Genesis 29:15-30

Jacob Marries Twice
Or
Laban Plays Rebekah to Jacob’s Isaac
Or
The Youngest Was the Most Loved


Our passions can be quite conniving at times. They have this uncanny ability to dominate the direction our lives at the mere mention of anything that might tickle their fancy. And there’s often something rather fleeting about many of these seemingly random passions of ours in that they rarely have the tendency to stay around for very long. However, what’s easily the scariest about our passions is that there are some that remain a very long time and revel in their capacity to permanently blind us to the actual events taking place in our lives. We think that we have them under control, referring to them as things we “like” or “love,” when, in reality, our passions are dictating to us the terms of any given interaction, whether public or private.

But at the same time, I find my passions to be fairly fickle on a regular basis. Whether it’s a style of music, a certain song, an author, a food group, a restaurant, or even someone in my group of acquaintances, I rotate through my likes and dislikes like I’m changing underwear (a pitiful metaphor, I know). I feel that it’s human nature to undergo this vicious cycle, but that cycle is nothing compared to the spontaneous and overwhelming feeling of “I have to have that now!” And this sudden shift in our passions can quickly turn into an obsession that compels us to set everything else aside, especially our sense of judgment and what's best for us.

Thus, I present the thought that much of Jacob’s trouble in this portion of the Patriarchal Story, as well as subsequent ones in Genesis, revolve around Jacob’s passions and his propensity for allowing those passions to take the lead in decision-making. Jacob was so overcome with emotions in verses 1-14 that he removed a very heavy stone covering the well all by himself and wept openly upon seeing Rachel for the first time. Thus, when Laban offers him a chance to set any possible terms for his servitude and work, Jacob readily offers up himself as a common laborer for the hand of Rachel in marriage. However, as we shall see, Laban has other plans in store for Jacob, plans that will replay an earlier story in a dark tent with a dark twist of irony.

“Then Laban said to Jacob, ‘Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?’ … Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, ‘I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.’” (Genesis 29:15, 18; NRSV)

From the outset, it appears that Laban knows exactly what he’s going to do in terms of exploiting Jacob’s obvious and over-the-top love for Rachel. Jacob arrives at Paddan Aram with little or nothing, the exact opposite of how The Servant approached him, Rebekah, and their mother when negotiating for the hand of Rebekah in marriage to Isaac. There is no possible way for Jacob to pay the standard bride-price to prove his financial and social worth to Laban, as was required for arranged marriages in such cultures. (Alter, p154) Thus, Laban is within his rights to request Jacob’s services in exchange for Rachel’s hand in marriage, but the language that he employs is intended to display his benevolence at wanting to pay Jacob for his services and mask his desire to marry off his eldest daughter deceptively. (Hamilton, p259) The trickster is tricked and he is so blinded by his passion that he sets aside his normally shrewd tendencies and embarks blindly into his labor. (Coogan, et al; p51)

Now, you see, Laban had two daughters – Leah, the eldest, and Rachel, the youngest – and, by custom, the eldest was supposed to be married off first, a situation reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and/or Junger’s 10 Things I Hate About You. Jacob agrees to work seven years for the hand of Rachel in marriage, a time period that Jacob seems to not bother working, especially if it means that he obtains the object of his heart’s desire. However, Laban has other plans in that, when Jacob had completed the arranged period of labor, Laban tricks him into marrying Leah by veiling and disguising her, both during the marriage feast and in the marriage bed. Waking up from his slumber, Jacob discovers that the woman in his bed is not the woman he had arranged to marry and is thoroughly outraged. He confronts Laban with this deception and is met with Laban’s coolly-formed response that marrying off the younger daughter first goes against the customs of the land. The trickster may have been tricked, but this is not the first and this will not be the last time that Jacob’s past actions come back to haunt him.

Whether Jacob is aware of the cultural distinctive of the eldest having to be married first or not, it seems that Laban is fully aware of the fact that Leah must be married before Jacob can marry Rachel. Thus, the question remains – why doesn’t Laban enlist Jacob’s help in finding a husband for Leah? Why didn’t he inform Jacob of that point of cultural law? Don’t you think that Jacob would has been quite motivated to locate and/or coerce someone who is ready, willing, and/or able to ask for Leah’s hand in marriage? Why does Laban decide to deceive Jacob into marrying his eldest? Does he not think that any potential suitors will ever approach Leah? I could ask many more similar questions, but suffice to say that Laban’s course of action was one of intentional deception, forsaking logic and reason for long-term chicanery. (Hamilton, p262-263)

Regardless of his misplaced sense of timing and confronted by Jacob’s discovery of his ruse, Laban presents his son-in-law with the following option: if Jacob really wants to marry Rachel, he can work another seven years as Laban’s servant. If Jacob will wait a week, undergo another wedding feast, and work some more, Rachel is his, since Leah is now married off. And this is an arrangement to which Jacob readily assents, which is not surprising, since he willingly offered up his labor for Rachel in the first place. Victor Hamilton notes that Jacob’s character is affirmed and established in this passage – he honors both seven-year terms of labor and does not find a way to steal away with Rachel, repaying Laban’s deceit for one of his own. (Hamilton, p264)

Jacob’s integrity has been progressively rebuilt (or maybe even created for the first time) ever since his flight from home began, following his life of dishonest machinations. He was born tugging on the heel of his twin brother, he bought the birthright for a bowl of soup, and he hoodwinked his father into giving him the blessing due to the eldest son, effectively stealing the birthright that was rightfully Esau’s. Thus, specific to this story as a whole, from the dual marriages in this chapter to Joseph’s deception of his grain-seeking brothers in Genesis 44-45, Jacob is forced to bear the burdens and learn the lessons prescribed by the villainy he wrought upon his family. (Berlin & Brettler, p60)

Walter Brueggemann states it this way – “Since 25:27-24 and 27:1-45, we have known that Jacob was an effective trickster. But now he has met his match in Laban. Here Jacob is on the receiving end. He is done in. The one led and accompanied by God (28:15) is duped by his uncle. The reasoning of Laban has its own logic. And the irony of it is striking and perhaps a fair retaliation to Jacob. Since the early kick in the womb (25:22), Jacob has struggled with the ‘natural’ rights of the older. Only by subterfuge had he settled that with his own brother. And now it meets him again. The resistant reality of primogeniture blocks his love even as it blocks his inheritance. Leah is older, Rachel must wait. And so also Jacob must wait. But this time, Jacob has no trick to reverse the matter. He must wait. And he does. God is at work keeping promises again, but the keeping of promises can be delayed.” (Brueggemann, p 253)

I am not one to suggest that Jacob is set up by God here to get his “just desserts” and “he was getting what was coming to him.” However, it does appear that Jacob was the recipient of a great deal of justice here – the one who deceived his father regarding his birth order was deceived by his desired bride’s father as to the birth order of his daughters. Moreover, the fact that Jacob acquiesces to the course of events that have been handed to him is further testament to Jacob’s desire to marry Rachel and his growing understanding that he has brought this upon himself. The passions by which Jacob has lived for so long have finally risen up to receive their due position in Jacob’s life – he thought that he ruled over them, but it was they who controlled him.

Now, like many of you, you’ve heard this story portrayed in loving terms, even used in weddings to describe how Jacob was more than willing to spend the extra seven years of hard labor and that they “seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.” (Genesis 29:20, NRSV) I’m not discounting such a possibility in my discussion of this passage, but I do want to provide a shift in an interpretation that is merely cursory and simplistic. Jacob did love Rachel and he was more than willing to serve an extra seven years for Rachel’s hand in marriage, but it must be clearly stated that Jacob’s time spent in Laban’s tents was time spent with Jacob being the recipient of similar levels of deceit that he and his mother Rebekah enacted upon his father Isaac.

This story has two distinct, yet intertwined messages – Jacob does reap what he sows, but he remains focused upon obtaining that which he loves, no matter what the circumstances and obstacles. His passion blinded him to the deception, but also provided him the means by which he could make the best of the situation and come out with what he most desired – the hand of Rachel in marriage. However, Jacob’s desires in the past to obtain the birthright and receive the blessing, eschewing traditional familiar norms come to the fore later in the Story with the constant battles over children and Jacob’s favor undertaken by Leah, Rachel, and their two very fertile handmaidens (Zilpah & Bilhah) as well as the conflicts between Jacob’s children concerning who Jacob loved the most. As the Patriarchal Story infers continually, it can be quite hard for us to escape our past.