And Zilpah Leah's maidservant bore Jacob a second son.
Genesis 30 records a painful contest between two sisters over sons. This verse records the fourth son born to a servant, which raises a question: what does God do with children born into a home at war with itself?
These births come out of competition, not faith. The women who bore the children had no say in what followed.
Genesis 30:1-21 tells the sordid story of Jacob's children. It tells how both Rachel and Leah plotted to gain sons and so secure themselves in his favour. Here we have the origin of the tribes in these sons, and Leah and Rachel named them. The servant women did not name their own sons. The four tribes that came from them do not appear to have made any particular mark in the nation's later history.
Rachel had already given her servant to Jacob. Leah answered with a move of her own. The names she chose for Zilpah's two sons tell us where her heart now stood.
Leah fell into the same trap, and through Zilpah she would match that advantage. She named Zilpah's sons Gad and Asher. Those names do not reflect the contention that governed Rachel's spirit, but they by no means rose to the level of faith she had shown in naming her own sons. Every wrong has its effect among men and its judgment before Himself. Yet it is God's right to cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him, the called according to purpose. He at least is good and does good, whatever man has to mourn.
Leah now had a fourth son through her servant. The meanings of the boys' names show what she was reaching for.
When Leah had no more children, she used the same tactics as Rachel. She gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob, and he had a son by her. Leah named him Gad, and she named the next son Asher (vv. 9-13). Gad means "a troop" and Asher means "happy." So we find human support (a troop), and we try to make ourselves happy as we are. We never reach the state we want, and Leah is not satisfied with this… So neither of them was really content: the struggle goes on.
This arrangement fell far short of what God set up at the beginning. Yet the son born here was not treated as second class.
All this shows that God set up marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The two, and only two, become one. Anything more than this is not of God, but is of human lust… Jacob's two wives gave their servants 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 fruit of these unions, but He did.
All this took place during Jacob's twenty years away from home. Family growth and hard service ran side by side.
During his twenty years of exile, Jacob enjoys no further such revelations of His presence. In the meantime, God deals with him as one for whom He has purposes of blessing. He can only reach that blessing through painful discipline. God multiplies him mainly through unwelcome Leah and the servant women, while he serves long and with hard labour for wives and flocks. Like his descendants, he is multiplied as the dust, while trampled into it.
Centuries later Israel's story had collapsed. Yet a small faithful group still waited for Christ, and one of them came from the tribe descended from this child.
The blessing of Asher in Deut. 33:24-25 ends with these lovely words: "as your days, so shall your strength be." Yet all went to ruin, as the history of Israel unfolds. Yet at the first coming of Christ, the godly remnant of the people were "waiting for the consolation of Israel." Among them we find one of that same tribe: "a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher"… And the Lord Christ Himself became identified with that obscure remnant. She was one of them.
- Rivalry. Rachel's scheme became Leah's scheme. Each sister used her servant to outdo the other, and neither was content.
- Silence. The servants bore the sons but did not name them. The rival wives chose the names, and those names fell short of faith.
- Mercy. What was far below God's own pattern for marriage did not stop Him blessing the children born from it.
- Discipline. God multiplied Jacob's family in his hardest years, while hard service trampled him like dust.
- Harvest. This birth began a tribe that made little mark in Israel. Yet Anna came from it, still waiting for Christ when He came.
And Leah said, Happy am I; for the daughters will call me blessed! and she called his name Asher.
Two sisters are competing for Jacob, and Leah's servant Zilpah has just borne a second son. Leah names him Asher, which means "happy" — but commentators ask whether that happiness was real, and where God is in her words.
Leah is copying Rachel, who had already given her servant to Jacob to gain sons. One writer reads the two names Leah gives Zilpah's boys as a picture of what people grab for when they cannot get what they really want.
When Leah had no more children, she used the same tactics as Rachel. She gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob, and he had a son by her. Leah named him Gad, and named a second son Asher (vv. 9-13). Gad means "a troop" and Asher means "happy." So we find human support (a troop), and we try to make ourselves happy as we are, without reaching the state we desire. But Leah is not satisfied with this... Neither of them was actually content: the struggle continues.
Earlier, Leah had put God into the names of her own sons. Reuben and Simeon confessed that the Lord saw and heard her; Judah was pure praise. With Zilpah's sons, that thread drops. One writer traces the divine names through these chapters and notices the gap exactly here.
Leah was hated compared with Rachel (Gen. 29). Jehovah, under that name, stepped in with His special regard for her sorrow. She put this into the name of her first-born son, Reuben, and His hearing into her second, Simeon... but Jehovah has praise when she bore Judah... Leah, following Rachel's example, gains through Zilpah Gad and Asher, but makes no acknowledgment of the divine name in either form.
So Leah announces her happiness without naming God at all. Her measure of blessing is what the women around her will say.
Names in this chapter work like a window. Rachel's choices, Dan and Naphtali, breathe rivalry; Leah's are gentler but thinner. The same writer weighs Gad and Asher against the faith she had reached before, and then lifts the whole scene into God's hands.
The names Rachel gave the sons of Bilhah expressed the state of her soul, and her attitude towards her sister. Dan and Naphtali do not tell us of grace, but of satisfaction in gaining points of strife on her own part. Leah was drawn into the snare and through Zilpah would equal that advantage. The names she gave Zilpah's sons, Gad and Asher, do not reflect the contention that governed Rachel's spirit. Even so, they came nowhere near the faith she had shown in naming her own sons. Every wrong has its effect among men, and its judgment before God Himself. But it is His prerogative to cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him, the called according to purpose.
The Bible does not tidy this household up. It records the manoeuvring plainly, and from it the twelve tribes of Israel come.
Genesis 30:1-21 tells the sordid story of Jacob's children, and of the schemes of both Rachel and Leah. They tried to gain sons and so establish themselves in his favour. Here we have the origins of the tribes in these sons, whom Leah and Rachel named. The handmaids did not name their own sons. The four tribes descended from them do not appear to have made any particular mark in the later history of the nation.
Why does God let such material stand in His book? Because Scripture is meant to show us ourselves as much as it shows us God.
We have man as he is, as nowhere else: the truth is told us so that we may know ourselves as well as God. Hence the interest and importance of inspired light on what the proud selfishness of man's mind is inclined to despise as mere domestic quarrels.
Leah spoke of happiness she had grabbed for herself. God later filled that same word with something she never planned. When Moses blessed the tribes before his death, Asher stands last and stands for joy that lasts.
Asher, meaning "happy," fittingly ends this interesting list. "Asher is most blessed of sons: let him be favoured by his brothers, and let him dip his foot in oil" (v. 24). Again, all Israel is represented in the lasting joy that Asher speaks of. "They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Isa. 35:10).
The word even left a mark on Israel's songbook. The Psalms that open with "Blessed" carry Asher's name. One writer, quoting verse 13 in an older translation, sorts them by who is called happy.
It is worth noting that these Psalms beginning "blessed" the Jews call Asherite Psalms. Asher was the name of one of Jacob's sons. The mother, delighted with her child, called him Asher — "Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed."... First, Psalm 1 is the blessing of someone who has perfectly done God's will. It makes no allowance for any evil — all Christ. Second, Psalm 32 is the blessing of the poor sinner. He has not a shred of righteousness of his own, but is grafted into Christ.
- Happy, claimed. Asher means "happy." Leah's cry names a happiness she arranged for herself through her servant — the same tactic Rachel used.
- Happy, unnamed. She had once put God into her sons' names, right up to praise in Judah. With Gad and Asher she leaves God's name out.
- Happy, unsatisfied. The verse sounds like victory. Yet neither sister was content, and the struggle for Jacob's favour goes straight on.
- Happy, overruled. Every wrong has its effect, and its judgment before God. Yet He still causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him.
- Happy, fulfilled. The name outlived the boast. Asher stands for lasting joy in a later blessing on the tribes, and the "blessed" Psalms that carry his name find that happiness in Christ.