Big Island Baptist Church

We have begun a new Bible Study for women. If you are unable to join us on Wednesday nights, please join us here!

I recently read His Brain, Her Brain: How Divinely Designed Differences Can Strengthen Your Marriage by Walt and Barb Larimore. This insightful (and often hilarious) book explains that there are actual physical differences in the way that men and women think. For example, while a man’s brain is bigger in size, a woman’s brain has more connections. This gives us women more attention to detail. And I’m sure it is no surprise that the two sections of the brain responsible for language are larger in women than in men.

The bottom line is that God created us to be different! Thankfully, the Bible has stories of both men and women. Throughout this study, we will learn from the women of the Bible. We will study a woman’s life one week and a lesson from her life the following week.

This week we started with one of the Bible’s most famous soap operas, Rachel and Leah.

For a bit of background, Jacob had tricked his brother, Esau, and stolen his birthright. When Esau threatened to kill him, he ran away to his uncle, Laban. That is where this story picks up.

Genesis 29:16-20

Ah, love. Jacob loved Rachel so much that seven years were over in the blink of an eye. But poor Leah, Moses (the human author of Genesis) tries to put it kindly by saying she had “weak eyes.”

During this time, it was traditional for the groom’s family to pay a dowry to the bride’s family. Because Jacob had run away from home he had no riches to give. His Uncle Laban was kind enough to exchange work for the dowry. But read on and you will see that it wasn’t kindness that motivated Laban.

Genesis 29:21-25

Uh oh! So, it turns out that Laban was looking for a way to marry off his “weak eyed” daughter, Leah. He did deceive Jacob, but it was also customary to marry daughters off in order of their birth. Remember that earlier in his life, Jacob had deceived his older twin brother to sell him his birthright. Looks like it came back to get him!

But, how would Jacob not know what was happening? There are several customs at play here. First of all, these were different times than now. Jacob had spent seven years working for Rachel, but he barely knew Rachel during that time. He would have barely touched her and certainly would not have spent time alone with her. During the wedding ceremony, the bride would have been covered by a veil until she was alone with her husband. In those days, the wedding party lasted all day into the night and would have included large amounts of wine. Put all this together with the fact that there was no electricity and Jacob had been waiting eagerly for seven years and you can understand how he could have made this mistake. But it was not a mistake he was content to live with.

Genesis 29:26-30

So here we go, the stage is set for a lifetime of jealousy. Polygamy was a common practice in this part of the world, probably as a means of survival. Large families were needed to do large amounts of work. When I posed the idea of your husband having multiple wives, there were some in our group that thought the idea of having another wife around to help with children, laundry and cleaning wouldn’t be that bad but we agreed that the friction among relationships would far outweigh this luxury. When I worked for an international charity, I went to a conference and met a gentleman from Senegal where polygamy is still practiced. He joked that he wanted another wife but he was too afraid of his first wife to get one. Interestingly, God had warned Abraham (Jacob’s grandfather) to not adopt the customs of the people around them. If Laban and Jacob had listened to this advice, they would have avoided all the trouble to follow.

Genesis 29:31-35

Jacob may have loved Rachel more, but he certainly didn’t neglect Leah! Let’s look at the way Leah named her children because there is a significant transition. The first child was Reuben, “he has seen my misery” and the second was Simeon, “one who hears.” These names give us a sense that Leah really was miserable and constantly crying out to God because she felt unloved. The third was Levi, “attached,” showing that Leah believed that Jacob would love her because of their children together. Finally, she names the fourth child Judah, “praise.” It is at this point that her focus shifts from herself and her own troubles to the blessing of her children. It was then that she stopped having children. And these four little boys were more than her younger sister could bear.

Genesis 30:1-8

So, here’s an odd cure for jealousy—tell your husband to sleep with another woman! This actually was not unusual during that time. If a woman was barren it was acceptable for her to give her maidservant to her husband as a concubine. The maidservant would sit on the mistress’s knees to give birth. That would then make the child hers. This is another one of those local Canaanite traditions that some Israelites adopted. Because the ultimate purpose of a woman was to bear children, this solved that dilemma.

The name here is important too. Dan means “he has vindicated” and Naphthali means “my struggle.” Dan does point to God even though Rachel used her own means to have a child. But both names imply that she is happier to be catching up to her sister than to finally be a mother.

Genesis 30: 9-13

Leah has to get into the concubine act as well. And she expresses her happiness that her plan worked by naming her sons Gad, “good fortune,” and Asher, “happy.”

Genesis 30:14-20

Poor Jacob. All he wanted to do was marry Rachel. Now he has four wives, at least two who are fighting over him and “hiring” him with mandrakes. Mandrakes were thought to aid in conception, so they would have been important to Rachel. This is another example of one of God’s people taking things into their own hands.

The mandrakes may not have worked for Rachel but something worked for Leah and she bore two more children. Again, their names are important if a bit misguided. Issachar means “reward.” Leah actually believed that God was rewarding her for giving her maidservant to Jacob as a wife. Zebulun means “honor.” Even after all those years, she still believes that bearing children will cause Jacob to love her.

Some time later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” She named him Joseph, and said, “May the LORD add to me another son.”

Almost as a footnote, Leah gives birth to a daughter. Perhaps this adds insult to injury by showing that she can produce both kinds of children.

At last, Rachel gives birth to a son. She shows hope for the future by naming her son Joseph, “may he add.” Her prayer is answered several years later with the birth of Benjamin.

This is certainly a soap opera! The characters struggle with deceit, jealousy, lack of love and sin among other things. Isn’t it wonderful that God uses real people to teach us how to live?

How many of us feel like Leah? She wasn’t beautiful, she wasn’t loved, her husband used her (for sex and other things) and she had ALL these children! I am sure she was overwhelmed, lonely and depressed. I also know that I have felt the same way at points in my life. But God loved Leah. In Genesis 29:31, the Bible says that God loved her and opened her womb. This should comfort us that our popularity on Earth does not affect our worth to God.

Even when we are weak and we fall into sin, God can use us. In Hebrews 7:14 we read “For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah…” Judah, as in Leah’s fourth son, was a direct ancestor of Jesus. Interestingly, Judah would not have been created if Jacob had gotten his original wish of marrying just Rachel. Remember also that Judah means “praise.” This was the first time that Leah’s focus shifted from herself to God. Judah is also the one down the road who talks his brothers out of killing Joseph. Then Joseph was taken to Egypt and was able to save the family from starvation. So, as women, we do not have to be “perfect” to be “successful.” What we need to do is allow God to use us and work through us.

We also learn that children (or physical relations) do not create a fulfilling relationship. Do you know someone who has had a child to keep their partner happy? Do you know someone who does not feel fulfilled unless they have a child or a significant other? Leah had 7 children but Jacob still didn’t love her. She finally recognized that her happiness came through God, not her children or her husband.

So, we need to love our husbands (or our children) for who they are, not who we want them to be. This doesn’t mean accepting someone who is emotionally or physically abusive, but it means putting up with the little things that bother us like spitting in the shower, forgetting to lock the front door, leaving dirty socks on the floor, etc. (Not that those things would happen in my house!) If you try to get fulfillment from your family or a relationship you will always be disappointed. I know that I am always way too critical and expect way too much. But God will never disappoint (he may take His sweet time, but he won’t disappoint.) Rachel could have saved years of misery (and maybe some stretch marks!) if she had figured this out before her fourth child.

Our next Bible study will be March 24th at 6:45. We will be discussing the Fruits of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:19-26. We would love to have you join us. If you can’t look for the wrap up on the website late next week.

Annie