jacob’s wives

The Gentle Eyes of Leah

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful.  Genesis 29:17

Most of us have read the passage above about Jacob’s wives as describing Leah’s bad eyesight. We assume that she squinted because of her eyes, and perhaps was plain and homely too. If she lived today, we might imagine her as an awkward wallflower with thick glasses.

Looking at the Hebrew a little more closely suggests that the word translated as “weak,” rach, may have been a more positive description. It can mean “weak,” but elsewhere that the word is found we see other nuances:

Genesis 18:7 Then Abram ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender (rach) calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it.

Isaiah 47:1 “Go down, sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter of the Babylonians. No more will you be called delicate (rach) or pampered.

Proverbs 15:1 A gentle (rach) answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

From these passages and others, we can see that the word rach can mean tender or gentle, and when used to describe a woman (as in Isaiah 47:1), it can connote delicateness or refinement. The passage seems to be a way of contrasting the lesser beauty of Leah with the greater physical attractiveness of her sister, which was why Jacob favored Rachel.

Could Leah’s tender eyes been God’s preference? Even though Jacob loved Rachel more, God consistently came to Leah’s aid by blessing her with children – six sons and one daughter to Rachel’s two sons. But nothing Leah did seemed to be able to win the love of her husband. Instead, Rachel’s sons Joseph and Benjamin were Jacob’s favorites, and she was the wife he truly loved.

It is interesting that God’s choice was not toward the beauty of Rachel, but of Leah, whose son Judah was the ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus. Perhaps he wanted Jesus to inherit Leah’s gentle eyes.

Note: This article is based on “Leah’s Tender Eyes,” by David Bivin, at jerusalemperspective.com.

Reaping What You Sow

Lois Tverberg
Jacob Wrestles Angel

by Lois Tverberg

So Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.’
– Genesis 47:9

Many people struggle with the idea that God would work out his plans to establish a nation through the deceitful actions of Jacob. Jacob used a weak moment to barter his brother Esau’s birthright away from him, and he deceived his father into giving him his brother’s blessing. Did God bless his unethical behavior?

Interestingly, his life story shows that his scheming often came back to haunt him. It is most obvious in one case – he used his father’s blindness to substitute himself for his brother, to steal his blessing; but he also was deceived by “blindness” too when on his wedding night, Leah was substituted for her sister Rachel. This is called “measure for measure” by the rabbis – that because he used blindness to deceive, God let him be deceived in the same way.

Jacob Wrestles AngelThroughout Jacob’s life, we see that although God is fulfilling his promise to him to give him a family, Jacob does not have the peace that his father and grandfather did. He had to leave his home for fear that his angry brother would kill him and work many years for his crafty uncle. He lost his beloved wife Rachel at a young age and believed that he had lost his favorite son Joseph for many years too. Even Jacob’s suffering over Joseph was brought on by his sons’ terrible jealousy because of his obvious favoritism toward Joseph.

While Abraham “died at a good, ripe age, old and contented” (Gen. 25:8), and Isaac also died at “a ripe old age” (Gen. 35:29), that is not said about Jacob. Instead, Jacob told Pharoah that the years of his life had been “few and unpleasant” (Gen. 47:9). From the time that he deceived his father until the end of his days, his life had been full of trials, many of them brought on himself.

We can learn a lesson through this – that God is faithful and merciful to us who are under his blessing, but he usually refrains from sparing us from the earthly consequences of our sins. We should live wisely knowing that although we are under God’s forgiveness, how we act toward others will have a large impact on the way our lives play out.

*This article was based on an essay in “Understanding Genesis”, by Nahum Sarna, Shocken Books 1966, p. 183.

Photocred: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/dore/