Good

             However, God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream of the night and said to him, “Be careful that you do not speak to Jacob either good or bad.” (Genesis 31:24)

I’m not sure that careful is really a good word to use as a synonym for conscious. Aware might be better and we’ll probably get to it. But this morning when I looked up the former, the verse above was the first, and it caught my attention. God told Laban to be careful not to speak to Jacob either good or bad? What problem would God have with Laban saying good things to Jacob?

I suspect this is a “God-Thing” because yesterday, I read an interesting definition. I shared it as a quote, but it seems to fit here. Dallas Willard stipulated that assault is when we act against what’s good for someone, even with their own consent.

Jacob had consented to work for Laban for seven years for Rachel. Laban had assaulted Jacob by giving him Leah instead. Jacob had worked another seven years for Rachel. Then Jacob had agreed to work for Laban for another seven years for a specific payment, which Jacob claimed Laban had changed unilaterally many times. Jacob consented to Laban’s assault. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t assault.

We see this in other relationships. “If you really loved me, you’d…” is a classic assault to which too many people too often consent. Abused spouses and children often reach the point that they consent because they think they deserve the repeated assaults, or that the assaults aren’t assaults.

There are two more relationships in which we see these assaults. Satan regularly attacks people with what seems good. “Did God really say …?” Oh no, we won’t die. We’ll be like the Most High. Don’t we deserve…? We’re special. We’re taught that we should think more highly of ourselves, have good “self-esteem.” And those who flatter us in this manner, while seeming to say good mean evil, even if we consent and even if the enemy is us.

It's tempting to say that the “good” assaults to which we may or may not consent may be meant as good. Laban could have said that Jacob had benefitted from what Laban had said and done. He had two wives, two concubines, eleven children and lots of wealth, but during his talk with Jacob, he noted, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my grandchildren, the flocks are my flocks, and everything that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these daughters of mine or to their children to whom they have given birth?  (Genesis 31:43) Laban didn’t see any of what he had paid Jacob as belonging to anyone but Laban.

Given a chance, Laban would probably have tried to sweet-talk Jacob into returning to serve him for another seven years for something else, not to help Jacob, but to enrich himself.  Likewise, we should be careful not to say anything – good or bad – that is designed to prosper us at the expense of another or to do the other harm.