Today, I am reading and commenting on Genesis 29-30.

Rachel followed in the footsteps of Jacob’s grandmother Sarah by giving her maid to her husband, hoping he would have sons by her.  It worked out better for Rachel than it did for Sarah, and better for Jacob than it did for Abraham.  However, the whole situation shows us why polygamy is a bad idea.  Of all of the accounts in the Bible where it tells us something about the relationships where a man had more than one wife, Jacob’s circumstances worked out the best, and it is clear that both Leah and Rachel would have been happier if their husband had not been married to another woman.

The first thing I want to note about the deal which Jacob entered into with Laban for his pay after he had worked off his debt for marrying Laban’s daughters was for the less valuable members of the flock.  Sheep and goats with solid color coats would have been more valuable than those with varicolored coats.  Even so, Laban took steps to try to cheat Jacob out of the wages to which he had agreed.  I was struggling to find a real lesson in today’s passage until I wrote that last sentence.  Then it struck me, Laban had made a deal to keep Jacob working for him because he had learned through divination that God had blessed him because Jacob was working for him.  Even knowing that, Laban tried to cheat Jacob.  That is such a human thing to do.  We know that that God has blessed us because of how someone benefited from our actions, but rather than accept whatever blessings God will give us for dealing with them honestly and aboveboard, we try to greedily game the system to benefit ourselves more than it benefits them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.