"Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been" (Gen. 47:9)

Jacob, the famous "Supplanter," tricked his father Isaac into giving him the birthright instead of to the elder (by-a-few-minutes) Esau. Esau was so angry that when he discovered what had happened, he threatened to kill him, and Jacob fled.

The first night on his exile the disheartened man dreamed of the ladder to heaven, and the Lord Himself appeared and renewed all the new covenant promises He had made to grandfather Abraham (Gen. 12:2, 3). Then the Hebrew says that next morning Jacob "went on his journey" (29:1) light hearted and light footed. That's what believing God's new covenant promises does for anyone!

Most commentators regard Uncle Laban's subsequent trickstering of Jacob as payback for his own trickstering to get the birthright. The idea is that the Lord overrules our lives into judgment for our wrongdoing; Jacob must suffer now.

But the Lord has solemnly promised at Bethel to bless him in everything! No mention of a payback. God has intended from the beginning that "the elder shall serve the younger," just backwards from human planning (Gen. 25:23). "I will not leave you," He has promised, "until I have done that which I have spoken to you of" (28:15). In other words, Jacob is invited to claim the equivalent of the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," and entitled to pray "the Lord's Prayer," "My Father which art in heaven," with all its attendant blessings. Well might Jacob walk on air from now on throughout his life.

But as he grows old, he has to confess to Pharaoh, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been" (Gen. 47:9). Much sorrow and disappointment shadowed his entire life. And yet God had made those wonderful promises to him at Bethel!

The only possible conclusion: Jacob didn't always believe them with new covenant faith. The inspired prophecy from before his birth said that he should receive the birthright; that was a new covenant promise from the word go! Doubting or disbelieving it created his problems. All during his later anxieties with Laban he could have sailed through those trials with Solomon's [once] "merry heart [that] does good like a medicine" if he had only believed (cf. Prov. 17:22)!

Surely we have come to the denouement of sacred history when we as a people should learn to believe how good is God's good news! One thing is sure--the 144,000 will (cf. Rev. 14:1-5). And the time for rich blessings is now. And it's time for unbelief to go.