Commentary on Genesis 29:15-28

This story in Jacob’s life includes themes of romantic love, favoritism, deceit, and poetic justice. Though tempting to find a moral in it—certainly, this lectionary selection is a good example of how not to behave—it may be more fruitful to sit in the uncomfortably honest mess of the emotions and actions of the characters, inviting listeners to imagine and wonder what it would be like to be Jacob, Laban, Leah, or Rachel (or even Zilpah, only mentioned here in one verse as given by one owner to be the slave of another). 

The story begins by announcing how long Jacob had been staying with Laban, his mother’s brother: one month. Jacob had traveled roughly 500 miles, all alone, to get there; now he had been there with family longer than the journey had lasted. 

And apparently, Jacob had not been idle, because now Laban asks Jacob to state his “wages” (Genesis 29:15). This word—maskoret in Hebrew—is relatively unique, but Jacob will use it in chapter 31 when he complains that Laban had “changed his wages ten times” (Genesis 31:7, 41).

The narrator pauses the dialogue between Laban and Jacob to name and describe Laban’s two daughters. The only physical description for the eldest, Leah, refers to her eyes, translated in the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition as “Leah had weak eyes” (Genesis 29:17). The Hebrew word rakh is an antonym for “hard,” so it can also mean “soft,” “delicate,” or “tender” (King James Version). What this means is far from certain: It could be that she did not see well, but it could also be that her eyes were a different color than was typical in that time and place. 

Another possibility gets opened depending on how one translates the Hebrew wӗ at the beginning of Rachel’s name: It could be a disjunctive “but,” contrasting the two sisters, as the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition has translated the verse. It is equally possible that the Hebrew could be translated as the conjunction “and,” indicating that Leah’s eyes were an asset to her appearance “and” that Rachel was beautiful in her bodily form. 

While the words to describe the sisters are indeterminate, it is very clear in the beginning of verse 18 that “Jacob loved Rachel.” Romantic love is relatively rarely mentioned in Old Testament narratives—for example, nowhere does it say that Abraham and Sarah loved one another—so this information stands out. And perhaps Jacob’s love is connected to Rachel’s appearance. Certainly, this love is what motivates Jacob’s terms: He offers to work for seven years to earn Rachel as a wife (Genesis 18:19). 

One rabbi explains that this amount is excessive—one or two years would be more typical—but Jacob wants to demonstrate, both to Rachel and to her father, how highly he prizes her. Laban agrees, and verse 20 of the chapter could be a progress montage, stating that Jacob served seven years, but they seemed but a few days because of Jacob’s love for Rachel.

Jacob is the one who announces to Laban when the time is up: “Give me my wife, for my days are completed, that I may go in to her” (Genesis 29:21). The last clause is a sexual innuendo in Hebrew; Robert Alter translates it as “Let me come to bed with her.” The same words are used in verse 23, that Jacob “went in to her”—but of course, the “her” in that verse is Leah, not Rachel, because Laban brought Leah, not Rachel, to Jacob. 

The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition translation of verse 25 includes an exclamation point to capture the surprise for Jacob, saying, “When morning came, it was Leah!” The Hebrew adds the phrase “and look,” so the verse more literally reads “And it was in the morning, and look, she was Leah.”

The same verse then skips over any action (such as getting out of bed, getting dressed, or going to find Laban), and goes straight to Jacob’s question for Laban: “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” The Hebrew word ramah can be translated as “deceived” or “betrayed,” and also appeared in Genesis 27:35, when Isaac told Esau that Jacob “came deceitfully and took away your blessing.” 

Many have noted how Jacob is now on the receiving end of what he had dealt out: the deceiver is deceived, the favored son of his mother is given the less favored sister, and was unable to see her because it was evening (Genesis 29:23), similar to how his blind father was unable to see which son he was blessing. Yet, if the tables have been turned on Jacob, he will continue to operate with at least tricks (if not deceit) to increase his flocks more than Laban in chapter 30, and will continue to play favorites with Rachel over Leah and with Rachel’s sons over his other children.

Laban explains, in response to Jacob’s question, that it is not the custom to marry off younger daughters before the firstborn—something Laban had neglected to mention when Jacob carefully asked for Laban’s “younger daughter” back in verse 19. In Hebrew, Laban literally says, “It is not done thus in our place” (Genesis 29:26). 

Back in verse 22 Laban had gathered “all the men of the place” for a feast, and it may be those people who, with Laban, constitute the plural noun when Laban explains that if Jacob waits one more week, “we will also give you this one” (Genesis 29:27), for whom Jacob must work seven more years. In other words, Laban will get 14 years (plus one week!) of work from Jacob, and in exchange, Jacob will get both Leah and Rachel as wives. There’s no responding dialogue from Jacob, just the narrator’s notice in the last verse of this lectionary text that Jacob did so, and after a week, he was able to marry Rachel. 

As the story continues beyond this, Genesis 29:30 specifies that Jacob “loved Rachel more than Leah.” While that language could suggest that Jacob had some love for Leah, the very next verse describes Leah as “unloved,” or even “hated” (King James Version, English Standard Version). Laban’s trick was the starting point for sad years of competition between these two sisters, vying for the attention and affection of their shared husband. Yet Leah, the less preferred, will be the mother of both Levi, the ancestor of Israel’s priests, and Judah, the ancestor of Israel’s kings. If not a moral, it is certainly a reminder that God works through anyone.