All right, you can turn to chapter 29 in the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 29. We studied last week when Jacob got two wives. Remember, he worked for Laban for seven years.
He agreed to work for Laban for seven years in order to secure Rachel as his wife. On the wedding night, he found her. On the wedding morning, he found a big surprise. Behold, it was Leah.
And so he worked another seven years. He received both Leah and Rachel, worked another seven years, and now we're seeing the birth of his sons, his children. So beginning in chapter 29, verse 31, when the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb. But Rachel was barren, so Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben.
For she said, The Lord has surely looked on my affliction, now therefore my husband will love me. Then she conceived again and bore a son, and said, Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon. She conceived again, and bore a son, and said, Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.
Therefore his name was called Levi. And she conceived again, and bore a son, and said, Now I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing.
Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said to Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob's anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said, Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? So she said, Here is my maid, Billa. Go into her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her.
Then she gave him Billa, her maid, as wife, and Jacob went into her. And Billa conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged my case, and he has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan.
And Rachel's maid Billa conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, with great wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and indeed I have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali. When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took Zilpah, her maid, and gave her to Jacob, his wife.
And Leah's maid, Zilpah, bore Jacob a son. Then Leah said, A troop comes. So she called his name Gad. And Leah's maid, Zilpah, bore Jacob a second son.
Then Leah said, I am happy, for the daughters will call me blessed. So she called his name Asher. Now Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. And Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes.
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? And Rachel said, therefore, he will lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes. When Jacob came out of the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, you must come in to me, for I have surely hired you with my son's mandrakes.
And he lay with her that night. And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages, because I have given my maid to my husband. So she called his name Issachar.
Then Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. And Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun.
Afterwards, she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel and God listened to her and opened her womb. And she conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. So she called his name Joseph and said, the Lord shall add to me another son.
Introduction
Well, we have the beginning of the 12 tribes of Israel in this particular passage. The only other son that will be born later to both Jacob and Rachel is Benjamin. In fact, when Rachel says, give me children or else I die, in verse 1, ironically, she dies giving birth to her second son, Benjamin. in Genesis chapter 36. As I said, this is the birth of the 12 tribes of Israel, and I want to look first at the opening of Leah's womb at the end of chapter 29, secondly the frustration of Rachel in verses 1 to 8, thirdly the response of Leah in verses 9 to 15, and then finally the opening of Rachel's womb in verses 22 to 24.
So God, in his sovereignty, is the one who gives children. The Lord God Most High is the one who gives increase. Now remember, in the Laban narrative prior to this, Laban had given these daughters maids. And at that particular time, it seemed a bit of incidental information.
But we see how important it is that we know that as we come here to Genesis chapter 30 with reference to these two maids. Meredith Klein makes the observation that the circumstances of the origins of the 12 tribes advertise the purely gracious character of Israel's election. If you actually follow along the narrative, you can only conclude that God's grace is the premium and not man's merit. This is an extremely dysfunctional family situation.
The things that are going on here are certainly not normative for Christian conduct today. God is not telling us in this passage to go thou and do likewise. In fact, I will say at the outset, don't have two wives, nay, don't have four wives. Make sure that you have the one wife, the wife that God has given to you.
Any departure from that As we see it in these Old Testament narratives, there was polygamy practice. But typically when that polygamy is highlighted, it's not usually in a good way. It's not usually in the sense of everybody lived happily ever after. No, there is antipathy, there is antithesis, there is hardship, heartache, and woe, and that is precisely what's happening with these two sisters.
The daughters of Laban had married this one man, Jacob, and both of them are vying in the entire narrative for what the other one possesses. Leah is unloved and wants to be loved by Jacob. Rachel is barren and wants to have children by Jacob. So they both want what the other sister has, and it causes nothing but problems.
Jacob, as well, is very passive in this particular chapter. The only thing he says is verse 2. And while that's a good response to Rachel's, give me children or else I die, nevertheless, he just mindlessly follows along with the plan. He just goes into these maids.
He just continues to function in many respects like a stud. And I don't mean to say that or sound harshly, but that is how he's functioning in this particular passage. You might think that the emergence of the 12 tribes of Israel happened in a paradise setting, happened with great and godly families, happened with all of the joy and heartfelt love that families have for one another. That's precisely not the case.
And that's why I think what Klein says is right. The circumstances of the origins of the 12 tribes advertise the purely gracious character of Israel's election. They were not elect because they were great, they were not elect because they were righteous, they were not elect even because they were good, they were elect because God is gracious, God is merciful, God is kind, and God had purpose to fulfill His promise to save a great multitude by the seed of Abraham. So it was imperative that the Lord Most High work, even in the midst of dysfunctionality, to bring about His plan, His purpose, and His will for the salvation of mankind.
And this certainly advances that theme. In Leah's line, you have both the royal messianic line begin, and then you have the priestly. She has both Judah and Levi. So Leah was absolutely crucial to redemptive history.
And while Jacob certainly favored Rachel, Laban and all of his trickery and deception actually advanced God's cause for God's glory. So that's one of the things that we have seen over and over again as we study this particular book. God's providence in the midst of, you know, very difficult earthly circumstances, He nevertheless brings about things for His glory and for the good of His people.
Opening of Leah's Womb
So let's look first at the opening of Leah's womb, and here we have Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. And so, as I said, he wanted to marry Rachel, he agreed to serve Laban for those seven years. On the wedding night, Laban substituted Leah to the surprise of Jacob, and then Jacob agreed to work another seven years for Rachel, so he was married to both women. Notice the problem that verse 31 introduces.
When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Now, unloved there probably means loved less. I think the actual literal is, she was hated. I doubt it means that he actually despised her the way that persons despise terrorists.
It means that he loved her less. She was certainly not the favored one. And if we ask the question why, well, the previous chapter announces that. In the first place, Rachel was beautiful.
The text is conspicuous and we can be super spiritual and hyper spiritual and say such things should it matter, but the biblical text tells us that it mattered to Jacob, that Rachel was very attractive and Leah was not. So his heart gravitated toward her. Do with that what you will, but you cannot get from the Bible this hyper-spiritual mindset that such things don't matter. They do matter, or else the biblical authors wouldn't tell us that they did.
So she was good-looking and he loved her, but then Leah deceived him. Leah knew that she wasn't Rachel, Leah knew what her father was up to, and Leah went along with it. I'm not sure I would have been in the Leah fan club on that morning myself if I thought I was getting Rachel, and behold, it was Leah. I think we can forgive Jacob a little bit of a righteous indignation for this particular circumstance that he has found himself in.
But whatever the situation, he did not love her as much. He did not have that same esteem for her that he had for Rachel. And then we see the goodness of God. It says, when the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.
The whole episode, according to Wenham, is governed by Leah's longing for Jacob's love and Rachel's craving for children. Leah's frequent pregnancies only aggravate Rachel's frustration at her own childlessness. I mean, it's a tough passage for everybody involved, again, except for Jacob. Maybe it was, but we don't ever hear from him.
He just mindlessly goes about his task. But we know that Rachel has a problem, and we know that Leah has a problem, and we ought not to minimize either of them. If I was Leah, I would be married to him. I would certainly want his favor and attraction and his love.
If I was Rachel, I would want children. Those are no-brainers as far as that goes. But the Lord is merciful, and I think that kind of comes through this whole chapter, is that even when persons are in difficult situations, when it looks like there is no hope, there is no deliverance, nevertheless, God is for us. Now, we can't make this a formula that every time we have a difficult issue, God's going to come to our aid and rescue in some dramatic way.
I think Bible readers get a bit mixed up or messed up by treating God like Baal, like there's a formula. As long as these things obtain, then God is duty-bound to work this particular way. That's simply not the way it is. But the preponderance of evidence that we have in terms of God's providence suggests that in many cases, when persons are destitute or having difficulty, God the Lord never, well we know he never leaves them and he never forsakes them.
He never cuts them off, but in some instances he goes above and beyond and gives them great and glorious blessings and that's what he does precisely here for Leah. We have first the birth of Reuben in verse 32. Your margin sort of defines or describes or identifies what each of these names signifies There's a lot of discussion on that subject in the commentators. If you're so inclined, certainly you can get into that.
John Gill even goes to the Jewish writers to tell us what years each of the boys were born in and how many years. I mean, he's really, really got that going on. But I'm just going to stick with the margin. Basically, the name means see a son.
And essentially what we have in this naming process is when the women name the sons, it has significance. First, hopefully to bring glory to God or acknowledge God, but there may also be sort of a snipe at their sisters as well. There might be a little bit of that sort of badgering going on as well. So it could be, see a son, God saw me in my distress and he gave me this son.
Or it could be to Rachel, see a son, I've got something you don't have. We can't minimize the tension and the difficulty that is going on here. The second son is called Simeon, and this one means heard. The recognition of the Lord's kindness in providing this son because God had heard that she was unloved.
The birth of Levi attached. The thought that this additional son would increase Jacob's love for Leah. It's unfortunate that that doesn't happen. When she stops having children, according to verse 35 at the end, it's not because she is now barren, it's because Jacob is no longer lying with her.
When we get to chapter 30 and verse 17, when she conceives, it's not due to the mandrakes, it's due to God Almighty, but also immediately by the conjugal relationship of Jacob with his wife. So there's this period of barrenness for Leah, not a physical problem, but the filial or loving, lack of loving problem with her husband not lying with her. And so, when we come to this last child in verse 35, this one is called praise. Judah means praise.
And it is interesting, if we interpret the sea, a son, as God's looking upon her, seeing her problems and giving her this son, what you have in the naming of these sons is that the Lord had seen her affliction, He had heard that she was unloved, would hopefully attach Jacob to her in love, And this results in praise given to God for His mercies delivered to her. So the naming of these children, at least in this particular instance, I think is in favor of giving glory to God, consciously considering what God has done in terms of delivering her from this particular difficult situation.
Rachel's Frustration
Now that brings us to the frustration of Rachel in verses 1 to 8.
Expression of Rachel's Frustration
First we have the expression of that frustration in verse 1. Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said to Jacob, give me children or else I die. Didn't have time to get into the the ins and outs there, but we know envy and jealousy is different. She's not just jealous that Rachel or Leah is having children.
She doesn't want Leah to have these children. She doesn't want Leah to be the favored one in terms of fruitfulness and bounty and blessing and all that sort of thing. Envy means, I not only want what they have, but I don't want them to have it. And I think that's probably behind the text.
And she says, give me children or else I die. Now, Jacob's only response is in verse two. And this is good. Jacob's anger was aroused against Rachel.
And he said, am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? Again, Wenham says, to blame her husband for her plight also smacks of impiety. For the Old Testament regards children as the gift of God, not of man. Prayer, not protest, should have been Rachel's reaction, as Jacob implies in his heated response.
Now, when we get to the end of the chapter, In verse 22, it says, then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. So at least at some point, Rachel not only cried out to Jacob, give me children or else I die, she cried out to God. God did remember, God did listen, and God did open the womb. So the expression of her frustration is there in verses 1 and 2, but then notice
Alleviation Through Surrogacy
the alleviation of her frustration in verses 3 to 8. This was not a good way for her to proceed. The offer of Billa, this obviously was in the family tree because Sarah did this very thing with reference to her maid, Hagar. She asked or had Abraham go into Hagar so that Hagar could have a child and Sarah would raise that child.
And that is precisely what Rachel does in this instance. So in verse 3, she said, here is my maid, Billa, go into her and she will bear a child on my knees." It's language of receiving the baby right away, probably in terms of adoption, possession, and ownership. "...that I also may have children by her. Then she gave him Billa, her maid, as wife, and Jacob went into her." Again, just the dutiful servant, just the way he served Laban is the way that he's going to serve in this particular capacity.
After the Mandrake incident, Leah even says as much, I have hired you for the evening. He doesn't say anything. He just complies with her and goes right along with it. Again, dysfunctionality is written all over the pages in the scripture concerning these families.
That's not again so that we'll have some, you know, horrible mindset with reference. I mean, we know families, we know dysfunctionality, we know that this is a messy world, we know that there are issues and trials and difficulties and hardships. And there's no perfect family from whence God can call the twelve tribes. It is to magnify and to shine the light upon the glory of God, the graciousness of God, in that He works in the midst of such circumstances.
So then she gave Billa, verse 4, her maid as wife, and Jacob went into her. And Billa conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged my case, and he has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore, she called his name Dan.
Again, this is judged, the name given, because God judged her case, heard her voice, and gave her a son. I don't know that that was the best implication she could have drawn. The text doesn't sort of comment on that. But I mean, I don't know.
That would be a tough one for me to try to enter into. Hey, I'm going to give you my maid. I want you to have wife number three. That very fact is not sort of tilting the scales in favor of, but the fact that God does bless, and that's another thing that is punctuated throughout this narrative.
Even in the midst of very dismal circumstances, God hears, God remembers, God listens, God gives, God is good and comes off as the hero of the story. Calvin says, with reference to Rachel, Rachel is not induced to flee unto the Lord, but strives to gain a triumph by illicit arts. Therefore, she hurries Jacob into a third marriage once we infer that there is no end of sinning when once the divine institution is treated with neglect. Think about what Calvin says there and think about the 21st century and the sexual ethics and the perversion that we are witnessing today.
That there is no end of sinning when once the divine institution is treated with neglect. In other words, when we distort that which God has given, Marriage, for instance, one man, one woman for life. If we distort that, and again, I qualify that, there are instances in scripture where it is legitimate and lawful to sue out for divorce, but in terms of the original intention of God One man, one woman. What do we have going on now?
If not in Canada, it's definitely going on in the United States. Drag queen story hours in public libraries. Drag queens are reading stories to little children. One of the newer developments is that one of them happened to be wearing a skirt. and no underwear.
I happen to see that one today. So this is the kind of perversion that is out there, and I think it sort of illustrates or highlights what Calvin says in this comment. Once we infer that there is no end of sinning when once the divine institution is treated with neglect. God gives us something that's good.
He gives us something that's right. He gives us something that is designed for His glory and for our well-being. And the further we depart from that, or the more that we engage in things that are contrary to that or in opposition to that, the more we just are an abomination before the sight of a holy God. So back to Billa, she gives birth to Dan, and then she gives birth to Naphtali, which means my wrestling.
Again, Wenham suggests it reflects both on the mother's relationship with God and upon the struggle between the sisters for Jacob's affection. So you see, she is frustrated, and again, I cannot minimize that degree of frustration. I am not a woman who has been barren. I am not a woman in that particular situation where barrenness was frowned upon.
The mark of a woman was that she was fruitful, and she multiplied, and she had children. That was just commonplace, and that's the way that it was. So the idea of frustration, I can certainly understand. But this idea of having Billa or having Jacob go into her seems very contrary to the original design and intent of God.
That God works in the midst of this and through this and brings about good things never means that we ought to do whatever it takes in order to get stuff. The ends do not justify the means. Even when God blesses the ends, and horrible means have been used. You get that, right?
Just because God forgave David of adultery and murder doesn't mean we should go out and commit adultery and murder. There are things in scripture that describe what happens that don't necessarily prescribe what should happen. And this is a perfect example of that. Oftentimes, in the Bible, you get a description of a David committing adultery and murder.
And then you have a prescription of David, for instance, oh, how I love your law. We're supposed to love the law of God. We're not supposed to engage in the sorts of things that David did there. So this is a descriptive passage versus a prescriptive passage encouraging all of us to have four wives so that we can have 12 sons.
Leah's Response: Tit for Tat
And that brings us thirdly to the response of Leah in verses 9 to 15, to tit for tat, to fight fire with fire. She's got a maid, I've got a maid. Her maid gave him sons, my maid will give him sons. That's precisely what she does.
Children Through Zilpah
Notice the children through Zilpah, excuse me, in verses 9 to 13, Gad and Asher. Verse 9, when Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, that means Leah, she took Zilpah, her maid, and gave her to Jacob, his wife. And again, the reason she stopped bearing is because she wasn't having relations with her husband. As soon as she has relations again, according to verse 17, She has children.
So she's not barren. She's not in this position of no more ability to bear children. She's in the position of the unloved wife who does not have access to her man. She does not have that ability to have the conjugal relationship with her husband.
So she calls her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as wife. And Leah's maid, Zilpah, bore Jacob a son. It just dispenses with that, and he went into her. Now she's just having a son.
Again, Jacob is just the mindless adult following everybody's direction here, just going from one to the other. I mean, it's a conspicuously blatant assessment that, you know, oftentimes little hermeneutics. So not everything is prescriptive. There's a lot of stuff that is descriptive.
But also in terms of hermeneutics, especially with Old Testament narrative, you don't always get the narrator's commentary on how you ought to view it ethically. They'll just tell you stuff. And then you kind of wonder, well, what am I supposed to do with that? Am I supposed to go bow and do likewise?
I mean, it worked out great. There were the 12 tribes of Israel. But there are times when the narrator gives you a hint, or there are times when the narrator writes or constructs the narrative in such a way that there's really kind of only one conclusion you can make. Why didn't he say anything?
Why didn't he stand up? Why didn't he say, wait a minute, we're going about this the wrong way? I mean, the silence of Jacob is loud in this particular passage. But back to the text.
Zilpah bears him gad, which means troop. or fortune even. Some suggest she might have accredited to good luck. Again, the discussion on the names, you could spend a lot of time on that and I didn't have that time. And then of course, Asher means happy.
Now,
The Mandrake Episode
notice what happens with reference to these mandrakes. Anybody ever been sort of perplexed about this passage? Anybody ever? Okay.
Because it's an interesting one. The hiring of Jacob in verses 14 to 16. I mean, this is what she says. Look at verse 16.
You must come into me. That is sexual language. That is all there is to it. That is sexual language.
You must come into me, for I have surely hired you with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night. Do we expect anything different from Jacob? Do we expect this part?
Well, no, I can't do that because that sounds like a business transaction. He just does it. I mean, this guy just from one to the other. But let's look at this gathering of mandrakes.
So Reuben would have been about six or seven at this particular time. Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Probably because it's a beautiful flower, probably because it's an attractive plant, probably he went and he picked them up and he brought them back to his mother. Now, in terms of what a mandrake is, I'm going to go to Wenham and Gill on this one.
The mandrake is a perennial Mediterranean plant that bears bluish flowers in winter and yellowish plum-sized fruit in summer. In ancient times, mandrakes were famed for arousing sexual desire. You see it in Song of Solomon at 713, the only other place mandrakes appear, and for helping women to conceive. Now, you know, when I went online today to find out more about mandrakes, because this passage has always perplexed me as well, I found out that people still think it possesses these things.
So you can send away and get pill form mandrake, and it's supposed to help you with, you know, it's an aphrodisiac, and it may help you conceive children, the whole spiel. But even in Gil's day, he says this. Sometimes it's interesting reading modern commentaries and older commentaries. You know what Calvin says with reference to the mandrake?
I have no idea what it is. I have no idea what it is. That's great. What are you going to do?
But Gil had some idea, because Gil said, now there's about a couple hundred years dividing those two. He says, this plant is said to excite love, provoke lust, dispose for, and help conception. For which reasons it is thought Rachel was so desirous of these mandrakes, and she was. Notice at the end of verse 14.
Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes. And it's a polite request. She's not entering right into a bartering structure. Okay, I'll, you know, you give me these mandrakes and I'll give you a Jacob for the night.
Perhaps because she is the favored one of the wives, perhaps because she's the one that Jacob loves the most, she sort of sets the schedule for where he's going to be laying on a given night. And so that kind of provokes in us, or provokes in the text what happens next. Verse 15, Leah uses this occasion. She says, is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband?
Don't miss the tension in the text between these two ladies. Anybody who would throw himself into that situation has got to be nuts. as I'm concerned. I mean, I just can't get it. I don't understand it, but I'm thankful God used it for the 12 tribes.
But she says, is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also? In other words, go find your own mandrakes, lady. And then Rachel said, therefore, he will lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes.
So we have this mandrake now being a bartering tool or an item by which Leah can secure the services of her husband for a given night. Now, as we move through the text, you need to understand that the narrator is not encouraging the use of mandrakes, either for an aphrodisiac or to help in conception. Because Rachel has the mandrakes and goes another three years without having a baby. Leah gets rid of the mandrakes and has a baby as soon as her and Jacob lie together.
So there's no mystery in here like, do mandrakes work? No, they don't work. God works. He opens the womb.
He blesses the conjugal relation that obtains between a husband and a wife. That's where babies come from, not from mandrakes and not from those sorts of things. So the narrator is conspicuous to make sure we don't try to find mandrakes to help us with some of those issues. So we go back to the text.
As we see in verse 16, you must come into me for I have surely hired you with my son's mandrakes and he lay with her that night. There's a lot of connection between what we have in this story and other stories. You have the younger bettering the older, you have the connection between the Sarah and what Rachel does here in terms of surrogate motherhood. There's a lot of connection with what has gone before and a bit of foreshadowing with what's going to come later.
Again, it shows the art of biblical narrative. The writer, the author, is a genius when it comes to composing story. Obviously, the Holy Spirit is working in and through him, to be sure, but it's certainly a An unparalleled work of good literature. And then notice what we have.
Additional Children Through Leah
The additional children through Leah in verses 17 to 21. God listened to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages because I have given my maid to my husband. And that's a bit of a difficult reason for me to get my head around maybe what she said or what she meant. goes beyond what I'm able to sort of grasp, but that just doesn't sound like the kind of logic that one would want to present to God.
But then with reference to Issachar, we have wages, zebulun means dwelling, and there again there's that sadness or continual longing that Jacob would favor her and dwell with her. I mean, look at that, verse 19. That's pathetic. That's sad.
That's really agonizing stuff. I mean, you know, we kind of at some point you know, lift out of our 21st century, go back and try to, you know, walk in their shoes a little bit. That's a tough place for her to be. She just wants to not have to buy her man for a night with, you know, Reuben's mandrakes.
She wants to have her man in her bed every single night. And that just really shows the pathos coming out at this particular time. Again, Wenham makes the observation with reference to the Lord's response in verse 17. It shows that though Rachel and Leah may think conception is aided by mandrakes, the text insists that children are God's gift.
He goes on to quote a Hebrew scholar that said, Leah, who gives up the mandrakes, bears three more children. Rachel, who possesses them, remains barren for apparently three more years. So again, mandrakes isn't your way for sexual vitality and health and for conception. The Lord God is good and does do those things for his people.
So the additional children are given, and then that brings us finally, oh, oh, a dinah. Dinah is mentioned. It's not typical that women get mentioned in biblical genealogy, not because God hates women, not because there's an antipathy against women. In fact, there are several women that appear in the genealogy. of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 1.
But in this particular instance, it's foreshadowing or it is indicating something that is going to happen in Genesis 34. Dinah is going to be central in that particular situation. And so this is a reminder of the birth of Dinah.
Opening of Rachel's Womb
And then finally, the opening of Rachel's womb. Verse 22, it says, then God remembered Rachel. Now, if we understand who God is, we know that God doesn't remember. Because remembering would imply that he once forgot.
This is what's called an improper predication. It's speaking in the manner of men. It is telling us something in a convention that we understand. It doesn't mean that God, oh yeah, Oh yeah, Rachel, that's not the way we are supposed to conceive of God.
That is simply not how God acts, God functions. Calvin says, since with God nothing is either before or after, but all things are present, He is subject to no forgetfulness, so that in the lapse of time He should need to be reminded of what is past. But the scripture describes the presence and memory of God from the effect produced upon ourselves because we conceive him to be such as he appears to be by his acts." Basically, he's saying it's an improper predication. It is speaking in the manner of men in a convention that we can understand.
So it's not that God remembered, oh yeah, I forgot, Rachel wanted to... That's not the way we're ever supposed to think about God. Ever at all, that is not authorized. And then the Lord opens her womb.
It's not because of mandrakes, it's not because of maids, it's not because of any other thing than God Most High. It is the Lord who vindicates, it is the Lord who blesses, it is the Lord who brings to her this son. So verse 23 tells us, she conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach, so she called his name Joseph and said, the Lord shall add to me another son. Joseph means he will add.
Now this last statement is either a prayer that he will add another son, or it is a prophecy that he will, in fact, add another son. He does do so in, I said 36 earlier, I'm sorry, it was chapter 35, verses 16 to 18. So Rachel dies giving birth to this second son, who is called Benjamin.
Application
All right. Well, in terms of the family dynamics, we've covered that sufficiently. The unloved Leah and the barren Rachel each wanted what the other had. I think there is a lesson there.
We're always wanting what everybody else has. We need to be content with what God has. How that would obtain in this particular situation. Leah, you've got to deal with it.
The Lord's good. He's given you children. Love them. Pour yourself into them.
Rachel, He hasn't given you children. You know what I mean? We've got to bloom where we're planted. It's not always the case that circumstances are going to magically change.
It's not always the case that God in His providence is going to take things away from us or give things to us. There may be seasons, there may be long seasons where we have to stay in a particular position that is a disadvantage to us, but nevertheless we need to be faithful and we need to be persevering and we need to trust that God is gracious to us. And then the passivity of Jacob, The one time he responds, it's good, what he says is right. Am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?
He understood that it's not mandrakes, it's not maids, but rather it is the living and true God that gives issue. And then as well, in terms of the sovereignty of God, Calvin had a good statement on this. He said the Jews like to boast about their early beginnings. He says the Holy Spirit put that in there to show us they got no room to boast whatsoever.
It's the grace of God. It ain't them, it's the grace of God. Wenham again said it, I think, very well. He says, it is into this most bitterly divisive family that the forefathers of the 12 tribes were born.
Fathered by a lying trickster and mothered by sharp-tongued shrews, the patriarchs grew up to be less than perfect themselves. It's going to happen later. I mean, it's the sons of Leah that are in opposition to the sons of Rachel later on in terms of the Joseph narrative. So that's the reality.
He says, "...yet through them the promises to Abraham took a great step toward their fulfillment, showing that it is divine grace, not human merit, that gives mankind the hope of salvation." So some might read these narratives and go, man, what a mess, how terrible, how horrific, and get discouraged. I think we ought to be the most encouraged people to see what our God had to work with, and how our God does work with it, and what our God brought as a result of it. And we ought to celebrate amazing grace. We ought to celebrate the ability, the competency, the omni-competency of our God, who is able to accomplish his purpose and plans, even in the midst of dysfunctional families, that if it were ultimately up to them, would have ruined it at the very get-go.
We would have never gotten out of the gate if it depended on fallen man. But God, in His grace and mercy, provided for us a Savior who comes from this sort of a background. It is an amazing ascription to the glory of God. Well, let's close in a word of prayer.
Closing Prayer
Our Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we thank You for Your grace, and that certainly does shine forth in passages like these. I thank You, God, for the fact that You sent the Lord Jesus, that One that is from the tribe of Judah, that One that is the King, that Royal Messiah, that Blessed Savior for sinners, the One to whom all the prophets witness, and to whom these patriarchs witness as well. We thank you for redemption in Him. We thank you for your sovereign grace and for your providence and for the way that you work out your purpose and plan in this world.
May this encourage us as we walk through this world, as we have various difficulties and trials and we face various challenges. Help us to always look beyond these things and realize that you're in control, you're in sovereign control over each and every instance and occurrence and situation in our lives. May this be a great boon to us in our Christian walk, and we ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.