Jacob's Children

Introduction

Have you ever felt abandoned and in need and wondered whether God actually cared? Have you ever needed something, or thought you needed something, so desperately that you thought, “God will for sure provide what I am praying for.” And he still doesn’t give it. What was your response? Did you struggle with doubt? Anger? Or did you simply go to something other than God to get what you were looking for? What do you think the right response is? We know that God loves to give good gifts to those who belong to him. He doesn’t withhold good things for no reason, he is a generous God who delights in blessing his people. But what is often overlooked in Scripture is the simple truth that, although God loves to bless his people, that is not the end goal. Many times throughout the Scriptures, God has blessed people that did not turn to him in worship as a result. In Isaiah 65:2 God says,

I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices

He held out his hand in blessings to a people that constantly rebelled against him. You see, the reason God loves to bless his people with good things is because he loves his people. As intuitive as that sounds, this love is a covenantal love that has the end goal, not of given them good things apart from himself, but by giving good things that teach them to rely on him in faith. God’s blessings and provisions prove his love, and teach us to lean on him in complete trust for every good things.

So what about when God doesn’t seem to be answering our prayers? Has his love stopped? Where is this proof I’m supposed to have that should convince me that I should rely on him?

The truth is, his blessings are right before you. Because of God’s blessings you have life, food, clothing, shelter, and every good thing that you experience in creation. The sun should not be taken for granted simply because it comes up every day without discrimination, nor should air be discounted because we’ve never had a shortage of it. God’s blessings fill our lives, and often when we think the thing we desire will make us happy, God seeks to point us towards gratitude for what he has given us so that we will trust in him rather than the next blessing we think we need.

In our text, we look at two woman that both wanted something that the other had. Rachel wanted to bear children, but remained barren for a time, Leah wanted the love of her husband, but despite her attempts at pleasing him with her children that love didn’t come. The answer to their problems was not necessarily in receiving what they so desperately and painfully desired, but in the simple words Leah spoke at the birth of her son Judah, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Only in gratitude and thanksgiving in the providential hand of God will we find what we truly need when we seek all these things, because only then will we rest in faith like God means us to.

Leah’s First Four

Our text immediately lets us know how messed up Jacob’s marriages are, as well as how caring God’s character is. The same God who had compassion and saw Hagar abandoned in the wilderness and was called “The God who Sees” sees the unloved Leah, whom the author says is hated. That’s not to say Jacob was actively abusive to her, but he was neglecting the husband’s duty to love his wife, and God counts the lack of love where it should be as hatred. It is the same in the church, when we fail to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, we are actually hating them in God’s eyes.

But God shows love and compassion on her and blesses her, rather than her sister, with children. She has There are four children that she names in a way that we can see a progress in her attitude towards God’s blessings to her.

Search for her Husband’s Affection

The first three children have one main similarity in the way that they are named: they betray Leah’s desperate attempts to please Jacob and experience the love that every wife should have from her husband. Although it is her right to experience that love, she isn’t getting it. She’s not as beautiful as her sister, she’s not attractive to Jacob, Jacob is an infant in his faith so he is not following his created obligations as a husband, and even though he is obviously sleeping with her, it is loveless sex that doesn’t show her any affection. Now, her hope is that bearing him a child will finally change the way he treats her. Her first son is named “Reuben” which means, “behold, a Son.” Personally, I think it’s a great name for a first-born boy. She recognizes God as being the one who has blessed her with this son, which already shows more faith than her husband has, and then says maybe God will love her since she has provided him with his firstborn son, the one who would normally inherit a double portion and be the pride of his father.

She then conceives and bears a second son, and we get the idea that Reuben hasn’t made anything better for Leah in Jacob’s eyes. Again, she praises God for the birth, perceiving that God has seen she is being denied her marital right for love, and Simeon is born. She conceives again and she is still not loved. She says, “finally, finally. There’s no way my husband can’t love me now, I’ve given him three sons!” And this is in only a few years since we know that all of the children born in this text are born before Jacob’s finishes his second term of 7 years. This is a very sad situation, since she shouldn’t have to prove how useful she is to be loved by him. Jacob is blind to how unlovable he is because of his own sins and faithlessness and yet God loves him. But God is also teacher her something. Living in a sinful world, we are often going to be hard done by and not get what is rightfully ours. For a while, we might try hard to get what should be ours, or what we feel should be ours, and God may or may not give it to us. God provided three boys so far and yet Leah still hasn’t recieved what she hoped for. Her husband still doesn’t love her.

Rest in God

Then Judah is born, the fourth boy that signifies God’s compassion and provision for someone suffering form neglect. This time, she doesn’t put her hope on her husband’s love. She doesn’t cling on to what may be, what God has not given her as of yet, she says, “this time I will praise the Lord.” Didn’t she praise the Lord before? Yes she did. Is it wrong for her to desire her husbands love? Absolutely not. But we do see some growth in Leah’s faith. Before she was praising God for his gift because of what she thought it would give her, the love of her husband. When it didn’t give her that, she simply praises the Lord. It’s not by chance that Judah is the one who will become the ancestor and King David, and of Jesus Christ. In other words, she isn’t worshipping God for what she wants, she’s worshipping God for what he’s already given her. She is grateful now, and that is a sign in her life of spiritual maturity.

Hoping for something good for yourself is not bad. Seeking to better your situation in life is natural, especially in a world that is far from ideal. There are things that you want, even need, that you can’t have. Things that you see other have been blessed with and you feel like you should have and you don’t. Maybe you’re single and you wonder why you haven’t met a godly spouse. Maybe you want children and can’t have any. Maybe you feel stuck in your job or cannot find any employment at all. As your grow in your life, you pray for these things as your should and maybe God gives it now, maybe later, maybe not at all. And that’s hard to take, especially if you’ve had your hopes dashed again and again and again. Leah’s hopes have been dashed. After Judah it appears her husband stops sleeping with her at all until she “buys” him for her son’s mandrakes. His interest in her didn’t get better, it got worse but despite the lack of love that she should have, she learned to say with Job, “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed by the name of the Lord.”

Jealous Competition

Rachel’s Jealousy

Now, obviously Leah’s three sons did not escape Rachel’s notice. Like her husband, Rachel at this point lacks faith and also lacks the the gratitude her sister has learned. Instead of being grateful for having the love of her husband, she is jealous of the unloved wife. And instead of coming to God in prayer, she goes to her husband whose response is actually appropriate. He has no ability to give her children if God has closed her womb, and he actually gets upset at her for demanding this of her. Her answer is one as old as time in the family of Abraham. Like Sarah before her, she gives Jacob her servant Bilhah as a wife. However, unlike Sarah, she isn’t looking for any promised child, she’s looking for ammunition in her war against her sister. It is a wicked motivation and a sinful solution, but Jacob does go along with it. He marries Bilhah and she becomes a surrogate mother for Rachel, and Naphtali is born. Now look at Rachel’s words: “I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed.” Her attitude is terrible. She has no compassion for her sister’s feeling of neglect and sees her servant’s child as a one-up on her sister. This is another clue that Rachel has an absolutely godless character, and her sister is actually the faithful one.

War of the Surrogate Mothers

So this begins the war of the surrogate mothers. Leah reacts to Rachel by abandoning the faith she had at the birth of Judah and engages in this competition of who can have the most children to their name, even though it is through their servants. Leah’s servant Zilpah is given to Jacob as his forth and final wife in less than 7 years and she bears him Asher. Once again, the bounds of biblical marriage are ignored for the sake of selfish gain, and we are reminded that there are no perfect characters in this story. Like Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his wives have turned from trusting that God is the one who gives children, just as he gives all things, to trust in their own ways. Their own ways end them in sin because, like Cain, they are setting their own rules of what is allowed and ethical because of self worship. Instead of being thankful for what God had given them, greed took over Rachel and Leah was hooked right back into the game. Waltke helpfully summarizes the two sisters’ attitudes by saying, “Each woman wants what the other has, and neither treasures what she has been given for its own value.”

Despite all this, God is still sovereign and will use their faithless actions to build the people of Israel. As we’ve seen throughout the whole book of Genesis, God uses flawed and sinful people to accomplish his will, while at the same time working on them through the long and often painful process of sanctification. These also did not have the same indwelling of the Holy Spirit that believers have today, meaning that we are held to a higher standard than they were because we have more of God’s Word and more Spiritual enlightenment. That being said, God has not stopped using flawed people for his glory. In our weakness God is shown strong, in our sin God is shown as holy, and God’s strength is shown by taking the sinful and making them holy through his sanctifying work.

Prayer Vs. Mandrakes

Next is the episode of the mandrakes. There is an irony here that is centred on the deficiency that both women have. Rachel cannot have children, and Leah cannot have the love of her husband. One thing that seems very strange about this event is that Rachel appears to have the household right to say who sleeps with Jacob and who doesn’t, as if this household wasn’t messed up enough. Rachel is essentially selling her husband’s sexuality for a plant that she believes will help her get pregnant. She gets what she wants, the mandrakes, and Leah gets what she wants, a night with her husband. But at the same time, neither gets what they want. Leah gets pregnant, not Rachel, and Rachel remains the loved wife, not Leah. These are gifts God gives, and despite their efforts, they have not recieved what they get.

God Hears

But and interesting phrase is used her: God listened to Leah. In 29:31 God saw Leah, and finally in 30:22 God remembered Rachel. This language is not used when the concubines get pregnant, and that is because their pregnancy is a result of human will, which God is still sovereign over. However, they were attempts motivated by human will and symbolizing human strength as opposed to God’s strength. It went against God’s decreed will to give these women as concubines to Jacob. However, when it comes to Leah and Rachel, child birth is purely a result of God’s hand at work. So after the mandrake incident, God gives Leah another son named Issachar, then Zebulan and finally a daughter named Dinah. It may very well be that other daughers were born to her or to the concubines during this point, Dinah is likely mentioned to foreshadow coming events.

Then after all of Rebekah’s trying, her demands, her anger, and her attempts to get children her own way, God remembers her. He has compassion on her because, despite the son she had obtained through her servant, she didn’t have one herself and likely felt useless. In the ancient world, unfortunately a wife was often valued mainly by her ability to have children. God remembers her and finally gives her what she’s been looking for. Her response? Far from Leah’s worshipful declaration at the birth of Judah, she is immediately thinking about having another son. She does acknowledge that it is God that has taken away her approach, but right away she says, “may the Lord give me another son.” Now, again there is nothing necessarily wrong with desiring another son, but it is consistent with the greedy character she has been displaying in this text.

Greed is never satisfied just because you have obtained the thing desired, it also doesn't have to be for something that is wrong or unnecessary. Having children is a good thing to desire, Psalm 127:3 says that children are a gift from the Lord and that the man who has many is very blessed. Rather than being a prerogative for families to have as many children as possible, it gives the biblical position that children are a blessing and that they are a gift from the Lord. The Lord gives them or he doesn’t. Throughout the book of Genesis, the womb has consistently been a realm that is completely under God’s control. As Jacob points out, God gives or withholds the fruit of the womb, and despite the plans and abilities of human beings, this cannot be changed. Even in our day of advanced technology and the confusion between sex and gender, no matter how much a man wants to be a woman, they cannot have children because God has not designed them to. Of all the great things we have accomplished as human beings, there are certain forces that remain out of our control no matter how hard we try, reminding us that all things, even the things we think we control, are in God’s hands. The skills of a heart surgeon may seem to decide between life and death, and yet we cannot even change the weather for a moment of time, or keep someone from meeting death indefinitely.

The story of humanity and our sin is the story of a war between struggling for control and power and submitting to God in faith and gratitude. Cultural Marxism posits that justice is based on redistributing power and taking it from those who have it and giving it to oppressed minorities. However, in Scripture justice is recognizing that God has all power, and we are in the position to only to submit to, obey, and worship God. God, in his undeserved grace, shows love by often giving us gifts that we don’t deserve. We should not be afraid to humbly ask for these gifts, but be careful to avoid the sense of entitlement that we see Rachel display here. God’s love and the blessings he gives, to both believers and unbelievers, are meant to bring us to the foot of his throne in faith. Romans 2:4 says, “or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” This clearly shows us that our attitude should be when we receive the things we ask for from God.

But what about when we don’t receive what we ask for? Even when what we ask for is lawful, and even good, God may not give it to us now, or in this lifetime. Many Christians who have desired children have not been able to have them. Many want a spouse and remain single, or a job they actually enjoy and cannot find one. Around the world, there are Christians who desire freedom and remain in prison for their faith, food and they go hungry, a family after they have been rejected. In all these situations, God is still the God who hears and loves. He doesn't close his ears to the cries of the desperate, especially those of his people who put their trust in him. So we can know and trust that when God withholds something we want, or even something we need, he does so in love. Because the best thing for us, the thing that will fill not only our strongest desires but satisfy our greatest needs, the the presence and love of God. When you are stopped from getting what you don’t have for a time, it’s an opportunity to praise God for what you have been given, and you have been given all the blessings of God in Christ. Even if you don’t have the food to eat tomorrow, you have Christ forever. God loves when we turn to him in thanksgiving because it displays hearts that are full of faith. Hearts that say, “you have provided for me, you will provide for me in your wisdom, and I am satisfied in knowing, loving, and being loved by you.” The Blessings of God are meant to show us that all we need is in him. Let us puruse such a mindset, such a way of thinking that goes so beyond what is natural to those born in a world powered by selfishness and greed. When we have all we need, we need nothing.

May God richly bless us with such hearts that turn to him in praise and thanksgiving because of the great blessings that we have been given. With the birth of Judah Leah proclaimed that now she would praise the Lord. Through Judah would come the Christ, the greatest gift humanity could ever have, what more can we do but offer the same praises?