in that house, built upon a more important Living Stone—who is even more the House of God. God himself would build a house of living stones, and he would build it on the Rock.
This concept of God’s people being represented individually by stones is again brought out in Joshua, when the Hebrew people are crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land:
And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel.” (Josh 4:5)
So, we see that not only does the concept of correlating the people of God to stones exist in the Old Testament, but it carries right into the New, and beyond, even into eternity. In the book of the Revelation, there is a one-to-one correlation of the people of God and stones. It is an ancient comparison. How important that we should, in light of that, understand it in its first occurrence here in Scripture.
There is something about himself that God sees as being communicable to his people in stone, at least analogously. No doubt, the surety of his salvation constantly emerges when God himself is spoken of as a Rock. The salvation of the Rock is sure, stable, and enduring. God’s people are brought into this unshakable plan—the work of the Rock of Ages.
Jacob’s Bethel, then, stands as a pregnant shadow of what the house of God will be in all its glory. There, in the beginning, it is one anointed stone, but throughout the progression of revelation, Bethel is seen as a wall of stones that is one thousand five hundred miles high, long, and wide. Bethel, God’s house, is Abraham’s house, sparse in its beginnings, but outnumbering the starry host in its crescendo. Jacob is invited to come home, just as every living stone since then has been invited home.
There is a story about Robert Frost, stopping somewhere in the rural south to watch a farmer plow a field with his horse. Frost notices the farmer dodging and circling large rocks that are flecked throughout the pasture. The work is slow and painstaking. Finally, the farmer stops and makes his way over to the fence, against which Frost is leaning. “You know,” says the poet, “in New England, we pull all those rocks and line them along the edge of the field.” “Yup,” says the farmer. “And I just leave ‘em where God flang ‘em.” In one way, at least, God must be more of a New Englander, because he does not leave his stones where he has flung them. He gathers them from the corners of the world, into a house of his making. This is the promise of the gospel.
Softly and Tenderly
(Will Lamartine Thompson, 1880)
O for the wonderful love he has promised,
promised for you and for me.
Though we have sinned, he has mercy and pardon,
pardon for you and for me.
Come home, come home;
you who are weary come home;
earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
calling, O sinner, come home.
Chapter 3
Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east. As he looked, he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was large, and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep, and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well. Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where do you come from?” They said, “We are from Haran.” He said to them, “Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?” They said, “We know him.” He said to them, “Is it well with him?” They said, “It is well; and see, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep!” He said, “Behold, it is still high day; it is not time for the livestock to be gathered together. Water the sheep and go, pasture them.” But they said, “We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well; then we water the sheep.”While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. Now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kinsman, and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father. (Gen 29:1–12)
Still on the run, but changed by his vision at Bethel, Jacob has found his way to the home of his mother’s brother, Laban. In the providence of God, as he is seeking his uncle, he comes across a group of shepherds. He hears they are from Haran, and asks if they know Laban. One of the shepherds says, “Look, there’s his daughter now,” and his cousin Rachel approaches. This girl was not simply one of Laban’s daughters; she was the one for whom Jacob would end up working fourteen years, in order to marry.
There is a well of water with a stone over the opening. There are three flocks of sheep set about the well. Historians have noted that, due to the precious scarcity of water, this tradition of waiting until a number of shepherds had gathered was customary.3 Clearly, however, it was not a custom with which Jacob was familiar. But this gathering of the flocks ensured that this huge rock, which would generally require more than one man to move, didn’t need to be manipulated multiple times.
One of the first things we notice is that the stone is functioning as a valve to the life-giving stream. As the rock is adjusted accordingly, the water will be accessible or not. What was the timing of this event? It was plainly positioned in relation to the gathering of all the sheep that had up until that moment been scattered. One can hear Jacob protesting the awkwardness, in his own mind, of this fullness of time.
A convergence is taking place here, unbeknownst to either Jacob or Rachel; but a thing to which we as readers are privy. How providential is the timing here. We know that we are seeing the hand of God orchestrating the intersection of Jacob and Rachel. Now, in order to comprehend some of the profundity of providence, we have to ask the questions that will develop our sense of context. In doing so, the lines will begin to gain texture.
Jacob and Rachel are both endeavoring on their own quests of sorts. Rachel is seeking someone to roll the stone away, and thereby to help her preserve her family. Jacob is seeking a family to house him, and thereby to protect him from the deathly wages of his own sin. Interestingly enough, they each find fulfillment of their quests in one another. Jacob rolls away the stone, eventually marries Rachel, and thereby blesses the house of Laban on a number of fronts. Laban houses Jacob, but even greater than that, gives him his own house by marrying his daughters to him. Of course, Jacob is given sanctuary, and his life is spared from the vengeful machinations of his brother, Esau.
The curious junction of Jacob and Rachel, in the most tactful of romantic films, would still be seen as contrived. How could two people, searching for one another, but not knowing it, stumble upon one another with such seemingly unavoidable chance? In the romantic film they would employ the intervention of kismet, the gods, serendipity, or the unavoidable magnetism that allows the heart-seeking missile of love to always find its target.
Thankfully, we are spared the violins, because the truth is that this romance itself is merely an analogy for higher love. The finest moments of eros are those in which agape is signified. The story only concerns Jacob and Rachel finding one another in a secondary way. The real story, as is always the case with the gospel, is not found in the dialogue between the two main players, but in the environmental prop that seems to have drawn them together: the stone on the well. How easy it would be to miss this. The truth is that there is a stone that mediates the access to the water, by which they will all live. It is the stone and the water that has brought the shepherds, the sheep, Rachel, and even Jacob to conference together at this place and time. There is no fate or destiny in any of it, whatsoever. It is the sovereignty of God, and it is the depth of his design into which we are inquiring.
Jacob is new to this area, and is learning the ways. We are told that