At the church where I serve, we are spending our time
together looking at a section of the very first letter that is recorded for us
in the Bible, called the book of Genesis, where we are traveling on a journey
with a man named Jacob and his family. This week, I would like for us to spend
our time together by jumping back into this section of the book of Genesis,
where we find Jacob now married to two women in the span of eight days.
Jacob
remained married to Leah, who he did not love and married Rachel who he did
love. And as we jump back into this tale of twisted deception, we are going to
discover another timeless truth that can powerfully impact our relationship
with God and others. So let’s discover this truth together, in Genesis 29:31:
Now the LORD
saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. 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." Then she
conceived again and bore a son and said, "Because the LORD has heard that
I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also." So she named him Simeon. She conceived again and
bore a son and said, "Now this time my husband will become attached to me,
because I have borne him three sons." Therefore he was named Levi. And she
conceived again and bore a son and said, "This time I will praise the
LORD." Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.
Moses brings us back into this story by revealing God’s
knowledge of the situation. You see, the Lord was not surprised at what had happened.
The Lord was fully aware of the reality that Jacob loved Rachel, while Leah was
unloved. Actually, the word unloved, in the language that this letter was
originally written in, means to be hated or slighted.
You see, Jacob did not want to put up with Leah, because
he was not interested in her. Jacob was in love with Rachel and was only
married to Leah because he had been deceived. And as a result, Leah was
slighted by Jacob and was afflicted by the lack of love that she was shown by
her husband.
Maybe you can relate to Leah. Maybe you feel unloved and slighted by those closest to you. The Lord,
who was fully aware of Leah’s hurt and pain that was afflicting her, responded
by enabling her to become pregnant. Rachel, however, who was the focus of
Jacob’s affections, was barren. In other words, Rachel was unable to have
children.
Moses tells us that Leah gave birth to a son whom she
named Reuben. Leah thought that by giving Jacob a son, he would respond by falling
in love with her. However, that is not what happened. Leah then gave birth to
another son, named Simeon. But once again, Jacob responded with
indifference. Leah was then became
pregnant and gave birth to a third son whom she named Levi. Leah hoped that
God’s blessing of a third son would result in her experiencing a connection
with Jacob. However, Leah was once again left unloved.
You see, Leah wrongly thought that introducing a child
into the relationship would improve the relationship. Leah wrongly thought that
her identity and worth was to be found in gaining her husband’s love and
approval. Maybe you can identify with Leah. If you are in that place here is
the thing: Leah learned the timeless reality that the introduction of children
does not change the relationship between the husband and wife for the better.
Instead, the introduction of children only amplifies the current state of the
relationship.
Leah fell into the timeless trap of mistakenly thinking that
having a child would win her the man. Moses tells us that after becoming
pregnant a fourth time, Leah shifted her focus from her finding her identity by
earning her husband’s love to finding her identity in God’s love. After giving
birth, Leah named her fourth son Judah, which means praise. While Leah was
praising the Lord for the blessing of her four children, Rachel had a far
different response, which Moses reveals for us beginning in Genesis 30:1:
Now when
Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous of her sister;
and she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I die." Then
Jacob's anger burned against Rachel, and he said, "Am I in the place of
God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" She said,
"Here is my maid Bilhah, go in to her that she may bear on my knees, that
through her I too may have children." So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a
wife, and Jacob went in to her. Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then
Rachel said, "God has vindicated me, and has indeed heard my voice and has
given me a son." Therefore she named him Dan. Rachel's maid Bilhah
conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. So Rachel said, "With mighty
wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and I have indeed prevailed." And she named him Naphtali.
Rachel’s inability to give birth to children resulted in
her giving birth to something else. And that something else was jealousy.
Rachel became jealous of her sister Leah.
Now jealousy or envy is a desire to want what others have and not want
others to have what they do have. You see, Rachel wanted the children that Leah
had and did not want Leah to have the children that she did have.
And Rachel’s jealousy fueled a ridiculous demand toward
her husband Jacob: Give me children, or else I am going to die. Rachel’s
ridiculous demand resulted in an angry response from Jacob: "Am I in the
place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" You see,
Jacob wasn’t the one who was preventing Rachel from having children. After all,
Jacob did not have fertility issues; he had clearly demonstrated that he was
able to produce children. The problem was not Jacob.
Rachel responded to Jacob’s angry response by coming up
with a plan: This plan, if communicated in the language we use in our culture
today, would have sounded something like this: “Here is my servant Bilhah,
marry her and have sex with her, and then if she has a child I will adopt her
as my child”. Here we see Rachel, Just like Abraham’s wife Sarah, attempt to
come up with her own plan instead of trusting God’s promises and plan. And just
like Abraham, Jacob responds to Rachel’s plan by willingly participating in the
plan.
Moses then tells us that the result of this plan was the
birth of two more sons, who were named Dan and Naphtai. Rachel responds to the
birth of these two sons by rejoicing over the plan’s success as though God had
approved of her plan. You see, Rachel was so driven by jealousy with her sister
Leah that she viewed her situation as a struggle for God’s favor. And as the story
continues, in verse 9, we see Leah engage Rachel in this fight:
When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing,
she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Leah's maid Zilpah
bore Jacob a son. Then Leah said, "How fortunate!" So she named him Gad.
Leah's maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. Then Leah said, "Happy am I!
For women will call me happy." So she named him Asher.
Leah jealousy responded to
Rachel’s plan by copying her plan instead of trusting in God’s promises and
plans. And as a result of Jacob marrying and having sex with Leah’s servant
Zilpah, two more sons, named Gad and Asher, arrived on the scene. Now, who says
the Bible is boring? I mean you could not find such drama in a reality T.V.
show. Can you imagine what family dinners looked like? Can you imagine the
tension? The emotion? The body language?
Tomorrow, we will see Moses
gives us a glimpse into how dysfunctional this family had become as a result of
the jealous competition between Rachel and Leah…
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