When Jacob Met Rachel...and Leah
Genesis 29:15-28
I rarely go to the movies anymore. The last time I watched a movie in a theater was back in Korea, so at least six or seven years ago. I’m tempted to see Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on the big screen, but I’m not sure that I want to make a three-hour commitment. I know I’m not alone. In the age of Netflix and other streaming apps, the big movie studios have to rely on superhero franchises, action blockbusters, low-budget horror, and endless sequels to lure us into movie theaters. Gone are the days of mid-budget dramas like Jerry Maguire or romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, or even those that didn’t star Meg Ryan.
Yet what the Hollywood studios no longer supply we find in today’s story from Genesis. While not a straightforward romcom, we see several elements typical of the genre: a love triangle, a case of mistaken identity, mischief caused by mostly well-meaning family, and a main character who suffers but who ultimately receives a happy ending.
In last week’s reading we encountered Jacob as he was on the run from his brother Esau. Esau had vowed to kill Jacob after being cheated out of his father’s blessing by his more clever and cunning younger twin. Despite Jacob’s deceitful and dishonest ways, God remained faithful to him and to the promise that God had made to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham, and through Abraham to Jacob’s father Isaac, and through Isaac to Jacob himself. The glue binding this divine blessing to Jacob had nothing to do with Jacob’s righteous behavior, for which there was little evidence, and everything to do with God’s faithfulness. God remained faithful even in the face of Jacob’s all-too human frailty.
As we meet him today, Jacob’s flight from his brother’s wrath has taken him to Haran, the very place his grandfather Abraham had left to heed God’s call to journey to the promised land of Canaan. Just prior to today’s reading, Jacob stops at a well where he spots Rachel, who has come to water her father’s flock. He removes the stone covering the well for her and takes it upon himself to provide water for all her sheep. Jacob is smitten with her instantly, even more so when he learns that he and Rachel are cousins. Verse 11 says that he kissed Rachel and wept aloud. For her part, Rachel seems just as taken with Jacob as he is with her. She races home to tell her father Laban of their encounter, and Laban welcomes Jacob into their home.
That catches us up with where today’s reading begins. For a month now Jacob has been living with Laban, his uncle, the brother of Jacob’s mother Rebekah. Jacob has been earning his keep working the land, but Laban doesn’t want to take advantage of his nephew. Heaven forbid! That would be unseemly, exploiting one’s own family. “Tell me,” Laban says to Jacob, “what will you wages be?” Name your price!
But Jacob doesn’t want any wages, he wants a wife. He wants Laban’s daughter Rachel. Laban, in fact, has two daughters—Rachel and her older sister Leah. All we’re told about Leah is that her eyes were weak. Interestingly, rather than “weak,” some Bible translations say that Leah’s eyes were “lovely.” The Hebrew word translated as “weak” literally means tender or soft. It seems to me, however, that the narrator is wanting to draw a contrast between Leah, whose weakness is drawn to the fore, and her younger sister Rachel, who is described in unmistakable terms as graceful and beautiful. Jacob’s eyes are drawn to Rachel, not to her weak-eyed older sister.
“I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel,” says Jacob.
“It’s a deal,” says Laban. “Better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man.” Notice that Laban doesn’t hesitate. He agrees to Jacob’s offer immediately and without reservation. Seven years it is.
So in love is Jacob with Rachel that seven years seem to him but a few days. When the seven years are up, Jacob, having served Laban faithfully the whole while, reminds Laban of their agreement. He is ready to take Rachel as his bride. “Give me my wife that I may go in to her.” Granted, it’s not the most eloquent phrasing, but after seven years Jacob can be forgiven for being a little blunt.
For Laban, marrying off his daughter is no small occasion. Laban invites the whole town over for the wedding feast. It’s a crowded, chaotic, boisterous affair. Amid all the tumult, and with his bride fully veiled, Jacob doesn’t notice that something’s up. For all his cunning and cleverness, his eyes don’t catch that the woman behind the veil, the woman whom he beds that night, is weak of eyes.
It sounds implausible to us, perhaps even comical, but we must remember that there were no electric lights. This was a world of oil lamps and shadows, and no doubt wine was in great abundance at the wedding feast and likely dulled the senses.
Yet what the night concealed, the light of morning reveals. Verse 25 reads, “When morning came, it was Leah!” That sounds abrupt to our ears, but the Hebrew is even more so. The Hebrew reads more like, “In the morning…Leah!” Surprise!
The deceiver has been deceived! Jacob, who stole his brother’s blessing by disguise, now receives a bride by disguise. Rather than his beloved Rachel, Jacob finds himself married to her sister Leah. And there is no legal recourse, no annulment, no do-over, no divorce. The marriage has been consummated. Jacob is now married to Leah as Laban desired.
This is quite the comeuppance for Jacob, who is now on the receiving end of the kind of deception that he is accustomed to putting over on others. You might call it poetic justice. Jacob has reaped what he has sown.
I believe it is yet one more piece of evidence of the trustworthiness of the Bible that the stories therein do not hide the flaws of their so-called heroes.
I believe it is yet one more piece of evidence of the trustworthiness of the Bible that the stories therein do not hide the flaws of their so-called heroes. Whether it’s the disciples misunderstanding Jesus in life and abandoning him in death, or the deep dysfunction in Israel’s founding family, the flaws and foibles of the Bible’s principal players are on full display. Nor does the Bible refrain from allowing its heroes to suffer the consequences of their actions.
In our reading of the Abraham-Isaac-Jacob arc in Genesis these last several weeks, we’ve witnessed Abraham attempt to pass off his wife Sarah as his sister and get thrown out of Egypt. We saw the favoritism that Isaac showed toward Esau come back to bite him. And now Jacob, too clever for his own good, having earlier deceived his own brother, is himself deceived by his uncle.
For the first time experiencing being on the receiving end of someone else’s deception, Jacob is aggrieved. “What is this you have done to me?” he asks his uncle. “Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?”
You can hear the shock and the hurt in Jacob’s voice, and yet Laban is unapologetic. “This is not done in our country—giving the younger before the firstborn.” But don’t worry. “Complete the week of this one, and I will give you the other also.”
Laban is playing Let’s Make a Deal with his daughters. “Complete the week of this one” means maintain the charade that everything is kosher for the customary weeklong wedding celebration. Don’t let on that anything is amiss. If Jacob can do that, then Laban will give him Rachel as well…on the condition that Jacob agrees to serve him another seven years. That’s a pretty sweet deal for Laban, not so much for Jacob.
But what can Jacob do? He loves Rachel, but he’s now married to Leah. If he wants to marry Rachel, he must accept Leah and he must work for Laban another seven years.
And so he does. That’s how the passage ends. Without options, Jacob agrees to Laban’s terms. He maintains the show that nothing is amiss, that Leah was his intended bride all along. And at the end of the week’s festivities, Rachel becomes his wife, but he must surrender another seven years of his life to his uncle’s service.
What a peculiar passage! What are we supposed to take from this? Where’s the lesson? You reap what you sow, so don’t practice deceit? That lesson might apply to Jacob, but deceitfulness worked out pretty well for Laban! Who in this passage is worthy of our admiration, our emulation? Certainly not Jacob or Laban. Then what about Rachel or Leah? They’re both silent and passive. Neither says a word. And neither does poor Zilpah, the maid who is handed over to Jacob with Leah.
What a peculiar passage! What are we supposed to take from this?
Where’s the lesson?
Another thing that’s odd about this passage is who doesn’t appear. There’s no mention of God at all. That’s especially odd when you consider that God had promised to bless this family—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and through them bless all the families of the earth. But just look how dysfunctional this family is! Where is the blessing?
Last week I mentioned the The Jesus Storybook Bible, a children’s Bible with the subtitle “Every Story Whispers His Name.” I really like what the JSB does with this story, which it titles “The Girl No One Wanted.” As you might guess, the focus of the JSB’s version is not Jacob, Laban, or even Rachel but Leah. She of the weak eyes.
The JSB widens the lens to bring chapter 30 into view. There we learn that Leah is the first of the two sisters to give birth, which she proceeds to do seven times, bearing six sons and a daughter. Those six sons will give their names to six of the twelve tribes of Israel, including Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. Of those six tribes, one of them, Judah, will go on to distinction as the tribe from which descend David and all of Israel’s kings. And not only Israel’s kings but Israel’s Messiah and the world’s Savior.
This lineage is featured in the opening of the Gospel of Matthew, which begins with a lengthy genealogy of Jesus’ family that starts with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Other familiar names appear, like David and Solomon. But amid the patriarchs and the line of kings we also see the names of several women—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba—women who, like Leah, were overlooked, scandalized, or mistreated in their day but through whom God nevertheless worked God’s purposes.
The line from Jacob to Jesus has its fair share of miscreants and malcontents before finally culminating with the Messiah. Its origins are tangled in a family’s dysfunction, with members deceiving, exploiting, and competing with one another. And yet through it all the Lord was indeed present, even if not specifically mentioned. God was working through the overlooked Leah, the lesser sister with weak eyes. Through her would come salvation, not only for Israel but for you, for me, and for the entire world.
For Leah, all of this was occurring unbeknownst to her. Leah, I suspect, was looking for love, not to participate in God’s plan of salvation for the world by being the 42nd great grandmother of the Messiah. But that is how God often works in our lives, quietly, off camera, behind the scenes. We often associate the presence of God in Scripture with cinematic moments—a catastrophic flood, a burning bush, the divided waters of the sea. But God appears not only in the miraculous but also among the mundane. Amid the daily dysfunction of flawed families and imperfect people.