a. The lack of trust. Laban shows that he has zero trust in his son-in-law and begins a tent by tent search for his idols. He goes to Jacob’s tent then Leah’s, Zilpah’s, and Bilhah’s, and found nothing. Then he goes into Rachel’s tent. Rachel is in the tent but he still proceeds to feel all about the tent. He leaves no rug or pillow unturned. The only thing he did not search was Rachel’s camel saddle. b. The deceiver deceived. Rachel knows what Laban is looking for and has heard what Jacob has said. She promptly takes the household gods, puts them in the camel’s saddle, and then sits on them. Just like Jacob and Laban, Rachel also is able to lie straight-faced to a person. She doesn’t get up when her father enters the tent because she says, “the way of women is upon me.” Laban doesn’t want anything to do with that so he does not ask her to get off the saddle. Instead, he finishes searching everywhere else and then returns to Jacob. There are many speculations as to why Rachel has the household gods. Many reasons could fit but I’m not sold on the idea that Rachel believed and loved the teraphim and that’s why she stole and lied to her father. If she loved them so much why would you disgrace them by sitting on them? That’s just a thought but it doesn’t seem like an act of someone who venerated these gods. One last thought here, we should pity a person whose gods can be stolen. We see it in our world today. Some people make their health a god and when it fails they are destroyed. Some people it’s money or sex or getting high or relationships. The list is as long and as varied as there are people. We should rejoice that we follow a God who cannot be stolen away from us. “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39.