The Shenanigans Continue

 Genesis 29-30

            The deceiver is deceived, first in the matter of his wife, then in the matter of his flocks.

            Leah, so the text says, had weak eyes. The commentators, going all the way back to the rabbis over 1500 years ago, have debated what that means. However, given the contrast with Rachel having a lovely figure and being beautiful, the conclusion is pretty shallow: Leah wasn’t very pretty. (Turns out that body-confidence is not just a modern problem! Women have been suffering with this for a long time.) To be fair, then, Laban kind of had a point. Custom said that the older sister should be married first; looks shouldn’t have mattered. The incident highlights the continued callowness of Jacob. An interesting side note: “weak eyes” could also be translated “tender eyes.” It’s within the realm of possibility that this is evidence that Leah was kind—not a bad attribute in a life partner! But Jacob has his heart set on Rachel, and that means another seven years. (If we wonder why Jacob didn’t notice the switch until the morning, remember that a bride would have generally been veiled and the bridal tent would have been dark)

            In the matter of Jacob’s flocks, Jacob ostensibly offers to take the rarer animals out of Jacob’s flocks as his wages. Apparently, most sheep were white and most goats were black, so speckled creatures were less common. But Laban, in order to ensure his own profits, moved everything that Jacob had claimed, separating from his usual flocks. Cheated again!

            One interesting theme through this chapter is the use of magic: Leah and Rachel bicker over mandrakes, a supposed fertility drug; Laban learns ‘by divination’ that Jacob is the source of his blessing (as if he couldn’t tell that Jacob was good at his job); and Jacob himself utilizes some kind of weird trick with peeled branches to encourage the birth of speckled animals. Here is an indication that Jacob’s faith is shaky at best. He didn’t trust the Lord to get him the birthright; he relies on his own plans to find a wife and a livelihood; he dabbles in magic. I studied this years ago, but if I recall correctly Jacob never even calls the Lord “my God” until later in the story.

            So, a few takeaways: first, there’s evidence here of an oft-repeated axiom of the Bible’s wisdom, namely, the wicked will not prosper forever. Eventually their deeds catch up with them. (See Psalm 1, for example.) Second, like his grandfather before him, Jacob’s faith is a work-in-progress. He had the vision at Bethel, received God’s promise, and seems to have believed it. But he’s still trying to do things by his own wit and wisdom. Third, the Lord blesses Jacob anyway. Despite his shallowness, the Lord blesses him with 11 sons (Benjamin, the twelfth will be born later in the story) and a daughter, and despite his self-reliance the Lord makes him “exceedingly prosperous.” We should see in this less a promise that God will bless us materially and more the fact that in blessing Jacob the Lord is keeping His main promise—that through this family a Savior for all humanity would come.