In Defense of Leah
by Jamie Steach
Have you ever read the story of Jacob (also called Israel), son of Isaac, and grandson of Abraham? We find the main chunk of his story in Genesis chapters 26-35, and it’s quite a journey. To sum up chapters 26-29, we see Jacob and his twin brother Esau take sibling rivalry to a whole new level, complete with stealing birthrights and inheritances, parents playing favorites, Isaac being manipulated, and Jacob running for his life from Esau after it all. Not the best of family dynamics. When Jacob runs away, he runs to the home of his mother, to his uncle Laban, where she has sent him with the excuse of looking for a wife but really to keep him safe from his brother’s wrath. Interestingly though, Laban has two daughters, Leah and Rachel, and both will become Jacob’s wives by the end of his time there. Jacob will end up working for his uncle for 20 years (Genesis 31:38), with 14 of those being required to gain his wives. The second of two seven year contracts came because Laban had tricked Jacob into marrying Leah first when, really, Jacob only ever wanted Rachel. Rachel was completely and totally the object of Jacob’s desire, and Leah was... not.
Can I be honest for a minute? I REALLY don’t like it when people drag Leah. I’ve heard guys make the joke about “not settling for a Leah”, but I really don’t understand it. I do understand that Jacob loved Rachel, and that we even see that Leah had “weak eyes”– aka Rachel was the pretty one– but does that make Rachel the better choice? Especially considering that Jacob’s decision making doesn’t seem to be the best, as evidenced by his life story. I mean, c’mon, he goes to sleep with Rachel on their wedding night and he doesn’t even realize it’s really Leah?
Anyway, putting those arguments aside, I think there is a really important lesson to learn from Leah’s story. For me, Leah is one of my unsung heroes in the Bible. There is so much to learn from her about where to find our value and how to be secure that we would be remiss, women especially, if we glazed over the story of Leah and Rachel without giving Leah a second look. So let’s check it out!
We first meet Rachel when Jacob sees her tending her father’s flocks, and we are introduced to Leah and Rachel together shortly after Jacob goes to see his uncle Laban:
After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, 15 Laban said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.”
16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. 18 Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.”
19 Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.
(Genesis 29:14b-20)
So Jacob has been there all of a month, and in that month he’s fallen in love with Rachel. We learn that Rachel is the pretty one, as mentioned earlier, and that Leah is the lesser in terms of beauty (yes, there’s a footnote about weak meaning delicate, but the comparison in the text seems pretty obvious). So, in terms of the world, it’s pretty clear which sister is the one with more value. Additionally, we see that Jacob is so lovestruck that apparently seven years seem more like seven days. That’s actually pretty cute, but let’s keep reading:
21 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.”
22 So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. 23 But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her. 24 And Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter as her attendant.
25 When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?”
26 Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. 27 Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.”
28 And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. 29 Laban gave his servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her attendant. 30 Jacob made love to Rachel also, and his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.
(Gen. 29:21-30).
There’s only a couple things I want to draw out here, but this is going to lay the foundation of Leah’s story. Yes, it’s incredibly shocking that Jacob doesn’t recognize it’s Leah sooner, and yes, it’s probably Jacob getting a taste of his own medicine (see Genesis 27), but that’s not what I want to focus on. There’s something in particular that really jumps out at me in Leah’s story here, and it’s something that will hold true in the verses to come. Laban gives the reasoning that their custom is for the older daughter to be married first, and then the younger daughter. But, from the text, Leah doesn’t seem to be seen as very desirable. So, whether Laban’s reasoning is to trick Jacob into more years of service or whether it’s out of concern for Leah, the result is the same: Leah has a father that has taken care of her and her best interest. This is a really mind-blowing, foundational piece of Leah’s story that we are given. She’s apparently not desired enough by men for someone to come seek her out, so her father makes sure she’s taken care of (which “father” that is, I’ll let you decide for yourself at the end of this). I definitely think Laban is trying to swindle Jacob for more labor, but Leah certainly stands to gain something from this arrangement, as well. Anyway, before we continue, the last thing we see here is that Jacob ends up with both Leah and Rachel as wives, and it’s very clear who he loves more. Remember that detail as we keep reading:
31 When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. 32 Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.”
33 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.” So she named him Simeon.
34 Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” So he was named Levi.
35 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.
30:1 When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!”
2 Jacob became angry with her and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?”
(Genesis 29:31-30:2)
This might be my favorite part of Leah’s story. Immediately following this passage is the pregnancy wars where Leah and Rachel and their female servants start competing to have a bunch of kids and Jacob ends up with 12 sons, but before all of that, something special happens to Leah. God sees her situation, and He responds. My understanding of this time is that a woman’s ultimate honor and symbol of status as a wife is the ability to bear children, and especially sons. To be barren would be to carry disgrace. Additionally, the threat of divorce looms over a wife who cannot produce children. So the first thing God does when he sees Leah’s situation is affirm her status as a wife, while Rachel is unable to conceive. Not only that, but He gives Leah FOUR sons, and Rachel still has none. In fact, Rachel even takes this out on Jacob, and it creates a conflict in their relationship. But I’ll come back to that point later.
If we look at Leah throughout the birth of her first four sons, we see there are two competing ideas here: the love of man, and the love of God. Leah so desperately wants to be loved, desired, and respected by her husband. She feels the depth of how much more Jacob loves Rachel, and I think we see her wrestling with that here. She acknowledges that it is because of God that she is bearing children, but she doesn’t seem to realize right away what is going on. Again, Leah’s Father is taking care of her. When man doesn’t value her, her Father cares for her. And I think that’s what God is trying to get her to see. God wants her to see her value through His eyes, not Jacob’s. Why else would the first thing He does be to affirm her value by the standard that she knows? She expects that Jacob will value her once she has borne him these sons, because that’s what the world has taught her. When she proves what she can do, she’s valuable. But this IS NOT God’s perspective, and He’s waiting for her to see that.
I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that Leah stops having children as soon as she decides to “praise the Lord”, as seen above. With the first two sons, she recognizes what God has given her, but she’s too focused on earning the love of man. Even with the third son, you can almost picture her thinking “Really? Three sons and you still don’t see my value?”. But there’s the key; she just needed to see her value for herself. Something happens between giving birth to Levi and giving birth to Judah that allows Leah to see what’s really going on here. Her sister is loved by Jacob, sure, but Leah realizes she is loved by GOD. And she decides she’s going to love Him, too. By the time she delivers Judah, Leah doesn’t care what Jacob thinks anymore. She turns all of her attention to God, and rejoices. She rejoices, even when she isn’t loved by her husband! Wow. Leah learned to see how valuable she was to God, and to find her security in God, because God Himself decided to get her attention. And once He had it, Leah didn’t need the security of being able to have kids anymore. She had the joy of four sons and the love and security of her Creator, her Father, so she didn’t need to put her security in the eyes of man.
This is so powerful, even today. We look to just about everything other than God to find our value in today’s world, but if we would just trust God, and trust what He defines as valuable, we would be able to rejoice like Leah even when we face being rejected, unloved, and unappreciated. God will always be the Father who is taking care of us, and our security will lie with Him when we trust that fact instead of seeking the love of man. Leah has two other sons and a daughter before this whole extravaganza is over, and her servant bears Jacob two sons, as well. With each new child Leah is filled with joy and rejoicing (Genesis 30). God blesses her in the eyes of men because she learned to put her joy in Him, first.
Ok, now back to Rachel for a moment. I think there is an interesting juxtaposition of Leah and Rachel here in many ways, and I’m going to call us back for a moment to my comment about the two competing ideas of the love of man and the love of God. We see that Leah chooses the love of God, but if we look at Rachel, she can’t seem to shake the love of man. She doesn’t seem to have to do anything for Jacob to love her; we see her show up and be beautiful, and the next thing we know, Jacob is in love. Because of this, I think Rachel’s life never gives her the lessons of Leah. She finds love and belonging from her husband, so she has no need to look for that fulfillment from God. She would feel valued already because she’s loved. I think this is why Rachel and Jacob end up fighting when Rachel is childless (verses 30:1-2 above). Rachel sees Leah bearing children, and for the first time, she isn’t the one demonstrating value in the eyes of man. Again, that value is based on what she can do, what service she can offer. But, if she can’t fulfill the one thing that she’s supposed to be able to do, where does that leave her? Suddenly it doesn’t matter that she is the one Jacob loves, because she’s no longer the one with an affirmed value. She’s jealous out of insecurity. She yells at Jacob out of insecurity. She’s spent her life putting her value in the eyes of man, and now she’s losing value because, while she’s the pretty one, she can’t produce a son.
Rachel never learned the lessons of Leah because she never had to look beyond what she could see. In some ways, Leah had the easier route to finding value in God. She felt rejected and unloved by man, so she had to look somewhere else. There was nothing distracting her when God started reaching for her because she was desperate to be loved. Yes, at first she was desperate to be loved by Jacob, but it doesn’t seem that he ever gave her what she was looking for, so she was able to turn to God instead. With Rachel, Jacob gave her every ounce of love he had. She had no reason to look anywhere else because she was probably feeling too good from being loved by man. She wasn’t pushed into God’s arms like Leah was. The text does later say “God remembered Rachel (Genesis 30:22)”, so we know He was concerned with her and her status, as well, and we also see Rachel acknowledge God (Genesis 30:6, 8, 23-24), but not like Leah does. So maybe sometimes God needs to let us feel unloved and undesired in the world, becoming so desperate for love that when He calls we will respond like Leah. Just a thought.
Rachel spends her life struggling and fighting to get back to her place of value. It’s Rachel that starts the pregnancy wars because of her insecurity, and although Leah participates, Leah seems only concerned with the joy of children while Rachel is obsessed with winning the competition of value (Genesis 30:1-24). Yes, with six sons, Leah is already the “winner” anyway, but these two sisters mirror the two outcomes that result from where we choose to look for love and value. One leads to joy and security, the other to striving in desperation. In Genesis 30:17, the text even says “God listened to Leah”, so Leah seems to be the one in a continued relationship with God, while Rachel simply acknowledges His power over her situation (Genesis 30:6, 8, 23-24). I do want to be clear, however, that the issue here is NOT that God only wanted Leah, and that God didn’t want Rachel to experience His love and security also. It just seems that Rachel never chooses to look to Him in the same way as Leah. All of this can be summed up in saying that Leah had a clear relational need that God was eager to meet, while it appears that Rachel was content with her needs being met by Jacob.
There’s so much more I could say about these two women in putting their lives side by side for comparison (including the interesting bit that David and, therefore, Jesus, are descended from Leah, not Rachel), but I think the most important lesson we learn from Leah is that it’s great to be loved by man, but it’s better to be loved by God. Our Father will always be looking to take care of us, especially when the world isn’t, and we need to choose Him and trust that He will define our value based on who we are to Him, and not what we can do. So guys may joke about “looking for their Rachel”, but if it’s up to me, I think I’d rather be Leah.
The topic of value will continue to be explored in future weeks, but in the mean time, check out some further teaching that, among other things, addresses value through the eyes of man vs the eyes of God:
BEMA Discipleship Podcast, Session 1, Lessons 1 (Trust the Story) & 2 (Knowing When to Say “Enough”)
Click here for the podcasts.
Attribution
The banner image “Laban had two daughters; the elder was Leah, and the younger was Rachel” is attributed to Sweet Publishing / FreeBibleimages.org under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.