Abraham, Issac, and Jacob (cont.)
I find it interesting that even though Rachel stole and was worshiping false gods, He protected them. I also really like that God salvaged the relationship between Jacob and Laban. Laban had done all sorts of terrible things to Jacob (tricked him into marrying Leah, changed wages, etc.), and while they don't end up friends, they are able to come to an agreement. It's comforting to know however difficult a person in our life may be, God will help us to make peace with that person. At the end of this chapter my bible has a blurb about Rachel, which I found very interesting.
It says:
"In an age not known for romance, when young people often waited for their parents to arrange their marriages, Jacob fell profoundly in love with Rachel. He worked 14 years to gain her (after being tricked into marrying her sister along the way). Clearly, to him, beautiful Rachel was worth the labor. He loved her from first sight to last breath.
Rachel knew what it was to be deeply loved, but she also knew piercing sorrow. More than anything else she wanted children, and while her sister produced six sons for Jacob and two servants also bore him children, Rachel remained childless. Her rivalry with her sister Leah, told in Genesis 29 and 30, was profound and bitter. Finally Rachel gave birth to Joseph, her first son. Some years later she died in childbirth bearing Benjamin, her second. (Showing love even after her death, Jacob counted these two sons as his favorites).
Rachel's fierce love fro her children became an emblem for Israel. More than a thousand years after she lived, the prophet Jeremiah, mulling over the destruction of Israel, heard "mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more" (Jeremiah 31:15). The same haunting poetry is quoted in Matthew 2:18 regarding the slaughter of babies by King Herod. Even today the phrase: Rachel weeping" serves as shorthand for the sufferings of the Jewish people.
Rachel was a strong woman whose loyalty to her husband and desire for children outweighed every thing else. She and her sister became part of a traditional Jewish wedding blessing: "May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leach, who together built up the family of Israel (Ruth 4:11)."
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