Jacob’s Wives, and the Wives’ Jacob
Sermon preached by the Rev. John Elliott Lein at St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church on July 26, 2020, on the following texts: Genesis 29:15-28, Psalm 105:1-11, 45b, Romans 8:26-39, and Matthew 13:31-33,44-52.
A few weeks ago we set out on a journey in Genesis following a guy named Jacob, of “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” fame, and today we have come to the third of four lectionary selections devoted to his life.
In today’s episode, we find our prospective patriarch to have arrived in the household of his uncle Laban where his mother Rebekah had ordered him to search for a wife. He’s successfully used his deceitful tricks on first his brother and then on his father in order to steal firstborn rights and blessings, before fleeing the country in fear of his life. Last week we found him in two heroic-style encounters first with God and then with some shepherds, a well, a pretty cousin, and some sheep.
It seems that all is falling into place for Jacob, but there are some surprises around the corner—he doesn’t know it yet, but he’s met his literal match in his uncle Laban. Jacob may be a blood relative, and now legal heir to Laban’s brother-in-law Isaac’s rich holdings back in Canaan, but he’s arrived in Harran with several weaknesses: he’s completely dependent on his uncle’s hospitality, his ego is swollen to bursting due to his successes in both deception and heroic stone-lifting, and finally, he’s fallen in love. Possibly for the first time in his life, there’s something more important to him than in trying to get ahead or take advantage of others. The crafty Laban sees that gleam in his nephew’s eye and hatches a scheme.
From the first lines of the reading, it’s clear that his uncle is a stingy fellow. Jacob’s seeming “open-hearted welcome” in the household has been obtained at the cost of a month’s uncompensated labor. By this point the hook has been set, and when Laban broaches the subject of pay he’s rewarded with a lucrative arrangement. Jacob’s request for the hand of Rachael in exchange for seven years of work is an ideal option for the wealthy father of two daughters. Laban not only avoids having to pay a pricy dowry, but actually receives a substantial amount of labor in return.
But the conniving uncle isn’t content with even this bargain. Once the seven years of labor has passed and the wedding celebration is held, he slips in a replacement—the elder sister Leah. In answer to Jacob’s outcry upon discovery of the deceit the following day, Laban invents a cover story that may have little credibility on the surface but hits Jacob square in the jaw:
“Such is not done in our place, giving away the younger before the firstborn; fill out the bridal-week for this one, and we shall give you that one also; for the service which you will serve me for yet another seven years.”
The word choices make it clear that this is biblical justice for Jacob’s deceptive theft from his brother’s rights. In his place, Jacob had done what was “not done;” he as the younger had taken what belonged to the firstborn, Esau.
There’s an imaginative Jewish story, from an interpretive genre called midrash, that emphasizes this point by depicting a similar conversation between Jacob and Leah:
“And all that night he cried out to her, ‘Rachel!’ and she answered him. In the morning, ‘and,...look, she was Leah.’ He said to hear, ‘Why did you deceive me, daughter of a deceiver? Didn’t I call out Rachel in the night, and you answered me!’ She said: ‘There is never a bad barber who doesn’t have disciples. Isn’t this how your father cried out Esau, and you answered him?’ ” — Midrash Bereishit Rabba
Chastened, unable any longer to appeal for a fairness that he had denied his own brother, Jacob swallows and accepts another seven years’ labor for his beloved Rachel.
But Jacob has not finished reaping what he has sown, nor faced all the repercussions stemming from the disfunction of his family of origin. As the years roll by, Jacob’s new family grows in both numbers and divisions while Jacob himself seems to fade into the background for most of the twenty years in Harran.
When we first met Rachel, the narrator told us that she was a shepherd—the archetypal/ideal Israelite occupation usually reserved for men with implications of leadership and independence. While Jacob spends his life in love with her, we are left wondering whether that love is ever returned. On the other hand, the elder Leah seems quiet and passive while tragically longing for her husband’s love in a way which is never given. Neither seem to be given any say in their marriage to Jacob, in stark contrast to their aunt Rebekah’s autonomy in accepting Isaac’s proposal many years earlier. And both become fiercely competitive over bearing children—something of immense social value in their culture.
For the bulk of two chapters, the inner narrative of Jacob’s family plays out through these two women and their child-naming and -getting schemes, ensnaring others along the way. First there is Leah, bearing four children while Rachel’s jealousy grows. Finally Rachel bursts in to Jacob and demands, “Give me sons—if you don’t I’m a dead woman!” only to hear his logical yet harsh response, “Am I God that you would ask this?” So Rachel turns to an ancient playbook, one we saw a couple months back with her grandmother-in-law. She owns a slavegirl, who was owned first by her father and then given to her as a marriage gift. Without consideration of Bilhah’s desires or ownership of her own body, Rachel demands that Jacob produce surrogate sons with this slave and he complies. Not to be outdone, Leah does the same with her slavegirl Zilpah. This bitter inter-family drama continues for years even as Rachel finally births her own son while the other three wives—one “free” and the other two simply tools in the hands of the sisters in the form of voiceless and powerless slaves—compete through the births of ten sons for a total of eleven (for now) plus disregarded daughters.
You can imagine how Jacob might prefer throwing himself into his work rather than setting aside quality family time. But over time, even that effort grows wearisome as he’s still barely more than a hired-hand for Laban.
Finally, nearly two decades after arriving in Harran, Jacob decides it’s time to establish his own household rather than existing within his uncle’s. But his struggles aren’t over yet. According to the local tradition, Jacob has no rights regarding his wives and children, let alone any other assets to show for years of labor. He has to go begging to Laban to allow him to take his family with him when he departs for Canaan.
Laban has a moment of weakness, recognizing how much wealth he has taken unjustly from his own nephew and the father of his grandchildren. But Jacob wisely does not trust his uncle’s seeming open offer of recompense and it will soon be Laban’s turn-about. Jacob requests only that he be allowed to have the striped and spotted goats and sheep among the flocks—uncommon and regressive traits. Not only does Laban leap at this seemingly cheap gift, he turns around and orders his own sons to immediately separate all matching animals and hide them in a location several days away.
Expecting this, Jacob cracks his knuckles and gets to work. Under the cover of setting out some “magic sticks,” he draws on all his years of animal husbandry and manages to pair the goats and sheep remaining with such skill that after a few more years not only does he end up with a large quantity but has the best quality as well!
When Laban’s sons see what Jacob has done, they are furious, and Jacob sees it’s time to leave for home. While Rachel and Leah are at odds with each other, it’s clear that they blame their father for what has transpired and they are both delighted to join Jacob in taking what they can and running before Laban can discover their plans.
In the end, Laban and Jacob both lose even as they gain. Laban pursues and catches the runaways, but then is forced to recognize how he has driven and destroyed away his own family connections and must finally release them. Jacob escapes the near-slavery that his uncle has had him in, with wealth and a family to boot, but cannot escape the haunting legacy of his deceptions and division.
Yes, Jacob is blessed, but he cannot escape the consequences of his choices nor of the legacy his own divided family upbringing has left him. His misbegotten divine promise is honored by God, but it does not shield him from reaping exactly what he’s sowed.
While much of today’s story is either a direct response to the previous two, or a set up for subsequent ones, I think it’s also worth dwelling on for its own sake.
When Jacob sets in motion the ripples of deceit, he has no idea how far they will spread and how many will be affected:
Even though he will eventually become the wealthy householder he was promised, he
first must exchange his free and easy life for that of a hunted refugee and indentured
servant;
and though he will find some aspects of reconciliation in the end, his sibling rivalry is
reflected in the bitter rivalries of his wives and later also his sons;
and though eventually Exodus will happen, his complicity in abusing the bodies of slaves
for descendants will result in the enslavement in Egypt of all his descendants within a generation or two.
The parallels and echoes expand even beyond this short list, but the implications are clear. The grace of God on an eternal level coexists with the temporal experiences of living with consequences of our mistakes, which may in turn hurt many more than we feel we have been hurt by unless we can somehow find the strength and support to begin changing those generational and relational narratives. Yet at one and the same time we are still God’s children and beloved. These can be hard truths to hold together.
Life isn’t always simple, or easy, or black and white. As many a great theologian has said, we are each “simultaneously sinner and saint.” And that very human and divine complexity is what the story of Jacob shows us in stark and dramatic ways.
AMEN.
