The Jacob-Rachel-Leah Story
It is recommended that the series “A New Way to View The Women of the Bible,” “Women are Equal to Men,” and “Jacob and Esau Birthrights and Blessings” be read before reading the posts in this series.
Review of the previous post.
This is the first post in a series of 8 posts.
Preview of this post.
This post, post number 1 of 8, introduces the topic and raises several questions about the story in general.
- I. Introduction and Questions
So many questions are raised by the Jacob-Rachel-Leah triangle, one barely knows where to begin to find meanings in the story. Many questions revolve around Jacob’s bigamy. To make matters worse, the marriages were not simple bigamy, but marriages involving two sisters[1].
Bigamy would create great problems because it would create legitimacy problems for the offspring of the marriages. The doubt about the legitimacy of the Jacob/Leah and/or Jacob/Rachel marriages has created great controversy among those reading the text. Such controversy may have been recognized by the offspring of these two marriages and been the source of much tension and controversy between the tribes associated with each of these two women. Who had a legitimate birthright (Reuben or somebody else)? Who had legitimate inheritance rights? Indeed, who was legitimate at all? It has been noted that there was tension between the tribes, could this have been the source of that tension? This tension was felt even so far as the split between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms much later in time.
There is also a question created by Rachel’s theft of her father’s idols. Yet another question emerges because Rachel stood up to her father, but not to Leah or Jacob. Why? It might be said that Jacob’s agreement to go along with Laban’s substitution of Leah for Rachel in the marriage contract placed the three of them in a difficult situation. Why didn’t Rachel blame Jacob for going along with the substitution of her sister, Leah, for herself? Not only is Rachel silent at the time of the substitution, she does not rail against it during the seven years she is forced to wait while Jacob re-“earns” the right to marry her. Why? Unlike Cain and Abel, Rachel and Leah co-operate in some situations, such as the Mandrake episode (Genesis 30:15-16), and when they agree to leave Laban (Genesis 31:13-16). Why, what is the different about the Rachel/Leah situation with regard to the Cain/Abel situation? Although some commentators attribute Rachel’s silence to her strength of character, there may be more to this story, and answers to these questions can be found by viewing the relationship from a human perspective as well as from a perspective that teaches a moral lesson with the moral lesson being made pertinent to a listener because it is associated with actions of human beings.
Preview of the next post.
The next post, post number 2 of 8, discusses several possible explanations for the questions raised about the story.
[1] Lev. 18:18. In fact, Nachmanides suggested that God killed Rachel before the clan entered the Promised Land so that the patriarch Jacob would not violate the Torah’s command forbidding matrimony with two sisters in Israel and thereby desecrate the holy earth