"Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep" (Hosea 12: 12).
Jacob, while reasoning with Laban, describes his own toil: "This twenty years have I been with you. That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto you: I bare the loss of it; of my hand you did 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 sheep departed from mine eyes" (Genesis 31: 38). Even more toilsome than this was the life of our Savior here below. He watched over all His sheep until He gave as His last account, "Those that thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost" (John 17: 12). His hair was wet with dew, and sleep departed from his eyes. He was in prayer all night, wrestling for His people. No shepherd sitting beneath the cold skies could ever utter such complaints as Jesus Christ might have, if He had chosen to do so, because of the sternness of His service in order to procure His spouse. It is sweet to dwell on the spiritual parallel of Laban having required all the sheep at Jacob's hand. If they were torn of beasts, Jacob must make it good. If any of them died, he must 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 on toiling Jacob, and you see a representation of Him of whom we read, "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd" (Isaiah 40: 11).