A wedding is supposed to be a joyful occasion; and Jacob’s wedding promised to be no exception. He had loved Rachel from the moment he saw her, and when Laban, Rachel and Leah’s father, asked him what wages he desired, without hesitation Jacob asked for Rachel as his wife. He said: “I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter” (Gen 29:18). Jacob was so smitten with Rachel, that the seven years he served for her “seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her” (Gen 29:20).
The Hebrew word for “love” used to describe Jacob’s love for Rachel is the same as that used when Isaac immediately loved Rebekah. And it is the same as that used in The Song of Solomon, when both the woman and the man express their passionate and sexual love for each other. It is exciting, heady, intoxicating: “thy love is better than wine” (Song 1:2).
Such was the love that Jacob had for Rachel. Knowing that she was betrothed to him, a bond more binding than our modern custom of engagement, and would soon be his, must have kept him going through those years, as he watched over Laban’s flocks, baking in the sun, enduring the cold desert nights, suffering from lack of sleep, moving the flocks from one pasture to another, watching them, protecting them – through it all, with the thought of Rachel warming his heart and his bed, he was spurred on to endure the hardships for the sake of his heart’s love.
Leah and Rachel Compared
It’s hard to know whether the description of Leah, which focuses on her eyes, regards them as a point of beauty or detracts from her beauty. Calvin puts it thus: “whether it was that Leah, on account of her tender eyes, was less beautiful, or that she was pleasing only by the comeliness of her eyes…” (Commentary on Gen 29:17). Whatever the case, she is compared unfavourably with her more beautiful younger sister, Rachel. The bible itself draws the comparison, and says “Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured” (Gen 29:17). On this same passage, Calvin comments “Rachel excelled her (Leah) altogether in elegance of form”.
Calvin, however, has a problem with Jacob’s preference for the younger and more beautiful daughter. He says “he who shall be induced to choose a wife, because of the elegance of her form, will not necessarily sin, provided reason always maintains the ascendency, and holds the wantonness of passion in subjection. Yet perhaps Jacob sinned in being too self-indulgent, when he desired Rachel the younger sister to be given to him, to the injury of the elder; and also, while yielding to the desire of his own eyes, he undervalued the virtues of Leah; for this is a very culpable want of self-government, when anyone chooses a wife only for the sake of her beauty, whereas excellence of disposition ought to be deemed of the first importance”.
But I don’t think Jacob was guilty of simply having his head turned by a pretty face. No doubt that did happen when he first saw her; but he soon got to know her because for the next month he stayed with her family (Gen 29:14). During that time, Jacob would have been getting to know Rachel as a person, and observing how she related within her family context; and he would have had opportunity to also observe and get to know Leah, and see her in her natural setting amongst her family. And he still preferred and loved Rachel. At the end of the month, when he was asked what his wages should be rather than continuing to work for nothing, Rachel was his immediate choice. He had met the woman he wanted to marry, and he asked for her to be his wife. During the time he had waited for her, Jacob demonstrated respect, for he didn’t touch Rachel inappropriately, but waited until he had served his time. But when that time came, he wanted to claim his bride and consummate the relationship (Gen 29:21). He had waited seven years for her, and he wanted no more delays.
The Wedding Night Deception
So, the time had come. Jacob would receive his long-awaited bride that very night, and they would consummate the marriage after the wedding banquet. Everybody was having a good time, eating, drinking, and being merry. However, Laban knew that things weren’t as expected. “…in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her. (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.) When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, ‘What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?’” (Gen 29:22-25).
Laban’s part in the deception
We can imagine Jacob’s outrage and shock. He had served Laban in good faith, and given him seven years of his life as the bride price for his daughter, Rachel. Laban had knowingly and deliberately brought Leah to him and handed her over, allowing Jacob to believe it was Rachel. By the time Jacob realised what had happened, it was too late, for he had already consummated the marriage, and she was now his wife. The shock to Jacob must have been overwhelming as the scale of the deception dawned on him. The idea of this deception had never occurred to him. It wasn’t as if he was wary of Laban, expecting him to try something shifty; after all, Laban was his uncle; he trusted him. Jacob and he had agreed that Rachel would be his wife in return for seven years of labour for Laban. And now this! Laban had planned it. He probably decided this at the time the agreement was made. He had deceitfully and cunningly handed over the wrong daughter to Jacob. He had deceived and betrayed Jacob. These thoughts must have come into Jacob’s mind like a flood, taking his breath away as all the implications for him sank in.
Leah’s part in the deception
And this was not all. Leah knew. She knew! She was fully aware of the deception being perpetrated. She had allowed her father to hand her over to Jacob; she said nothing when Jacob and she were alone together, just the two of them; she kept her face concealed for the whole night they were together; she allowed Jacob to consummate the marriage in the belief that he was doing so with her sister; she said nothing when he whispered Rachel’s name in her ear, professing his heartfelt love for her in the belief it was Rachel; expressing his delight in her, thinking it was Rachel; she lay beside him that whole night while they slept – and she said nothing at any time to undeceive Jacob.
No doubt her father had told her what he planned, and instructed her to go along with it – as an unmarried woman living in her father’s house, she was under his authority. But she also had an obligation to Jacob, her husband, once she came under his roof. Her obligation to obey her father ended when Jacob took her into his tent as his wife – she was no longer under the authority of her father but of her husband. And she should have told him what had happened. Leah had deceived Jacob massively. These thoughts, too, must have overwhelmed Jacob as he sought to come to terms with what had been done to him. What Leah had done, even if there was a degree of pressure against her, would have burned itself into Jacob’s heart, causing a scar that could never be removed. And even though Laban was the architect of it all, Leah was the one who was in Jacob’s face every day, a constant reminder of the way he had been betrayed, and that she was a major player in it.
It mustn’t be forgotten that the culture that Jacob lived in was a shame-based culture; men did not take kindly to losing face. Jacob had been totally humiliated by this action before the whole family. He would not get over it quickly, if ever. And Leah paid the price, apparently for the rest of her life. She fervently wanted Jacob’s love but she never received it (Gen 29:31). “Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” (“Marmion” by Sir Walter Scott).
How could Leah expect that marriage by such circumstances would produce a loving relationship? The fact that Jacob continued to have sexual relations with her is, to me, amazing. He didn’t love her (Gen 29:31-34; 30:15, 20), and their relationship was born in deception and betrayal; such a toxic origin could never produce healthy relationship fruit.
Naïve…..?
At first glance, however, Leah seems to think she’d done nothing wrong. For example, years later, when Rachel asked Leah for some of her son’s (Reuben) mandrakes, Leah replied “Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband?” (Gen 30:15). What! Shouldn’t it have been Rachel asking that question of Leah? What was Leah thinking? How could she ask that, of all questions? Did she really believe that Jacob was hers because she spent the first week with him? Was she unaware of the agreement Jacob had made with her father for the hand of Rachel? Had she forgotten that she and her father had deceived Jacob into marrying her, Leah, while he thought he was getting Rachel? For all the years when she pined for Jacob’s love, did she not once ask herself why he didn’t love her? Apparently not, because she here blames Rachel for stealing him from her. She just doesn’t get that Jacob had given his heart to Rachel from the beginning. He had never loved Leah, even before they married. He only ever had eyes for Rachel. Leah’s only claim on Jacob was that she was married to him – but she stole that marriage, from both Jacob and Rachel.
…..or deceived?
On the other hand, however, it may be that the reason for her accusing Rachel of stealing her (Leah’s) husband is that Laban may have deceived her too, in telling her that she, not Rachel, would have Jacob to herself, when all along, unbeknown to anybody else, he planned to marry both daughters off at once, and make double the money. Under this impression, she would have thought that all she had to do was to go along with her father’s plan and, once she had bedded Jacob, that would be the end of it; that once she had weathered the storm of Jacob’s anger and dismay at having been betrayed, he would get over it; and then she could get on with happy married life. And, if the cultural practice (mentioned below) was real, she would have believed that Jacob was hers by right anyway, because she was the firstborn daughter.
Laban Unrepentant
When Jacob confronted and challenged Laban for his deception, Laban attempted to justify his action by claiming a doubtful cultural practice. “And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years” (Gen 29:26-27). If Laban had been an honourable man, and this excuse was genuine, he would have been up front with Jacob at the time they were making their agreement. From the way scripture tells us of Jacob’s great love for Rachel, he may very well have agreed to take Leah to wife as well. Then harmony would have prevailed, Leah would have had a happier life because Jacob would have had no reason to reject her, Jacob would not have felt humiliated and betrayed, and Rachel would have borne more children, because it was only that Jacob loved her over Leah that God closed her womb (Gen 29:31). There is no indication of him being reluctant to take the two handmaids as wives, so I don’t suppose he would have refused to marry Leah as well.
But Laban was a deceitful and unscrupulous man, who thought of no one but himself. This becomes increasingly evident the more we read about him. This was only the first of ten occasions when he swindled Jacob (Gen 31:6-12). By his deception, he had stolen seven years of Jacob’s life by making him serve a second seven years in his service; Jacob could not refuse Laban’s terms if he wanted Rachel. He had nothing else to offer except his service, and Laban took full advantage of this. Although Laban couched his terms as an offer, it was more like an ultimatum, and Jacob could only agree to it. For Laban, it seems that Jacob was just another sucker to be taken advantage of, and his daughters as cattle to be sold for the best price. Indeed, his daughters stated that he had sold them and stolen their money (Gen 31:24-26).
Laban’s desperation
And in yet another agreement with Jacob, when he thought Jacob was going to leave him, he said “I pray thee, if I have found favour in thine eyes, tarry: for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake. And he said, Appoint me thy wages, and I will give it” (Gen 30:27-28). Subsequently, God prospered Jacob. He said to Rachel and Leah “Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me”. And he told them of a dream he had, in which an angel of God said to him “I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee…..now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred” (Gen 31:9, 12-13).
But when Jacob did leave, taking his wives, his children, his servants, and all his livestock with him, Laban pursued him with murderous intent. But God intercepted him before he caught up with Jacob and warned him in a dream: “Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad” (Gen 31:24). Despite the agreement he had made with Jacob for his daughters, despite God’s warning to him, despite Jacob’s complaint that Jacob had stolen from him, despite Jacob saying how Laban required from him every animal lost through wild animals or rustlers, Laban, with breath-taking audacity, says “These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and these cattle are my cattle, and all that thou seest is mine: and what can I do this day unto these my daughters, or unto their children which they have born? Now therefore come thou, let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee” (Gen 31:43-44).
Laban saw the writing on the wall. He knew he couldn’t touch Jacob, knew his schemes had been exposed so, like a good politician, he changed the subject to deflect the heat from himself, and sued for peace without admitting any guilt or fault of his own. He showed what a self-serving hypocrite he really was. And, at last, his sin had found him out (Num 32:23).
God: The Just and Loving Father
The first mention of what God thought about the events surrounding Jacob’s marriage doesn’t occur until Genesis 29:31. Up to this point, with the deception perpetrated on Jacob, God makes no comment. And when we are told, it’s not what we would have expected. God seems to have nothing to say and no point of view, either on Laban’s deception, or Leah’s willing involvement; nothing to say by way of comfort for Jacob; nothing to say about Rachel being pushed aside at the last minute to be robbed of her betrothed husband. It’s not until chapter 31, about 14 years later, that God reveals his view of Laban’s sin; but by then many things have happened in all their lives, and Laban has cheated Jacob, changing his wages ten times. The Lord seems unconcerned by the deception of the wedding; he doesn’t seem bothered that Jacob has been placed in a position where he is to take two wives; he doesn’t seem bothered when Jacob marries two sisters, when much later he forbids a man marrying sisters (Lev 18:18) – what does concern him is Jacob’s treatment of Leah. “And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren” (Gen 29:31). Although we’re told that Jacob did not love/hated Leah, he did his conjugal duty as husband, maintaining an ongoing sexual relationship with her (cf 1 Cor 7:1-5) – but God required that he love her as well.
Why was that? Why was it that God considered Leah with such sympathy? She was simply suffering the consequences of her deception. Why did God vindicate the guilty Leah, while innocent Rachel was made to suffer for many years? There is no indication that Rachel did anything wrong. She doesn’t even seem to have treated Leah harshly. The only reason given is that Leah was hated by her husband. But envy and strife did gradually develop between the sisters as rival wives, as we saw in Genesis 30:15, where Leah accused her sister of stealing her husband; and verse 1 of the same chapter, where we’re told that Rachel envied her sister for being able to have children whilst she, Rachel, was barren. Each sister had something that the other desperately wanted but couldn’t have. No doubt it is this kind of scenario, at least in part, that God wanted his people to avoid when he later placed various restrictions on who could marry whom: “Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime” (Lev 18:18).
It is remarkable that Jacob didn’t shun Leah, and that he still had a sexual relationship with her. Despite that, Leah must have felt keenly the distance between them. Perhaps he behaved coldly towards her, while she would see the tenderness, affection, and familiarity in the way he treated Rachel. She would feel the absence of his passion, the absence of expressions of love and delight that she would have heard on that first night, words whispered in her ear but never intended for her, words she would never hear again. And it hurt her deeply.
Even at the birth of her first son, the pain of her rejection was present, “….she said, Surely the Lord hath looked on my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me” (Gen 29:32). But nothing changed; the joyous occasion of Jacob’s first son did not cause him to love Leah. A year (at least) later, Leah gave birth to her second son, and, regarding him as a kind of compensation from God, she said, “Because the Lord hath heard I was hated, he hath given me this son also” (Gen 29:33). The narrative continues: “And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have born him three sons’” (Gen 29:34). And still, Jacob did not love her. I wonder if she ever asked herself “Was it worth it? Why did I let my father talk me into this? Why didn’t I tell him what was being done to him before he lay with me? Why did I allow myself to deceive him?” There is an old adage: “Marry in haste; repent at leisure”. Leah now had her whole life before her, knowing Jacob didn’t love her – and he never would. Yet, despite this, she continued to hope that Jacob would relent.
Leah’s Faith
What is clearly evident as we read this story is Leah’s faith. In the practical matters, the realities of life which are of concern to a woman, she acknowledged God. Thus, at the birth of her first son, she said “Surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction” (Gen 29:32). When her second son was born, she said “Because the Lord has heard I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also” (Gen 29:33). In naming her fourth son, no longer did she express hope that her husband would love her, but said simply, “Now will I praise the LORD” (Gen 29:35). She seems to have resigned herself to the fact that Jacob did not love her, and never would; and she praised God anyway, with Judah’s name being a perpetual reminder of God’s goodness.
Years later, following the deal Leah made with Rachel to trade her son’s (Reuben) mandrakes in exchange for Rachel’s right to sleep with Jacob that night, she must have prayed that she would conceive, for we’re told, “And God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob the fifth son” (Gen 30:17). And when she conceived and bore her sixth and last son, she said, “God hath endued me with a good dowry; now my husband will dwell with me, because I have born him six sons” (Gen 30:20).
We don’t read of Leah complaining to Jacob that he didn’t love her, or of her trying to make life difficult for her sister. Leah was a woman who trusted God, and for that she received his blessing. God overlooked her act of deception, just as he overlooked Jacob’s act of deception when he stole Esau’s birthright. Leah was a faithful and obedient wife (1 Pet 3:5-6), and a faithful and obedient servant of God. She acknowledged him and looked to him in all things, trusting him even when they didn’t go her way. She was a true “mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7; 2 Sam 20:19), her name was recorded in the annals of Israel, and she became a household name. For example, when Boaz was obtaining the right to marry Ruth, “And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem” (Ruth 4:11).
This is not to say that Rachel was ungodly – far from it. She, too, was a faithful and godly woman, although there are two instances we’re told of which don’t reflect well on her; her outburst against Jacob (Gen 30:1-2), and her theft of her father’s household idols (Gen 31:19), about which she also lied (Gen 31:34-35).
And when Jacob expressed his fear of Laban, and his desire to leave his service and set up on his own terms, both Leah and Rachel supported him, and encouraged him to obey God. “And Rachel and Leah answered and said unto 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).
From the womb of Leah, the unloved wife, came six of the twelve sons of Jacob, the patriarchs of the nation of Israel. And of these were the patriarchs of the two most important and significant tribes; Levi, the priestly tribe, and Judah, the royal tribe. From Levi came Moses, who led Israel out of the bondage of Egypt and through whom God gave the Ten Commandments, and Aaron from whom came the priests who offered daily sacrifices before the Lord for the sins of Israel. And from Judah came David and the kings of Judah, and the great Son of David, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind. Leah, the unloved wife, was greatly loved and honoured by God.
All scripture references are from the Authorised King James Version of the Bible.