He was now, as I may call him, a widower. He appears before us as a lonely, retired man, with more of recollections than of present activities about him. He was indeed the patriarch, the common head and father of all the households of his children, and so recognized by them. But the _business_ of the family was rather in their hands; and he was passing his widowerhood without seeking to be again the stirring, energetic man he had once been. His retirement, however, was not like that of his father Isaac. Isaac, for the last forty years of his life, is not seen. He appears to have been laid aside, as a vessel unfit for use, as I have observed of him, not _wearing_ out, as the word is, but _rusting_ out. See "Isaac," p. 185. But this was not Jacob’s closing years. He was no longer a man of business, but his retirement was not _inactive_. The richest, happiest, and purest exercises of his soul seem to be now, and they enlarge and deepen as they advance; chastened and disciplined as we have seen, his soul is now rendering the fruit of divine husbandry. We cannot fully say that Jacob ever reached the high dignity of being a _servant_ of God; but we may say, when we have reached the end of his story, that he was _fruitful_ to Him. For there is a difference between _service_ and _fruitfulness_. Service is more manifested and active, fruitfulness may be hidden. The hand or the foot may serve, and so they should. Tipped with the blood and with the oil, they are to be instruments in the hands of the Master of the house; but it is in the deep, secret places of the heart that the husbandry of the saint, in the power of the Spirit through the truth, is to be yielding fruit to God. Fruitfulness is known in the cultivation of those graces and virtues which give real and intrinsic character to the people of God--those habits and tempers and properties of the inner man which, with God, are of great price. It is within, or "out of the heart," that those herbs, meet for Him by whom the soul is dressed, grow fragrant and beautiful, such as bespeak the virtue of that rain from heaven which has fallen upon it. It is this fruitfulness, as I judge, which will be found in our Jacob, in this last scene of his pilgrimage. We have had some fainter notice of this, while yet he remained in Canaan, and ere he took his journey to Egypt. But the richer harvest of this husbandry is gathered during the seventeen years that he spent in that land, ere he himself was gathered to his fathers. For this participation of God’s holiness, this fruit of the discipline of the Father of spirits, is commonly gradual--and we shall find it to be so in Jacob--the light shining more and more unto the perfect day; the last hour being the brightest.