 |
Leah left and Rachel right mothers
of 12 tribes of Israel. |
The Old Testament writer had an eye for the dramatic when he introduced the graceful, gentle, and lovely Rachel against a scene of pastoral beauty. When Jacob first came upon her, she was quietly tending her father's sheep on a low-lying hillside near the city of Haran.
This bright-eyed barefoot maiden, in her brilliantly colored and softly draped dress, must have been a joy to the homesick Jacob's eyes, for he had been on a long journey by foot, a distance of more than 500 miles from the hill country of Palestine to Padanaram.
And we can imagine he was scorched by the sun, and footsore and weary.
When he inquired of three shepherds about Laban, his mother's brother, he must have been comforted to hear shepherds reply, "Behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep‚" (Gen. 29:6) . Jacob knew that this comely maiden was his mother's own niece, and not far away from this watering place his grandfather's steward had come upon his mother at the well.
As Rachel made her slow approach, Jacob rolled from the well a large boulder kept there to prevent the water from becoming polluted. And he gave water to Rachel's sheep, just as his mother Rebekah had given water to his grandfather Abraham's camels. Let us suppose that he and Rachel drank from the same dipper and that, from this moment, they were united in spirit.
One of Jacob's first acts was to kiss Rachel's hand as a respectful salutation; and as he did, he "wept," a demonstration of his joy, for he belonged to a demonstrative people, whose emotions ran deep.
After this meeting with Jacob, Rachel ran to her father, who warmly welcomed his nephew. These family ties became meaningful to Jacob, who was now far from home and possibly homesick for his devoted mother. He quickly became attached to his lovely and lovable Cousin Rachel and lost no time in asking her father if he might marry her. And Jacob offered his own labor for the riches he had not brought with him.
For Rachel, he promised to serve as a shepherd for seven years. "And they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.'' (Gen. 29:20) These words are unsurpassed in the whole literature of romantic love. In fact Jacob's service for Rachel marks him as the most devoted lover in the Bible. And his love for Rachel was not a passing fancy. It would last until the end of his life.
When the time for their marriage came, however, confusions and complications arose. Rachel had an older sister Leah.
Leah is described in the King James Version as "tender eyed," while Rachel is described as "beautiful and well favored." That Leah was much less beautiful than her sister is evident from the text, but it does not appear that she was as plain and homely as some commentators conjecture. In one translation she is called weak-eyed, in another sore-eyed. Could it be that she was verging on blindness? And if so, wouldn't her father have sought to marry her off as soon as he could?
There are many varying interpretations on Leah's eyes. The Midrash explains her "tender" eyes as due to her weeping lest she be compelled to marry Esau.
But we need not tarry too long on one word. The implication is that Leah, because of her problems, whatever they might have been, had had to turn within herself and had become more spiritually sensitive than her more "shallow-minded sister." We like to think that Leah's piety had given her eyes a tender quality, but it was the bright-eyed, much gayer Rachel to whom Jacob was attracted.
At the end of the seven years, when the time had been set for the nuptial festivities, Laban sent Leah to Jacob instead of Rachel. This was an easy trick in primitive times, because it was the custom to conduct the bride to the bedchamber of her husband in silence and darkness. According to the laws of the time, the elder daughter should be married first, but it was not according to the agreement Laban had made with Jacob. As Jacob had deceived his father, so had Laban deceived him.
But according to Bible record, Jacob's union with Rachel was celebrated at the close of Leah's marriage festivities, lasting for about a week. Jacob, however, had to serve another seven years as a shepherd, making fourteen altogether, for his beloved Rachel.
It is easy to imagine that problems, many of them not recorded in the Bible text, arose in this polygamous household, where two sisters were married to the same man.
Rachel had Jacob's love, but Leah bore his first four sons. During those years Rachel had to listen to the crying and cooing of her sister's children, while she had none. Though Leah was blessed with children, she it was who hungered for Jacob's love.
Rachel was the more petulant, peevish, and self-willed of the two; Leah was more meek, submissive, and gentle. Because she was not loved, can we not believe that Leah sought peace in God's unfailing tenderness? She learned to demonstrate content in the midst of trial, and happiness in the midst of grief.
When her first son was born, she significantly called him Reuben, saying, "Surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me." (Gen. 29:32) Then she bore Simeon and Levi and finally Judah. In the birth of three of these sons, she recognized God, finally praising Him fervently.
God had blessed her abundantly. He had turned her mourning into praise and returned her meek, enduring confidence in Him. One wonders if Leah, even in her heavy affliction of being unloved, was not the more content, for she neither envied nor complained.
Rachel, still with empty arms and a heart longing for children, cried out to a doting husband, "Give me children, or else I die." (Gen. 30:1) Jacob, angered, asked her, "Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?" (Gen. 30:2).
What a striking contrast between Rachel's words and the words of her unloved, unsought, undesired, plainer, but more spiritually sensitive sister! The two sisters remind us of two plants, one frail and the other strong, and yet both growing in the same soil. Though these sisters stood in one environment most of the days of their lives, there was always this complete difference of character. They did not quarrel, but wrestled in mind and spirit through all of their lives. When her maid Bilhah bore Jacob a second son, Rachel named him Naphtali, saying, "With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister." (Gen. 30:8) The first son by Bilhah was Dan.
And Leah, following the lead of Rachel, took her maid, Zilpah, and gave her to Jacob. And Zilpah bore Jacob two sons. Gad and Asher, who, according to the traditions of the time, were Leah's sons, now making six in all.
The sisters wrestled again when Reuben, Leah's eldest son, brought mandrakes from the field. This fruit, the size of a large plum and quite round, yellow, and full of soft pulp, was supposed to have a love charm. Both Rachel and Leah cast longing eyes on the mandrakes. Mace in his book on Hebrew Marriage states: From the most ancient time, aphrodisiac virtues have been ascribed to the mandrake, which was therefore supposed to cure barrenness, and it is now known that the root, when eaten, would have the effect of relaxing the womb."
Rachel said to Leah, "Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes." (Gen. 30:14)
Leah, perturbed that her sister should want the mandrakes brought from the field by her own son, said to her, "Is it a small matter that thou has taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also?" And Rachel answered, "Therefore he shall lie with thee tonight for thy son's mandrakes." (Gen. 30:15)
And Leah bore Jacob a fifth son, Issachar. Afterward she bore Jacob a sixth son, Zebulun, and then a daughter, Dinah, the first daughter in the Bible whose name is mentioned at birth. It was not until after the birth of all of Leah's children that Rachel bore Joseph, saying, "God hath taken away my reproach." (Gen. 30:23) We infer that prayer and not envy now filled Rachel's life. Later she would have a second son, Benjamin, thus completing the twelve tribes of Israel by two sisters and their two maids. But it would be Rachel's Joseph, often described as the most Christlike character in the Old Testament, who would come from the mystery of such love as Rachel and Jacob bore for each other.
After the birth of his beloved Joseph, Jacob began to long to return to his homeland. He had now been in Mesopotamia about twenty years, but he could not depart easily, for according to the laws of the time, Laban could still claim his children and his two wives. So it was that Jacob began to devise means whereby he might gain for himself large herds of cattle and sheep. In a few years, through his own craftiness, he had become a rich man.
For the first time we find the two wives, Rachel and Leah, united. This time they had aligned themselves unreservedly against their father. Jacob had called them from the field and reviewed to them how Laban had changed his wages ten times, how Laban also had coveted his increasing herds. Jacob related how in a dream he had been told to return to the land of his kindred.
This time one in thought, Rachel and Leah asked him, "Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? Are we not counted of him strangers? for he hath sold us, and hath quite devoured also our money. For all the riches which God hath taken from our father, that is ours, and our children's: now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do.'' (Gen. 31:14-16)
When Jacob did not make the decision alone, but consulted his wives, he demonstrated that he, like other patriarchs, took no major steps without counseling with his wives. And Rachel and Leah regarded themselves as their husband's equal.
While his father-in-law was off sheep-shearing in a far country, Jacob, with his wives and eleven children and his herds, flocks, and servants, set off for his homeland in Canaan. Onward they trod, back again through many of the same valleys and over the same mountains and through the same endless sands which Jacob's grandfather Abraham and grandmother Sarah and mother Rebekah had trod.
Three days elapsed, and Rachel and Leah's father received word that his family had departed. He set out to follow them and on the seventh day he overtook his daughters and their large family in the hill country of Gilead.
From Jacob, Rachel had kept one secret. She had brought with her the household idols worshiped by her father, who did not believe in Jacob's God. Why did she bring them? Possibly Rachel stole them from her father's home to insure the future prosperity of her husband. She doubtless believed that they brought good luck to their possessor. These household gods may even have secured for Jacob the inheritance of his father-in-law's property.
There is quite a contrast here in Rachel's actions. We wonder if Leah was concerned about a material inheritance. Did she not carry with her, wherever she went, not idols but a faith in Jacob's God? Probably she was not in the least perturbed when her father overtook them and cried out loudly over the loss of his gods, almost as loudly as he had cried out at the loss of his daughters and their children. Not knowing that Rachel possessed the gods, Jacob answered his angry father-in-law, "With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live.'' (Gen. 31:32)
Laban searched all the tents for his gods, first Leah;s, then Rachel's. When he came to Rachel's he found her sitting on the camel's saddle, beneath which she had probably hidden her father's gods. There she sat and did not arise, but explained apologetically to her father, "Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me.'' (Gen. 31:35)
"The custom of women'' has had many explanations. The Interpreter's Bible brings out the thought in its exegesis on this passage that Rachel means "she was ceremonially unclean.'' (Lev. 15:19-23) ''She apologized for not rising when her father entered, pleading her condition. Laban searched in vain. Rachel, in her uncleanness even sat on them and nothing happened to her.'' That shows how little she feared the power her father believed they had.
Later we learn that Jacob hid all the strange gods that had been brought out of Mesopotamia under the oak at Shechem (Gen. 35:4) . This leads us to believe that Rachel, like Jacob, now believed in Jehovah and not the strange gods of Mesopotamia; otherwise, could she have won Jacob's love so wholeheartedly? Rachel's actions, of course, are subject to varying interpretations. But let us not forget that any personality, ancient or modern, has elements that baffle analysis.
Fearing his brother Esau, who had threatened his life when he had left his homeland twenty years earlier, Jacob, as he now neared the edge of Canaan, thought of his family's safety. Because of his great love for Rachel, he assigned to her and to Joseph the place of greatest safety. ''And he put the handmaids and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost.'' (Gen. 33:2) He probably had another reason for this, as Rachel was now with child.
His fears were unwarranted, for Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, and kissed him. Though we can imagine Rachel rejoiced when her husband and his brother were reconciled, we are given every evidence that cares lingered on. For it is recorded that her nurse Deborah, who also had been the nurse to her mother-in-law, Rebekah, died and was buried beneath an oak at Beth-el. Could it be that Deborah had served as a midwife and had delivered most or all of Jacob's children? Now Rachel, as she journeyed into a strange land, must entrust herself to a new nurse.
We know, too, from the record that Leah also had her heartaches. When the caravan had arrived on the edge of Shechem, her daughter Dinah was defiled by Shechem, the son of Hamor.
As the caravan neared Ephrath, the pains of childbirth came upon Rachel, and she gave birth to her second son, Benjamin, in a cave. As she was dying, the first woman recorded in the Bible to die in childbirth, she cried, "Call his name Ben-oni,'' meaning ''child of sorrow.'' But his father called him Benjamin, meaning ''son of happiness.'' And Rachel's Benjamin completed the number of Jacob's twelve sons, who were to be designated as the twelve tribes of Israel.
Like a refrain we seem to hear again Rachel's earlier cry, "Give me children, or else I die.'' Could it be that her too impatient cry was heard and answered? Children were bestowed upon Rachel and with them death. How little she knew what she had asked.
''Jacob set a pillar upon her grave'' (Gen. 35:20), again showing his great love for her. That grave, still marked just outside of Bethlehem, is the oldest single memorial to a woman mentioned in the Bible.
Jacob had loved Rachel at first sight and he loved her until the end. His last poignant reference to Rachel was made some years later when he said, ''And I buried her there in the way of Ephrath.'' (that is, Bethlehem) (Gen. 48:7).
About ten centuries later, as Jeremiah contemplated the desperate plight of the northern exiles, he heard Rachel, their ancient mother, bemoaning them from her grave. More than seventeen centuries after Rachel's death, Matthew in 2:18 wrote, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her chidlren, and would not be comforted, because they are not." Rama was a town on the border between Judah and Israel. It is here that Rachel is represented as raising her head from the tomb and weeping at seeing the whole land depopulated of her sons. In Jeremiah 31:15 we have much the same idea presented. Jeremiah had in mind the Ephraimites going into exile in Babylon.
Rachel's honors and blessing were many, but what of those last years of Leah, the unloved, undesired, and unsought wife? What compensation did she have at the end? Records do not furnish actual historical details, but since she survived Rachel, we know she took her place at last beside Jacob as his chief wife and they shared many long-to-be-cherished memories of their long lives together. Probably now Jacob relied on Leah's counsel, for there was no other to whom he could turn.
From Leah's son Judah came the tribe of Judah, from which came the line of Boaz, Jesse, and David, which produced Jesus (Luke 3:23, 31-33) . And from her son Levi sprang the priesthood. Though the latter son committed a great wrong against Shechem, he must later have been visited by God's special favor because he came to represent, in a sense, the priesthood.
In Ruth 4:11, Leah is honored beside Rachel as one which "did build the house of Israel.''
