So, Jacob’s story continues its not very edifying path. Like Abraham and Isaac before him, Jacob had a wife who did not conceive but, instead of waiting on the Lord as Isaac had done, he followed Abraham and Sarah’s example, and took matters into his own hands, with predictable consequences.

God is incredibly generous to Jacob, giving him twelve sons and a daughter. Yet we see jealousy and rivalry between Jacob’s wives caused, at least in part, by him favouring one over the other. There is arguing and back-biting, and nobody seems very happy. Perhaps the saddest person is Leah who Jacob never loved and never wanted. Threaded throughout the first part of the chapter is Leah’s forlorn hope that the next son will finally be the one that makes her husband love her. She has children, but she does not have love.

Rachel has her husband’s love but does not have children. She turns to superstition, taking the mandrakes that Reuben had gathered, which were supposed to have powers to help barren women conceive. She gives Leah time with Jacob in return and, ironically, it is Leah who conceives. With Jacob and his family, we see again and again how they try to get blessing by their own efforts – the concubines, the mandrakes, the striped branches.

God does bless Jacob, with a large family, and with material wealth, but he does it in spite of him, not because of him. Jacob may have congratulated himself on his striped branches plan, but it can only have been God who increased his herds, because it certainly wasn’t the branches. Similarly, it was God who ordained how many sons Jacob would have, regardless of the number of wives and concubines he took. This was all part of God’s plan.

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NEWBOLD COMMUNITY CHURCH