Rebekah has two sons named Esau and Jacob. After Jacob deceives his father and brother to take the birthright and blessing of the firstborn, he flees to Aram on his mother and father’s advice. They command him not to marry a Canaanite woman. He should go to his grandfather’s house and find a wife from their clan. Recall that Abraham said his son Isaac should not leave Canaan. That is why Abraham sends Eliezer to find a wife for his son. It is dangerous for God’s chosen people to be outside the Promised Land. All will not end up well for Jacob in Paddam Aram.
But Jacon does not know his future. He is simply looking for his mom’s family. When Jacob reaches the land of “eastern peoples,” he stumbles upon a well. (Did Jacob grow up hearing the romantic story of Eliezer finding his mother Rebekah at a well? Did he recall that story right now? I don’t know.) We do know that Jacob sees the well is blocked by a “large stone.” Jacob strikes up a conversation with the shepherds to see if Laban, his uncle, is known in these parts. The shepherds say yes, Laban is doing well - and his daughter Rachel is a shepherdess. Why, she’s on her way to the well as they speak.
Initially, Jacob does not look up and catch Rachel’s eye. He keeps up the conversation with the shepherds. “It is not time for the flocks to be gathered yet. The sheep need to be watered and taken back to pasture.” Unlike his more passive past, Jacob is taking charge here. The shepherds say they cannot do so until the stone has been rolled away from the well. It’s at this point in the story that Jacob sees Rachel. If she’s as beautiful as the rest of the story indicates, it’s not surprising to see what Jacob does next. He singlehandedly rolls away the large stone.
Is Jacob showing off? Is he helping the shepherds? Or is he accomplishing both at the same time? We can imagine the shepherds thanking him as they water their flocks. Now author’s attention swings to the first interaction between Jacob and Rachel.
What happens? Jacob does not speak. Jacob kisses Rachel.
To be fair, a kiss was a typical greeting - between father and son, uncle and nephew, brother and brother. He is greeting her as a family member. Her father is his mother’s brother. His mission is accomplished. He has found the house of familiar people in a strange land. But can we not suspect something more to the kiss than greeting a member of one’s claim?
Next Jacob begins to “weep aloud.” To us, this reaction seems strange. But imagine you are all alone, far from family and home, with a mission to find your clan. After nights of sleeping on the ground with a rock for a pillow, the first person you meet is from your mother’s tribe. You might shed a tear of relief. If Jacob is a human being (as all people in the Bible are), he may have had lots of mixed emotions. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rachel’s beauty played some role in the intensity of his moods. We know it will later on in the story. For now, it makes sense that Jacob gets emotional.
Just like her aunt Rebekah, Rachel runs home to tell her father the news that a man from the family of Abraham has come to Aram. As Laban did many moons before, he “hurries out to meet” Jacob. Laban embraced Jacob, kissed him, and brought him to his home. Just like Eliezer did years before, Jacob recounts the story. Laban responds to the story by saying to Jacob, “You are my flesh and blood.” This phrase means they have a sacred family bond. Adam said the same to Eve: “She is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” Jacob has been welcomed into the house of Laban.
Eliezer found Rebekah for Isaac and returned to Canaan with urgency. Jacob, unaware of Laban’s schemes, stayed a whole month. Now the story will take a turn for the worse. Pretending to be generous, Laban offers to pay Jacob for his service. Smitten with love for his daughter Rachel, Jacob asks for her hand in marriage. He is so in love with her that Jacob is the one who suggests seven years of service. You may keep in mind that we do not see any conversation between Rachel and Jacob. If he is in love with her, is she in love with him?
For the first time in the story, we see the Bible compare Leah and Rachel. Few folks debate what the Bible says about Rachel: she was lovely. She was beautiful. But many argue about what the Bible says about Leah. Some say she had weak eyes, tender eyes, bad vision, was “less beautiful” than Rachel, or had a disability of some kind. Leah’s descendant, King David, is described as having beautiful or bright eyes (1 Sam 16:12). No matter how we interpret this phrase, Jacob’s choice is not Leah.
Jacob’s choice also breaks with tradition. Fathers wanted to marry their daughters in birth order. But this secondborn son of Isaac wants to marry the secondborn daughter of Laban. Jacob’s uncle seems to agree, perhaps halfheartedly. “It’s better I give her to you than to some other man.” Jacob is so infatuated that he sets to work and the next seven years “seem like only a few days.”
At the end of seven years, Jacob says words to his future father-in-law that I cannot imagine a future son-in-law speaking out loud: “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.” At the wedding feast, Laban “brought Leah to Jacob and Jacob made love to her,” and only realized in the morning that he had slept with the wrong sister. The trickster Jacob is tricked by Laban.
How can a man not know who he is sleeping with? There are many theories. One is that it was too dark at night for Jacob to see Leah under her veil. Another is that they were so modest that they did not speak to each other the entire night. Another theory is that Jacob got drunk at the ceremony and he was not aware of what he was doing. Some folks have had the same realization the morning after a night of hard drinking.
It drives me crazy how little we know about the sisters. What is Rachel doing the whole night? Is she wondering where Jacob and Leah are? If the feast is her wedding ceremony, why is she completely missing from the narrative? Does she reciprocate Jacob’s feelings? Or is she glad that Leah is with Jacob instead of her? What is happening?
Leah is another mystery. Is she humiliated that her father is sending her to consummate a marriage with her sister’s lover? Is Leah in on the deception? Or has Laban tricked the firstborn Leah into thinking Jacob worked seven years for her? Is she embarrassed that Jacob woke up, realized what happened, and felt extreme disappointment? What is happening?
Regardless, Jacob complains to Laban, who decides to give his other daughter to Jacob for seven more years. By the end of this bizarre story, Jacob ends up with two wives, who are sisters, and his cousins through his mom’s family. Is it shocking that this situation creates dysfunction? The question answers itself. The rest of the story is full of rivalry, favoritism, and betrayal. It is not a sad story because they are Jews. It is a sad story because they are sinful humans like the rest of us. Anytime we see evil in God’s chosen people we have to remember that they are sinners because of their origin: the two sinners named Adam and Eve.
Speaking of Eve, the consequences of her sin trickle down to Jacob’s family. Leah, though less loved than Rachel, is fertile. Rachel, though beloved by Jacob, struggles with infertility. Like his grandfather Abraham, Jacob sleeps with his wives’ concubines. Between these four women, Jacob has twelve sons and one daughter. Leah and Rachel play a years-long game of competing for Jacob’s favor. At one point, the infertile Rachel tells her husband, “Give me children or give me death!”
Tragically, Rachel gets both. She gives birth to Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob. They flee from Laban’s house and both sisters wonder if their father wants them to share in his inheritance. (I think the answer is no!) When Laban tracks them down, he looks for his idols, which Rachel stole from his house. It’s not clear to me if she’s lying or not, but she tells her dad that she cannot stand up because is having her period. The statues of the gods are underneath her. Laban believes Rachel and leaves them alone.
Despite all the evil that man intends, God intends it all for good. Over two decades, the family of Abraham has multiplied and God is taking them back to the Promised Land. He has had enough of Jacob’s exile and wants to free them from bondage in the house of Laban. God always brings His chosen people back to their land. Eventually.
While traveling across the land, Rachel gives birth to a boy she names Ben-Oni, her second and final son. Jacob renames him ‘Benjamin.’ Near Bethlehem, Rachel dies and the family buries her. Jacob puts a pillar over her tomb to mark it. But her story does not end there in Genesis. In a genealogy in chapter 46, we read that she had “fourteen sons in all” (46:22). What could this verse possibly mean?
Joseph had two sons: Manasseh and Ephraim. Benjamin has ten sons: Bela, Beker, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim and Ard. The word “son” must include sons and grandsons. She has two biological sons and twelve biological grandsons. Fourteen in all. This number is important. Remember it.
After her death, Rachel’s memory lives on in the Old and New Testaments:
When the entire family of Israel ends up in Egypt, Jacob remembers his wife fondly. Speaking to her firstborn Joseph, Jacob says, “As I was returning from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan while we were still on the way, a little distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there beside the road.” Ben-Oni, his original name, means “son of my sorrow.”
When Ruth joins the family of Israel through marriage to Boaz, “the elders and all the people at the gate said, ‘May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you be famous in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.’” They think of Ruth as a new Rachel, a new matriarch who could “build up” the family of the Jews. Recall that Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David.
The prophet Samuel, when anointing Saul as King, tells him: “When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel’s tomb.” Samuel tells the future king that he will find his father near her burial site. In other words, at the tomb where Rachel is buried, a royal son will be found. Then King Saul went from that tomb and met up with three men “going up to worship God at Bethel.” Bethel is the house of God where Jacob had a vision of angels traveling to and from the earth.
The prophet Jeremiah speaks about Rachel’s voice crying out with “mourning and great weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” This matriarch of Israel is crying because her children are going into exile. But God comforts Rachel, saying that her “work will be rewarded” and “they will return from the land of the enemy.” Rachel is a woman of sorrow who intercedes for her children, the Jews, as a matriarch cares for their return to their home.
The evangelist Matthew mentions Rachel after Herod massacres the innocents of Bethlehem. “Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.” When the Messiah is born and those boys are victimized, the matriarch of Israel continues to cry and intercede for them.
Why is Rachel important? Because she and her sister Leah are the final matriarchs of Genesis. If Abraham passed the covenant to Isaac, who transferred it to Jacob, then Sarah passed her mantle to Rebekah, who passed on her maternal role to Rachel and Leah. While many mothers will come from Israel, these four women are the mothers of Israel. There would be no twelve tribes without Rachel and Leah.
Next week we’ll compare Rachel and Mary.