Lessons from the Wife Jacob Did Not Love
There is a woman in the Bible who can sympathize. Her name is Leah and she was the unloved wife of Jacob. Sometimes we can read the Bible with rose-colored glasses, believing the patriarchs are these great men we should look up to. But the truth is, God didn’t choose men because they were great. And he didn’t choose women because they were beautiful or gifted. Consider the sisters Rachel and Leah. Rachel was beautiful and Jacob fell deeply in love with her (Genesis 29). Leah is Rachel’s older sister who the text describes as having weak eyes. Even though Laban tricked Jacob into marrying her before Rachel, he did not love her. Genesis 29 even says Leah was hated (v 31). What pain Leah must have been in, stuck in such a situation. Knowing her father had given her to a man who hadn’t asked for her and who didn’t care for her.
But there is a ray of light for Leah. God sees that she is hated and he takes action to bless her and show her his love. He gives her children. In the ancient world, children were considered a blessing because they carried on the family line and would care for the parents in their old age. But God closed Rachel’s womb, meaning he withheld blessing from her.
At first, Leah hoped that God gave her children so that her husband would love her (v 31-34). But by the third son Leah realizes he may never love her. Her perspective shifts and she realizes that God’s love is what her children are meant to provide her for she says, “‘This time I will praise the Lord.’ Therefore she called his name Judah.” How many of us have had similar thoughts? Perhaps you think, “if I could just be more like this” or “if I could just have this” then I will be loved, happier, content, etc. Do you identify with Leah?
Leah realized that God was giving her children because he saw her affliction and he loved her. And it was God's love that made all the difference in her life. Leah’s story reminds us that God sees our affliction and responds. In fact, the Bible is full of women who suffered much but God used these women to bring about the world’s greatest gift. He saw their pain and redeemed it. Judah is the son of Leah. God used the line of Judah to bring forth the Messiah. He used the son of the hated woman to bring about redemption. This is a truth worth meditating upon.
Consider also other members in the genealogy of Jesus. We are told specifically which wife of David Jesus comes from. Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. Bathsheba who was raped by David, whose husband was murdered by David. Can you imagine Bathsheba’s sorrow and affliction? Why are we reminded that Bathsheba was first the wife of Uriah, not of David? It’s there for you. And when we look at other women of the Bible you see a theme repeated. God speaks and says, “out of your womb shall come the redeemer, the messiah, the one who will bear the sins of the world.” Jesus himself was a man of sorrows (Is. 53). And we see through the pages of scripture that he comes from a long line of women of sorrows. Women who have gone unloved, unnoticed, taken advantage of, who know loss and sorrow on a scale I can’t even imagine. Women who know shame and dishonor. Women whose pains the world will never hear of and whose family may never care about. Women who share in the afflictions Christ would later bear but testify to God's enduring and gracious love.
God used these afflicted women to bring forth their redemption. The grief of barrenness turns to joy in Sarah, in the wife of Zechariah, in Hannah. The afflictions of Leah and Bathsheba and Tamar turned to joy when their offspring led to the very Son of God. In these stories, we get to see that even in the midst of the darkest nights of the soul, the ray of God’s shining favor, his glorious face brighter than the sun that will one day fill the new heavens and the new earth, streaks through the darkness to touch these women.
God continues to comfort the afflicted today. Even though we may long for the day when we enter the kingdom of heaven and see that there is no sun because the whole world is filled with the light that is God himself. His presence will fill every nook and cranny, every last bit of darkness will be gone forever. But even now, even today, a ray of that divine light of God’s loving presence is touching you.
It is like the ray of light that comes from the end of a tunnel that lets you know there’s a way out. It’s the light that you keep your eye on as you walk. It’s the light you cling to when the walls seem to be closing in. It’s that ray, or maybe just a speck, of light that tells you there’s an end up ahead, even in your darkest of hours. As it says in the benediction used by many pastors, “may God’s face shine upon you.” Brothers and Sisters, God’s face is now, today, shining upon you with glorious divine favor in Christ Jesus.
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