Hosea 12:12

Jacob, while expostulating with Laban, thus describes his own toil: “This twenty years have I been with thee. 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; and my sleep departed from mine eyes.”

Even more toilsome than this was the life of our Saviour here below. He watched over all His sheep until He gave as His last account, “Of all those whom thou hast given me I have lost none.”

His hair was wet with dew, and His locks with the drops of the night. Sleep departed from His eyes, for all night He was in prayer, wrestling for His people. One night Peter had to be pleaded for; then, another claimed His tearful intercession.

No shepherd sitting beneath the cold skies, looking up to the stars, could ever utter such complaints because of the hardness of His toil as Jesus Christ might have brought, if He had chosen to do so, because of the sternness of His service to procure His spouse—

Cold mountains and the midnight air,
Witnessed the fervour of His prayer;
The desert His temptations knew,
His conflict and His victory too.

It is sweet to dwell upon the spiritual parallel of Laban having required all the sheep at Jacob’s hand. If they were torn by beasts, Jacob had to make it good; if any of them died, he had to stand as surety for the whole.

Was not the toil of Jesus for His Church the toil of one who was under suretyship obligations to bring every believing one safe to the hand of Him who had committed them to His charge? Look upon toiling Jacob, and you see a representation of Him of whom we read, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd.”