Battle of the Babies

I mentioned in passing last time that God cared about Leah in the rejection she felt. The beginning of our text today—Genesis 29:31-30:24—puts it in the strongest language: ‘When the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren’ (v. 31). Hated (שָׂנֵא) in the Hebrew might also be translated, as it is in other passages, “unloved” (Deut. 21:15, 17), but clearly  “hatred” in others (Ps. 25:19; Prov. 25:17), while sometimes something seemingly in between such as “despised” (Prov. 19:7). Other English translations of our verse here opt for “unloved.” Although I am not sure that this softened things for Leah. Now, lest anyone get the idea that Leah is absolute victim here—the lone person in the story without sin—it should be remembered that she knowingly took part in her father’s scheme, and, indeed had the greater motive than he is seeing it through. At any rate, two bigger-picture truths emerge from chapters 29 to 30.

• God is sovereign over our lot in this life.

• Our default is discontentment over our lot.

Doctrine. We are not in the place of God—in thanksgiving or in giving the fruit of this life.

God is sovereign over our lot in this life.

There are several violations of this truth in the passage. Leah starts out well enough. She credits God in the naming of her children: ‘Reuben, for she said, ‘Because the LORD has looked upon my affliction’ (v. 32). Then came Simeon ‘Because the LORD has heard that I am hated’ (v. 33). As always, there is word play. Of the first three, in Hebrew, Reuben means “see a son,” Simeon “to hear,” Levi means “attached.” Now, you might see a pattern here and wonder whether this is all bitter venting; but whether it is or not, she is still right to see it all from the hand of the Lord. And so on with the others. By the time the fourth—Judah, or “to praise”—is born, there is a purer confession: ‘This time I will praise the LORD’ (v. 35). We might wonder why she ceased bearing after she finally got her reasoning completely on God. It is Rachel’s response that most clearly signals a manward outlook against a Godward outlook:

“When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I shall die!’ (30:1).

This is not to be confused with the Reformer, John Knox, who prayed boldly, “Give me Scotland, or I die!” The latter was for a fruit wholly unto God and a life consumed by it; whereas the former is an appeal to a mere mortal for a fruit that was also merely mortal.

It is Jacob’s response that informs our big idea—that we are not in the place of God. The text says that, ‘Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, ‘Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?’ (v. 2). Like Leah, Jacob started well too, but he would be a classic case of knowing truths and doing otherwise. But Jacob’s inconsistency does not nullify the truth that Job confessed: “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). No plans of man can change that. No so-called positive confession moves God to decree: “Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?” (Lam. 3:37)

Pink sees Rachel’s initial barrenness as a last stamp of God’s righteous dealing with Jacob, namely, now that,

“Jacob had obtained Laban’s first-born daughter his desire was thwarted—she was barren. As another has remarked, ‘God would have his servant Jacob learn more deeply in his own wounded affections the vileness of self-seeking deceit, and hence He permitted what He would use for chastening and good in the end.”1

At any rate, God is sovereign over our lot in this life.

Our default is discontentment over our lot.

I credited Leah for crediting God, but I must also say about that pattern that it also shows a not so subtle turning in her rationale. Notice that coupled to the words about God granting this relief, that her building resentment turns also to a new hope in her husband: ‘for now my husband will love me’ (v. 32); ‘Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons’ (v. 34). Why do I emphasize discontentment? As we will see, there are some other D-words in view here: disbelief and disobedience. So why discontentment? As one commentator frames the situation: “Each wife wants what the other wife has.”2 Do you see that? Now, is that not the persistent problem with each one of us? The grass is always greener on the other side. In other words, we are serial violators of the Tenth Commandment. We are natural born coveters. We think we can do the “God-thing” better than God, and what we are really saying in all our disbelief and disobedience is this: Why didn’t God do better? It is not simply: Why aren’t things different? “Things” as they are now are aiming at a better world. That wouldn’t be sin. That could be a much-needed dimension of our faith in Jesus making all things new (Rev. 21:4). Coveting says: “My lot from God is wrong … is unjust … is evil.”

The most egregious errors extend to disobedience. Following in the footsteps of their grandmother-in-law Sarah, the chosen family gets right back to manipulation for offspring. Let’s keep track.

First, Rachel ‘gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her. And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son’ (vv. 4-5).

Second, ‘Rachel’s servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son’ (v. 7).

Third, ‘When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son’ (vv. 9-10).

Fourth, ‘Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son’ (v. 12).

Now, why is this happening? Disbelief. Disbelief leads to disobedience. Disbelief is itself a disobedience, since we are morally obligated to believe. Paul calls the whole of the Christian life “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5). But we pile sin upon sin when we disobey because we have already cut ourselves off from the trust in God that would have stayed the course.

Rachel’s language tells us her focus: ‘Rachel said, ‘God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son’ (v. 6). On the surface, God “judging” her could have one of two meanings. This could refer to the typical plea for a judgment, such as in the Psalms, to judge on one’s behalf.

“O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me” (Ps. 7:8).

Or this could be a recognition by Rachel that she has sinned, she accepts the consequences, even in the same sentence that she declares a temporal victory. But she continues with the next manipulated birth: ‘With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed’ (v. 8). Where is God, or even joy, in this picture? So Dan and Naphtali are named after her bitter conflict.

And then, they just flat-out turn to witchcraft.

“In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.’ But she said to her, ‘Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?’ Rachel said, ‘Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes’” (vv. 14-15).

Yes, I know it was “all natural,” but actually there was a superstition involved, not unlike some holistic medicine in our age. It’s a good thing we’ve evolved! But these were thought of something of an aphrodisiac.3 The point is not that materials are evil, but rather than these take the place of God’s power. This is emphasized further in that Rachel only put more points on the board for Leah for her latest scheme.

Notice finally that the language of Rachel’s manward faith is now joined by Leah’s language. First, ‘Good fortune has come!’ (v. 11), second, ‘Happy am I! For women have called me happy’ (v. 13). That’s Gad and Asher—Fortune? And happiness as defined by other women? All eyes are on man. No eyes are left on God. Then when the exchange for mandrakes worked out for Leah she said, ‘God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband.’ So she called his name Issachar’ (v. 18). Pleading one’s “wages” from God is never good—“For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); and earlier Paul says that, “to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due” (Rom. 4:4). At the end, both women seem to come full circle back to crediting God (cf. vv. 18, 23), but not without having left a wreckage of a godless family feud just behind them, one that would define by name the children they bore. Jacob obtained his twelve sons that would make up the twelve tribes—one more of those children is on the way—but in so doing he would have taken four wives and much more strife.

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Instruction. Not everyone is a veteran of the Scriptures. For anyone new to the Bible, or even to the book of Genesis, this is where we first encounter the twelve tribes of Israel. As we will see later on, there is complexity in terms of how they got the names, because of Joseph’s two sons in Egypt. We will come to that. But for the beginning of that story, it is here. This may be on a quiz at some point, whether at Youth Camp or on a minister’s ordination exam. In order of birth, they are: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, and Joseph. The twelfth will be Benjamin.

Use 2. Correction. Wars of the Womb have a way of coming back, especially when youthful zeal is freshly baptized in half-truths torn from their scriptural context. When doctrine-light, will-power religion attempts a recovery of biblical masculinity, you have a recipe for young couples saying foolish and insensitive things by way of comparing their fruitfulness in baby-making to others. Yes, the Psalm says, “children are a heritage from the LORD” (Ps. 127:3)—FROM THE LORD. It is enough to give thanks.

Use 3. Admonition. Jacob was not helpful at all here. He is a picture of the sins particular to the man in the fall: passivity followed by reactive anger. He not only offers no better direction to his wives, even dutifully obeying their schemes to collect two more wives,4 but then blows up at Rachel rather than pray with her and more gently point her to God. We are told:

“Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Pet. 3:7).

We cannot say that Jacob never prayed during this whole ordeal, but what we do see is not worthy of emulation.

Use 4. Consolation. I could have even called this Womb Wars I because it would not be the last battle of the babies in the Bible. Later on we read of Hannah’s trial with Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, looking down on her barren womb (1 Sam. 1:2, 6-7).

It would be from an eternal vantage point that, Jeremiah says,

“A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jer. 31:15).

This was applied by the prophet, as a prototype, to the loss of life in the Babylonian siege on the city to come, and by Matthew, as an antitype, to Herod’s slaughter of the infants

In another prophet, Isaiah, the barren womb is an archetype for the church, as the city of God, moving through history, yet with no power to produce life within its walls. And Paul cites this passage in this way in Galatians 4.

“‘Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,’ says the LORD” (Isa. 54:1).

In this way, Rachel’s womb before and Hannah’s womb later, would be prototypes of our spiritual destitution before being born again. Their wombs were tombs; and so were we. Lifeless.

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1. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis, 263.

2. Belcher, Genesis, 192.

3. Belcher comments: “Mandrakes were thought to enhance sexual desire and a woman’s fertility” (Genesis, 194).

4. cf. Waltke, for a discussion of the status of the concubine made wife: Genesis: A Commentary, 411.