Jacob peels twigs

In the previous weblog, I referred to the staff with which Jacob passed through the Jordan River as a beautiful picture of the expectation of the resurrection. Yet there is an earlier occasion in Jacob’s life where a staff, or rather staffs, also play a remarkable role.

We find this in the narrative of Jacob’s stay with his uncle Laban, where he acquires large herds of cattle (Gen. 30:25–43). Jacob had made an agreement with his uncle that all the speckled young born among Laban’s herds would become his.

During the days that followed, while Jacob was watching over Laban’s herds, he placed peeled twigs or sticks in the animals’ drinking troughs. Literally, the word used is staff or rod. Jacob assumed that when the cattle came in heat and drank the treated water, the newborn animals would be speckled.

Whether or not this actually came about through Jacob’s method, the result was highly successful. Jacob’s herds increased more and more.

The important point is that Jacob was suggesting a connection between the formation of the herds and the cut staffs, because that was precisely the idea behind his method. He peeled the twigs, the rods or staffs, in order to expose the white beneath the bark (31:37). It was as though he were performing a circumcision, in which something is also cut away: the foreskin is removed in order to reveal what lies underneath.

In the year 2011, modern man may ridicule Jacob’s “primitive” ideas, but that says more about us than about Jacob. Our understanding here falls hopelessly short. We no longer know what typology means and have become illiterate with respect to it.

Jacob understood that a staff represents a male symbol, and that is why he cut it.

Also in this narrative, the staff, once “the peeling” is removed from the text, points to Him Who brings forth new life.

Translation: Peter Feddema

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