What really sticks with me is Leah's comments after having 3 (total kids: 4) kids that she wanted the children to attach Jacob to her and make Jacob love her.. It is a dangerous game to play..As we will see in Gen 30: 20, she is still hoping her husband will love her six kids later.. Having children without someone cannot make them love you...
Also, we should not be idle but work with our hands. And if we cannot work with our hands, we can be about something more. We can be pursuing something more, instead of living without purpose. I may not have energy to do constantly throughout the day, but I can be about something more! =)
Genesis 27-29
Genesis 27
Talk about a messy situation: Esau is supposed to receive a blessing from Isaac his dying father, Rebekah sends Jacob to go and get goats so she can prepare a tasty meal for Isaac, with her help—Jacob receives Esau’s blessing, Esau finds out and wants to kill his brother, Rebekah sends Jacob away to protect him, and Rebekah does not him to marry an Hittite woman (which Esau had done..). We see a sticky situation in the midst of Isaac dying.
Lying to get a blessing can be very dangerous. Faking to be your brother may have and must have caused friction between Isaac and Rebekah. The text does not say, but I can only imagine. Who knows?
Genesis 28
Isaac, then, blessed Jacob again while commanding him to not take a Cannonite wife for himself. Jacob obeyed his father and mother, and went to the city of his mother’s brother (Paddan Aram). While Esau overhead this, he went and took for himself another wife. Esau obviously married Ishmael’s daughter as a way of pleasing his parents, for he married his father’s niece. Jacob, on the other hand, was to marry his mother’s niece.
Verse 15 is key. It says: “I am with you, and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised!”
While Jacob is on this journey and stops for the night to sleep, he has a dream where he is at the stairway of Heaven surrounded by angels and God is at the top of the staircase, the dream is important because God is going to give Jacob the land and his descendants will be many. Jacob saw this place as importance that was the house of God. He set the stone and made it a pillar to be used to make the house of God.
Genesis 29
Jacob went and met Rachel. He fell in love with Rachel. He worked seven years for Rachel. Instead, he is given Leah and makes love to Leah. Does anyone else think it is weird that he did not notice it was Leah until morning? He would have to do seven additional years of work in exchange for Rachel. It was not customary to marry up the younger daughter first… When God saw Leah was not loved and cherished, she became the one to conceive while Rachel did not and could not conceive. The words that Leah speaks in verses 32 to 35 are quite popular, even today. “I am unloved, so let me have his baby.” After three kids, her words were the same. She wanted her husband to be attached and to love her. As we saw from the beginning, Jacob did not want Leah. Jacob did not love Leah, for his love was with Rachel.
In verse 14, What I notice is the desire to work and not to be idle. Jacob stayed with Laban (his mother’s brother) for a whole month and was not idle. He continued working, which is what gave him the benefit of being able to work toward getting Rachel as well as Leah. We should be working for what we want, and not be idle.
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