This child kindled Leah’s hope of being loved by Jacob, whose love for Rachel was so strong that he hardly acknowledged Leah’s existence. It was a great joy for Leah to be able to provide Jacob with a man child, who would become his heir. Reuben means something like “see, a son” (cf. God lovingly reached out to Leah by giving her a much-desired son, Reuben. She is married to a man who never wanted her for a wife and who refuses to give her the love she desperately needs. And Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben, for she said, “Because the LORD has seen my affliction surely now my husband will love me” (Genesis 29:31-32). Now the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. 245 God’s loving intervention in her life is evident to her, and she gratefully acknowledges it: In her early years of child-rearing we find Leah at the high point of her spiritual life. That is just the way this account is written so that we might be able to identify with these two women, both of whom desperately want to be assured of Jacob’s love and affection. We read these verses like someone watching a tennis match, we look first at the one contestant, then at the other, and so on. 244 By arranging the births as he has, Moses enables us to feel more intensely the division and competition between Leah and Rachel. There must be some overlap in the births. With only a little simple mathematics we can quickly discern that too many children are born in these verses to have been born one after the other. His choice of Rachel on primarily physical grounds and his insistence that he have her, even after he has married Leah, leads to a most distressing home and family life.Īs we approach this passage, let us be aware of the fact that Moses has not arranged the events chronologically but topically. Many of the consequences of his previous sins catch up with him. Consequently, while God is with Jacob, all does not go well with him in these days. While God has promised His presence, protection, and provision, He is also at work in Jacob’s life to purge out many of the sinful patterns that have characterized him in the past. Let us remember that Jacob is, at this point in time, living outside the land of promise.
However, God’s “soap” is not intended to encourage us to think sinful thoughts or to commit illicit acts but rather to “clean up our own acts” and to live righteously before Him. Modern-day soap operas deal with a very similar kind of plot. The story told is one of competition between two women and their maids, which results in Jacob being shuttled from bedroom to bedroom, tent to tent. In fact, our passage reads much like a modern-day soap opera. The story of Jacob’s marriage and family life leaves a great deal to be desired. That’s not bad, and neither is it far from the truth. Bruce Waltke, used to compare Isaac with Jacob by likening Isaac to a slow leak, while Jacob was a blow-out. (A Study of Love, Sex, Marriage, and Children) Introduction