21. Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her."
22. So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast.
23. But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her.
24. And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter as her maidservant.
25. When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?"
26. Laban replied, "It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one.
27. Finish this daughter's bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work."
28. And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.
29. Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant.
30. Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
It seems this whole thing is driven by Laban's greed of wanting a hard worker plus marry off his two daughters. But Jacob's love I guess overcomes that. Jacob seems to have the serving mentality and therefore Laban's treatment to him does not anger him. We can perhaps think this is sort of a punishment for Jacob's wickedness to his brother Esau.
Another interesting thing is that Name is a powerful thing in the Bible. Why are the servant names explicitly spelled out? It could've stated that a servant was given to Rachel and Leah. What is the significance the two servants will play out later? Usually women's name in the Bible was omitted unless there is something more...
There seem to be two parallels here between the Isaac/Jacob and Jacob/Laban stories. One parallel is the strong role of custom and tradition when it comes to how people are treated according to age. The other parallel is between how Jacob achieves his goal by deceiving (with good intentions) his father and how Laban achieves his goal by deceiving (with good intentions) Jacob.
Post a Comment