This transcript was auto-generated. 

Round One – We identified the constant tension that existed between the two Sister who are the wife of Jacob. Tension the morphs into out and out conflict. That was round one, in round two, Rachel says, well, if I can’t have children, I’m going to let him use my maid and that will be a source of me having children. By the way, Sarah did something similar, remember that she gave her maid Hagar to Abraham, and she gave birth to a son, Ishmael. So, this is nothing new going on here, but what we need to know is now Leah has four children and Rachel has two children by her maid. Now the plot thickens, and we come to round three and verse 9 tells us this.

“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. Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. Then Leah said, “How happy I am! The women will call me happy.” So, she named him Asher”. 

(Genesis 30: 9-13)

So now Leah’s not having any more children and Rachel is having them by her maid Leah thinks I’m not going to be outdone by my sister, so she also takes her maid and gives her to Jacob as a wife. Jacob now has four wives, and the children that follow on from here are all named in a way that represents what God has done in each situation. So round three is Leah giving her maid to Jacob and he has two more sons. 

Let me pause here for a second and try to keep up with the maths here. Round one. Leah has four sons. Round two, Rachel by her maid has two sons. Round three. Leah has two more sons through her maid. Now, let me pause and make an observation, this is interesting story in that both of these women are using their maids to have children, but the story is not over, let’s pick up the 4th and final round. It begins in verse 14.

“During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” But she said to her, “Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?” “Very well,” Rachel said, “he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”

(Genesis 30: 14-15)

Do you ever read one of these Old Testament text, and think this sound like it comes from another ancient time and place? What in the world is going on here? This raises all kinds of questions, like, what is a Mandrake and why does she want them? The answer to the first question is the answer to the second.

Mandrake was a common plant at that time of the nightshade family, which had five long, fleshy finger like leaves which made them look like hands and for a long time had been said to have medicinal, and mystical, properties associated with it. From ancient times, the root was promoted for such uses as an aphrodisiac and for fertility. The idea then, apparently, is that Rachel says if I could just get some of that plant then I also could conceive because up until now she’s only had had children by her maid. So, she makes a deal allowing Leah to sleep with Jacob again provided her son to give her the mandrakes that he had gathered originally for Leah. Strange; isn’t it, verse 16

“So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night. God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son. Then Leah said, “God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband.” So she named him Issachar”.

(Genesis 30: 16-18) 

Issachar is an interesting name; it means recompense for wages. In other words, she hired Jacob, her husband, for a night by paying with mandrakes and names her son accordingly. I’m telling you, reading the Bible, who needs soap operas? 

“Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, “God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honour because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun. Sometime later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. 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.”

(Genesis 30: 19-24)

Again, naming the son according to the experience. This conflict come to a climax, so to speak, and now Rachel is driven to prayer and seeing her maid and her sister is having more sons than her.

All right, at the end of round 4, Leah has sons. She called one Zebulon, which means exalted. She called the other Joseph, which means Jehovah has planted. By the way, by saying Jehovah planted this child within her indicates that the Mandrakes had nothing to do with it, the text makes that very clear. It wasn’t the mandrakes it was the Lord. 

So round one. Leah has four children. Round two. Rachel has two children by her me. Round 3. Leah has two children by her maid. Round 4 Leah has three, and Rachel as another.  So, in total there are twelve children to these four wives. But before I wrap this up and make some observations. Let me point out something this passage reveals.

Firstly, the problem with bigamy, which by the way will soon be forbidden, in the mosaic Law in Leviticus. Chapter 18 makes that clear. One Bible expert I read said, one object of this narrative is without doubt, an attempt to portray the evils of bigamy. Another commentator said, “the house of the bigamist is always a house divided against itself, and the fruitful source of mischief and a disruption of all true discipline”. He points out, by the way, that these two wives were sisters, and because of this sibling rivalry and jealousy Jacob’s whole future household would live in envy and fiction with each other. Bigamy, having more than one wife just does not work.

In 1910, Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist, met a lady patient, who became a lifelong intimate and colleague. He calls her Tony maybe as a way of disguising the fact that his new colleague was a woman. When Irma, his wife insisted that he give up this extramarital affair with her Yung insisted that she was far too important for him to do without her.  According to Yung’s biographer, he treated his mistress as a second wife and had a discreet triangular relationship that lasted for the remainder of his entire life in spite of his first wife’s objections.  The three of them often appeared in public, but in private tension was between the two women, the biographer of Hume said. And I quote.

“It intensified to such a degree that both found it difficult to keep it under control. In public. They became increasingly openly sarcastic to each other”.

This is a perfect illustration of what happened here in Genesis chapter 30. 

Alright, let me sum it up.  It’s real simple, Jacob had two wives who were jealous of each, which lead him in the end to have four wives through which he bore 12 children and that's the sum of what goes on in this chapter.  Let me make a couple of observations. 

First, this chapter contains a contrast and a conflict between two women. Leah was a woman of faith who longed for the affection of her husband. Rachel had faith, but it did not appear to be as strong as Leah's, but she had the affection of her husband, but anxiously desired the blessing of God in childbirth. In other words, the anxiety, and the jealousy of these two women in the end lead to conflict.

We could stop and ponder this for a while, because this should cause us to remember that believers should always avoid envy and strife, because it always leads to conflict. Whatever your lot in life, whether you are feel , ignored, oppressed, or challenged, troubled or anxious, your attitude should not be one of jealousy. Nor should your efforts result in a bitter rivalry, rather, what you should do is cultivate a wholehearted trust in the Lord, waiting patiently for his blessing on you.

One of the major things in this passage is the conflict between these two women. But I suggested at the beginning this passage might also teach us something about Israel and about the Lord. There’s more here than just the conflict between two wives here. This passage records God’s faithfulness in providing Jacob with his descendants just as he promised him back in Bethel. It centres on the fulfilment of that process that brings about that promise of the Lord to be with Jacob and to bless him. In other words, in spite of the envy, jealousy and suspicion of the two wives, the Lord allowed these women to have children, and their sons will become the tribal heads of Israel. In other words, Jacob became the father of the 12 tribes of Israel through this messed up situation.

This passage is telling us something about the Lord, he was faithful to fulfil his promise and give Jacob multiple sons from whom would come multiple tribes and the great Nation of Israel. But as we dig further into the Old Testament from here, we will discover that the 12 here are not exactly the 12 tribes. Those tribes would be divided into 12 tribes based on twelve sons but not exactly these 12, because as we will learn later in the Book of Genesis, Rubin will sin and as a result, God will take two of the sons of Joseph and made them tribes in place of Ruben. 

I also said, this passage might tell us something about ourselves. There is something here that perhaps in light of all the other conflict going on that often gets slighted passed over, but it’s very important. God looked upon Leah because she was unloved and he blessed her specifically because she felt unloved, and God later will look upon Rachel and will also feel unloved by God because she was childless. These women who were feeling unloved and both eventually sought the Lord and prayed earnestly and then the Lord blessed them. God blessed them because of their need and their prayers and their trust in him. God characteristically works for things or people that feel downcast, he shows favour to the afflicted, the troubled, the oppressed, and the rejected. Those who find themselves in such predicaments and show faith and rely on God, and who trust in his sovereign plan will usually find that God will bless them. His blessing, however, cannot be gained by bargaining or striving. It is gained by trusting in him and through prayer. I want to close by simply adding, if you feel rejected, if you feel. downcast, if you feel afflicted, then call on the Lord.

Trust him for his blessing, because he particularly likes to look after the kind of people who feel that way.