Morning sun flooded the wedding tent, and Jacob turned to behold his bride. But the face on the pillow was not Rachel's. It was Leah's. Jacob's seven years of toil had not been for Rachel after all; his father-in-law had deceived him in the dark. The con was as neat as it was unfair: an evening wedding, the bride hidden under a veil, wine flowing freely, shadows deep enough to hide a man's intentions. And the man who'd been conned was the least forgiving man alive, for Jacob had made his own fortune as a con man pretending to be his brother before a blind father.
A Fugitive and a Ladder
It was twenty years earlier that Jacob had fled Esau with only his wits to protect him, and that night he'd fallen asleep on a stone in the wilderness north of Beersheba. He'd dreamed the dream that made him Jacob the supplanter and not Jacob the son, for it was God who spoke to him from on high: "And I will give you the land on which you lie, and I will give it to your descendants after you. And your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. And in you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Then the words that no fugitive needed to hear: "And behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land." Jacob had awoken in the dark and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." Then he'd laid the stone that would become the Jacob Pillar and named the place Bethel ("house of God"). Notice that he laid the stone first, then declared the word of the Lord. That is the order of all true reformations, for the promise always comes before the change. Heaven had opened over Jacob while he was still a supplanter, and now he would begin his long education in another kind of humanity.
Love at the Well
He traveled on to Haran and paused to drink at a well. It was a good-sized well, for the stone that sealed it was huge, and the local shepherds gathered in groups to roll the rock away. While he stood at the well, Rachel came tumbling down the slope with her father's sheep. She was a shepherdess, as her brothers were, and the sight of her coming down the hillside still makes hearts race. So Jacob, heart full, went to the rock and rolled it away by himself, a task for several men, and watered all her sheep. Then he kissed her and wept. The verse is simple, but it lays bare a man spent and homesick and surprised at finding family at the end of the road, and in love at first sight. He had been in Haran less than a day.
Seven Years Like a Few Days
Rachel's father Laban received him with open arms, saying, "You are my own flesh and blood," and after a month of hard work, he asked Jacob a question with a hidden edge: because he was family, did he not work for nothing? Was there not a wage due him? Jacob had come with nothing but his wits, and so he offered his only payment: "I will serve you for seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel." Then he should have paused to consider Laban's words, for they were as smooth as butter. "It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to another man. Stay with me." No promise, only a convenient welcome. But Jacob should have known better than to be deceived a second time. And so we have one of the most quoted verses in all Scripture: so Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days, because he loved her.
One day in Haran: a stone rolled away single-handed, a flock watered, and a man in love.
The Switch
The wedding feast was held, and all the town turned out to see the bride go to her husband. The feast was in the evening, and when it was dark, Laban brought his daughter to Jacob's tent, veiled as was the custom. When the wedding night was over, the text begins to sting with five simple words: and behold, it was Leah. Jacob went to his father-in-law in a rage, demanding to know what had happened: "What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel! Why have you deceived me?" Deceived, the word is sharp as a knife. Laban parried the blow with a similar one: "It is not done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn." In our country, said Laban, the younger does not come before the older. If Jacob thought the earth had opened beneath his feet, he was mistaken. The settlement was as bitter as the deception: finish your week with Leah, said Laban, and then you may take Rachel in addition, for her dowry as well. Fourteen years, two weddings, and one con job were the price of Jacob's error.
The Deceiver Deceived
The parallels are almost too exact to be coincidence, and so let us lay them out for inspection. Jacob had deceived his father, and now he was deceived by his father-in-law. He had taken advantage of his father's blindness, and now he was taken advantage of in his blindness. He had used his father's senses against him, and now his senses were used against him. Laban took advantage of Jacob's sense of touch, smell, and hearing, and Jacob took advantage of his father's failing sight and sense of touch. There is no mention in this chapter of anyone remarking on the irony, but it is hard to believe that no one saw it, least of all Jacob. And so it is left to us to see it, and to know that somewhere in those fourteen years, the heel-grabber learned the lesson of his life.
Two Sisters, One Husband
The bill for Laban's deception was largely paid by the women, and Genesis does not shrink from showing it. Leah, the discarded bride, bore her disappointments in the names of her children. Her first son she named Reuben ("the Lord has seen my misery"), and her second Simeon ("the Lord has heard that I am not loved"). Her third she called Levi ("now at last my husband will become attached to me"). By the time she had her fourth son, something in her had changed, for she said, "This time I will praise the Lord," for she had learned that her husband would never love her, and that was as far as her faith would take her. Leah's fourth son was Judah, from whose line would come King David. Rachel, the beloved bride, bore her pain in barrenness until her son Joseph was born, and between the two sisters and their handmaidens there is a whole history of rivalry, bargaining, and disappointment. It was out of this unhappy tent that the twelve sons of Israel were born, and from them the twelve tribes of Israel, and so this was a most fitting home for the God of Israel.
Fourteen years for two weddings, six more for the flocks — and wages changed ten times.
Out-Foxing the Fox
With his debt to Laban paid, Jacob worked another six years to finish paying off his marriage "dowry." The two men carried on their contest for years, Jacob complaining that Laban had changed his wages ten times. There is no reason to believe that Jacob lied, for he certainly had cause to know the duplicity of men. The final division of the flocks was long and bitter, and in the end Laban's sons grumbled that their share was unfairly small. When Jacob escaped with his wives, children, camels, and flocks, Laban pursued him for a week, searching his tents for hidden treasure, for he was a man of wealth. The two men finally made a covenant of peace with a pile of stones, swearing that they would not cross the heap to injure the other. Two foxes had finally tired of their games, and had agreed to let the other live.
A Messy Family That Became a Nation
This was a most fitting end to a most fitting beginning for the people of Israel. From the two wives and two handmaidens had come the twelve sons who would become the twelve tribes of Israel. This was the God-chosen family that would make up the God-chosen nation, and so it is little surprise that God took great pains to make this family his own. It is little surprise that he took this messy band of humans and made a holy nation out of them. This was a family God could use, and so it is a family for us as well, for we are not so very different from them. God does not need a perfect family to carry out his will, for even the most dysfunctional of homes can be his instrument in building a great nation. Out of this most human of stories, a whole nation was born.
What Goes Around
Jacob walked away from his twenty years of labor wealthy beyond belief, twice married, twelve times a father, and changed. The ladder at Bethel had given the world a phrase that would live on in sermons and songs, and the con at the wedding tent had given the world its most famous con story. But what goes around, as we have seen, often comes around, and so it was with Jacob. Before the man could become Israel, before he could bear the name of God, he had to spend fourteen years learning what it was to be deceived, for he had deceived many men and women in his time.
The promise came before the reform: heaven opened over Jacob while he was still a cheat.
