Commentary on Genesis 29:15-28

Esther M. Menn
Love stories in the Bible, such as this First Lesson where Jacob marries his beloved Rachel
(and unexpectedly her sister Leah as well!), reveal how much has changed since biblical
times.
Yet, aspects of this family tale with its strong emotions, sibling rivalry, deception, and
loyalty continue to resonate, challenging us to think more deeply about our lives together
and how God works even through our flawed interpersonal relations and most ordinary
activities.
The classic Hebrew love story portrays a young man meeting his future spouse at a well.
When Jacob sees his cousin Rachel approaching a well to water the family flock (Genesis
29:9-12), we anticipate romance! The woman at the well motif also foreshadows marriage
elsewhere in the Bible, as in the cases of Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 24:10-67) and Moses
and Zipporah (Exodus 2:15-22). (Compare also the striking variant of the woman at the
well motif in Jesus conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4:10-42.)
The intrusion of Rachels older sister Leah (When morning came, it was Leah! Genesis
29:25) highlights additional dynamics that connect this story to previous events. This
instance of mistaken identity turns the tables, as Jacob who earlier deceived Isaac by
impersonating his elder brother (Genesis 27:1-40) now finds himself deceived by Labans
substitution of his elder daughter in the marriage bed.
The competition between the two sisters for the affection of their husband and for children
parallels the earlier sibling rivalry between Esau and Jacob for the birthright and blessing
(Genesis 25:29-34; 27:1-40). Rachels boast that she has wrestled mightily with her sister
and has prevailed (Genesis 30:8) foreshadows her husband Jacobs wrestling with the
divine being before being renamed Israel, the one who strives with God and with humans
and prevails (Genesis 32:28).
Much about this narrative reveals the distance between the biblical world and our own
twenty-first century context. The patriarchal, tribal society in Genesis assumes that
marriage is first and foremost an alliance between men involving the exchange of women,
here between an uncle and the nephew he calls my bone and my flesh (Genesis 29:14,
19). It is not primarily a commitment between individuals intending to share their lives as
today. Laban and Jacob work out the marriage price of seven years of labor, and there is no
consultation of the bride to be (unlike Rebekah who gives her consent in Genesis 24:58).

Polygamy is portrayed as an unobjectionable arrangement, with two sisters given in short

succession, after only a honeymoon week for the first. (Note, however, that a mans
marriage to sisters is a prohibited practice even in ancient times, according to Leviticus
18:18.) Clearly, we cannot read Genesis 29 as a programmatic description of how our
society and marriage laws should operate, nor as a moral template for our own cultural
context and family dynamics.
Despite the differences, similarities of human nature establish an empathy with the
imperfect members of this family. The intensity of Jacobs love for the beautiful Rachel is
emphasized three times (Genesis 29:18, 20, 30), which is especially remarkable given the
usual taciturn narrative style of the Bible. Jacobs ardor is also indicated by his super
human feat of lifting the massive rock covering the well upon seeing Rachel for the first
time (Genesis 29:3), and by his heedlessness of the passage of time while working to earn
her in marriage (Genesis 29:20).
This very human tale of intense love has its complications. Jacobs singular passion for
Rachel strands her older sister in the loveless marriage that Laban has orchestrated to
provide for his eldest daughter (Genesis 29:26). God favors Leah as the unloved wife by
giving her many children (Genesis 29:31; cf., Deuteronomy 21:15), but still the tragedy
continues. Leah names her sons to express her unfulfilled desire of gaining her husbands
affection through childbearing (Genesis 29:32-24; 30:20). Only with her fourth son, Judah,
whose name is based on a Hebrew root meaning to praise or to thank, does Leah cease
her striving to please her husband and give thanks to God instead (Genesis 30:35).
Rachel, for her part, envies her elder sisters fertility, as she herself desperately tries to
conceive (30:1). Through their unrelenting jealousy and competition, the two sisters and
their servant women raise up a large family capable of fulfilling Gods promise to Jacob
that his descendants would be as abundant as the dust or topsoil, covering the ground in
every direction for purpose of blessing all the families of the earth (Genesis 28:14).
Many in the congregation will identify with the intense emotions in this family tale of
inexplicable preference, deception, competition, and jealousy. Women in particular may
resonate with the feeling of being judged by their appearance, the despair due to infertility,
or the ecstasy over a babys birth, all so poignantly depicted. Leah and Rachels central
roles in the emergence of the people of Israel highlights womens agency as an important
means through which God continues to work today.

The casual introduction of servant women in this narrative raises issues of social class,
slave and domestic labor, reproductive rights, and sexual trafficking and abuse with which
we still wrestle in the twenty-first century. Although they hold a lowly position, the
handmaids are treated with dignity through their introduction by name, Zilpah (given by
Laban to Leah upon her marriage, Genesis 29:24) and Bilhah (given to Rachel, Genesis
29:29).
These women have an important role in the emergence of the people of Israel, giving birth
to four of Jacobs thirteen named children (Genesis 30:3-13), which include the twelve sons
who stand for the twelve tribes as well as his daughter Dinah. The almost invisible presence
of Zilpah and Bilhah in a passage that includes discussion of appropriate wages (Genesis
29:15) encourages reflection on the precarious status of minimum wage earners, surrogate
and birth mothers, domestic workers, and others who perform vital but largely
underappreciated work in our society.