at the same time. Why do I say Rachel was a convert of Jehovah? She prayed to God for children and He answered her. She knew her husband’s God. Her husband was absolutely sure no member of his own family could steal such dead gods, so he said to Laban, “With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live: before our brethren discern thou what is thine with me and take it to thee.” But what is the Author’s comment? “ For Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them”. If Rachel convinced Jacob that she was converted when she was not, then she was more devious than him. Here is the arch- deceiver being outsmarted by a woman he thought he knew. She was never converted. Her devotion to those idols ran deep and long, but Jacob, God’s man who was carrying the destiny of the whole world in his bosom did not know, nor cared enough to know.

These are the gods she had known, loved and devotedly worshipped all her life and no husband or his foreign God was going to separate her from them. That resolve was not a surface level commitment in the least. Jacob no doubt must have introduced Jehovah to her as the God of all gods and the Creator of all things who had chosen his family as a special covenant family above all the people of the earth to actualize His plan of salvation for all mankind. But in her heart, He was only another god useful to help her have children. Her father’s family had no covenant with any Jehovah and in any case, where is He? Is He visible? If He cannot be seen and if He has no certain location where He could be found to live, forget about Him. Here are birds in hand, better than the invisible.

Did Rachel know how devoted her husband was to Jehovah? No doubt. She is a witness to how He had miraculously transferred her father’s wealth to him but was she impressed enough to abandon her dumb portable household gods? No. So it did not matter to Rachel how committed Jacob was to his own beliefs but let him keep his devotions and let her keep hers. She was traveling with her gods and that is it. Did the possibility exist that somewhere down the road, there was going to be a clash with her husband on this issue? She couldn’t care less. Whatever it was about her gods, she was sure they would not let her down, they held her confidence.

On the other hand, think of the devotion of her father to these same gods. He pursued Jacob for seven days to retrieve his gods. What does that tell us? He too was a devoted worshipper of those same gods. He was determined to humiliate Jacob by entering his tents one after the other in search of his gods. Rachel saw how desperate her father was to find the missing gods, but she was more desperate and determined than her father, to keep them ,so, she lied and deceived her father by refusing to get up from where she sat, on top of the gods, feigning to be going through her monthly period. What a Rachel and what a convert Jehovah got here! She had no remorse or sympathy for her father’s desperation, no, the two of them were competitively courting the favours of these gods. She held unto her gods and sent her father away empty handed. Rachel did this and Jacob had no suspicions. He trusted her still.

Ordinarily, gods would require worship and constant consultation with their devotees. How Rachel proposed to carry on the worship of her gods in Jacob’s house undiscovered as time went on is difficult to figure out, but it would seem clear it was something she was determined risk, going forward.

Rachel, in the pursuit of her gods, defied her husband, the man who desperately loved her. She deceived Laban her progenitor and first authority figure over her life. She mocked the God of heaven, the one Who held her life in His hands , but she did not care. She worshipped Jehovah only to please Jacob probably, but He wasn’t her God.

Now to the point of this article. Why did Jacob not know Rachel well enough to discover her idolatry? Let’s put the first reason down to ‘blind love’. Jacob was captivated by her physical beauty therefore, he had no time to afford himself the leisure to consider and weigh her character or her devotions. The surprising thing is that it took all of twenty years. Let us put this in proper perspectives. Gen 29:20 says, “And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her.” Verse 30 says, “and he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him (Laban) yet seven other years “. If fourteen years of the hard labor of a shepherd seemed like a few days to Jacob because of Rachel, then we are talking of extreme attraction here. Songs 8:6 says, “ Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame”. The NLT says, “ Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, it’s jealousy is as enduring as the grave. Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame.” Do you get? Love has power and it’s strength is as strong as death. On the physical plane, is anything stronger than death? No, and Jehovah knows it. The Bible says, “But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love… his wives turned away his heart after other gods…”. So women made a fool of the wisest man that ever lived. This is what happened to Jacob. He did not remember that beauty is vain and that favor is deceitful. Before Solomon, Samson gambled away his life on the laps of a woman. David brought a sword upon his own family on account of his fatal attraction to Bathsheba and by the time the fire he kindled in his blind passion was done, his daughter was raped, two of his sons died and 20,000 innocent Israelites lay dead on the mountains of Ephraim. The same bug of blind love bit Jacob and he also paid a costly price for it. Christian man, do you really know your spouse? Is she totally devoted to the worship of Jehovah or does she keep secret idols? The idols may not necessarily be carved objects like Rachel’s, but any purpose, person or possession that displaces Jehovah will upstage your home and may damn your soul forever. There are many men today who are on their way to hell because of their spouses and vice-versa. Young Christian man, do you really know your fiancée at all? Are you observant enough? Does she love Jesus from her heart? What does she do for Him? In any case, have you seriously asked God to reveal to you what you do not know about her? Or you think physical beauty alone makes a wife? Are you leaning on your own understanding? Young sister, do you really know that man to whom you are pledging to live with forever? Do you know him? Do you really, really know him? Do you know that all that glitter is not gold? Many like you have traded their marital and eternal bliss for a mess of pottage and unfortunately, messes from stark unbelievers many times.

If Laban came in hot pursuit of his gods, is it conceivable that in 20 years of Jacob’s sojourn in Padan Aram, Laban and his own household suspended the worship of these gods? If Laban had required the participation of Leah and Rachel during his family’s worship of his gods, could Jacob have pretended not to know what was going on and forbidden his wives? Is it imaginable Laban hid the worship of his gods because of Jacob? Certainly not! He came ready to fight Jacob for them. The question should be what Jacob did to steer Laban away from idols toward the living God in 20 years. If Jacob cared for the will of God, he should have attempted to win Laban. Clearly he made zero effort in this regard, the reason Laban had no qualms searching for false gods in all of Jacob’s tents. What humiliation for Jacob! He hid his own light for 20 years and now Satan gained the upper hand against him. Despite Jehovah confronting Laban when he pursued Jacob, Almighty did not impress Laban enough to make him abandon his vain worship of false gods because no ground work was done on him in twenty years. Was Jehovah interested in Laban’s salvation? That is the purpose of Abraham’s call, remember? Did Jacob see Jehovah with his own eyes in very a profound vision on his way to Padan Aram when he fled his brother’s face? Did Jehovah make an everlasting covenant with him to bless and bring him back? Did he not himself raise an altar to God? Why did he not talk to Laban to win him? Compromise? Intimidation? Indifference? Where was Jacob that Laban did not learn of Jehovah in twenty years?

Again Christian father, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. If you hide your light under a bushel and false gods are brought in your home by your wife or children, your day of reckoning is coming. If not on earth then before the judgment seat of Christ. One of the ways our nation is being corrupted today is the dressing of your daughters. Some years back, a new Vice Chancellor was appointed at UDFU, Sokoto and the leaders of the Christian community in the university sanctimoniously went to congratulate and pray for him. But before the prayer, he told them that a major problem confronting the university community was the way and manner of dressing of Christian girls. He gave the problem back to them as an assignment and a prayer topic. Our own house is not in order and we want to go and pray for others? There is a log in our eyes and we want to remove a speck from another’s eye? If salt has lost its saltiness, what is it good for? Men , (meaning the world at large) are meant to see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven. Can men see the way your daughters dress today and give glory to God? A few years ago, a ‘Christian’ corp member was raped to death in Maiduguri at the height of Boko Haram insurgency because of her skimpy dressing that left nothing more to men’s imagination. This story was in the papers. Is God glorified if our daughters are raped and murdered primarily because of the way they are dressed? Christian mother, where are you? Would you rather discipline them now or reap the harvest of sorrows tomorrow? You have a choice to make. Eli and his two sons Hophni and Phinehas with Phinehas’ wife died the same day because he refused to discipline his sons when he had opportunity. Worse things later befell that family; the whole city of Nob was put to the sword because Eli did not honor God enough to discipline his children when God warned him. Do you know your children can bring down the judgment of God upon your family? Do you know you can die before your time because of failure to discipline your children on time? A stitch in time saves nine. Do not hide your stand and do not hide your light. If you cannot win or at least discipline your children for God, you have failed Him.

Secondly, Jacob was spiritually careless, he was oblivious of his higher calling and was still full of his cunning ways. He concentrated mainly on making financial success. He forgot that a man can gain the whole world and lose his own soul. He did not remember we brought nothing into this world and surely can carry nothing out. He eventually lost Rachel the love of his life to premature death. Man of the house, because of financial success you are neglecting your wife and children, isn’t it? Be warned, those people you are neglecting now are actually more important than money. One day, you will lose them and die alone, unsung. They wouldn’t care because you did not care. Be seriously warned.

I guess we have to stop and leave Jacob alone now.

Christian homes are bedeviled today by divorce, incest, cultism, violence, homosexual children, drug addiction, outright criminal lifestyle and every form of aberration and corruption primarily because our Jacobs are absent. Not physically absent in most cases though, but, by dereliction of duty and spiritual blindness to our eternal duties. The primary personal interest of God in our families is godly children. If we are doing our very best to raise them for God, He will help us. But many Christian homes are war zones because of the godlessness, selfishness and narcissism of the Jacobs primarily. May I warn all parents, particularly the fathers that your life, your time, your wealth, your success and position in life are actually not yours but God’s. Your life is a trust and you will give account to God one day. Your are here for only one reason and that is to fulfill your God given purpose, to raise God fearing children and affect your generation positively for Christ. How many people, including your children are going to heaven today because of your personal efforts? Must you die empty handed? Not one soul with which to greet your Master? If you are the center of your own universe, you have missed the point of life. It’s not about you at all but about God, Eccl 12:13-14. You are in this world on assignment for God. You are not an accident. If you do not fulfill that purpose, you will give account to God. Your number one assignment is to bring all your family to heaven. Are you investing your effort in that direction or are you leaving it to the Pastor, Sunday School teachers or your wife? How much time do you spend with your family around the Bible and meals? Do you communicate earnestly with your family? Do you teach the Bible to your family? Do you take personal interest in the physical and spiritual development of your wife and each child you have. It’s not only degrees they need. Have you led your family to Christ and are you nurturing them in the admonition of the Lord? If not, surrender your own heart to Jesus today, turn away from every known sin and selfishness, thoroughly engage and befriend the Bible and immediately start discharging your duties to God, before it is too late.

By:Isaac Okpanachi