Genesis 29:31
Marrying the Right
Woman or Man
Derek Thomas
31.
Now the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb,
but Rachel was barren.
Now, this is Ann Landers,
and it’s dated June 13, 2002, so it’s right up-to-date.
“Dear Ann Landers, I
have a small Chihuahua, Fluffy, and I love her dearly. Unfortunately, she is
afraid of my boyfriend, Chip. Last summer, Chip and I were trying to put Fluffy
outside, and he chased her under my bed; I told him to leave her alone, but he
ignored me. He poked his head under the bed and dragged Fluffy out by the
scruff of her neck. She snapped at him and he needed four stitches between his
nose and lip. He now has a small scar that is covered by his moustache. Chip
filed a claim against my homeowners insurance, and said he suffered permanent
numbness. The insurance company settled for $11,000.00–imagine. When my
renewal came up, they canceled my policy. I’m having trouble forgiving Chip for
using me to make money. I told him we are through, but he insists we belong
together. Who’s right? Tampa, Florida.”
Oh, you’re wondering
what the point is? That it’s dangerous to come between two females.
Now, the two females
in mind this evening are Rachel and Leah. Jacob was born into what we might
call a dysfunctional family. His mother, Rebekah, had shown him favoritism over
his twin brother, Esau. And Isaac, of course, had done the opposite. And,
moreover, Jacob had swindled Esau’s birthright, and Esau, as you can understand,
harbored a grudge against him for the rest of his life; even to the extent of
desiring to kill his brother. So, Jacob is on the run. Actually, he’s been
sent by his father to his uncle Laban. Laban is another Jacob. He’s been sent
to his uncle Laban, Rebekah’s brother, partly because it’s a good distance away
from Esau, but partly in order that He might marry what would be one of his
first cousins. On the way to Laban’s place, Jacob has this extraordinary dream
at a place which he would later call Bethel. It’s a dream in which God
reassures him of His presence and His continued covenantal faithfulness.
Eventually, as the
opening verse of chapter 29 makes clear, he comes to the land of the People of
the East, where his uncle Laban lives, and he stops by a well. There beside the
well are three flocks of sheep. It’s a large well and it’s covered by a huge
stone. He asks the shepherds where they are from and discovers they are from
his Uncle Laban; they know him and just as they are talking, behold, Rachel
comes into the picture. She is the pretty one, and she’s coming to the well
because she is a shepherdess. And Jacob is smitten, and it’s love at first
sight. If there is such a thing as love at first sight–and of course there is.
Here’s the example. Jacob and Rachel. He does the gallant thing and he moves the
stone away for her and waters her sheep–Laban’s sheep. And in verse 11 of
Chapter 29, there’s a kiss. Look at it (v. 29): “Jacob kissed Rachel.” It’s a
“Hi! Wonderful to meet you ‘cuz,” kind of kiss, I think. And she goes off to
tell her father Laban, who in turn, runs to meet Jacob, and there’s a warm
embrace; and this is Laban’s greeting of Jacob. Jacob is invited home; he’s
there for a month. He must have been working to some degree because his Uncle
Laban begins to talk about wages. You understand working and Jacob
were almost contradictory terms, so he must have been struck with Rachel in
order that he was now working for Laban. And the bargain is struck. He will work
for seven years in payment for the youngest daughter, Rachel. Sounds like a good
deal. Seven years is a long time to do all sorts of things. Laban agrees and
the time goes quickly for Jacob because of his love for Rachel.
And then catastrophe!
It’s the wedding night; it must have been dark, the bride is wearing a veil from
head to toe, and Jacob marries whom he thinks to be Rachel. Chapter 29 verse
25: “So it came about in the morning that” (and there’s this wonderful little
Hebrew word) “and behold.” Actually the Hebrew word is more like–ah-h-h!
It’s not Rachel at all–it’s Leah! I don’t know. I know you’re asking the
question. It must have been very dark. He must have been drunk. I don’t know how
it takes him until morning to discover that it was Leah, the ugly one–the one
with bad eyes.
Jacob has met his
match. Jacob the twister has met, in the providence of God, his Uncle Laban who
is equally a twister. His chickens have come home to roost and now he is
encumbered with this “dowdy one” with the bad eyes–she’s the oldest. Oh, Laban
makes some excuse that it was the custom that the oldest one should get married
first and not the younger. He’s had seven years to say so, but now the next
morning, he’s telling him this. Within a week he marries Rachel too, but has to
work another seven years in order to pay for that marriage–and the plot
thickens. Jacob loves Rachel more than he loves Leah.
Now polygamy, you
understand, is a recipe for disaster as is any form of liaison other than
marriage. Leah is trapped, as we might say, in a loveless marriage. Actually,
it’s interesting that Calvin should say, quoting from Malachi 2:14, “If by any
means a wife is not loved by her husband it is better to repudiate her than that
she should be retained as a captive and consumed with grief by the introduction
of a second wife; therefore, the Lord by Malachi pronounces divorce to be more
tolerable than polygamy.” Interesting.
Well, that’s the
story full of lessons for another occasion perhaps, but I want to pick up some
of them here this evening. Jacob is the product of a dysfunctional family, and
all kinds of implications result in this marriage because of that. Jacob favors
Rachel more than he does Leah–and that’s understandable–but worse, it was to
show itself in the favoritism that was afforded to Joseph and Benjamin, Rachel’s
two sons. It left him with a blind spot.
Now, as I say, this
is a perilous task to take this particular chapter and try and say there are
some lessons in here for marriage. Practically everything that is going on in
this chapter is saying, “Don’t do this.” But let’s try and tease out some
lessons about marriage, about Christian marriage, and what it means to hold up a
marriage in integrity and honor before God. The first thing I want you to see is
this.
I. How
men and women distort God’s design for marriage.
Let’s
take a look, shall we, at how messy some peoples’ lives can be. If I were to
tell you that Leah means “cow,” and Rachel means “ewe,” as in sheep; now, that
would probably prejudice you from the very start. Even though it is true. The
father, you understand, is a shepherd and I imagine at that time, these were
endearing ways to refer to your two daughters. I can’t imagine it; but it must
have been endearing then. Now, it says in verse 31 that Leah was unlovedhated in much the same
way that Jesus says, “If anyone comes unto Me and does not hate his own father
and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters–and even his own
life–he cannot be My disciple.” You understand, it’s not that Jacob hated
Leah, it’s just that he loved Leah less than he did Rachel. Jacob had
fallen in love with Rachel as soon as he had seen her.
Now, not everyone is
a romantic. It’s interesting that Calvin, in 1540, when he was in Strasbourg for
three and one-half years, after being thrown out of Geneva, was urged by Luther
and Farrell and others to marry. It was important, in the time of the
Reformation, for the leaders to pronounce the dignity and solemnity and
propriety of Christian marriage coming out of the celibacy of the priesthood in
the medieval age. So Calvin was urged to marry, and he marries eventually, this
widow–Idalette Deburr. But just before he gets married, he talks about what kind
of wife he actually needs, and he says, “The only beauty which allures me is
this: That she be chaste; and not too nice or fastidious, economical, patient,
likely to take care of my health.” Calvin wasn’t a romantic. As it happened,
Idalette DeBurr was a widow and as it happened this was a wonderful marriage. It
only lasted for nine years; she died in 1549 after giving birth to three
children–all of these children died, too–but it was a very happy marriage. It
was a wonderful marriage, and she could not have been a better wife for John
Calvin.
Life had been tough
for Leah. It’s not easy being married to someone that you know doesn’t love you.
And there’s the rub, isn’t it? There’s the solemnity; there’s the seriousness in
this passage. I imagine it touches home somewhere. It’s not easy being married
to somebody whom you suspect doesn’t love you. She probably lived with the
notion that she was unlikely ever to get married. I wouldn’t be
surprised–reading between the lines a little bit–I wouldn’t be at all surprised
if Laban, her father, had told her this on many occasions. What a terrible thing
it is to show favoritism to your children. He obviously didn’t think that Leah
could get married–above and by this contrived notion. I imagine that Leah’s
self-esteem was shot.
Leah has one thing in
her favor; she is fertile. And in the space of four verses, 31-35, she gives
birth to four sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. And you’ve got to admit
that they are pretty important children. One of them will give birth to a race
of priests, the priesthood of Levi. And one of them, Judah, will give birth to
the line of Boaz and David, and eventually to Jesus Himself. What an
extraordinary thing, that the line of Jesus–the earthly lineage of Jesus–goes
back through Judah and Leah, the ugly one, the not-so-pretty one.
We’ll come back to
that in a minute. But take a highlighter–if you’re wondering–well, that’s where
it’s about to go. But look at the motives behind Leah’s desire for children in
verse 32: “Now my husband will love me.” Isn’t that terribly sad? Can’t you hear
the desperation in her voice? That, somehow or other, having a son will make her
husband love her. And then in verse 34, she repeats it again: “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.’” (Don’t get your hopes
up, Leah.) Now, when we come to chapter 30, Rachel and Jacob are having a
fight–it’s trash talk–it’s a brouhaha between Jacob and Rachel. Rachel is
miffed, understandably, because she hasn’t got any children; and she’s blaming
Jacob, and Jacob is blaming her. Do couples ever quarrel? Of course they do;
here’s the example of it here.
So what does Rachel
do? She resorts to the Bilhah technique by which two sons are born. Is this a
dysfunctional family or what? What you have is envy, and rivalry, and
suspicion–and they’re not the best ingredients for any relationship. Now Leah,
who has stopped having children, resorts to the Zilpah procedure from which two
more sons are born. Yes, this is in the Bible. There’s a rather colorful
description about mandrakes shaped like a plum; sometimes called “love apples”
thought to have fertility powers. It was the fertility drug of four thousand
years ago. Look at verse 16. Leah obviously keeps the calendar in this house,
and she insists that the only way that Rachel is going to get these mandrakes is
that Jacob sleeps with her.
Where are we going?
Nowhere, except here. Is this a mess, or what? Be honest, does this not sound
like cheap afternoon television? Have you ever watched afternoon daytime
television? This is it. You couldn’t write this story. You couldn’t imagine a
more sordid mess of a marriage and a home and a relationship than this one. Can
we imagine what it was like to live in this family? Can you imagine the
relationship between Leah and Rachel? Yes, perhaps some of you can. Another
woman who has come into the picture, and you think you have problems.
II.
What God can do in situations like this.
Let’s take a look, in the second place, at what God can do in situations
like this. Watch how God comes and watch how God comes to the downtrodden. Can
God work in broken families? Can God work in less than ideal marriages, in
marriages where there is strife and discord and trouble and resentment and
frustration and anger and disappointment? Can work in families like that? Can
God work in marriages like that?
Look at verse 31:
“Leah was unloved and God saw it.” The Lord saw that Leah was unloved.
There isn’t a pain, there isn’t a hurt, there isn’t a difficulty, there isn’t an
obstacle–and we want this series to be practical. You know, next week we’re
going to talk of the ideal marriage–and it’s not going to be Rosemary and me. I
wish I could stand up here and say, “That’s the ideal marriage.” I love her
immensely, but that’s not the ideal marriage. You know, the reality is that in
the best of marriages, there are problems, and there are difficulties, and there
are days when you have to sort through the mess, the baggage, the things that
come into your marriage from the past, but somehow you just can’t get rid of,
like a closet that you’ve been telling yourself for years you’re going to sort
out–and it’s still a mess. And here’s this wonderful, touching, moving
thing–that God works in marriages that are a mess.
You know, this
marriage was terrible. There’s no way that you can tell me that this was an
ideal home, or an ideal marriage, or an ideal situation, and yet, God is here;
He sees and hears the cries of the downtrodden because that’s the kind of God He
is. Turning to the biographer, Andrew Morton’s suggestion that Princess Diana
was trapped in a loveless marriage. Whenever Prince Charles admitted on national
television that he’d had an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, Morton’s claim
that Princess Diana had been suffering from eating disorders and had attempted,
on more than one occasion, to take away her life, became more believable. God
can come into the most difficult and hopeless of circumstances and make His
presence felt. If Leah had ever thought that she might gain Jacob’s
affection–you know the stage was set the morning after the wedding, when Jacob
hit the roof of the tent after discovering that she wasn’t Rachel, and having
children, in the hope and expectation, that that would change him, was always
doomed to failure as was the notion, young people, that I will marry this person
determined that I am going to change them. That is never, ever a good
motive for getting married. And for all of Leah’s and Rachel’s theologizing as
to why they had been given children, the most believable are the ones, the
motives, that God Himself tells us, that He hears their pain and He sees their
cries and He remembers them in their grief. God listens–in this tawdry tale.
Actually, there are
no prayers recorded here at all. Leah and Rachel are good at theologizing as to
why they’ve had these sons, because God is doing this and God is showing that,
and so on. Actually, all of their reasonings are probably questionable, that
even here in the midst of this sorry and tawdry tale; God is present. I don’t
know about you, but I find that wonderfully, wonderfully reassuring.
I don’t know where
you are in your marriage. After five years, or ten years, or thirty years; I
don’t know what you are expecting out of this series–instant cures? No, you’re
Presbyterians; you know there’s no such thing. You know that there are days when
there are difficulties. You know that there are things you have to sort out, and
isn’t it a wonderful thing to know that the God we worship can come into
the most distressing and dysfunctional of situations and reveal His grace
and reveal His mercy and show His tenderness and give days of joy, and give days
of light, even in the midst of absolute darkness? I find that wonderfully
reassuring.
III.
What God is really doing in this chapter.
But in
the third place, let’s take a look at what God is really doing in this
chapter? Because all of these stories, and this one too, is one of those
building blocks in the story of God’s redemption. This tawdry soap-opera of a
tale is one of the building blocks in the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, in the
fulfillment of the promise that God made at the very dawn of time itself, that
through the seed of a woman one would be born that would crush the very head of
Satan. You know, what God is doing here is fulfilling a promise that He gave to
Abraham, that Abraham would have a seed that would be as numerous as the stars
of the night sky and the sand on the seashore. At the end of this chapter Jacob
has eleven sons. There is one more to be born, and that’s Benjamin, to Rachel.
And in giving birth to Benjamin, Rachel herself will die. What a tale. The one
that he loved the most will die and will be buried actually in a place other
than where Jacob will be buried. Actually, it will be Leah that will be buried
beside him and not Rachel. Is this bizarre, or what? And you think your life is
complicated? You think your story is bizarre? You think you’ve got a tale to
tell–you go and talk to Jacob. You go and talk to Rachel. You go and talk to
Leah. You know that what God is really doing in this passage is
fulfilling his promise. At the end of this chapter Jacob has eleven sons. All
right, it’s not the stars in the sky; it’s not the sand on the seashore, but
eleven is more than nothing. Already you can see the embers of that promise that
God made to Abraham beginning to be fulfilled.
You know, this is not
a passage to recommend multiple wives. That’s not the point of this passage. God
allowed this to happen, but as Paul would say, “it was not so from the
beginning.” The circumstances here are not honored, but God works despite them.
“God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants His footsteps
in the sea, and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable minds of never
failing still, He treasures up His bright designs and works His sovereign will.”
This is all about God
being faithful. In the midst of the unfaithfulness of men and women, in the
midst of the plotting and scheming and conniving and rivalry of this passage,
God is being faithful to His word; God is being faithful to His promise.
You know, if there’s
only one thing that you can take home with you tonight, recognize in this
passage the signature of Almighty God so that you may recognize that signature
in the providence of your own life. As God works in your marriage, as God works
in your home, as God works in the difficulties that you face from day-to-day,
and week-to-week, and month-to-month, recognize how God works in this passage
and recognize it in your own life and in your own marriage. May God enable us to
do so. Let’s pray together. Amen.