The Fear of Isaac

In Genesis 31:42, Jacob calls the LORD, “God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac.” Nowhere else in all the scriptures is this name, The Fear of Isaac, used for God (there’s a slight variation of it later on in this same narrative as “The Fear of my father Isaac”). In the narrative context of Genesis 31, Jacob is running away from his uncle/father-in-law Laban^[1] who had cheated him for many years and taken advantage of his talents of husbandry to get rich. The LORD tells Jacob that it’s time to leave, so he does. When Laban finds out he pursues him; the key to his riches was escaping!

In the narrative, Laban clearly does not care about righteousness. Even when the LORD tells him in a dream to not say anything to Jacob, Laban ignores the warning and accuses Jacob of all kinds of dishonesty when he finally catches up to him. It is in Jacob’s exasperated reply that he invokes this name.

I can only imagine what it’s like growing up in Isaac’s household. I wonder how Isaac’s childhood trauma (Genesis 22) made it into his understanding of God and how central this story figured into the transmission of faith to his own children. I suspect it must have loomed large in Jacob’s imagination.

Yet I wonder if at this point, Jacob recognized that the same God who left a mark of fear in Isaac has left a mark of blessing on himself. He recognizes that if God “had not been on my side,” they would all be nothing; there would be no wealth to fight over. No longer is Jacob attributing his success to his own scheming (as his name would imply), rather, in hindsight he realizes that he has been successful because God was with him.

In invoking the name, Jacob is challenging Laban’s unrighteousness: “remember that God is witness between you and me,” and he is the one you should fear. As a later wise ruler would say, “He tears down and he builds up.” The stories of both Laban and Jacob begin the same way: two schemers who seemingly scheme their way to success. But only Jacob had gained the wisdom to fear God and acknowledge him in all he does.

At the end of this conflict they make a covenant and erect a sign so all would remember what had transpired between them: they both recognized the Fear of Isaac who would judge the righteous and the unrighteous. They shared a meal and the next day Laban said his farewells, “departed and returned home.”

Returning home.

I like to think there’s more to that last phrase “returned home.” The narrative could have just ended with Laban departing. But the construction there uses two verbs: וַיֵּלֶךְ and וַיָּשָׁב. The second verb shuv can also be to “repent” or “restore.” I wonder if the author intended shuv to carry all those meanings in this text (as the Hebrew text often allows) for this is the last we hear of Laban in the scriptures. I wonder if for someone as driven and selfish as Laban, perhaps he needed to encounter The Fear of Isaac (a forceful rather than accommodating God) in order to be restored to himself — in order to be home.