When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. (Genesis 29:31)
Family life has its challenges, but the difficulties and complications multiply exponentially when people decide to ignore God’s way and God’s will, and they do what seems pleasing or what the culture promotes.
From the beginning, God ordained that marriage be between one man and one woman, with the intention of a life-long commitment (Matthew 19:4-6). Sometimes out of tragedy, sometimes out of weakness, sometimes out of rebellion, people don’t follow God’s way, and the result is lots of pain and trouble.
The marriage of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis 29 is an example of this. Traveling to the land of his mother’s ancestors, Jacob met Rachel at a well and immediately fell in love. Having no money for a dowery, he agreed to work for her father (his name was Laban) for 7 years to earn the right to marry her. He was so in love with Rachel that the seven years seemed only like a few days (Genesis 29:20). Yet Laban tricked Jacob and, under cover of the bridal veil and the darkness of the wedding night, gave Jacob Rachel’s older sister Leah.
Jacob loved Rachel but was tricked into marrying both Rachel and Leah. In a family as strange as this, it isn’t surprising that Leah felt neglected and unloved.
God’s compassion on Leah was wonderful: When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved. She was truly the innocent party in all this mess, yet God brought comfort and blessing to her, and in a sense, He meet her needs even when her husband acted in an ungodly manner.
Martin Luther wrote of Leah’s plight: “Wretched Leah sits sadly in her tent with her maid and spends her time spinning and weeping. For the rest of the household, and especially Rachel, despises her because she has been scorned by her husband, who prefers Rachel and is desperately in love with Rachel alone. She is not beautiful, not pleasing. No, she is odious and hated… There the poor girl sits; no one pays any attention to her. Rachel gives herself airs before; she does not deign to look at her. ‘I am the lady of the house,’ she thinks, ‘Leah is a slave.’ These are truly carnal things in the saintly fathers and mothers, like the things that usually happen in our houses.”
Then God gave unloved Leah a special blessing: He opened her womb. The LORD was good to Leah, even when her husband wasn’t, and when her sister wasn’t.
Maybe you see yourself in Leah’s place. Maybe you are the one who is neglected, overlooked, and unloved. If you identify with Leah’s problem, then trust God to bring His grace to you. God didn’t “force” Leah’s husband love her more than her rival, but He brought blessing and comfort to her in other ways. God has ways to show His love, even to those unloved and overlooked by others.
