written of the Jews, "For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God" (Rom. 10: 2, 3). 10. Jacob was exiled from the land as the result of his sin, Gen. 28: 5. So have the Jews been.

11. Jacob spent much of his life as a wandering exile from the land; such has been the history of his descendants 12. Jacob was distinctly the wanderer among the patriarchs, and as such a type of the wandering Jew!

13. Jacob experienced, as such, the sore chastenings of a righteous God. So, too, the Jews.

14. Jacob had no "altar" in the land of his exile: thus also is it written of the Jews, "For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a King, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice" (Hosea 3:4).

15. Jacob set his heart upon the land while exiled from it. His yearning for home is strikingly expressed in his words to Laban: "Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country," (30: 25). How we behold the same yearning among the Zionists today, as they appeal to American and British statesmen to make it possible for them to return in safety to Palestine!

16. Jacob was unjustly dealt with in the land of exile, Gen. 29:23; 31: 41, 42.

17. Jacob developed into a crafty schemer and used subtle devices to secure earthly riches, Gen. 30: 37, 43.

18. Jacob while in exile receives promise from God that he shall return unto the promised land, Gen. 28: 15.

19. Jacob received no further revelation from God during all the years of his exile, until at length bidden by Him to return, Gen. 31:3.

20. Jacob was graciously preserved by God in the land of his exile and was the object of His ceaseless providential

care.

21. Jacob became wealthy while in the land of exile, Gen. 30:43.

22. Jacob, because of this, had stirred up against him the enmity of those among whom he sojourned, Gen. 31: 1.

23. Jacob ultimately returned to the land bearing with him the riches of the Gentiles, 31: 18.

24. Jacob is seen at the end blessing the Gentiles (Gen. 47:7), and acting as God's prophet, Gen. 49. In all these respects Jacob was a striking type of the Jew.

We shall next look at Jacob as a picture of the believer. It is intensely interesting to mark how each of the patriarchs foreshadowed some distinct truth in the believer. In Abraham we see the truth of Divine sovereignty, and the life of faith; in Isaac Divine sonship, and the life of submission; in Jacob Divine grace, and the life of conflict. In Abraham, election; in Isaac, the new birth; in Jacob, the manifestation of the two natures. Thus we find the order of these Old Testament biographies foreshadowed accurately what is now fully revealed in the New Testament. Again, we may remark further that, typically, Jacob is the servant. This is ever the Divine order. Abraham, the chosen object of God's sovereign purpose, necessarily comes first, then Isaac, the son born supernaturally, the heir of the father's house, followed by Jacob, the servant. It is needful to call special attention to this order to-day, though we cannot here enlarge upon it. Man would place sonship at the end of a long life of service, but God places it at the beginning. Man says, Serve God in order to become His son; but God says, You must first be My son in order to serve Me acceptably. The apostle Paul expressed this order when he said: "Whose I am, and whom I serve" (Acts 27:23). How carefully this order is guarded in our type appears further in the fact that before Jacob commenced his service at Padan-aram he first tarried at Bethel, which means "the House of God"-we must first enter God's household before we can serve Him! That Jacob does, typically, represent service is clear from, Hosea 12:12, where we are told, "And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep." The history of this we get in Genesis 29 and 30. As a servant with Laban, Jacob was singularly faithful. Here is his own challenge, "These twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. Thus I was, in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night."

There is still another way in which this progressive order in the typical foreshadowings of the three great patriarchs comes out. This has been forcefully set forth by Mr. F. W. Grant who, when commenting on the words of the Lord to Moses at the burning bush-"say unto the children of Israel, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob sent me unto you"-says, "In Abraham we find manifested the type of the Father, and in Isaac admittedly that of the Son, in Jacob-Israel we find a type and pattern of the Spirit's work which is again and again dwelt on and expanded in the after-scriptures. Balaam's words as to the people, using this double-this natural and this scriptural-name, are surely as true of the nation's ancestors. 'It shall be said of Jacob, and of Israel, what hath God wrought?' What God hath wrought is surely what in the one now before us we are called in an especial way to acknowledge and glory in. For Jacob's God is He whom we still know as accomplishing in us by almighty power the purposes of sovereign grace.

While it is true that each of the three great patriarchs exemplified in his own person some fundamental truth of Divine revelation, yet it is to be particularly noted that each succeeding individual carried forward what had gone before, so that nothing was lost. In Abraham we behold the truth of election-God's singling of him out from all the people on the earth; yet in Isaac the same truth is manifested, as is evident from the passing by of Ishmael and God's declaration that "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." Isaac represents the truth of Divine sonship, born supernaturally by the intervention of God's power. Now in Jacob both of these truths, with important additions, are also to be observed. Even more notably than in the cases of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob is the object of God's sovereign choice: "Jacob gives occasion to the exercise of God's sovereignty as to the twin children of Isaac and Rebekah. For they being not yet born, nor having done any good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calls, it was said to their mother, the elder shall serve the younger.' It had been shown before in casting out the bond-woman and her son; but so it was now far more emphatically in Jacob chosen, not Esau. No flesh shall glory in His sight; in Jehovah certainly, as it ought to be. Is man only to think

and talk of his rights? Sinful man! Has God alone no rights? Is He to be a mere registrar of man's wrongs? Oh! his wrongs, not rights: this is the truth, as no believer should forget from the dawn of a vital work in his soul!" ("Jacob," by W. Kelly).

As the above truth is now so much controverted we subjoin a further quotation from the pen of one who is regarded as one of the leading orthodox teachers of our day: "In all this we see the marvel and glory of the Divine sovereignty. Why the younger son should have been chosen instead of the elder we do not know. It is, however, very striking to find the same principle exercised on several other occasions. It is pretty certain that Abraham was not the eldest son of Terah. We know that Isaac was the younger son of Abraham, and that Joseph was not the eldest son of Jacob. All this goes to emphasize the simple fact that the order of nature is not necessarily the order of grace. All through, God decided to display the sovereignty of His grace as contrasted with that which was merely natural in human life. The great problem of Divine sovereignty is of course insoluable by the human intellect. It has to be accepted as a simple fact. It should, however, be observed that it is not merely a fact in regard to things spiritual; it is found also in nature in connection with human temperaments and races. All history is full of illustrations of the Divine choice, as we may see from such examples as Cyrus and Pharaoh. Divine election is a fact, whether we can understand it or not (italics ours). God's purposes are as certain as they are often inscrutable, and it is perfectly evident from the case of Esau and Jacob that the Divine choice of men is entirely independent of their merits or of any pre-vision of their merits or attainments (Rom. 9:11). It is in connection with this subject that we see the real force of St. Paul's striking words when he speaks of God as acting 'according to the good pleasure of His will' (Eph. 1:5), and although we are bound to confess the 'mystery of His will' (Eph. 1:9), we are also certain that He works all things 'after the counsel of His will' (Eph. 1: 11-italics not ours). There is nothing arbitrary about God and His ways and our truest wisdom when we cannot understand His reasons is to rest quietly and trustfully, saying, 'Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.' 'In His

Will is our peace'
Genesis).

"(Dr. Griffith-Thomas, Commentary on

Not only is the Divine sovereignty illustrated in Jacob, as in Abraham, but we also see typified in him the truth of regeneration (as in the case of Isaac) inasmuch as nature was set aside, and only in answer to prayer and by Divine intervention was Rebekah enabled to bear Jacob: see Gen. 25:21.

That which is most prominent in the Divine dealings with Jacob was the matchless grace of God, shown to one so unworthy, the marvellous patience exercised toward one so slow of heart to believe, the changeless love which unweariedly followed him through all his varied course, the faithfulness which no unfaithfulness on Jacob's part could change, and the power of God which effectively preserved and delivered him through numerous dangers and which, in the end, caused the spirit to triumph over the flesh, transforming the worm Jacob into Israel the prince of God. How these Divine perfections were displayed will be discovered as we turn our attention to the various scenes in which the Holy Spirit has portrayed our patriarch. We turn now to look briefly at Jacob in Genesis 28.

In our last article we dwelt upon Jacob deceiving his father, now we see how quickly he began to suffer for his wrongdoing! "And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan-aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother" (28:1, 2). Jacob is sent away from home, to which he returns not for many years. In our studies upon Isaac we have seen how he foreshadowed those who belong to the heavenly calling, whereas, as we have pointed out above, Jacob typified the people of the earthly calling. This comes out in many incidental details. Isaac was forbidden to leave Canaan (type of the Heavenlies)-24: 5, 6—and his bride was brought to him, but Jacob is sent forth out of Canaan to the house of his mother's father in quest of a wife, and thus was signified the evident contrast between Isaac and Jacob, and Jacob's earthly place and relationship. "And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the