And Jacob said to Laban, Give [me] my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.
Seven years of service are over, and Jacob does not ask Laban for Rachel — he demands her, because the time is served. Two questions hang over the scene: was the bargain right at all, and why does God let Jacob's confident claim end in a trick?
The deal Jacob now calls in was wrong from the start. Both men put a price tag on a woman, and one writer sets that against the very first marriage.
Rachel did not belong to Laban, and both Jacob and Laban were completely wrong to place a mercenary value on a wife. When the Lord created a woman for Adam, He gave her to him as a gift by grace. Grace should always rule in the sacred relationship of marriage. Still, Jacob was willing to work all those seven years because of his intense love for Rachel. In fact the time seemed very short to him compared with the prospect of having her as his wife. When the time was completed he asked Laban to give him Rachel now (v. 21).
Jacob does not say the years dragged. He says they are finished — and the reason the counting felt light is love. The same love decides whether a person actually wants the Lord to come back.
Jacob had to serve seven years for his wife. They "seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (Gen. 29:20). His heart was in it, and the years flew by like days. Love wiped out time. The story explains the great secret of the power of an all-absorbing object of affection. Let us weigh this carefully. It is very clear that no such object governed the heart of the evil servant. He did not love his Lord, and he did not care about His coming.
Jacob has no gifts and no wealth to offer for Rachel. What he does have, Laban wants.
Here the outcast wanderer has nothing to recommend him but his relationship and his service. Laban was not slow to see the value of so capable a man for interests dearer to him than anything else. So the bargain was quickly struck and Jacob's eager offer instantly accepted. But then the full time of service for his bride arrived. The crafty uncle put on a wedding feast in Jacob's honour, yet he had no scruple about the cruel trick of swapping Leah for Rachel, the one Jacob had wanted from the first.
Jacob once handed deceit out to someone else. Now he is about to receive a disguised bride, and one writer says the repayment is not cold justice.
Here the second period of his life begins. He is now a stranger and a servant working for hire. He is the victim of deceit and self-advancement by Laban, his relative and morally his close kin too. The retribution runs all the way through, and no one can mistake it: the measure he handed out to another comes back to him. But it is just as impossible to miss that God, in the way He deals it out, is speaking to the heart and conscience of the wanderer. There is governmental fairness, but also the chastening of a holy love. Bethel is proving itself true. The Father disciplines every son He receives.
Jacob can claim Rachel only because the work is done. One writer finds his single likeness to the Saviour right there: the toil first, then the bride.
Then comes Rachel, "beautiful in form and appearance." Only after years of toil could Jacob claim her as his own. By day the drought consumed him and the frost by night, and sleep fled from his eyes. But love lightened the burdens and sweetened all the bitterness of those long years. "So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (Gen. 29:20). This is the only part of his life where Jacob pictures our Lord. He is the One "who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and (His toil ended) is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
- Bargain. Jacob claims a wife he priced like wages. A wife is God's gift by grace, and grace should govern marriage.
- Love. Love for Rachel wiped out time, so seven years felt like days. Love for Christ makes waiting for Him just as light.
- Empty hands. He brings no gifts, only his family tie and his work — and Laban sees exactly what that work is worth.
- Discipline. Instead of Rachel he receives Leah. The measure he handed out to another comes back to him — fair government, and a Father's loving correction.
- Christ. Here alone Jacob pictures the Lord. He endured the cross for the joy set before Him, and now, His work done, He is seated at God's right hand.
And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast.
Jacob has finished seven years of work for Rachel, and Laban throws the wedding feast. It looks like the happy end of a long wait, yet the night that follows raises a hard question: what was God doing while Laban cheated His servant?
The feast honoured Jacob in public. The deal behind it was one-sided from the start: an exile with only his work to offer, and an uncle who knew what that work was worth.
Here the outcast wanderer has nothing in his favour but his family tie and his service. Laban was not slow to see the value of so capable a man for interests dearer to him than all others. So the bargain was soon struck, and Jacob's warm offer was accepted at once. But the full time of service for his bride arrived. Then the crafty uncle, under all his show of a wedding feast in Jacob's honour, felt no shame in a cruel deceit. He put Leah in the place of Rachel, the one his heart had wanted from the first.
Jacob had once deceived his own father to get what he wanted. Now his uncle deceives him, and commentators see the same standard coming back on him.
Verses 23-30 tell how Laban deceived him at the end of the seven years. Laban had a plausible excuse for acting as he did. In this we cannot fail to see the government of God at work. It illustrates our Lord's words, "with the measure you use it will be measured to you." Now it was Jacob's turn to complain of being tricked.
The night had two lessons in it for Jacob.
There are two things Jacob has to learn on this memorable occasion. First, for his comfort: all his failures will not alter God's purpose to bless him in sovereign grace. Second, for his correction: God's sovereign grace will not hold back God's chastening hand because of his failures... He still has to go on as a lonely wanderer. He must spend long years of toil and hard service in the house of a stranger, because of his sin against his father and brother. He has to reap what he has sown.
The pattern runs through his whole life, and it does not end in gloom.
He had deceived his father and cheated his brother. In turn he was deceived and cheated by his father-in-law, and later by his own sons. But all this only makes God's grace to him shine the brighter.
The feast drew in "all the people of the place." Inside the house, the deceit needed one more person's silence.
Laban wronged Jacob deeply, in a matter that must touch a man's heart. And Leah was without doubt a willing party to the cheating breach of the marriage agreement about Rachel. She could and should have told Jacob the unworthy trick her father was playing through her. But God wanted His servant Jacob to learn more deeply, in his own wounded affections, how vile self-seeking deceit is. So He allowed what He would use for chastening and for good in the end.
Jacob ends up with the wife he did not choose, and she is the one who bears children. Commentators read this in more than one way. Some see God's dealings with Israel and the nations:
I have no doubt that in the two wives we have the Gentiles and Israel. Rachel was loved first on the earth, but not gained. Leah was the fruitful mother of children.
Others draw it inward, to the gap between who we want to be and who we are:
Rachel (meaning "sheep") pictures the lovely state of soul that believers would like to reach: humble submission to God. She was the desire of Jacob's heart. But in struggling to get Rachel, he only got Leah, meaning "wearied." Leah is a picture of what I really am, not what I want to be.
- Feast — the celebration was real, and so was the plan behind it. Honour shown in daylight covered a swap made in the dark.
- Measure — the man who deceived his own father received the wrong bride from his father-in-law. The standard he used came back to him.
- Government — God did not step in to stop it; He used it, so Jacob would feel in his own wounded love how hateful deceit is.
- Grace — his failures never cancelled God's purpose to bless him. Discipline and sovereign grace ran side by side, and the grace shines brighter for it.
- Picture — the wife he wanted first was not the wife he received first. Some read this of Israel and the nations, others of the gap between what we long to be and what we are.
And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in to her.
Jacob had worked seven years for the woman he loved. On the wedding night, in the dark, Laban put the elder sister in Rachel's place. Two questions rise at once: how did it happen, and why did God let the deceiver be deceived?
Darkness did the work. Jacob had no way to see who was brought to him.
So Laban made a marriage feast for them. When evening came — and with it darkness, with only very dim light at best — Laban had Leah go to share Jacob's bed with him. Jacob had no suspicion of this until the morning. Perhaps he had drunk too much wine at the feast. But he was not prepared for such dishonest deception from a close relative.
The next morning Laban had an answer ready: in his country, he said, the elder daughter must marry first.
If he were honest, he would at least have told Jacob this when they made the agreement seven years earlier! Maybe Laban made up this rule in his own mind and then treated it as his country's custom! Surely, if it had been the usual custom, Jacob would have heard of it during those seven years. But Laban knew that the best way to get Jacob to continue working for him was to do just what he did.
Laban's excuse was not the whole story. A higher hand was at work.
Laban had a believable excuse for acting as he did. But we cannot miss the working of the government of God here. It illustrates our Lord's words: "with the measure you use it will be measured to you." It was Jacob's turn now to complain of being beguiled.
The payback even matches the detail. Jacob had once brushed aside his brother's place as elder son.
The deception by his uncle might well have reminded Jacob that he had once deceived a relative himself — his own father. Such things have a way of coming back, under the governing hand of God. It is a striking fact that people who take up the character of deceivers will very likely be deceived themselves. Here too Jacob learned, painfully, the rights of a firstborn — rights he had ignored in the case of his brother Esau.
But this is not cold payback.
You cannot mistake the repayment running through it all. The measure he gave to another is measured back to him. But you also cannot miss that, in the way it is handed out, God is speaking to the heart and conscience of the wanderer. There is fairness in God's government, but also the chastening of a holy love.
Two people wronged Jacob that night, not one. And God had reasons for letting it happen.
Laban wronged Jacob badly, in a matter that must touch a man's heart deeply. And Leah, beyond doubt, agreed to the cheating that broke the marriage agreement about Rachel. She could and should have told Jacob the shabby trick her father was playing through her. But God wanted His servant Jacob to learn, in his own wounded love, how vile selfish deceit is. So He allowed what He would use in the end for chastening and for good.
One writer traces the trouble further back, to the bargain itself.
Jacob got Leah by bargaining. In doing so he badly misrepresented the marriage relationship, which pictures the relationship between Christ and the church so beautifully — a relationship of pure grace. He brought it down to the level of a mere legal deal instead of seeing it as a thing of pure grace. What was the price here? Seven years of wages. It was completely wrong; a wife is worth far more than that.
One writer reads the order of the two marriages as a picture of Christ's own path.
Rachel is a picture of Israel, Christ's earthly bride. Jacob sought Rachel first, but received Leah first. So Christ came first to Israel; Israel rejected Him, and He received the church first. Leah, like the church, is the fruitful one.
- Sowing. Jacob deceived his own father; now, in the dark, his father-in-law deceives him. The measure he used is measured back to him.
- Precision. The repayment fits the crime. He ignored a firstborn's rights; now an elder daughter's rights bind him.
- Purpose. The wrong was real, and Leah shared in it. Yet God allowed it, so Jacob would feel in his own heart how hateful deceit is.
- Love. This is not bare payback. It is the chastening of a holy love, and God is speaking to the wanderer's conscience.
- Grace. Marriage pictures the pure grace between Christ and the church. Jacob dragged it down into a bargain, and paid a price for a bride worth far more.
And Laban gave to her Zilpah, his maidservant, to be maidservant to Leah his daughter.
Jacob worked seven years to marry Rachel. On the wedding night Laban sent Leah instead, and with her a servant girl named Zilpah — the woman who would become the mother of two of Israel's tribes.
The gift of this servant belongs to a night of fraud. Jacob made an eager offer, Laban took it at once, then broke it when the seven years were up.
So they soon struck the bargain, and Laban took Jacob's eager offer at once. But when the full term of service for his bride was up, the crafty uncle put on a wedding feast in Jacob's honour. Behind all that show he had no scruple about the cruel deceit of putting Leah in the place of Rachel, the one Jacob's heart had wanted from the first.
Jacob had used deceit before. Now deceit falls on him, and commentators read the whole episode as God's dealing with him, not bad luck.
Verses 23-30 tell how Laban deceived him at the end of the seven years, and Laban had a plausible excuse for acting as he did. We cannot fail to see here the working of the government of God. It illustrates our Lord's words: "With the measure you use it will be measured to you." Now it was Jacob's turn to complain that someone had tricked him.
The wrong was real, and Leah kept silent when she could have spoken. God allowed it because He meant to work something in Jacob through it.
Laban wronged Jacob badly, in a matter bound to cut a man to the heart. Leah was beyond doubt a willing party to this cheating breach of the marriage agreement about Rachel. She could and should have told Jacob the unworthy trick her father was playing through her. But God wanted His servant Jacob to learn something deeper. In his own wounded heart he would feel how vile self-seeking deceit is. So God allowed it, and He would use it for chastening and for good in the end.
The Bible names this servant again long after the wedding night. Two of Jacob's sons came from her.
Servant of Leah, and through her Jacob became the father of Gad and Asher. Gen. 29:24; Gen. 30:9-12; Gen. 35:26; Gen. 37:2; Gen. 46:18.
The names in this story carry meaning of their own. One writer traces them from patience, through tribulation, to terror and tears.
Rachel, "sheep," seems to stand for the meekness and patience of true discipleship. That is the very opposite of Jacob's self-willed and unrestrained temper up to now. But he could only win her through unwanted Leah, whose name, "wearied," suggests the "tribulation" that works out "patience." And even then, before Rachel had a child, and in despair of ever having one, the maidservants came in — Bilhah, "terror," and Zilpah, "a dropping" (as of tears).
Leah later gave Zilpah to Jacob, matching what Rachel had done with her own maid. The names of the sons record the contest between the two sisters.
The names Rachel gave the sons of Bilhah expressed the state of her soul, and her attitude toward her sister. Dan and Naphtali do not tell us of grace, but of satisfaction in scoring points of strife. Leah was drawn into the snare, and through Zilpah she would match that advantage. The names she gave Zilpah's sons, Gad and Asher, do not carry the contention that ruled Rachel's spirit; but they fall far short of the faith Leah showed in naming her own sons.
The sons of Jacob arrive in a tangled order. One writer sees man's own hand behind it.
This order speaks to us of man's plans acting according to his own thoughts, outside the thoughts of God. We see these plans in Laban's giving his daughters to Jacob and in Rachel and Leah giving Jacob their maidservants.
Yet God did not disown the children born from that tangle.
God's institution of marriage was the union of one man and one woman — the two, and only two, becoming one. What is more than this is not of God, but comes from human lust. Jacob's two wives gave their maidservants to their husband, and so he had four wives. God reckoned the twelve sons of these four women equally as sons of Jacob, and they became the heads of the twelve tribes. It might have been thought that God would not have blessed the offspring of these unions, but He did.
- Handed over. Laban passed Zilpah to Leah on the night he swapped one daughter for another — a gift folded inside a deliberate fraud.
- Measured back. The deceiver was deceived. Writers see God's government here, measuring back to Jacob what he had measured out.
- Aimed at the heart. God allowed the wrong so that Jacob's own wounded heart would teach him how vile self-seeking deceit is.
- Misused. Leah later handed this servant on to Jacob, and the names of Zilpah's sons fell short of the faith Leah once showed.
- Reckoned anyway. Human scheming arranged these marriages, yet God counted all twelve sons as Jacob's and made them heads of Israel's tribes.
And it came to pass in the morning, that behold, it was Leah. And he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done to me? Have I not served thee for Rachel? Why then hast thou deceived me?
Jacob wakes after his wedding night and finds the wrong woman beside him. His protest to Laban is a cry of betrayal — from a man who had once played the same trick on his own father. The chapter raises two questions at once: what kind of man was Laban, and what was God doing with Jacob?
The trick worked because Laban controlled the whole wedding, and because darkness hid everything until daylight.
When evening came, darkness fell with it, and there was only very dim light at best. Laban sent Leah to share Jacob's bed, and Jacob suspected nothing until morning. He may have drunk too much wine at the feast. But he was in no way ready for such a shameless trick from a close relative.
The wrong was real. Jacob had kept his side of the bargain in full. The man who took his work broke faith with him.
Jacob asks, "Why then have you deceived me?" His father Isaac could once have asked him the same question. One writer notes how well God's discipline fit the crime.
Under the government of God, Jacob found himself in the hands of a man even more selfish than himself. God's discipline fit his case remarkably well, and it came through his marriage. He was deceived over Laban's two daughters, just as Isaac had been deceived by his two sons. Age had blinded Isaac; the strange marriage customs of the east blinded Jacob.
This was not a one-off. It was a pattern: Jacob deceived a relative, and a relative deceived him.
Such things have a way of coming back on a man, under the governing hand of God. It is a striking fact that people who take on the character of deceivers will very likely be deceived themselves (2 Tim. 3:13). Here too Jacob learned, with pain, the rights of a firstborn — rights he had ignored in the case of his brother Esau.
God's purpose to bless Jacob never wavered. But it did not shield him from the consequences of what he had done.
First, for his comfort, he will learn that all his failures will not change God's purpose to bless him in sovereign grace. Second, for his correction, he will learn that God's sovereign grace will not hold back God's chastening hand because of his failures. The sovereign grace of the Lord will not set aside the faithful government of the Lord... He has to reap what he has sown. If Jacob deceives his father with the skins of goats, then in the years to come his own sons will deceive him with the blood of a goat.
The pain had a purpose. Jacob had to feel from the inside what he had made his father feel.
Here it was the LORD dealing with Jacob, so that he would judge himself. He would learn from his own experience how hateful it is to give in to deceit — even when the aim was to gain the birthright or the blessing over a godless brother... In this way a person gets used to the fact that he has to do with God in the little things of life, as people count them, as well as in the greatest.
Leah does not come out of this innocent either. She could have warned Jacob in time.
Leah was without doubt a willing party to this cheating breach of the marriage agreement over Rachel. She could and should have told Jacob what a shameful trick her father was playing through her. But God wanted His servant Jacob to learn, in his own wounded heart, how vile self-seeking deceit is. So He allowed what He would use in the end for chastening and for good.
One writer reads the two wives as a picture of something larger. In this reading each woman stands for a people God calls.
Rachel represents Israel, the Messiah's first object of love on earth. But this fails, and through no fault of His. And He has Leah, who stands for the call of the Gentile nations that comes in between, while Jacob serves and suffers greatly.
- Sowing. Jacob fooled a blind father about two sons. Laban fooled a bridegroom in the dark about two daughters. The match is too close to be an accident.
- Reaping. The wrong done to Jacob was genuine wickedness in Laban, and at the same time the hand of God governing His own child.
- Grace. God's purpose to bless Jacob stood untouched. Being loved by God does not cancel the harvest of what we plant.
- Purpose. God aimed the pain at Jacob's conscience. Jacob had to learn for himself how hateful deceit is — and to deal with God in small daily matters, not only in crises.
- Result. Jacob reaped what he had sown. Yet God used the long years of service and sorrow to chasten a schemer and bring good in the end.