[Let us not forget why Yaakov is on this journey . . . search for a wife is the official reason, but mother Rebekah has decided it would be best for her favored twin to be away from father Yitzchak they both had deceived and twin Esau who was angry over losing his birthright. The journey is not a waste of time, it becomes a search for a suitable wife from within the kinfolk of Rebekah. The search ends with not one wife, but two; sisters Leah and Rachel. And the time it takes is many years. By the end of the chapter, three of the 12 sons that would issue from Yaakov are born. And sibling rivalry, this time between the sister-wives, continues. Evidently the culture of the times allowed not only for multiple wives but also children from maidservants of wives, all very strange and alien to us living in cultures where monogamy is the norm though sexual fidelity is no different.
Unbracketted commentary is from Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; for those who notice a difference in the words and phrases explained in the commentaries and our translation of choice—The Five Books of Torah by Everett Fox.—it is not that difficult to figure out the equivalent in meaning. The reason we Everett Fox is our choice is because he uses the Name YHWH and some Hebraic names and titles plus — we get the feel and flow of the original Hebrew text since his format is poetry. Additional commentary from “RA,” Robert Alter.—Admin1.]
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Genesis/Bereshith 29
JACOB AND LABAN
[EF] Arrival in Aram (29:1-14): As one might expect from the usual biblical pattern, Yaakov meets his bride-to-be at a well. As in other ancient stories (see also Ex. 2;15-17) the hero performs a feat of physical strength, this time with a large stone—continuing the use of stones as a motif in the Yaakov stories.
Lavan is once again the chief representative of the family, as he was in the betrothal account of Chap. 24.
1 Yaakov lifted his feet and went to the land of the Easterners.children of the east. A term to denote generally the Arab tribes located E. and N.E. of Palestine.
[EF] lifted his feet: Colloquially, “picked up and went.”
[RA] lifted his feet. Although eyes are frequently lifted or raised in these narratives, the idiom of lifting the feet occurs only here. Rashi suggests that Jacob’s eleation after the Bethel epiphany to the movement of his feet as he began his long trek to the east. Perhaps this is a general idiom for beginning a particularly arduous journey on foot. In any case, a symmetry of phrasing is created when, at the end of the journey, having discovered Rachel, Jacob “lifted his voice and wept.”
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the stone upon the well’s mouth. In the East, wells are still covered over with a large boulder to prevent the water from becoming polluted.
[RA] And he saw, and, look, . . . These sentences are an interesting interweave of Jacob’s perspective and the narrator’s. It is Jacob who sees first the well, then the flocks. It is the narrator who intervenes to explain that from this well the flocks are watered, but it is in all likelihood Jacob who sees the stone, notes its bigness, observes how it covers the mouth of the well (the order of perception is precisely indicated by the word order. Then, in verse 3, the narrator again speaks out to explain the habitual procedures of the Haranites with the stone and the well.
3 so when all the herds were gathered there, they used to roll the stone from the mouth of the well, give the sheep to drink, and put the stone back on the mouth of the well in its place.gathered. The verbs are ‘frequentative’, and should be rendered ‘All the flocks used to gather together . . . used to roll . . . and water’ (Rashi).
4 Now Yaakov said to them: Brothers, where are you from? They said: We are from Harran.my brethren. Evidently a common form of address.
5 He said to them: Do you know Lavan, son of Nahor? They said: We know him.the son of Nahor. Laban was Nahor’s grandson; see XX,12.
we know him. There is no word in Biblical Hebrew corresponding to our ‘yes’; consequently the answer to a question is a repetition of the word or words in the affirmative or negative.
[EF] We know him: Biblical Hebrew expresses the idea “yes” by repeating the words of the question. See also v. 6 and 24:58.
is it well with him? lit. ‘is there peace to him?’
cometh. lit. ‘is coming’.
[EF] Rahel: Trad. English “Rachel. The name means “ewe.”
7 He said: Indeed, it is still broad daylight, it is not time to gather in the livestock, so give the sheep to drink and go back, tend them.[EF] to gather in: For the night.
[RA] Look, the day is still long. Jacob’s scrupulousness about the shepherd’s obligation to take full advantage of the daylight for grazing the flocks prefigures his own dedication to the shepherd’s calling and his later self-justification that he has observed all his responsibilities punctiliously.
8 But they said: We cannot, until all the herds have been gathered; only then do they roll the stone from the mouth of the well, and then we give the sheep to drinkThey wait for others to arrive, so that by their combined effort they remove the stone; or, possibly, because it would be unwise to remove the stone until all the flocks were there, lest in the interval the wind blew dust and sand into the well.
9 While he was still speaking with them, Rahel came with the sheep that were her father’s —for she was a shepherdess.
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tended them. To this day it would not be considered derogatory for an Arab Sheik’s daughter to be his shepherdess.
10 Now it was when Yaakov saw Rahel, the daughter of Lavan and the sheep of Lavan his mother’s brother, that Yaakov came close, he rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and gave drink to the sheep of Lavan his mother’s brother.Jacob disregards the local custom, and by a feat of great personal strength removes the stone. The phrase ‘his mother’s brother’ is used three times in this verse, to denote the joy Jacob felt in meeting and helping a member of his mother’s family.
[EF] his mother’s brother: Three times here, to accentuate the familial ties.
[RA] he stepped forward and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the sheep. The “Homeric” feat of strength in rolling away the huge stone single-handedly is the counterpart to his mother’s feat of carrying up water for ten thirsty camels. Though Jacob is not a man of the open field, like Esau, we now see that he is formidably powerful—and so perhaps Rebekah was not unrealistic in fearing the twins would kill each other should they come to blows. The drawing of water after encountering a maiden at a well in a foreign land signals to the audience that a betrothal type-scene is unfolding. But Jacob is the antithesis of his father: instead of a surrogate, the bridegroom himself is present at the well, and it is he, not the maiden, who draws the water; in order to do so, he must contend with a stone, the motif that is his narrative signature. If, as seems entirely likely, the well in the foreign land is associated with fertility and the otherness of the female body to the bridegroom, it is especially fitting that this well should be blocked by a stone, as Rachel’s womb will be “shut up” over long years of marriage.
11 Then Yaakov kissed Rahel, and lifted up his voice and wept.kissed. When the Heb. verb is, as here, not followed by the accusative case, it denotes kissing the hand as a respectful simulation (Ibn Ezra).
and wept. ‘The demonstrative display of feeling is Homeric in its simplicity’ (Ryle).
[RA] And Jacob kissed Rachel. As Nahum Sarna notes, there is a pun between “he watered’ (wayashq) and “he kissed” (wayishaq). The same pun is played on by the poet of the Song of Songs.
12 And Yaakov told Rahel that he was her father’s brother and that he was Rivka’s son. She ran and told her father.her father’s brother. i.e. her relative.
told her father. Her mother having died (Midrash).
[EF] brother: Relative (so also v. 15).
[RA] and she ran and told. The hurrying to bring hom the news of the guest’s arrival, generally with the verb ruts, (“to run”) as here, is another conventional requirement of the betrothal type-scene.
13 Now it was, as soon as Lavan heard the tidings concerning Yaakov, his sister’s son, that he ran to meet him, embraced him and kissed him, and brought him into his house. And he recounted all these events to Lavan.embraced him. The effusive welcome stands in sharp contrast to Laban’s later treatment of Jacob. The Rabbis doubted its genuineness.
all these things. i.e. that Rebekah had sent him because of the wrath of Esau.
[RA] he ran toward him. This may be standard hospitality, but Rashi, exercising his own hermeneutics of suspicion, shrewdly notes that Laban could be recalling that the last time someone came from the emigrant branch of the family in Canaan, he brought ten heavily laden camels with him. Rashi pursues this idea by proposing that Laban’s embrace was to see if Jacob had gold secreted on his person.
14 Lavan said to him: Without doubt you are my bone, my flesh! And he stayed with him the days of a Renewing-of-the-moon.my bone and my flesh. As his near kinsman, he is welcome to his home.
[EF] Renewing-of-the-month: Heb. hodesh, a month.
15 Lavan said to Yaakov: Just because you are my brother, should you serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?wages. Jacob from the outset seems to have decided not to be indebted to his uncle but to earn his maintenance.
[EF] Deception Repaid (29:15-30): The language of the text here, as well as the tenor of the situation, suggest that the Bible has set up Yaakov’s punishment for having stolen Yitzhak’s blessing from his brother: “Deceived” (v. 25) and “younger firstborn” (v. 26) echo the Chap. 27 narrative, and provide another example of biblical justice.
[RA] Because you are my kin, should you serve me for nothing? In a neat deployment of delayed revelation, a device of which the biblical writers were fond, we now learn that this “bone and flesh” of Laban’s has already been put to work by his gracious host for a month’s time.
16 Now Lavan had two daughters: the name of the elder was Lea, the name of the younger was Rahel.[EF] Lea: Or “Le’a,” trad. English “Leah.” The name means”wild cow.”
17 Lea’s eyes were delicate, but Rahel was fair of form and fair to look at.weak. Better, tender, which the Targum understands in the sense of ‘beautiful’.
[EF] delicate: Others use “weak.” Either the term is meant negatively or else Lea is being praised for one attribute but Rahel for total beauty.
[RA] Leah’s eyes were tender. The precise meaning of the context of the adjective is uncertain. Generally, the word rakh is antonym of “hard” and means “soft,” “gentle,” “tender,” or in a few instances “weak.” The claim that here it refers to dullness, or a lusterless quality, is pure translation by immediate context because rakh nowhere else has that meaning. Still, there is no way of confidently deciding whether the word indicates some sort of impairment (“weak” eyes or perhaps odd-looking eyes0 or rather suggests that Leah has sweet eyes that are her one asset of appearance, in contrast to her beautiful sister.
18 And Yaakov fell in love with Rahel. He said: I will serve you seven years for Rahel, your younger daughter.
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for Rachel. See on XXIV,53. It is still the custom in the East for a man who cannot provide money or cattle to offer his labour as a substitute for such compensation.
[EF] seven: Aside from forty, this is the other schematic number found often in Genesis and elsewhere (for instance, as the basic number of the biblical calendar, in days, months, and years).
[RA] seven years for Rachel your younger daughter. True to legalistic form, Jacob carefully stipulates the duration of the labor (in lieu of a bride-price that he does not possess), the name of the daughter, and the fact that she is the younger daughter. In the event, none of this avails.
19 Lavan said: My giving her to you is better than my giving her to another man; stay with me.to thee. A relative; it was considered preferable for husband and wife to belong tot he same family.
[EF] with me: Or “in my service, ” “under me.”
20 So Yaakov served seven years for Rahel, yet they were in his eyes as but a few days, because of his love for her.and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love had had to her. The six Heb. words of which this is the transition condense a world of affection and tenderest love. They are unsurpassed in the whole literature of romantic love.
[RA] they seemed in his eyes but a few days in his love for her. The writer’s eloquent economy scarcely needs comment, but it should be observed that “a few days” (or, “a while,” yamim aadim) is exactly the phrase his mother had used in advising him to go off to stay with her brother (27:44).
21 Then Yaakov said to Lavan: Come-now, (give me) my wife, for my days-of-labor have been fulfilled, so that I may come in to her.my wife. i.e. the woman who was betrothed to him as his wife.
[EF] fulfilled: I.e., over, completed.
[RA} and let me come to bed with her. The explicitness of Jacob’s statement is sufficiently abrupt to have triggered maneuvers of exegetical justification in the Midrash, but it is clearly meant to express his—understandable—sexual impatience, which is about to be given a quite unexpected outlet.
22 Lavan gathered all the people of the place together and made a drinking-feast. 23 Now in the evening he took Lea his daughter and brought her to him, and he came in to her.he took Leah. Heavily veiled and in the dark. This fraud may be regarded as a retribution for the deception which Jacob himself practised upon his father.
24 Lavan also gave her Zilpa his maid, for Lea his daughter as a maid. 25 Now in the morning: here, she was Lea! He said to Lavan: What is this that you have done to me! Was it not for Rahel that I served you? Why have you deceived me?[RA] why have you deceived me? The verb Jacob uses to upbraid Laban reflects the same root as the key noun Isaac used when he said to Esau, “Your brother has come in deceit and has taken hyour blessing” (27:35).
26 Lavan said: Such is not done in our place, giving away the younger before the firstborn;give the younger. A feined excuse, since the feast was for the maiden for whom Jacob had served.
[RA] It is not done thus in our place, to give the younger girl before the firstborn. Laban is an instrument of dramatic irony: his perfectly natural reference to “our place” has the effect of touching a nerve of guilt consciousness in Jacob, who in his place acted to put the younger before the firstborn. This effect is reinforced by Laban’s referring to Leah not as the elder but as the firstborn (bekhirah). It has been clearly recognized since late antiquity that the whole story of the switched brides is a meting out of poetic justice to Jacob—the deceiver deceived, deprived by darkness of the sense of sight as his father is by blindness, relying, like his father, on the misleading sense of touch. The Midrash Bereishit Rabba vividly represents the correspondence between the two episodes: “And all that night he cried out to her, ‘Rachel!’ and she answered him. In the morning, ‘and, . . . look, she was Leah.’ He said to her, ‘Why did you deceive me, daughter of a deceiver? Didn’t I call out Rachel in the night, and you answered me!” She said: ‘There is never a bad barber who doesn’t have disciples. Isn’t this how your father cried out Esau, and you answered him?”
27 just fill out the bridal-week for this one, then we shall give you that one also, for the service which you will serve me for yet another seven years.fulfil the week of this one. i.e. do not repudiate the marriage with Leah. the wedding celebrations usually lasted a week; Judges XIV,12.
we will give thee. i.e. Laban and his family will give; XXIV,50.
28 Yaakov did so-he fulfilled the bridal-week for this one, and then he gave him Rahel his daughter as a wife.and he gave him Rachel. Eight days after Leah, on the understanding that Jacob was to serve Laban for another seven years. After the Giving of the Law at Sinai, the marrying of two sisters was forbidden.
29 Lavan also gave Rahel his daughter Bilha his maid, for her as a maid. 30 So he came in to Rahel also, and he loved Rahel also, more than Lea. Then he served him for yet another seven years.Seven other years. The Midrash comments that Jacob served the second term as conscientiously as the first, although he was labouring under a sense of grievance against his uncle.
31 Now when YHVH saw that Lea was hated, he opened her womb, while Rahel was barren.hated. The word here only means ‘less loved’—not that Jacob had an aversion to her, but that he preferred Leah; Deut. XXI,15.
[EF] hated: Others use “rejected,” “unloved.”
[RA] Leah was despised and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. The Hebrew term for “despised” (or “hated”) seems to have emotional implications, as Leah’s words in verse 33 suggest, but it is also a technical, legal term for the unfavored co-wife. The pairing of an unloved wife who is fertile with a barren, beloved co-wife sets the stage for a familiar variant of the annunciation type-scene (as in the story of Peninah and Hannah in 1 Samuel 1). But, as we shall see, in Rachel’s case the annunciation is deflected.
32 So Lea became pregnant and bore a son; she called his name: Re’uven/See, a Son! for she said: Indeed, YHVH has seen my being afflicted, indeed, now my husband will love me!Reuben. In this and the following names, the meaning is derived by the resemblance of the name in sound to the words which explain it.
will love me. The birth of a son raised the wife in the esteem of her husband.
[EF] Re’uven: Trad. English “Reuben.”
[RA] Reuben . . . seen my suffering. All of the etymologies put forth for the names of the sons are ad hoc improvisations by the mother who does the naming—essentially, midrashic play on the sounds of the names. Thus “Reuben” is construed as re’u ben, “see, a son,” but Leah immediately converts the verb into God’s seeing her suffering. The narrative definition of character and relationship continues through the naming-speeches, as, here, the emotionally neglected Leah sees a kind of vindication in having borne a son and desperately imagines her husband will now finally love her.
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hath heard. Better, knows.
[EF] Shimon: Trad. English “Simeon.”
[RA] the LORD has heard . . . Simeon. The naming plays on shama’, “has heard,” and Shim’on. It is noteworthy that Jacob’s first two sons are named after sight and sound, the two senses that might have detected him in his deception of his father, were not Isaac deprived of sight and had not the evidence of touch and smell led him to disregard the evidence of sound. Leah’s illusion that bearing a son would bring her Jacob’s love has been painfully disabused, for here she herself proclaims that she is “despised” and that God has given her another son as compensation.
[RA] my husband will join me . . . Levi. The naming plays on yilaveh, “will join,” and Levi. Once more, Leah voices the desperate hope that her bearing sons to Jacob will bring him to love her.
35 She became pregnant again and bore a son, and said: This time I will give thanks to YHVH! Therefore she called his name: Yehuda/Giving-thanks. Then she stopped giving birth.Judah. Heb. Yehudah. The name of the members of the tribe was later extended to all the descendants of Jacob, Yehudim.
[EF] Yehuda: Trad. English Judah.”
[RA] Sing praise . . . Judah. The naming plays on ‘odeh, “sing praise,” and Yehudah, “Judah.” The verb Leah invokes is one that frequently figures in thanksgiving psalms. With the birth of her fourth son, she no longer expresses hope of winning her husband’s affection but instead simply gives thanks to God for granting her male offspring.
she ceased bearing children. This may be merely the consequence of natural process, though one possible reading of the mandrakes episode in the next chapter is not that the two sisters had their conjugal turns but rather that Jacob has ceased for a long period to cohabit with Leah.