The blessing of his father Isaac that Jacob stole from his brother Esau (Gen 27:28–29) had mentioned wealth from agriculture in the land of promise, but not from livestock rearing in Mesopotamia, although Jacob was already tending his father's livestock in Canaan as a youth. The blessing freely and graciously given to him by Yahweh at Bethel (Gen 28:13–15) had also omitted any mention of this kind of wealth, focusing entirely on the promise to Abraham, which concerned the land and the blessing to all peoples through him and his descendants. That promise, however, did repeat what Yahweh had said to Abraham and Isaac about descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth, and it committed God to protect Jacob while he was on this journey to Paddan-Aram and back (28:15).
This chapter will show how God will use the envious competition of Leah and Rachel to give Jacob eleven of his eventual twelve sons within a relatively short period, and how Jacob will use his own scheming and trickery to outwit his uncle Laban and build his own collection of livestock to set himself up in business and allow him to return home wealthy. We will see in the coming chapters how the large family of sons and 21 daughters (only one mentioned by name is Dinah, not mentioned until chapter 34 [see also comments on 30:14-21]; total number of children 33 [Gen 46:15]) will bring deadly rivalries that will plague Jacob in the near future, but provide the basis for the twelve tribes that will become Yahweh's chosen people and the cradle of the Messiah. We will see how the small fortune in livestock that Jacob accumulates by trickery will not be needed in order to protect him from his angry brother Esau (32:17–21; 33:4–11).
The Competition in Giving Birth Continues, 30:1–24
Last week we saw how the first wave of births to Jacob came from Leah, because Yahweh had pity on her because Jacob preferred her more beautiful younger sister Rachel. But Rachel was not without resources in this battle of the birth-stool.
Like Sarah before her, Rachel had a maid, a slave whom she could marry off to her husband so that the slave's children could be credited to her, and thus offset the fertility of her older sister Leah.
30:1-8
When Rachel found that she bore Jacob no children, she became jealous of her sister and complained to Jacob, ‘Give me sons, or I shall die!’ Jacob said angrily to Rachel, ‘Can I take the place of God, who has denied you children?’ ‘Here is my slave-girl Bilhah,’ she replied. ‘Lie with her, so that she may bear sons to be laid upon my knees, and through her I too may build up a family.’ When she gave him her slave-girl Bilhah as a wife, Jacob lay with her, and she conceived and bore him a son. Then Rachel said, ‘God has given judgement for me; he has indeed heard me and given me a son’; so she named him Dan. Rachel’s slave-girl Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob another son. Rachel said, ‘I have devised a fine trick against my sister, and it has succeeded’; so she named him Naphtali. (Genesis 30:1–8)
Now the shoe was on the other foot: Leah was in the catbird seat, while Rachel the beauty queen was childless! This was unbearable for her. In her anger and jealousy she reproached Jacob, as though this was his fault. "Give me sons, or I shall die!" she shouted. Jacob's obvious defense was the fact that he—and no one else—had sired four sons with Leah. It couldn't be claimed that he was sterile. So he quite properly and logically replied that it must be that God had kept Rachel from conceiving. The obvious implication was that she must do something to persuade God to let her have children. Hannah had prayed to God to remove her infertility and even vowed to give her first child to God, the boy Samuel. And perhaps—we cannot know for sure—Leah too had made her misery into a series of prayers.
30:3-8
Then she said (to Jacob), “Here is my maid Bilhah; take her to bed! She shall be my surrogate mother: I will have children through her.” So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife; and Jacob took her to bed. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Rachel said, “God has vindicated me: he has heard my prayer and given me a son”; therefore she named him Dan. Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, “With god-like wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have won”; so she named him Naphtali. (Genesis 30:3–8)
Rachel's words on the birth of Bilhah's first son, “God has vindicated me: he has heard my prayer and given me a son,” imply that she did make the issue a matter for prayer, but she did not trust God to answer the prayer through her own body. Instead she gave her maid Bilhah to Jacob as a secondary wife, assuming that Bilhah was not also barren. When the plan succeeded, and Bilhah gave birth to a son, Rachel celebrated her victory over her sister, claiming that God had vindicated or defended her, and named the boy Dan, which means "(God) vindicates (or: defends)." This same verb is used in Jacob's deathbed blessings on the tribes in chapter 49:16, "Dan shall vindicate (or: defend) his people, as one of the tribes of Israel." But against whom did Rachel think God was defending her? Against her own sister? And how was the birth of a son through another woman's body a vindication of Rachel personally? It seems that in her jealousy and false triumph, Rachel was not thinking clearly. Before she had her figure as her main asset; now she had a surrogate son in little Dan. Another form of child abuse. But Dan was just the left jab in Rachel's one-two punch at her sister. The knockout blow would be the next son by Bilhah, whom Rachel appropriately named Naphtali, meaning "wrestling." For she said, "With wrestling as powerful as those of a god I have wrestled with my sister, and I have won!" Here Rachel claims to have exerted strength equal to that of a god in defeating her sister. Ironically, the descendants of neither Dan nor Naphtali would have much territory or power; they would be two of the least significant of the twelve tribes. It was as if Leah's team had scored four touchdowns, and Rachel's had now scored two field goals in reply! And that with a substitute quarterback.
30:9-13
When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, “Good fortune!” so she named him Gad. Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. And Leah said, “Happy am I! For the women will call me happy”; so she named him Asher. (Genesis 30:9–13)
The text doesn't say that Leah was now perturbed or felt threatened by Rachel's maid Bilhah's giving birth. But she did wish to contribute more sons to Jacob. So she followed Rachel's lead and gave her maid to him. There now resulted two more sons. Leah named them not to celebrate her triumph over Rachel, but to celebrate her own happiness. Gad means "good fortune" and Asher means "happiness" or "blessedness." The Hebrew root of the name Asher is what Jesus used in the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God." Leah rejoiced that because of her giving her maid to Jacob, other women would call her "blessed" or "happy." It is a good kind of happiness, not a spiteful triumph, but a warm feeling deriving from giving to others.
30:14-21
In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” But (Leah) said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?” Rachel said, “Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.” When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him, and said, “You must come to bed with me; for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he lay with her that night. And God heeded Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, “God has given me my hire because I gave my maid to my husband”; so she named him Issachar. And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good dowry; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons”; so she named him Zebulun. Afterwards she bore a daughter, and named her Dinah. (Genesis 30:14–21)
This episode is designed to remind us of how Jacob bought Esau's birthright. Here Leah buys bed time with Jacob from Rachel, the girl with the better figure. And it appears that God honors this transaction buy renewing Leah's fertility. Rachel thought the mandrakes would make her fertile and was willing to sell her husband's favors in exchange for them. The names of the two sons to issue from renewed nights with Jacob mirror her statements. Issachar contains the word sakhar (שָׂכָר) meaning 'hire" or "wages". This had a double reference: (1) Leah had hired Jacob with her son's mandrakes (Gen 30:16), and (2) God gave Leah her wages for giving her maid to Jacob. The name of the next son Zebulun sounds like the Hebrew word for a dowry (זֶבֶד zeḇed). The dowry was usually the gift that the bride's parents gave her to take into a marriage. Although Laban had given her Leah the maid Zilpah, later on she and Rachel claim that he had withheld their dowries and spent them on himself. And Leah had given that maid away to Jacob; so God reimbursed her with another dowry in the form of her sixth son Zebulun. In Jacob's deathbed predictions he makes no allusion to Zebulun's name in 49:13, but predicts that his territory will be in the extreme northwest part of the promised land and a center for sea-going trade, which would bring in much wealth. This might be an oblique allusion to the rich dowry Leah mentioned. Likewise in referring to Issachar (49:14), Jacob fails to pun on his name, but compares him to a strong work-animal who will work hard to make his living wherever he is put. Thus by implication he will earn 'wages'.
Leah's final child from Jacob was a girl, whom she named דִּינָֽה Dinah (30:21). The name is built on the same Hebrew root as Bilhah's son Dan (see comments on ?), "to vindicate or defend," but Leah makes no comment on her selection of the name. It is this lone daughter who will become the occasion for the first shedding of Canaanite blood by the sons of Jacob, when her older brothers Simeon and Levi think they are avenging her honor by killing her suitor Shechem and the men of his city. As the seventh child and the only female, Dinah is the frosting on Leah's sevenfold cake of children given to Jacob. She would become "Daddy's girl."
30:22-24
Then God remembered Rachel, and God heeded her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my reproach”; and she named him Joseph, saying, “May the LORD add to me another son!” (Genesis 30:22–24)
Finally, God responded to Rachel's prayers ("God heeded her") and gave her her own son, whom she named Joseph. Joseph would become the savior of his family through rejection by his brothers and suffering in Egypt. Although not the legal firstborn, he would inherit a double share in the tribal allotments, because his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim would take the place of Levi, the tribe without land allotment.
At his birth Rachel used a pun on his name, connecting it with Hebrewʾāsaf, a verb meaning "to remove", commenting that by his birth Yahweh had "removed" the stigma of her childlessness. But recognizing that the true meaning of the name was "(Yahweh) will add," Rachel used this name as a prayer for another son. This prayer was answered in that eventually she gave birth to a second son, Benjamin, and in the course of giving birth to him, Rachel will die and be buried near Bethlehem. That son Benjamin will be the ancestor of a small but militarily fierce tribe, and will be the eventual ancestor of both King Saul and Paul the apostle, one man who displeased and disappointed God and one who pleased him mightily to the salvation of many and to the enrichment of the Scriptures.
At this point Moses has given us a veritable genealogy of the twelve tribes of Israel. These will all figure in the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham of offspring that will fill the Promised Land and spread his blessings on the surrounding nations. As Christians we also know that through Jesus, the "Lion of the tribe of Judah," as the Apostle John calls him in Revelation, the blessing of forgiveness and salvation will be made available also to us Gentiles. How grateful we should be that, as Paul puts it in Romans 9-11, we gentiles as branches of a wild olive tree were allowed to be grafted into the noble olive tree of Abraham's faith alongside the branches of Jacob's physical and spiritual descendants.
Jacob's two wives, Leah and Rachel, had to compete for his affections by producing children for him. As the bride of Christ, we do not need to compete for our heavenly Bridegroom's affections. But we gladly seek to be fruitful for him in other ways: through letting the light of our faith be known to others by Christlike lives of kindness and by our words of testimony. Isn't it wonderful to be secure in his love and not to have to earn it?
Jacob Prospers at Laban's Expense, 30:25–43
When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know very well the service I have given you.” But Laban said to him, “If you will allow me to say so, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you; name your wages, and I will give it.” Jacob said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you, and how your cattle have fared with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly; and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?” He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything; if you will do this for me, I will again feed your flock and keep it: let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and such shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.” But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in charge of his sons; and he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban’s flock. Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods. He set the rods that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the rods, and so the flocks produced young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and the completely black animals in the flock of Laban; and he put his own droves apart, and did not put them with Laban’s flock. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob laid the rods in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the rods, but for the feebler of the flock he did not lay them there; so the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. Thus the man grew exceedingly rich, and had large flocks, and male and female slaves, and camels and donkeys. (Genesis 30:25–43)
Although in one sense, God used Laban to give Jacob a taste of the medicine he had administered to his brother Esau, in another sense Laban is clearly an oppressor in God's eyes. In fact, Jacob's time under Laban's oppression is an [BKMK] anticipation of Israel's bondage in Egypt, and Jacob's escape an anticipation of the Exodus from Egypt. During Jacob's stay in Laban's home he increases from a single man to a family of one husband, four wives, and eleven children: a dramatic increase, which marks the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. In the following centuries, Jacob and his twelve sons will enter Egypt, become enslaved, and grow from a total number of seventy (including the wives and children of Jacob's sons [Exod 1.1-7]) to a nation of hundreds of thousands. As the Pharaoh tried to stop the proliferation of Israel by murdering the boy babies, so Laban does whatever he can do to keep Jacob's herds from outdoing his own herds in multiplying. But God overrules Laban at every step and make Jacob very rich in livestock and in sons—all of this in preparation for Jacob's escape from Laban and return to the Promised Land.
30:27
At the beginning of this section (Gen 30:25) Jacob wishes to return home, since he has now served the years agreed upon for his two wives, and that was the primary reason he was sent to Laban: to procure a wife and begin to have sons. But Laban has learned through divination that the reason for the fertility of his livestock has been the presence of Jacob. Laban is greedy and wishes to exploit Jacob's presence, just as Abimelech king of Gerar did from Isaac (26:26-33), Hamor of Shechem did from Jacob (34:18-24), and the pharaohs exploited Israel in Egypt as slaves. It is possible that here we see one of the signs of fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that all the nations will be blessed through his seed.
30:28-34
Laban offers Jacob monetary incentives to stay: "Name your wages," he offers.
From earliest times in ancient Mesopotamia institutions like the palace or temple, or private owners of large herds, entered into official written contracts with herdsmen to care for their herds.
Herds were entrusted by their owner on an annual basis to a herdsman. He accepted personal liability for the herd and was remunerated either by a fixed payment, or by a share of the herd's growth and of its produce, or by a mixture of both. The owner had a minimum entitlement to growth which the herdsman had to meet at the expense of his own payment or share. There was, however, an allowance for natural deaths (on production of the skin as proof) and deaths by epidemic or by a lion (upon declaratory oath), but not for an avoidable disease spread by negligence or lost strays .
In 30:31-34 Jacob proposes a revenue-sharing form of wages: he asks for a part of the action in the form of shares in the newly born livestock. He proposes to remove all spotted, speckled or black animals from Laban's flock, ostensibly leaving only a pure white gene pool. Then he asks for any spotted or speckled offspring from that white pool.
30:35-43
Laban thinks he has Jacob in his control now, and his greed is his undoing. God overrules Jacob's apparent disadvantage in the wager, and produces many sheep and goats that are speckled and spotted; so that Jacob becomes a very wealthy livestock owner. That Jacob initially thinks he himself has accomplished this by cleverness (vv. 37-43) need not distract us. For he himself has to admit at the end that it was not himself, but God, who overruled Laban's advantage:
You know that I have served your father with all my strength; yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not permit him to harm me. If he said, ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore speckled; and if he said, ‘The striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flock bore striped. Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father, and given them to me. (Genesis 31:6–9)
Throughout Jacob's life he had the propensity to think he was succeeding by his own cleverness, but eventually had to admit that it was God who was rescuing him.
After 400 years of slavery in Egypt, Israel was very numerous, but not necessarily wealthy. But through the ten plagues that Yahweh brought upon Israel, climaxed by the Passover night killing of the firstborn son in every Egyptian home, God made the Egyptians eager to pay anything Israel wanted just to get them out of Egypt. And thus Moses reports that on the eve of Israel's departure they were loaded down with wealth by the Egyptians, as if they actually "plundered" them (Exod 12:35–36). The text expresses this as God giving the Israelites "favor" with their Egyptian neighbors.
I will bring this people into such favor with the Egyptians that, when you go, you will not go empty-handed; each woman shall ask her neighbor and any woman living in the neighbor’s house for jewelry of silver and of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters; and so you shall plunder the Egyptians.” (Exodus 3:21–22)
The Israelites had done as Moses told them; they had asked the Egyptians for jewelry of silver and gold, and for clothing, and Yahweh had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. And so they plundered the Egyptians. (Exodus 12:35–36 NRSV)
“Now you shall see what I will do to the Pharaoh: Indeed, by a mighty hand he will let them go; by a mighty hand he will drive them out of his land.” (Exodus 6:1)
Relating this figuratively to our own "exodus" as Christians, when God responded to our faith in Jesus to deliver us from the bondage to sin, at the same time he enriched us enormously with his own indwelling presence and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to enable us to have the wherewithal to live the productive Christian life. And the New Testament tells us that, when Jesus died on the cross and subsequently rose from the dead, he "… ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.” (Eph 4:8).
So already in the experience of Israel's ancestor Jacob, we see both an anticipation of the birth of the nation in the exodus from Egypt, but also the New Birth of Christians through the sacrifice of Christ our Passover. This chapter tells of the enrichment of Israel at Laban's expense, but the actual "exodus" escape from Laban's domination will be told in the next chapter, Genesis 31.
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