Anyone who has ever said the Bible is boring hasn’t read it. Tonight I want to walk through this rather surreal story. Genesis 29:31-30:24 needs some kind of introduction, but once you read what’s going on here, it really defies a quaint definition, So I’ll just say, “Welcome to the battling brides!”(While I first thought of this title on my own I readily acknowledge that much of this sermon finds it’s points of application and key moments of understanding to Bob Deffinbaugh’s sermon on “ The Battle of the Brides” http://www.sermoncentral.com/outsideURL.asp?OutsideURL=http://www.bible.org/docs/ot/books/gen/deffin/gen-32.htm%20&SermonID=1117)
Take a look at it, as you read it with any sensibility it sounds like some kind of a mix between a bad “B” movie, a Jerry Springer Special or a frumpy soap opera. Cue the sappy music, drag the faded pictures across the screen and bring on the badly voiced narrator:
“Tonight on Jerry Springer:
In a bizzare case of ’love gone awry’ Two sisters marry the same man at the same time. One has children in a desperate attempt to gain her husband’s love and gleefully parades the children in front of her infertile sister, The other frustrated by infertility actually instructs her husband to sleep with her maid as a surrogate! The other sister does the same thing and both women claim God is on their side. On the stage we have the whole dysfunctional family: One Man; Four Wives; Twelve sons and One Daughter and these are only the children we’re told about! I have no doubt they’ve left lots of daughters at home to take care of the tent.”
Let me introduce you to the players in what sounds like a poorly scripted melodrama.
First We have Jacob: He married two sisters within seven days of each other. As far as I’m concerned I think he get’s all the hen-pecking he deserved for such a move.
Second We have Leah: Yes she’s homely or at least a bit delicate but she is the older sister. She’s Jacob’s first wife, but he doesn’t love her at all, and apparently he’s not shy about it.
Third we have Rachel, She’s brunette, she’s brash and she’s beautiful. Killer looks and a killer attitude rolled into one deadly package. She stole Jacob’s heart and cost him 14 years of hard labor.
Fourth and Fifth we have Leah’s maid Zilpah and Rachel’s Maid Bilhah surrogate mothers both of them. They have no say in the matter since they are slaves. They just do as their told.
The story here is really a series of small narratives wrapped around the unfolding of God’s fulfillment of the promise to Jacob given in 28:14 “your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south...”
But here again, God has to condescend and fulfill his promises through weak individuals that fluctuate between some degree of faithfulness and complete depravity. In other words, God draws from the well of overwhelming grace to work through people just like us.
Like our own life, this story takes place on two planes. First there is the perspective of heaven: God is clearly in charge. It starts with God opening Leah’s womb “Because she was unloved” and progresses to Jacob’s anger at Rachel’s demand because he clearly knows that He’s not God and declares that God is not permitting her to have any children. Finally near the close of the narrative we’re told that “God remembered Rachel.” Rachel finally does become pregnant and bears her firstborn son.
The second perspective of the story is far more earthy and rugged: and that’s where we’ll spend most of the time looking because that’s the bulk of the story. It really could be a Jerry Springer special Titled simply “Battling Brides!” This is the plane where human life takes place. And it’s where we see the heartache and heart-attitudes of Leah and Rachel.
The Tone is set by 29:31 where we find the battle begins explicitly because God knows that Leah is not loved.
Can’t Buy Me Love!
Genesis 29:31-35
Immediately there’s a contrast: Leah get’s pregnant because God knows she’s not loved but Rachel is barren. Hidden in the statement is the principle that God loves the unloved. He has mercy on those who don’t know mercy.
Leah becomes pregnant and immediately she credits God for the life she bears. Early on She seems ready at a moment’s notice to recognize God’s hand is graciously involved in her pregnancies. But in each of these four children you can see Leah’s heartache as well as her faith.
The Firstborn is Reuben: “See-A-Son”. You can imagine her parading the baby around in front of Jacob hoping that he will love her in return. After all she has given him the firstborn!
Next in line is Simeon: “Heard”. That name because God has heard that she is unloved.
Third is Levi: “Attached”. She just can’t imagine that Jacob won’t love her since she has now given him three sons. Curiously enough this is the only child in which the text doesn’t show her acknowledging God’s hand. Her desperation is reaching a fevered pitch.
Fourth is Judah: “Praise God”. At the end of her rope, Leah turns away from Jacob this time and gives Glory to the God who has granted her these children. She resolutely states, “This time I will praise the Lord!” With that her turn ends.
But Don’t miss what Leah is doing here? She’s desperately trying to buy her husband’s love. That’s her whole focus and it’s going to get her into trouble. But for now, Leah’s testimony is fairly clear: God loves the unloved. He has mercy on those who don’t know mercy. God is the great equalizer.
Can’t buy Me Grace!
Genesis 30:1-8
After watching Leah for at least four years, Rachel knows for certain that she’s not having any children, but unlike her sister she doesn’t even acknowledge God as part of the equation. No doubt she has watched Leah display each boy to Jacob and each time she sees Leah’s belly begin to swell she is consumed with envy. Having boiled for the last time, she brings her Maid Bilhah to Jacob and demands he sleep with her so Rachel can claim her maid’s children as her own. The dysfunctional family has come home to stay.
Rachel isn’t motivated by faith, she isn’t motivated by Love, she is motivated by envy and pride.
She stands as an example and a warning to us of how far we can fall when we let our judgement be ruled by cultural mores rather than righteosness. It was perfectly acceptable in that society to have multiple wives and multiple concubines. The idea is that when Bilhah would go into labor she would sit on top of Rachel so that when the baby came out it would literally land in Rachel’s lap and the adoption would be complete.
Rachel sounds like she’s giving a tip of the hat to God when the boys are born to Bilhah but if you look carefully you can see the venomous dislike she has of Leah:
First is Dan: (Judged) “Now God has judged and I came out on top!”
Second is Napthali: (Wrestled) “I”ve wrestled with my sister and won!”
It’s here that Leah let’s fall her reliance upon God. Even her motive tobe loved by Jacob is transformed by her envy and hatred with her sister. She swaps her own maid with Jacob and in the names of the boys we can see the bile:
Gad: (Fortune) Look at me! She seems to say: How fortunate I am!”
Asher (Happy): People are going to call me happy now!” I seem to remember 1 Corinthians 13 saying “Love is not self centered,” but she’s lost focus completely.
Next part of the story: Leah’s firstborn Reuben is working in the field and finds some mandrakes. He pulls the weed up and heads home to momma. What’s the big deal?
Superstition: Mandrakes were considered to be some form of aphrodisiac, or at least had the supposed ability to cause pregancy. Apparently Rachel almost always enjoyed Jacob’s presence so she proposes a deal. She’ll give Jacob to Leah for the night in exchange for some herbal Viagra.
So now Leah, Rachel and Jacob have cheapened God’s gift of sex to nothing more than a business transaction. Love has suddenly become a commodity instead of a choice.
To complicate the matter in the midst of it all God grants Leah two more children. Leah assumes God has rewarded her for her business prowess.
Issachar means (wages) because Leah feels God has paid her for the business deal with the mandrakes. Not much has changed. I’m convinced God get’s a lot of blame and blessing for stuff he’s not responsible for. Providence is terribly difficult to interpret; but I do know that God isn’t in the habit of rewarding sinful behaviour.
Zebulun means (Honor) as she once again seeks for Jacob to honor her. Her daughter Dinah is mentioned because her name comes up in chapter 34.
The ladies have fallen from can’t buy me love, to can’t buy me grace: They’re determined to make their own grace no matter to what levels they have to stoop.
It’s not until we get to the end however that we discover that Grace is only grace when you don’t deserve it.
Grace is only grace when you don’t deserve it.
Genesis 30:22-24
Suddenly in verse 22 For no reason whatsoever we’re told that God remembered Rachel. That doesn’t mean in reality that he had ever forgotten her, but that he finally began to work on her behalf.
For leah, the hint is given in the first part of our section that God gave her children because she was unloved. But here Grace becomes grace alone. Rachel becomes pregnant and gives birth to:
Joseph who’s name means (Add-to-me). It’s a prayer of gratitude and request: gratitude that God has finally given her a son, an acknowledgment really that God is the one in charge here. Secondly it’s a reqeust coming completely from faith. “May God give me another son.”
The story is really weird isn’t it? The point of the story really depends a bit on perspective.
“To Israel these narratives were more than interesting little stories. The rivalry that appears here explains much of the tribal rivalry that followed. But Genesis is clear: God chose the despised mother, Leah, and exalted her to be the first mother. The kingly tribe of Judah and the priestly tribe of Levi trace back to her, in spite of Jacob’s love for Rachel and her son Joseph.”2
But there has to be something for us as well. It’s certainly not a marriage “how to” manual. We don’t have to look far before discovering that there’s not a lot of righteous behavior comeing from these women (Or from Jacob).
What is happening is God demonstrating on one hand that He’s in charge. On the other hand God is demonstrating his grace by working with what is given him in order to bring about the fulfillment of his own promise.
“We may be inclined to read this account of the struggles between Leah and Rachel and think of it as the “long ago” and the “far away” and thus of little application to us. Such could not be farther from the truth. There are differences between the culture of that day and our own, but, as one of my friends observed, the only difference between the practice of Jacob in his day and that in our own is that he lived with his four wives simultaneously, while we live with ours consecutively. We do with divorce what Jacob did with polygamy.”3
Let me give you some rapid-fire applications to take home from the text.
1.Life’s meaning does not come from children or lack thereof. It comes from God alone. Judah’s birth is the one time leah’s focus was on target. Ever after and before she missed the mark.
2.Marriage, love and sex are not comodities to be traded, they are gifts from God and can only be truly enjoyed within the boundaries God created it to fulfill.
3.Sex isn’t supposed to be a bargaining tool in marriage. Paul said it succinctly in
1 Corinthians 7:3-5 “The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
4.“Love needs to be meticulously maintained and vigorously strengthened. Jacob must have failed here. May God enable us not to fail in our love, sex, and marriage as Jacob did.”4
5.Men it is our responsibility to make our wives feel loved. No excuses. If they don’t feel loved it IS your fault. And righteousness demands you sacrifice self in order to make it happen.
6.God is gracious, especially when we don’t deserve it. He gives grace to the humble and resists the proud.
1 Peter 5:6-7 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
