Chapter IV: Jacob

Turning on over to the 28th chapter of Genesis we find another interesting story that throws some light on our question. Jacob had taken Esau’s blessing. Esau was angry. Jacob was afraid Esau would kill him. For refuge he went to Padanaram. On the way he spent the night at Bethel, and slept in the open, with a rock for a pillow. I don’t know why he chose such a hard pillow. People do some strange things. I have heard that in days gone by the Oriental people slept with their feet, instead of their heads, on the pillow, because the feet did the harder work. According to that rule I think I know some people who ought to change ends with the pillow. While Jacob was sleeping with a rock for a pillow he had a strange dream. He saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven and the angels of God going up and down (not down and up) on it. The Lord stood above it and promised to be with Jacob and to bless him. When Jacob arose early in the morning he 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 for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee” (Gen. 28: 20-22).

With this vow in his heart Jacob continued his journey to Padanaram, where he spent twenty-two years and became very wealthy. As he was returning to Canaan we find him praying to God as follows: “O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, ‘Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee’: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands ...” (Gen. 32:9-10). Please note that twenty-two years ago he had passed over this Jordan with nothing but a stick in his hand and in his heart a vow to give one tenth of all his increase to God. In the meantime he has become very wealthy.

The extent of his wealth is partially indicated by an incident that followed. Jacob was afraid that Esau was still angry. (He should have known that Esau was too lazy to stay mad twenty-two years.) To find grace in the sight of Esau he sent him a present, a token of his good will. Such presents usually represent only a small fraction of one’s total possessions. Yet this is what Jacob sent Esau: “two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, thirty milk camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals” (Gen. 32:14, 15). Few farmers in this county have that much livestock, yet that represents a small fraction of what Jacob was worth and had acquired since crossing the Jordan twenty-two years before. Since that time, he had been giving one-tenth to Jehovah. Again, remember that God has taken space to tell you and me about that in this much condensed book, the book of Genesis. He evidently meant for us to get some lesson from these facts.

During a financial depression, a business man in Kansas went broke. He lost everything he had and found himself $50,000 in debt—fifty thousand dollars in the hole. A friend of his offered to give him a medical formula to be used in any way he saw fit. The man took the formula and went home. He turned to Genesis 28:22 and drew a ring around these words: “Of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” With that vow, now become his vow, he began to manufacture a medicine. You probably have some at home. It was Mentholatum. On the bottle or tube you will find the name of A. A. Hyde. When I first heard this story he had become a millionaire and was still giving one-tenth of his income to what he considered the work of the Lord.

In private conversation I told this story to some one who said, “Well, he can afford to give a tenth, because he is rich.” I replied, “Yes, but remember that he was $50,000 in debt when he began doing so.” It is easier for one to give a tenth when he is poor than when he is rich. A man who practiced giving a tenth said that when he was working for $1.00 per day it was easy to give 60 cents on Sunday; but when he began making $500 per week and had to give $50 on Sunday, it was hard to do. It is easier for a poor man to give liberally than it is for a rich man to do so. That may be one reason the Bible says it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.