36 JACOB’S CONTENTIOUS FAMILY

Decisions and behaviors have consequences. Jacob married two sisters and that leads to trouble from the beginning. Knowing the human propensity to be envious, probably not so much only by Rachael’s own barrenness but as by Leah’s fruitfulness, a disagreement between Jacob and Rachael breaks out. Rebekah, the only wife of Isaac, was childless for some time, and yet we find no uneasiness between her and Isaac, but here, because Leah bears children and Rachael doesn’t, Rachel cannot live peaceably with Jacob. Verses 1 & 2 say, “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!’ Jacob became angry with her and said, ‘Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?’”

Envy has no place in the life of a Christian leader. What can we learn from Rachael? Envy is grieving at the good of another, a sin quite irrational and very injurious to our neighbor and ourselves. She did not consider that it was God that made the difference, and that though, in this single area in domestic life her sister was preferred before her, yet in other things she had the advantage. Let us carefully watch against all the risings and workings of this passion in our minds. Let not our eye be evil towards any of our fellow-servants because our Master is good to them.

But this was not all. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” We are very apt to err in our desires of temporal mercies, as Rachel was here. One child would not content her; but, because Leah has more than one, she too must have more: “Give me children.” Her heart is excessively set upon it, and, if she have not what she wants, she will throw away her life, and all its comforts. “Give them to me, or else I die,” Really? That is, “I will fret myself to death; my desire for this satisfaction will shorten my days.” So, was she threatening to end her life if she could not obtain children? Probably not, but she was speaking irrationally. She did not appeal to God in prayer, but to Jacob only, not realizing that “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.” We wrong both God and ourselves when our faith is more in men who are only the instruments of our difficulties and blessings, than to God the Author and Source of our blessings.

Let’s compare Rachel’s and Hannah’s, requests. “In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, ‘Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.’” Rachel envied; Hannah wept. Rachel must have children, and she died giving birth to her second one; Hannah prayed for one child, and she had four more. Rachel is urgent and insistent; Hannah is submissive and devout. “. . . if you will only look on your servant’s misery . . . .  then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life . . .” Let Hannah be imitated, and not Rachel; and let our desires be always under the direction and control of reason and godliness. Leader, rejoice in the success of another and humbly seek whatever success God also has for you.

Jacob correctly rebukes Rachael. He loved Rachel, and therefore reproved her for what she wrongly said. Faithful reproofs are products and instances of true affection, Psalm 141:5 sys, “Let a righteous man strike me—that is a kindness; let him rebuke me—that is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it, for my prayer will still be against the deeds of evildoers.” And Proverbs 27:5 & 6 say, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”

Job reproved his wife when she spoke the language of the foolish women recorded in Job 2:10, “He replied, ‘You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?’”, Maybe we can help a spouse if we lovingly and candidly correct them. “How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:16)  Jacob was angry with her the narrative says, but undoubtedly also angry at the sin. Sometimes it is good to give a reproof gently like a warm medical cream, not hot lest it burn the patient; yet not cold, lest it have no good effect. Jacob’s reply was very serious and truthful, “Am I in the place of God?”

Jacob could not give her sons. He could not give them if God didn’t. Jacob acknowledges the hand of God in the affliction in which he was a sharer with her: He is the one “who has kept you from having children,” Whatever we want, it is God that withholds it, a sovereign Lord, most wise, holy, and just, that may do what He will with His own, and is debtor to no man, that never did, nor ever can do, any wrong to any of His creatures. I have read that the Jewish Rabbin say that the keys of the clouds, heart, grave, and womb, are four keys which God has in His hand, and that He does not give them to angels or seraphim. Revelation 3:7 says, “These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.” The human body participates in the reproductive process, but God and God alone, creates babies. He holds the keys.

Jacob acknowledges his own inability to alter what God had appointed. “Am I in the place of God?” What! Do you make a god of me?” There is a saying: “He to whom we offer requests is to us a god.” Let every Christian leader know full well that there is no creature that is, or can be, to us, in God’s stead. God may be to us instead of any creature, as the sun can be instead of the moon and stars; but the moon and all the stars will not be to us instead of the sun. No creature’s wisdom, power, and love, will be to us instead of God’s. It is therefore our misplaced trust and serious error to place any creature in God’s stead, and to place our confidence in any creature which is to be placed in God only.

At the suggestion of Rachel, Jacob took Bilhah, Rachael’s handmaid, to wife, so that, according to the custom of those times, as Sarai, Hagar and Abram had done, Jacob’s children by Bilhah might be adopted and owned as Rachael’s children. Rachael would rather have children by custom and name than none at all, children that she might pretend to be her own, and call her own, even though they were not. One would think her own sister’s children were nearer akin to her than her maid’s, and she might have more joy with her nephews close as though they were her own—if only she had been more generous. But it is natural for her to be fond of power over children that she had a right to rule. This assumed authority was more desirable to her than children (nephews) that she actually had more reason to love. Was this an indication of her desire for dominion? And what of the false claims she makes in the names she gave Bilhah’s children? Does this also show us her desire to boast of her supposed superiority to Leah, as if she had overcome her? She calls her first son “Dan” which means “judgement” and claims that God has judged me and given a sentence in my favor. “God has vindicated me” (6). Really? Her next boast is to say she had prevailed over her sister. She calls the next child “Naphtali” which means “wrestlings” and boasts, “I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won” (8). This was as though all Jacob’s sons must be born men of contention, competition, envy and jealousy just because their mothers competed. See what roots of bitterness envy and strife are, and what problems they make among relations effecting subsequent generations. This is the competitive atmosphere into which Joseph is eventually born.

Next, as though what we have looked at were not already bad enough, Jacob, at the persuasion of Leah, now also took Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid to wife. “When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. “Then Leah said, ‘What good fortune!’ So she named him Gad” (9 &10). Rachel had done that absurd and preposterous thing of giving her maid to her husband, in jealous rivalry with Leah; and now Leah, because she missed one year in bearing children, does the same, to be even with her, or rather to stay ahead of her. See the power of jealousy, envy, rivalry and unnecessary competition. Let us admire the wisdom of the original divine intention, which unites one man and one woman only. With reference to marriage, Paul says in Corinthians 7:15, “God has called us to live in peace.”

“Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. Then Leah said, “What good fortune!” So she named him Gad. Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. Then Leah said, “How happy I am! The women will call me happy.” Zilpah bore two sons to Jacob, whom Leah looked upon herself as entitled to calling one “Gad,” promising herself a little “troop” of children; and children are the soldiers of a family. The other she called “Asher” which means “happy”, thinking herself happy in him, and promising herself that her neighbors would think so too. It is an example of the vanity of the world, and the foolishness bound up in our hearts, that most people value themselves and govern themselves more by reputation than either by reason or godliness. Some think themselves blessed if the daughters call them so, but this is a grave danger for the Christian leader. We should rather want God’s favor than to be well thought of by people. There was much amiss in the contest and competition between these two sisters, yet God brought good out of this evil. We may consider that the time had come when the offspring of Abraham must begin to increase and multiply. So Jacob’s family was supplied with twelve sons, heads of the thousands of Israel. From them the celebrated twelve tribes descended and were named.

Next we see that Leah is fruitful again, after she had, for some time left off bearing. Jacob, it should seem, associated more with Rachel than with Leah. The law of Moses supposes it a common case that, if a man had two wives, one would be beloved and the other hated as illustrated in Deuteronomy 21:15. “If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love. . . ” Perhaps that idea came from this bit of Israeli history.

At length Rachel’s strong passions betrayed her into a bargain with Leah to the effect that Jacob should return to Leah’s apartment. Reuben, playing in the field, found mandrakes a kind of narcotic plant. Rachel could not see them in Leah’s hands, where the child had placed them, but she must covet them. She will purchase them at any rate. There may be great sin and folly in an extreme desire for a small thing. Leah takes this advantage (as Jacob had of Esau’s coveting his red pottage) to obtain something that actually was justly due to her, but to which Rachel would not otherwise have consented. Leah is overjoyed that she will have her husband’s company again, that her family might yet further be built up, which is the blessing she desires and devoutly prays for, as is intimated in verse 17 where it says, “God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son.” She called him  “Issachar” which means “a hire,” considering herself well repaid for her mandrakes. The next son she called “Zebulun” which means “dwelling”, acknowledging God’s blessings on her “God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honor.” Jacob had not paid a bride price for her when he married her, but she reckons a family of children a good dowry. She promises herself more of her husband’s company now that she had borne him six sons, and that, in love to his children at least, he would often visit her lodgings. Mention too is made of the birth of a daughter, Dinah, in preparation for a later story involving her and the Shechemites. Perhaps Jacob had other daughters, but not likely since none are mentioned or counted in the list of family members who eventually traveled to Egypt.

Rachel is fruitful at last.  Verse 22 says, God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive.” It may have seemed that God had forgotten Rachael, but He had not. Her prayers had been denied for a long time but now she too bore a son. As God denies an answer, so sometimes he graciously grants, at length, something for which we have waited a long time. Rachel called her son “Joseph,” which in Hebrew is akin to two words of a contrary signification, “Asaph,” He has taken away my reproach, as if the greatest mercy she had in this son was that she had saved her name and reputation; and “Jasaph”, and said, “May the Lord add to me another son.” Perhaps she said this by faith having been encouraged or maybe she still was in a competitive mode. Either she scarcely knows how to be thankful for one unless she may be sure of another, or in faith—she takes this answer as an encouragement to hope and pray for yet another son. This was as though to say, “I will call him Joseph, and say, God will add more grace! God has given me this joy. I will call him Joseph, and say, God will give me more joy. God has begun, and shall He not continue?” There is a more important reason to be happy to have a child than to supposedly “win” over a rival wife.

Competition at home is not helpful in developing peaceful people. Jacob’s family had this weakness.

Incidentally,

Mandrakes are mentioned also in Song of Solomon 7:13. The God of nature has provided, not only for our necessities, but for our delights; there are products of the earth in the open fields, as well as in protected gardens, that are very valuable and useful. How plentifully is nature’s house furnished and her table spread! Her precious fruits offer themselves to be gathered by the hands of little children. It is a laudable custom of the devout Jews, when they find pleasure, suppose in eating an apple, to lift up their hearts, and say, “Blessed be he that made this fruit pleasant!” Or, in smelling a flower, “Blessed be he that made this flower sweet.”