The wish of a righteous man is to do the will of the Eternal. His constant prayer is: "Not my will be done but Yours". The righteous person doesn't live for himself but for the Eternal's purpose to be fulfilled in his life.

The Eternal's will has been revealed in the Torah. The patriarchs had the oral Torah together with prophetic revelation and they were guided through them, as it is written in Genesis 26:5: "because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." (ESV)

We have the written Torah, given through Moshe in Sinai and we have the books of the prophets, the Writings and the Apostolic Scriptures. We also have the oral Torah and we have the Spirit of the Messiah that teaches us all things. So the Eternal has provided us with enough information and equipped us spiritually so that we can know what He wants us to do in order to please Him; and how we have to behave in order to live a righteous and sanctified life; and, also what we have to do so His will is done at all times.

A righteous man's passion is to fulfill the Eternal's purpose in his life. However, we don't always know what the will of the Eternal is in specific situations.

The timing factor is also important regarding the fulfillment of the Eternal's will. There are things that He wants to see happen in our lives and what we do, but even if there are some things that are His will, it is not always time for them.

It is very important to do the Eternal's dealings in His time. If we do His will but not in His time, then we are not fulfilling His will. There are many good intentions and purposes that have been delayed or aborted because of initiatives taken according to His will but not in His time. It is important that these two factors go together.

The Eternal's will was that Yaakov went back to Kenaan. He revealed this in that dream Yaakov had when fleeing from his brother, "I will bring you back to this land" (28:15). But Yaakov didn't know when the time for going back would be. His mother had promised to send him a message when Esav's fury had calmed down, but that day never came. So Yaakov couldn't make his decisions based on what his mother had told him.         

When the departure time came, the Eternal created adverse situations in Lavan's house. The text we are working with reveals that there were three signs sent to our father Yaakov to indicate to him that it was time for him to go back to the land. The three signs were:

• Yaakov heard negative words from Lavan’s sons.

• Yaakov saw that Lavan didn’t have a favourable attitude toward him.

• HaShem spoke to Yaakov and told him that it was time to go back.

After twenty years in exile, the time for Yaakov to go back to his land, had come. The Eternal wanted this period of time to pass because the twenty years are a prophetic sign for the last exile of the Jews. The twenty years correspond to 2000 years, as it is also written in Hosea 6:1-2: "Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him." (ESV) A day corresponds to a thousand years (Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8). Two days correspond to 2000 years. The last Jewish exile will last 2000 years and then Yaakov will go back to his land.