Ge. 30: Rachel goes Nuts; Jacob's Genetic Experiments

After seeing how ... fertile, I guess is the only word that comes to mind, Leah is in chapter 29, Rachel seems to become a total head case in chapter 30. Some bizarre behavior by that woman.

She pulls Jacob aside and gets all dramatic..."Give me children or I shall die." Obviously there is no such thing as being terminally barren. So Jacob rolls his eyes and retorts, "Am I in God's place that I've corked your uterus?"

In desperation, as her grandmother-in-law had done, she offers her husband her maidservant, Billhah, to sort of get things kick-started for Rachel to have a family. I'm sure there was little argument from Jacob. When Billhah conceives, Rachel for some reason reads this as vindication from God, and names Jacob and Billhah's son accordingly: Dan. Oh yeah, real vindicated. Leah actually gave birth to her sons. Billhah conceives again, and gives birth to Jacob's number six, Naphtali. Rachel, further down the spiral into craziness, sees this as victory in a great struggle with her big sis.

I am reminded of a similar situation in high school, when Jenison used to win. We'd be demolishing a lesser school such as Grandville or Hudsonville, and at some point the other team would finally score. We would over power their mild celebrations with roaring chants of "SCORE-BOARD...SCORE-BOARD..." In this case, the scoreboard was Leah 4, Rachel 2. In reality, Leah 4, Billhah 2, Rachel 0. But Rachel claims "victory" with the birth of Naphtali.

Leah, as a typical older sister, fights fire with fire and offers her maidservant, Zilpah to Jacob. Zilpah gives Leah "good fortune," so number 7 is named Gad. Number 8 is Asher, because of how "happy" he made Leah. Can you imagine being named "Happy?" That's essentially what Asher went through. He had no license to be a sourpuss. Whatsoever.

In the midst of all the son-jockeying, there is a story about Reuben finding some mandrakes in a wheat field. I had to go google what mandrakes were. Not Mandrake. Mandrake. Reuben presents these mandrakes to Leah. Rachel asked her for some. Leah protests, telling Rachel she took away her husband, and now she wants to take away her son's mandrakes too? (The nerve of this woman!) Rachel's like, "Fine, Jacob can sleep with you in return for mandrakes. The first Indecent Proposal and it's all here in the Bible.

So, Leah gets back at it, and Issachar is the result. God "rewarded" Leah. Then God "Honors" Leah again with Zebulun.

Then she has a daughter named Dinah.

Finally God opens Rachel's womb, and she gives birth to a son...Joseph.

It's interesting that these women perceive God honoring them, giving them victory, etc (and naming their sons accordingly) for not doing what God had originally intended: husband and wife are married and have kids. God made a promise to one person in every generation beginning with Abraham that their ancestors would be like sand on the shore. Did Jacob not share his dream? Especially with Rachel? Instead of taking God at His word, they take matters into their own hands, whether ignoring God's promise completely, or assuming that it was their behavior that was going to bring God's promise to fruition. Its been disaster as a result every time since then.

In previous generations, Isaac and Abraham were recorded as faithful, Godly men, stopping wherever they were, building altars and worshipping God. Not so with Jacob and his wives. It's not all that surprising, as Jacob's marriages were built on deception, and prayerlessness.

Anyway, Jacob wants to head back to the land of his family, so he asks Laban to let him go, citing the work he had done for him over the years. God's promise of being a blessing wherever Abraham's people go certainly was true in this case, as Laban's flocks increased and he was brought wealth he didn't have before Jacob showed up. Laban says that God even revealed this to him.

So the two deceivers make a deal with each other. And you know it will end with both sides being very satisfied.

Jacob tells Laban the wages he will take will be all the spotted or speckled sheep and goats.

They agree, and what does Laban do? He removes all the spotted or speckled sheep and goats, and puts them in the flocks of his sons. Then he runs off, taking a three day head start, while Jacob tends the rest of the flocks.

Then Jacob pulls some genetic manipulation stunt that is still kind of outside of my grasp.

He cuts branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and cuts away some bark, leaving white stripes of the inner wood. Then he put the branches in the watering troughs, so they would be seen by the thirsty flocks. When in heat, the thirsty flocks would mare in front of the striped branches and give birth to spotted and speckled young. He placed the stronger females in front of the branches so they would have strong, spotted young. The weak ones, he made them avoid the striped branches.

Uh, I can only think that it was through God that the striped branches "caused" the sheep and goats to have spotted young to become the property of Jacob. Unless almond and poplar are some kind of animal aphrodisiac that I don't know about.