The Competition
So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years. Genesis 29:30 ESV
More than– Why does Jacob love Rachel more than Leah? Leah is devoted to Jacob. Leah gives Jacob many sons so obviously he didn’t maintain sexual distance from her. Leah pleads for his affection and love. Leah even negotiates with her sister about Jacob affection. But the story line never changes. Jacob loves Rachel. He tolerates Leah. Why?
If we read this verse without the context of the rest of the story, we might conclude that Jacob loves both women, just not equally. The preposition, min, has a very wide range of meanings, including the comparative “more than.” But we know from previous investigation that Jacob doesn’t love Leah. In fact, he hates her (Genesis 29:31). [see HERE]. He doesn’t abandon sexual relations with her, but he never really acts as her partner in any significant way. Of course, that doesn’t mean God can’t bring about His purposes in her life or in Jacob’s, but it does mean that there must be deep-seated reasons why Jacob keeps emotional distance despite sexual involvement.
The answer, it seems to me, lies in the nature of desire. Desire is about feelings, not logic. Desire is about the intensity of those feelings. It is the impassioned wish to possess something or have something happen, and it pushes aside all rational calculation in the hope that the desire will be fulfilled. Desire is not about what is likely. It’s about what we wish were possible. As a result, desire manufactures a future where the intensity of the emotional demand is fulfilled. It generates the expectation of a self-fulfilling fantasy.
There’s an interesting grammatical clue in the text, not seen in English. In this verse, Jacob’s love for Rachel is expressed with a waw-consecutive (or conversive vav). You will remember the implications of this particular form (see HERE). For Jacob, his love is expressed as “he loved,” “he loves,” and “he will love.” But the verb used to describe his relationship to Leah, in the next verse, is a passive participle in the absolute form. This is a form of great intensity. While Jacob’s life is completely enmeshed in Rachel, his animus toward Leah is just as strong, but absolutely focused on the “right now” of his feelings. His attitude toward Leah is the polar opposite of his attitude toward Rachel. Rachel occupies his fervent dreams. Leah is a minute-by-minute living nightmare. Why?
Rachel is unmitigated desire. Jacob’s willingness to endure fourteen years of labor in order to possess her is testimony to the intensity of his desire. His toleration of chicanery and deception without detouring him from his projected fantasy further demonstrates just how deeply this desire has taken hold of him. Essentially, Jacob determines that he cannot live without her. Everything else is just an obstacle set in the path to achieve his goal. As such, Leah is nothing more than a roadblock. What he wants is Rachel. What he has to get past in order to have her is Leah. Perhaps this helps us understand the incredible admission of Judah before Pharaoh’s second in command (who he does not know is his brother). “My father had two sons” reveals the depth of Jacob’s animosity toward Leah. You can go back and read that investigation again if you wish.
What’s shocking in this story is that God’s purposes are not consummated in Jacob’s desire. Leah becomes the road less traveled in the story of Israel. Rachel is ultimately a detour, perhaps an important one, but not the crucial one. In characteristic fashion, God works through the unloved, the rejected, the stranger. We could identify with the intensity of Jacob’s love (is it really love?) for Rachel, focusing on the sacrifice for his true bride, but we will miss what God is doing. The way of the righteous comes through suffering, not fantasy fulfillment. In fact, when at last the fantasy is fulfilled, the end is tragic. The desire dies on the way to Ephrath. This story makes us wonder if we are so consumed with our projected desires that we fail to engage the suffering servant before us. Where is God? In what we want, or in what we have?
Topical Index: desire, Rachel, Leah, min, more than, Genesis 29:30
So should we attempt to get rid of our desires since they seem to sometimes lead us astray? I’m sure if anyone would have asked Jacob if he were in the “center of God’s will” by devoting his focus mainly on Rachel he would have said YES. If we are so easily led astray by our own lusts then we must need outside help…oh, wait… that help has already arrived.
Continuing on a lighter note (A♭) you wrote: “Lean is a minute-by-minute living nightmare”. Is this a Freudian slip suggesting that Leah is thin, anorexic and therefore undesirable or just a Skip slip of the finger?
A victim of “spell correct” No, it’s Leah, of course.
There is so much in this and I just love it! I have my dreams and desires. They are very clear and strong and push me forward daily but what I have been hearing lately is “embrace today fully” I have been writing it on my to-do list each day to remind myself that what I have today is what I am going to miss out on with regret tomorrow.
On a side note, I had a teacher once make the point that Leah longed for Jacob’s love so deeply because she had a taste of it on their first night, when he thought she was Rachel. She experienced it for one night and knew what it was like to experience it so she continued to long for it. It breaks my heart for her. I had never thought of that before.
The question here is how could Jacob have mistaken Leah for Rachel? He must have been intoxicated. 😉 He kisses Rachel when he first meets her. So this implies communication so we cannot say he did not know Rachel. It doesn’t seem to be desire/love from afar. Very intriguing.
This really speaks to me. Profound implications, Skip! Thank you.
Yes, but WHOSE desires are we to have?
Are we not supposed to be moving more toward God
and less toward ourselves?
Oswald Chambers writes today: “Sanctification means
being made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled
Him will control us.”
This sure isn’t an easy passage — but it is the journey
God has given us. No?
I was taught love as a codependent function: one-sided; ‘sacrificial’ in that I had to single-handedly ‘prove’ my love by offering it up to rejection, ridicule, doubt; always willing to lay aside what I wanted or felt for what someone else wanted or felt. I was taught that this was love: not by being sat down and told it, but by inference and experience. This was what was expected of me, and punishment was about not doing it ‘perfectly’. My desire (as a Person Formerly Known As Codependent, anyway) was shaped in this vacuum.
What was Jacob’s desire shaped in? His life as the ‘hated’ younger son developed a hole in his soul. We know that he desired what he perceived Esau had that attracted his father’s love: the firstborn birthright, etc. He most likely could not have known that Isaac’s desires, too, were shaped by his own trauma. (Whadda ya wanna bet the rules in Isaac’s household were versions of “we don’t talk about that”, too.) Perhaps love looked like the One Son of Promise – ever at risk – for Isaac. Perhaps he loved the son that looked like he could fight back; could ‘take care of himself’ – could keep himself alive so that promise could be fulfilled?
Jacob’s desires – like the desires, perhaps, of all of us – were probably shaped in the places where love should have been (but wasn’t), too. Therefore, he would have built them – like his father before him – around what seemed to ‘solve’ the trauma problem. In Jacob’s case, trickery ‘solved’ the desire problem: it provided the desired birthright. Therefore, trickery acted as a godly characteristic in that it seemed to supply the love he thought was love. But was it love that that trickery supplied? If so, then Laban’s trickery should have supplied (it DID probably supply!) that love: but if desire is built by seeming lack, is fulfillment of that lack proof positive of love?
Proverbs 5:22 ” The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.” I have noticed that both get what they set out to get. If you don’t have love, fear fills the hole and shapes the desires that are the attempt to fill that hole. Deception is fear-based, however; therefore, what you get from that deception will never be love.
I don’t think Jacob knew what love was, so what he THOUGHT he desired could not have been that love. We never are told whether Rachel loved him back, after all that, but we pretty much know for a fact that Leah probably did love him for real. Perhaps the only true love he ever had may have come from the trickery he thought could supply it. This is a very sad story.
P.S. If Rachel was beautiful and Leah was not, perhaps her (jealous) desire was to have what Rachel’s beauty supplied her: a marriage to a man who loved her. Sadly, it seems Leah got just that: a marriage to a man who loved Rachel.
Moral of the story: do we really want our desires fulfilled, or should we perhaps want them “transformed by the renewing of our mind”?
Having our mind renewed oh, so we are not conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds. God’s will is Central. Not just his word. We have not because we ask not and when we ask we ask off Target. What is God’s Target. It’s not a shopping mart where we pick whatever we want. It is his desires. I think of the yezer hara ( if that spelling is correct) being overcome by the opposite yet stronger desires of the Eternal one. Sometimes entire chapters need to be read to find out God’s role and purpose.
“when we ask we ask off Target. What is God’s Target. It’s not a shopping mart where we pick whatever we want. It is his desires.”
Brett, that’s my belly laugh for the day.
Thanks!
P.S. I think desires of the flesh are “conforming to the world” (which is shaped by the past, of course) but when our minds are transformed, faith can build desires that shape the future. Halleluah!
If Leah did love Jacob, it seems to be a love based on of fear. She could have told him what was about to happen. And Rebekah plans the deception with Jacob. And Laban plans the deception with Leah. Did they have a choice?
You got the point, Marsha. We all want love, but what we THINK is love is actually based on experience. Laban’s daughter, like Laban, must have thought love was something you obtained by deception, but was Rachel any different? She deceived both Jacob and her father in that little incident with the family gods.
Deception, perhaps, being an aspect of an “anything goes” approach to negotiation? (That is, the end—what is desired—justifies the means?) Furthermore, are we always aware/conscious of taking that approach to “negotiation”; hence, subject to deception ourselves?
Thanks Laurita. The main idea I was really thinking about is the deception started by the parents -the dysfunction that gets carried on by the children. They cooperate and then they continue it. Parents have a powerful influence over their children even into adulthood. Would it have been more so then than now? I find it difficult to navigate how we first must understand what if would mean to the original characters/audience versus how we bring that forward into how it applies to me/us today.
I think it’s important to remember that God used BOTH women in His Plan. Yeshua came from Leah’s line, but, Joseph came from Rachel. God used both in a mighty way.
Yes…it’s important. But the question to be answered is “Why?”…”What’s it all about?” Further, is the answer reflected through a particular paradigm…or is it universal?
Yes, Richard…but as Skip reminded us earlier, the difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to make sense ?
John, I think that statement says something pretty sad about our supposed ‘sense’.
Certainly, John! Otherwise, why would we believe it? ?
“….He had no form or beauty, that we should look at him: No charm, that we should find him pleasing. He was despised, shunned by men, A man of suffering, familiar with disease. As one who hid his face from us, He was despised, we held him of no account…” – Isaiah 53:2-3
“Find him pleasing” (find him desirable; desire him)…
וַיהוָ֞ה חָפֵ֤ץ דַּכְּאוֹ֙ הֶֽחֱלִ֔י אִם־תָּשִׂ֤ים אָשָׁם֙ נַפְשׁ֔וֹ יִרְאֶ֥ה זֶ֖רַע יַאֲרִ֣יךְ יָמִ֑ים וְחֵ֥פֶץ יְהוָ֖ה בְּיָד֥וֹ יִצְלָֽח׃
But the LORD chose (“was pleased”/“desired”) to crush him (by disease/sickness), That, if he made himself an offering for guilt, He might see offspring and have long life, And that through him the LORD’s purpose might prosper. – Isaiah 53:10
Thankfully, though man pursues his desires, the LORD continues to pursue HIS desire (חָפֵ֤ץ).
God’s ways are not our ways. I have been thinking about those people with character. How we laud those who have walked with great moral integrity. And of course this is important. Those people are certainly ones we should hold up in this way. But it seems that those who have experienced great moral failings are rejected in our society and have absolutely no value i.e. a drug addict. We reject for the most part that YHVH can and does transform lives. Again I go back to the way we judge/see others does not seem to match the way YHVH judges/sees us. And the fact that He certainly uses those who are rejected, stigmatized and unloved. It seems Christianity puts the biblical characters on a moral high ground that most of them do not possess. Superheroes. A great disconnect in what the stories say and how they are interpreted today.
Yeshua is constantly hanging out with the undesirables. I love Him! He would have hung out with me. And does today through the Spirit.
“A great disconnect in what the stories say and how they are interpreted today”…”ay, there’s the rub.”
I find it interesting that the same word used for Rachel was also used for David קָטָן qatan. It doesn’t only mean younger it also can mean the insignificant one. David was probably considered insignificant since he was probably born from an affair and wasn’t entitled to the full inheritance of his brothers. Was Jacob the con artist trying to pretend that Rachael wasn’t significant enough so that Laban would cut him a deal?
And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy “younger” daughter. Gen 29:18
When Leah is compared to his love for Rachel in verse 30 the word מִ לֵּ אָ ה is used which has a “mem” preceding Leah’s name. Mem is that letter which represents water or troubled water or pregnancy. He loved Rachel but didn’t mind knocking up Leah 7 times. Were those kids birthday presents while he waited around to marry Rachel? I suppose he saw it as a duty to have many sons to take care of things for him, but forgot his spiritual heritage and the dysfunctional family lessons from Abraham with Hagar.
I can only imagine how things might have worked out for the better had Laban not tricked the trickster Jacob by marrying him off to the daughter he knew he didn’t want. Leah would have eventually gotten married and would have been a much beloved aunt to Rachael’s kids, but much animosity was caused by this deceitful switch at the altar. The Children of Israel never needed to be slaves and never needed Joseph to help them out of a famine. Those were events that occurred as a Just Yah was weighing the sins of the Children in a scale and finding an appropriate punishment for not getting along with one another. Sure, they came from a messed up broken family, expect it. The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence because hasatan is at work trashing all of Yehovah’s good works.
Our ultimate duty is to perpetuate on Earth the Love of Abba among ourselves. Don’t trick people, be honorable and honest with them. There is no need to lie, cheat or steal since Yehovah is our provider. He will meet all our needs. If someone else gets a promotion or a blessing don’t be jealous or envious because that’s one more blessing out of the way leading up to your blessing. Yehovah rewards those that seek Him.
By all rights Jacob should have apologized to Leah for being conned and sleeping with her by mistake. She didn’t get pregnant until Yehovah opened her womb after He saw she was hated. And what was THAT all about? Was Yehovah allowing her to conceive because He knew it would make her feel better and less hated? Why didn’t Yehovah consider Jacob’s hatred and keep him from having emotional ties to Leah? It’s like a judge sentencing a woman to marry her rapist. That man doesn’t care about her. What we really tend to miss in these stories is the deep love Yehovah has for the downtrodden, the hated, the maligned, the insignificant ones. He has a way of promoting the underdog every time.
Leah was in on the con and shouldn’t have expected to gain love by starting a relationship being deceitful… it never works out. He should have taken Rachael in the middle of the night and gone off on a month’s journey from Laban’s household and spread the word about how deceitful Laban was. Guilt and shame are what kept him there. He tried his best to respect his uncle and his lie about local tradition of marrying off the older daughter, but when people are deceitful and manipulative it is best to put plenty of distance between them and yourself. Yehovah could have just as easily caused Levitical priests and Judah to be born from Rachael. But I think the real reason the tribe of Judah and Levi were so diligent in serving Yehovah was because of the honor and respect Yehovah gave to their mother who was hated. One con can stick with you for the rest of your life and eat you up if you let it.
WillNAZ, Thanks and welcome to our small net family. My apologies if you have been here a long time, but I don’t recognize the moniker or the literary style ( few here, for example, use Yah, but I find it a good “compromise” in the silly war of the proper pronunciation of the Name.) I enjoyed your thoughts and hope you share them with us often. Iron sharpens iron (though I find them better used to press clothes). Interestingly Torah would later forbid the marrying of sisters, perhaps in remembrance of the trauma inflicted on all involved in this singular episode.
For me, desire connects to thirst and the woman at the well. And her conversation with Yeshua and ei hedeis. That which I ingest or submit myself to, to quench a thing, but which resurfaces time after time, that finds me returning to my vomit and never satisfies, by contrast allows me to thank Him for, this water.
Proverbs 8:12, I know where to go.
A last thought, con men have success because what they offer seems to let us take advantage of them, an edge, from greed. A covenant offers both parties advantages and responsibilities stated before entering in. It was Abrahamm who gave Laban the choice of where to settle. Picking the place that was better. It was God that made the least better, it’s what He does.
I am alwayd left speechless and in deep thought after TW!! Thank you!!
How do you break the scriptures/stories down like this, learn the hebrew meaning, and connect the dots????
The same way you eat an elephant…one bite at a time! Bon appetit and welcome to the Table.
Seven years. Fourteen years. Few words but so much routine stuff occuring during these times. Life goes on during these long swaths of time. Routine things transpire. Cleaning, organizing, travel, eating, resting, thinking, etc. Normal habitual activities. They are all covered in one sentence, a few words. Kind of like how time appears as we look back, moving way too quickly. Or when we look forward, as in seeming to take forever.
If love is doing as opposed to just feeling, then living with Leah seems to fit the definition of love in some manner. Ask Tevye from “The Fiddler on the Roof.” If Rachel was the fantasy, then it is frightening how powerful the yetzer HaRa is to maintain continuity of desire over the lengthy period in face of all the opposition of life (daily, boring, common routines.) It would seem Jacob was not only a member of a highly disfunctional family, but he was also grossly disturbed to fashion his entire life around ‘getting the girl.’ Oh, is that cruel to say or is it maybe just observing some flavor of psychosis on Jacobs part. I know the present time is far chronologically and culturally from Jacob’s time and ways, however, if my son exhibited this fanatical devotion to some girl, my little paradox box would give me cause to be concerned and alarmed somewhat. But what do I know of love? Maybe little to nothing.
My take away in a small degree, in light of Skip’s observation of these events, is to continue to invest in diving much, much deeper in to these words of this particular book we so highly revere. I carry it and read it, but on second thought, I’m not sure I ‘carry’ it and ‘read’ it, truly.
Michael C??? Good to see you again. Was just wondering the other day where the other Michael disappeared to.
Thanks. Been busy flittering here and there. And then resting between all the flittering. Tired most of the time. I have been enjoying your insightful and humorous offerings.
Flit on! Thanks for the encouraging word. Still trucking?
Still.
Or we could say how wonderful the yetzer hatov is because Jacob was willing to work for Rachel. I don’t think it was obsession. I believe it was love.
Is there a difference? 🙂