Leah for Rachel

If you are looking for principles for a happy marriage or raising children God’s way, then you will be disappointed with the patriarchal narratives. The marriages and family lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are anything but models of family harmony. The narrator in Genesis describes them with unflinching honesty, including their acts of deception, rivalry, and cruelty.

I say this with the greatest respect. We should be careful about how we speak of the

dead – particularly our ancestors. The fact that they are no longer with us does not give us license to slander them or to patronize them.

The writer of Genesis not only shows us the raw sides of the patriarchs’ family live, he actually emphasizes them. This is to show that God works out his plans for the redemption of the world through families, with all their complications and messy relationships. Families are complicated. I am reminded of a comment by the short story writer, Peter Taylor, describing his relationship with his deceased father. Living in a family, he said, can be hell. The only thing worse than having family is not having a family.

The story of Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, begins as a delightful love story and ends in resentments and broken relationships. When our episode this morning opens, Jacob is still on the run from his older brother, Esau, who intends to kill him for stealing his birthright, the blessing which belongs to the firstborn. He is making his way to Haran, where he hopes to find refuge and a job with his uncle, Laban, whom he has never met.

As he gets to the outskirts of the town, he stops at a well to water his animals. There, he strikes up a conversation with some shepherds there, hoping to learn something about Laban.

“We know him,” they said. Notice how they answer in monosyllables. This is not very

And they said, “He is well, and, look – there is his daughter Rachel coming with the sheep.”

“We cannot, until all the flocks ahave gathered and the stone is rolled away from the mouth of the well, and we water the sheep.”

There is a detail in this conversation that unlocks the meaning of the story. It is the question which Jacob asks about Laban: “Is he well?” and their answer, “He is well.” The Hebrew word which is translated, “well” is “Shalom,” “Peace.” This word can be a basic greeting, meaning: “Welcome!” or “Greetings!” But here, it has a deeper meaning. God’s Shalom is the “peace of God, which passes all understanding.”[1] Shalom is the basis of our safety and wellbeing. It is the basis of peaceful relationships in the community, the church, and our families.[2] And peace is exactly what is missing in Jacob’s life.

There is peace in Laban’s family. But will it last?[3] This is the important question as our story unfolds.

Jacob stands by the well with his animals, waiting for the others herds to arrive so that the stone can be rolled away from the opening of the well. As he waits, Rachel arrives with her father’s sheep. She is not wearing a veil or head covering, because younger girls worked with the herds and therefore moved freely with men.[4] The shepherds have already alerted Jacob that she is his kin. What is Jacob thinking and feeling when they meet? The narrator does not tell us, but it becomes obvious by what happens next. When he sees her, he springs into action and singlehandedly rolls away the stone from the well. Every heroic act which a man performs is done to please his ideal woman.

Jacob kissed Rachel and lifted his voice and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kin, and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.[5]

At this point, everyone is ecstatic. Jacob is ecstatic, because things are starting to look up for him. His uncle Laban has a beautiful, marriageable daughter. And he is rich. Rachel is ecstatic, because this mysterious stranger who has arrived turns out to be her cousin. And Laban is ecstatic, because the last time someone showed up from the emigrant branch of the family, he brought ten camels, laden with gifts.[6]

He ran toward him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. And he recounted to Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, “Indeed, you are my bond and my flesh.”[7]

Laban takes him in, and Jacob stays for a month, working for his father-in-law. During this time, he falls in love with Rachel. But Laban has two daughters. Leah, the older, had lovely eyes, her one physical asset. But Rachel was stunning: “And Leah’s eyes were tender, but Rachel was comely in features and comely to look at, and Jacob loved Rachel.”[8]

Because you are my kin, should you serve me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.

Clearly, some bargaining is about to take place. Jacob has been waiting for this moment for a long time and knows exactly what he will say. He is an operator. He hasn’t gotten where he is without cunning. His name means, “he who grasps,” and this is an apt description of his personality. But two can play at this game, and Jacob is about to meet his match in Laban. Jacob answers:

“I will serve seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter. And Laban said, “Better I should give her to you than give her to another man. Stay with me.”

Seven years is a long time to work, but Jacob offers his labor in lieu of the bride price, which he cannot afford.[9]

The seven years go by quickly “and they seemed in his eyes but a few days in his love for her.” At the end of the seven years, Jacob approaches Laban and says:

What happens next is one of the great comic scenes in all of Holy Scripture. As is customary, Laban throws a huge wedding party before sending off the bride and groom to consummate the marriage. But unbeknownst to Jacob, Laban took Leah, “and brought her to Jacob, and he went to bed with her.” The narrator spares us any embarrassing details. The situation is summed up in six words: “And when morning came, it was Leah!” This is poetic justice: Jacob, the opportunist has his come-uppance. The narrator emphasizes this in the description of his confrontation with Laban:

“What is this that you have you done to me? Did I not serve you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” Laban said, “This is not done in our country – giving the younger before the firstborn.”

Every word in Laban’s sarcastic response is carefully chosen. The phrase, “in our country,” is aimed at Jacob’s guilty conscience, and it hits the mark. Jacob, in his country, figured out how to put the younger before the elder. Now, “[t]he deceiver [is] deceived;” the one who grasps has been grasped. [10] He has been had.

Laban’s deception shatters the peace in the family. From this moment on, he and Jacob are enmeshed in a series of conflicts, in which each tries to outwit the other. In the end, Jacob gets the better of Laban, plundering his goods and leaving Haran a wealthy man. More importantly, Laban’s deception results in jealousy and resentment between Leah and Rachel. This resentment gets worse when Leah, the disfavored one, gets pregnant easily, while Rachel, the favored one, was infertile for much of the marriage.

And yet, for all this, the Lord was working his purposes out in this family. The 12 sons whom Jacob had with both Leah and Rachel became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. And from one of these tribes, Judah, came our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is working his purposes out through our families. This is where we meet him – in the concrete relationships we have with our fathers and mothers; with our brothers and sisters – sibling rivalries included; through eccentric aunts and uncles of dubious character; through marriages, both the solid ones and the ones that don’t make it. Note that in the story, God is never mentioned explicitly. But there is no question about the fact that he is behind the scenes, accomplishing his will through human agents. Most of the time, we do not see God at work around us. He is hidden from us in the rough and tumble of family relationships. But he is present, moving in and alongside our actions, bringing good out of evil and order out of chaos.

So here are the patriarchs, our ancestors, in all their frailty and confusion. We might not have chosen Jacob and Rebekah to be our ancestors. But God did. Despite their good and bad choices – and through these choices – he has brought salvation to the world, to this congregation, to us and to our families. How strange his ways are. He works through broken human vessels to accomplish his will. It is only through the eyes of faith that we can see his hand at work in our daily lives.

God “sets the solitary in families.” Thank God for families! God has called us into being through our parents and grandparents and taught us what it means to be human – how to use language, how to know and be known by another; how to love. Through family life, we discover that our identity is found not in solitude but in relationship with others, that we are not our true selves, by ourselves, as Eugene Peterson likes to say. In this way, families prepare us for a relationship with God.

God has redeemed family life by becoming the member of a family. Jesus of Nazareth was born of a human mother. He had brothers and sisters. Through the incarnation, Jesus Christ has lifted family life into the realm of his healing, freedom and hope.

God has adopted us into a new family, the Church. Jesus Christ is our brother, and we meet him in the concrete relationships we have with each other in this congregation and in the wider Church. As with our families of origin, these relationships are also imperfect and subject to resentments, hostility, and estrangement. There are no fights like church fights, as they say. But the power of the Trinity preserves the peace and unity of the body of Christ. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit coexist in love, without competition or rivalry. And they draw us into their life of love.

Faith gives us eyes to see that God is at work in our families and in our congregation. By his grace, these families are a source of healing and hope for a broken world. We make mistakes, but God redeems them. We are vulnerable to resentments, but God enables us to love through the Holy Spirit who is shed abroad in our hearts.

Almighty God, the creator of heaven and earth, who sets the solitary in families: you see all of our foolishness and unfaithfulness. And yet, you have chosen to redeem the world through the families of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rebekah, and through our own families. You became a human being, born of a woman; with a human father and with brothers and sisters. Give us grace to see your redeeming work in our families, both now and unto eternity.

[1] Phil. 4:4:7.

[2] Westermann, 465.

[3] Ibid.

[4] If you go to Israel today, you will see young girls with no head covering leading sheep and goats to pasture.

[5] Gen. 29:11-12.

[6] This is the suggestion of the medieval Jewish commentator, Rashi. See Alter, 154.

[7] Gen. 29:13-14.

[8] Older translations describe her eyes as “weak,” however, the Hebrew adjective, rakh, is “the opposite of ‘hard’ and means ‘soft,’ ‘gentle,’ ‘tender,’ or in a few instances, ‘weak.’” (Alter, 154.) The NRSV is closer to the original meaning: “Leah ‘s eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful. “

[9] Alter, 154.

[10] Rashi’s elaboration of the text emphasizes this point: “The deceiver [is] deceived, deprived by darkness of the sense of sight as his father is by blindness, relying like his father on the misleading sense of touch.” Ibid.