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Full Episode
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Yesterday when we left off, Jacob had just married two sisters, Leah and Rachel, due in part to some deception from his father-in-law, and Jacob's wife Leah had just had four sons. Today we open with Rachel being envious of Leah's ability to bear children.
She puts some weight on Jacob to get her pregnant, but Jacob gets defensive and points out that only God can give life. We'll see that repeatedly in this chapter. Rachel decided to follow the ways of her grandmother-in-law slash great-great-aunt Sarah by offering her maidservant Bilhah to her husband. If you recall, this did not go well for Sarah.
Stick around to see if it solves all Rachel's problems. Bilhah had two children for Jacob and Rachel. But then Leah follows suit and gives her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob, and she has two more sons. So now the tally is Leah, four, Leah by Zilpah, two, and Rachel by Bilhah, two. But this sibling rivalry is far from over. Bitterness and jealousy have been growing in their hearts.
And left unattended, a bitter heart will often resort to manipulation and retaliation, which is what Leah does next. Since Jacob probably spent most nights with Rachel, the wife he loved, Leah trades Rachel some plants in exchange for a night with Jacob.
Interestingly, this particular plant, the mandrake, was believed to promote fertility, but it's also used to treat stomach ulcers, which I'm guessing they both had a lot of by this point. Do you see all the striving on both parts? Do you see how it's never enough for either of them? Do you see how the spirit of greed and comparison and their scarcity mentality is driving all their actions?
This isn't love for God. It isn't love for Jacob. It doesn't even seem like love for their children. It looks a lot more like fear and idolatry and self-promotion. Leah got pregnant for the fifth time and thought it was God's reward for generously sharing her servant with Jacob. But verse 17 tells us what actually happened. God just heard her cries.
Leah didn't earn pregnancy through holy actions and good behavior, especially since coercing your husband into infidelity isn't exactly good behavior. She controlled and manipulated. She misunderstands God's ways. And still, God heard her desires and responded with a yes. Then Leah had two more kids, a sixth son and a daughter named Dinah.
So now we're up to 11 children between one wife and two maidservants. But then Rachel had a son, Joseph, bringing the total to 12. You can imagine which of these children might have been Jacob's favorite and why. Around the time Rachel gives birth to Joseph, Jacob also wraps up his 14 years of service to his father-in-law Laban, so he asks for permission to leave.
Remember, he needs to go back to Canaan because that's the land God promised to him. But Laban doesn't want him to leave because he finds out that he's being blessed by God through Jacob's presence there. Laban got that information from a wicked source, but it was accurate. By the way, we don't really have any indication that Laban worshipped Yahweh, even though he's related to Abraham.
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