…she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children or I’ll die!”
Drama queen much?
“Here is Bilhah, my maidservant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and that through her I too can build a family.”
Oh right, this trick again. Also, it’s clear that this isn’t one happy family. We have Leah’s family, and Rachel’s family. Jacob just happens to be caught in the middle.
Anyways, through Rachel’s servant Bilhah we get:
5 – Dan – “God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son.”
6 – Naphtali – “I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won.”
So far Leah has 4 sons, and Rachel’s servant has 2. Now I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that Leah is still “winning” despite Rachel’s claim that she has “won.” Somebody is acting like a whiny little brat…
When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her maidservant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.
Anything you can do, I can do better…
Through Leah’s servant Zilpah:
7 – Gad – “What good fortune!”
8 – Asher – “How happy I am! The women will call me happy!”
“Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?”
“Very well, he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”
“You must sleep with me, I have hired you…”
Hey look, Jacob is just a prostitute in his own house, with his wives buying and selling time with him between themselves. Ridiculous.
And of course, Leah has a couple more sons:
9 – Issachar – “God has rewarded me for giving my maidservant to my husband.”
10 – Zebulun – “God has presented me with a precious gift.”
And then finally Rachel has her first son:
11 – Joseph – “God has taken away my disgrace.”
“Send me on my way so I can go back to my own homeland.”
It’s been 14 years. I’ve put up with your schemes and I’ve worked hard for you. Now it’s time for me to leave, so I can actually start working for myself. I have no wealth to show for these years of work, just my family. I need to start working to provide something for them.
“I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you.”
Divination? Really? “My gods said your God is the one giving the blessings, so could you stick around with him for awhile?” This just seems like the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
“Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages.”
That same day [Laban] removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the streaked or spotted female goats…Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob…
Wait a minute, did Laban just steal all his ugly stuff so Jacob wouldn’t have anything to start? That’s sure what it sounds like to me. I mean, Laban gets all the speckled and spotted animals, gives them to his sons, and drives them three days away to be separated from the rest of the flock, which Jacob then continues to tend. Now maybe there’s some part of the deal that we don’t quite get in the passage here, and Jacob’s payment was only going to be newborn animals from this time onwards, or something like that. But whatever is going on, obviously Laban isn’t about to make it easy for Jacob, and isn’t going to give him freebie animals. In fact, he’s specifically keeping the already speckled animals separated so Jacob’s chances of getting such animals is as low as possible. It’s all about who can come out ahead between these guys, both trying to out-trick the other.
Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them…Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink.
Well Laban may have thought he was smart to separate out all the spotted animals, but Jacob has a plan! Make the animals see striped things, and they’ll have striped children! Of course! And while you’re sitting there laughing at how stupid he is, his plan just goes right ahead and works. And we continue to see God blessing this screwed-up, deceitful, superstitious mess of a guy, no matter how much stupid stuff he does. This blessing is so powerful that it just keeps on working regardless of how hard the family tries to screw everything up. They literally can’t avoid getting blessed.
So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob.
And Jacob wins this round.
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