(Full disclosure: Sermon Central has accepted two messages of mine in a series about Jacob dealing with his situation here, namely, how he got his two wives. They’re “Jacob-What He Did For Love” and “Jacob-Finding True Love--And More” but this message is not simply an edit of these two messages.)
Introduction: Besides the “Married at First Sight” series, there is also a similar format called “90 Day Fiancée.” This is where American citizens arrange for a foreign-born prospective spouse to come to the USA, under the K-1 visa program. Once the prospective spouse arrives on American soil, this person has 90 (calendar) days to either be married or returned to their homeland. So far, all those who came have remained married. If there are any that married but aren’t now or were divorced later, I don’t know the identities.
With this in view, it’s a natural step (okay, leap) to consider Jacob’s seven years of labor in order to marry his true love. Seven years is only 84 months, but let’s not forget Jacob had a journey of over 400 miles, by some estimates, between the land of his father Isaac and the land of his uncle Laban. Let’s say Jacob could walk 20 miles a day—that’s a lot of days! Plus, he was at Laban’s for a month before he was encouraged/guilted/tricked (take your pick) into working for his uncle. We can add a few days for good behavior, and besides it fits the parody of the title better, so we can call Jacob the original 90-month fiancé!
The text comes from Genesis 29:13-20, in the New American Standard Version (NASB):
1 The woman whom Jacob loved
Text: Genesis 29:13-20, NASB: 13 So when Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all these things. 14 And Laban said to him, “You certainly are my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him a month. 15 Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” 16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 And Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in figure and appearance. 18 Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” 19 Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than to give her to another man; stay with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him like only a few days because of his love for her.
There’s a lot of background for this message. We’d need to go back to Genesis 25, where Jacob got Esau, his twin brother, to sell him the birthright. Esau was the firstborn but gave it away, literally, when he traded this birthright for a bowl of stew or whatever Jacob had cooked.
Then, some years and two chapters later, Rebekah schemed for Jacob to get the paternal blessing from Isaac. Again, this was reserved for Esau but that didn’t stop Rebekah from plotting how to get it for Jacob. It also didn’t stop Jacob from going along with the plan and cheating Esau out of this blessing as well as the birthright.
Genesis 27 has the story, sordid as it was, and Moses didn’t water down the, we may as well call it, evil done to Isaac and Esau by Rebekah and Jacob. The story finishes with Esau furious with his brother, enough to kill him; Isaac upset that his own son would trick him as he did; Rebekah wondering how to keep what little peace remained in place; and Jacob, wondering what he was going to do. Where could he go? How long, if he stayed, would he remain alive?
Isaac decided to divide the two sons. Esau was already married (to two women, Genesis 26:34) but Jacob was still single. Isaac told Jacob to leave, to find a wife from where Rebekah was from originally, and absolutely NOT to marry a Canaanite woman (Gen. 28:1-4). Jacob did leave, and had an encounter with God at Bethel, a good distance away from Isaac’s home, and Jacob made his first decisions to serve the God of Abraham and Isaac.
Eventually he arrived at Laban’s territory, spoke with the other shepherds, and once these shepherds said, “Here’s Rachel, his daughter, and her own flock.” Jacob was overwhelmed, we might say, and was immediately smitten with Little Rachel (interestingly, “Rachel” is the Hebrew word for “ewe” or “sheep”; (https://biblehub.com/hebrew/7353.htm )
Some comparisons and contrasts are in order: Rebekah was indeed from this area, as was her niece Rachel (and, Leah) but there is no indication Rebekah tended sheep or anything else—she only brought water from the well to wherever it was needed. Moses wrote nothing about Rachel bringing anything but her own sheep to the well. Jacob brought nothing with him except his staff, but Abraham’s servant had brought ten camels loaded with some of the best stuff Abraham had to offer the prospective bride. One can only imagine Jacob’s thoughts when he saw Rachel—he might have said something like “I hit the jackpot!”
Whatever Jacob’s reaction, he probably couldn’t keep it a secret for very long. In fact, if I read the text correctly, Jacob told Laban everything that had gone on. Chances are, he also told Laban about how smitten he was with or over Rachel. Laban, probably, kept this in mind for future use, as we’ll see later on.
Jacob stayed with Laban for a month, according to verse 14. We’re never told what he did, if anything, during that time, so there’s no use even guessing what he did or didn’t do. But Laban did notice—and he decided to get something from Jacob. Take a look at what he did and how he went about it.
A month before, Laban had told Jacob “You’re my bone and flesh”, a way of cementing family connections or confirming the blood kinship. Now he decides to get something out of Jacob or from Jacob. He said, maybe out of the blue one day, “You’re my relative (which was true), so should you serve me for nothing? What do you want for your wages?”
Say what?
Where did that come from? Does this imply Jacob had been doing something already, not asking for anything in return? Or was he so taken with Rachel that he was not doing anything? We’re not told anything about Jacob directly, but we do have an insight into the mind of Laban in this episode. Besides, he asked a very open-ended question of Jacob, a time honored technique to gradually entrap someone (hasn’t that happened to all of us at least once?)
Now, then. Remember how Jacob was really smitten with Rachel? And how he had, perhaps, explained all this (blurted?) to Laban? Moses wrote that Laban had TWO daughters and Rachel was the younger of the two. He also added a pair of details that add extra light to the puzzle: Leah, the older, had “weak” eyes (there are other translations) but Rachel was beautiful in “figure and appearance.” Opinions of commentators are all over the place with this bit of information, from Leah having tender eyes or calm eyes, or something else having to do with her eyes, in contrast to Rachel, who was described as “beautiful”—and she seemed to know it too!
I can relate to this in a personal way. One girl I dated in my high school days had beautiful, calm, eyes, that occasionally sparkled—and, a time or two, blazed when I did something she didn’t like! Her sister was a little different, a little smaller, and her eyes always were anything but calm nearly every time I saw her! Could that give a glimpse into the dynamics between these two?
Chances are, Jacob had seen Leah, as well as Rachel (but you know who caught his eye!) and as we might say, he was either not interested or not impressed. In a word, he didn’t love Leah but he totally loved Rachel and wanted to have her as his wife. Jacob replied to Laban, almost immediately, it seems, and said, “I’ll work seven years for you if you give me Rachel to be my wife when it’s done.”
Laban probably couldn’t believe his ears, if not his good fortune, when Jacob walked right into this situation. He knew what he’d get, seven years of almost free labor, and he knew what he’d give—not much, only a daughter. And when that daughter was married off, that was one less mouth to feed and one less person to take care of. In a word, Laban couldn’t lose.
And he knew it.
Laban seems to choose his words carefully here. Note that he didn’t say anything definite, as to the seven years, or anything else. He simply said “It’s better that I give her to you (you’re already here and I know everything about you I need to know) than someone else (who I don’t know very well if at all)”. Dr. Crawford Loritts went into detail about this in his series on his “Living a Legacy” radio program about 10 years ago.
We’re never told what kind of “deal” or any formal arrangement, if any, between Laban and Jacob. We do know Jacob agreed to work seven years for Rachel, Laban agreed, and at first glance it seems Jacob went to work immediately! To him, though, it didn’t seem to be work or very much time at all. Moses wrote that to Jacob, it only seemed like a few days because of his love for Rachel.
So the deal was sealed, the conditions specified, the labor begun, and the reward was in sight. Jacob may have thought everything was going fine, but he was about to get a rude awakening!
2 The women whom Jacob married
Text, Genesis 29:21-30, NASB: 21 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time is completed, that I may have relations with her.” 22 So Laban gathered all the people of the place and held a feast. 23 Now in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to him; and Jacob had relations with her. 24 Laban also gave his female slave Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a slave. 25 So it came about in the morning that, behold, it was Leah! And he said to Laban, “What is this that you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served with you? Why then have you deceived me?” 26 But Laban said, “It is not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the firstborn. 27 Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you shall serve with me, for another seven years.” 28 Jacob did so and completed her week, and he gave him his daughter Rachel as his wife. 29 Laban also gave his female slave Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her slave. 30 So Jacob had relations with Rachel also, and indeed he loved Rachel more than Leah, and he served with Laban for another seven years.
Jacob must have been counting the days until his wedding to Rachel, the beloved and beautiful younger daughter of Laban. But if I read the text correctly, Laban seems to have either “forgotten” or maybe hoped Jacob would forget about the deal, but Jacob surely didn’t, and he made sure Laban “remembered” the bargain they had agreed to seven years before.
To his credit, Laban arranged for a feast as part of the wedding ceremony. Interestingly, unlike our relatively brief weddings (for one of my nieces, there was only half an hour or less between “Here Comes the Bride” and “I do!”) , these feasts could last as long as a week! Laban mentioned this (“complete the week for this one”, verse 27) and this is borne out in the writings of Edesheim (https://www.studylight.org/historical-writings/before-christ/alfred-edersheim/bible-history-old-testament/book-1/chapter-17.html ) and other scholars such as Keil and Delitzch (https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/kdo/genesis-29.html ) and Lange (https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/lcc/genesis-29.html)
Of course it’s anybody’s guess what happened after the umpteenth-century BC editions of the “I do’s”, if any, took place but chances are there was a lot of dancing, drinking, and so forth. We have hints of this, although later on, in Judges, where Samuel married a Philistine woman (Judges 14) and some of the festivities then.
But eventually evening came, and that meant time for bed.
The marriage bed.
Dr. Edersheim’s writings, plus others, tell how, in some cultures, the bridegroom enters the “bedroom” before the bride does, and waits. How long he waits was never specified. There does come a time, though, when the bride is taken to the bridegroom, but she’s veiled—sometimes heavily—and there’s a question if the groom ever sees her before the morning. Don’t ask me how those customs started! I sure wouldn’t have wanted to live when my bride might have suffocated due to all that veiling or whatever it’s called!
Well, morning came, and Jacob was in for a big surprise. He had worked and waited seven years for Rachel, right? And had he not spent the night with his new wife—whom he thought was Rachel? Guess who was there beside him in the morning?
LEAH!
The unwanted sister, the abandoned daughter, considered unattractive by some, but now she’s been married to Jacob, even though he didn’t want her. They’ve sealed the deal, so to speak, and they’re legally married in every sense of the word. Now, how much Leah was involved in this deal is debatable, but Laban’s hands are all over this, and he’s facing a less than pleased son-in-law first thing in the morning.
Jacob, understandably angry, asked (demanded?) of Laban, “What’s this? I worked seven years for you for Rachel, but you tricked me!” And Laban, perhaps with a hint of a smile, or perhaps a deadpan expression (have you noticed that some people can lie straight-faced?), says, “Oh, you didn’t know that it’s against the customs to not marry the older daughter before any other?” Such a custom, Jacob never knew!
And now, Laban sees his opportunity to get more form Jacob, and to rid himself of the other daughter, still Rachel, by the way. He says, “Now, now, don’t get upset, just finish this week of celebration, and you can have Rachel, too—IF you work seven more years for me.” For whatever reason, Jacob agreed, and finished the week and then married Rachel. We’ll never know what the other people thought, if anything, of having two weddings in a week!
I’ll close the message here, with these words. Jacob came to the land of his uncle Laban, in order to find a wife just like Abraham’s servant had done for Jacob’s own mother many years before. He meets Rachel, falls madly in love with her, and works seven years so he can marry her. Finding Laban had done a “bait-and-switch”, giving him Leah instead of Rachel, Jacob agreed to give seven more years to get Rachel. To this day one may wonder who got the better end of the bargain! So Jacob was the original “90-month fiancé “ but let’s hope nobody else has to do this!
Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Version of the Bible (NASV)
