Bible Verse of the Day
Today’s verse is Genesis 30:15, with commentary quoting trusted Christian commentators.
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.”
Two sisters, married to the same man, are bargaining, and the price is a night with their husband. Leah answers with an old grievance over a stolen husband, and Rachel offers the night as payment.
The Root: A Marriage God Never Designed
The bitterness here starts further back than the mandrakes. One writer traces it to the same source as the trouble in other homes where a man took more than one wife.
Marriage was set up at the start to give a man one companion only. Plural marriages appear never to have worked well in practice. Look at the humiliating discord in Abraham's family over the servant Hagar, and in Jacob's family, the bitter jealousies between the two sisters, Rachel and Leah.
No Cover-Up, No Excuse
Scripture softens nothing here. The mandrakes were prized plants — "love-apples" — that both sisters linked with having a child.
Scripture draws no veil over their shameful unbelief and mean jealousy. It makes no excuse for their superstitious trust in the power of love-apples, just like other Syrian women who gave themselves only to the empty things of the pagan nations. Rachel clearly gained nothing by what the boy Reuben found. But God pitied Leah, who longed to share her husband's affection, and she bore him a fifth son and a sixth, and a daughter as well.
Notice the outcome. Rachel paid for the plants and gained nothing by them. Leah bore more children, and the reason given is God's pity, not the mandrakes.
Two Women, Neither Satisfied
Leah's sharp answer is not the reaction of a woman at peace. She had never had a full share of her husband's affection, and now the plants were being asked for too.
As soon as Reuben brings her mandrakes, she sees the possibility of having another son. Rachel tried to get some for the same reason, but Leah answered her sharply (v. 15). She knew what Rachel was after. So neither of them was content: the struggle continues.
What Envy Does to a Heart
The thing fought over is small. One writer pictures envy at exactly that scale, then names the damage it does.
We are like a child in a nursery who pouts and frets because the other child has an apple a size larger than his own. And the child holding the big apple was the naughty one! Oh, what mischief can envy work in the heart of a believer! And what misery too it can produce, and what sin!
The Bargain and Its Short Result
Rachel's offer sets a price on Jacob. The word "hire" then turns up in the name of the son who follows, and the bargain still falls short.
Mandrakes were clearly a cherished delicacy, and Jacob let himself be persuaded to share his bed with Leah that night. His natural appetite leads him, and Leah bears another son, Issachar, meaning "he will be hired." Then she has a sixth son of her own, named Zebulun, which means "dwelling." These six are all the sons Leah herself bore. This pictures how people can struggle hard to reach their own ends but always come short. Seven is the number of completeness, while six is the number of man's working week.
The names Leah chose show where her heart was.
But how strangely low Leah's state was in seeing Issachar as her wages from God, because she had given her servant to Jacob! And in naming Zebulun she was clinging to the hope that her husband's love would now last.
Grace Rising Above the Whole Scene
Why record a squabble like this at all? Because the family being described here is the family the nation of Israel came from — and the family the Christ came from.
They show us, true to life, the humbling history of the ancestor of a people God chose to be His own possession on the earth, despite these petty ways. They also let us into the secret of God's grace. That grace rose above everything His nature of light and love found beyond measure detestable. It even looked ahead to the One who would come from this very family — the Christ who is over all, God blessed for ever, as truly God as His Father.
Summary
- Root. The rivalry is the fruit of a marriage God never designed; plural marriages "appear never to have worked well in practice."
- Rivalry. Leah's sharp answer exposes a home where neither woman was content — "the struggle continues."
- Bargain. Rachel trades a night with her husband for a delicacy, and the son who follows carries the name "he will be hired."
- Shortfall. People "struggle hard to reach their own ends but always come short" — Leah reaches six, never seven.
- Grace. Scripture excuses nothing, yet God's grace rose above it all, and out of this very family came the Christ.