"Made in God's Image: Rachel and Leah - rivals or partners?"
Genesis 30:1-24, John 13:31-34
Sermon preached by Rev. Jeanette Mathews

Have you noticed how frequently pairs of characters turn up in the bible, especially the historical books of the Old Testament? Pairs like Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, David and Goliath. Usually there is some sort of conflict between them, where one ends up the victor. In theological terms, the victor is the one who has God's favour. Admittedly, often this is against all odds - the one with God's favour is the younger, or the least regarded, or has been unjustly treated before being raised up and vindicated. The theme is of reversal of the expected order - "turning the world upside down" as we sometimes sing. But there is still an assumption of conflict and the need for loss or victory behind the stories.

This pairing can be seen amongst women characters of the Old Testament too, and again they may be paired in terms of winners and losers. Sarah and Hagar, Ruth and Orpah, Esther and Vashti, and probably the most famous pair, sisters Rachel and Leah. Their story stretches from Genesis 29 to 35, and while they sometimes seem to work together in partnership, the story highlights the birth of their children at the centre of the story and seems to present them as rivals in this. In fact, these birth stories are the beginnings of the twelve tribes of Israel and some commentators see the ongoing antagonism between the tribes having its origins in this rivalry of the sisters. Like mothers, like sons. In the perspective of the most straightforward reading of biblical history Rachel is ultimately the "victor" in this conflict but the circumstances of the story of Rachel and Leah favour them turn by turn, with first one gaining the upper hand then the other.

We are introduced to Rachel first, and she would certainly be voted the one "most likely to succeed." Her beauty was legendary, while Leah, we are told, "had soft eyes" (Gen 29:17). People have tried to explain why Jacob wasn't attracted to Leah by translating that she had "weak" eyes, but it is hard to know exactly what the Hebrew text means. Jacob met Rachel at a well, a favourite setting for betrothal scenes in the narratives of the Old Testament. It seems he was smitten by her, and offered to work seven years to earn her hand in marriage. Nonetheless, Rachel was second born, so her father tricked Jacob into marrying Leah first, then defended himself by quoting the custom of primogeniture. Until now the Jacob stories had overturned such customs - Jacob himself was favoured over his older twin. But in the story soft-eyed Leah is presented to Jacob as his bride - giving her victory in Round One. Eyesight might have been a weakness for her, but it worked in her favour to be veiled from the prospective groom's sight, and perhaps reminded him of the trick he played on his blind father to gain a blessing in the place of his older brother Esau. After only a week, however, Jacob was granted Rachel as his second bride and, we are told, "he loved her more than Leah." Round Two to Rachel.

The love of a husband is an important thing, but less so in the days where production of male offspring was the primary purpose of a woman's existence. As the competition between the two wives begin, Leah quickly gains the upper hand again. It is even put in theological terms - "when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren" (Gen 29:31). The all important first born son was Leah's victory to savour, and indeed she named him in those terms. The name Reuben meant "see, a son" (we are going to learn a bit of Hebrew today!!). That round went to Leah, but wasn't a straightforward victory. Her hope that it would win Jacob's love was thwarted, despite three more sons in quick succession. It is a fascinating passage to read, and as I did so I noticed for the first time that her fourth son marked a transition both in her relationship to Jacob and to God - Judah was named because "this time I will praise (hodah) the Lord" (Gen 29:35). It seems that winning her husband's affection eventually became secondary to her own gratitude to God for the gift of motherhood.

Rachel, however, hadn't achieved much in this competition. In order to gain the upper hand she resorted to underhand tactics! In a quite legitimate move in biblical terms Rachel offered her handmaid Bilhah to Jacob as a surrogate, and then helped deliver the child so that it could be considered hers. (You might remember that Sarah used Hagar for the same purpose earlier on. cf Gen 16:2) At last Rachel had the opportunity to name a son to describe her experience - and note the interesting name of Dan ("God has judged"). In legal terms she had just won another round. After a second son to Rachel through Bilhah, Leah is again drawn into the match, although it seems her motivation is competition with her sister now rather than winning the favour of their husband. All this striving between Rachel and Leah has a faint echo of the long struggle between Jacob and Esau. Gaining the birthright didn't end the competition for Jacob, in fact he lived for years in fear of his life at the hand of his brother. The parallel is made explicit in Rachel's naming of her second surrogate son Naphtali - "I have wrestled (niphtal) with my sister and have prevailed" (Gen 30:8). The same language is used in Genesis 32 where Jacob has a wrestling match at Jabbok with an unknown assailant as he waits for his brother. The concluding statement in that story is "you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed" (Gen 32:28).

Leah re-enters the competition by offering her handmaid to Jacob, and has the happy (asher) fortune (gad) of rearing two more sons. This makes Rachel all the more desperate, bargaining with her sister for mandrakes in the hope that they would magically create fertility. Apparently mandrake roots look like a newborn baby and so were considered a fertility charm. (If you've read or seen the second Harry Potter story you'll remember them potting the mandrake plants - JK Rowling obviously knows her Ancient Near Eastern folklore!). Rachel's victory in this round is long delayed, however, as Leah had three more pregnancies in the interim, producing another two sons and then a daughter. Finally, we are told, "God remembered Rachel ... and opened her womb" (Gen 30:22) In the competition interpretation of this story Rachel is the victor of this round as Joseph, the son she produced, became Jacob's favourite and was most favoured by God as the story continued. It was not a total victory in biblical terms, though, since the significant line of King David that led to the Messiah came from Leah's son, Judah. It's interesting to reflect that the one who was specially blessed in that way was the one whose name didn't reflect the struggle between Rachel and Leah.

This conflict seems to end at the point of Rachel's motherhood, although we hear much later of Jacob's request to be buried in the family plot alongside Leah rather than beside Rachel who died "on the road" (Gen 49:29-31), giving a lasting historical triumph to Leah. But victory after death is not as sweet as victory in life, so from Leah and Rachel's point of view it is the younger sister who ends up on top. However, in my opinion one of the saddest things recorded in the bible is Rachel's final earthly loss. The family had acted more co-operatively in the face of threats to their well-being: first Laban their father, then Esau the brother of Jacob. They were still looking for a place to settle and were travelling toward Bethlehem when Rachel went into labour for a second time. It was a difficult and ultimately fatal labour for Rachel, making her earlier statement "give me sons or I die" a sadly ironic request. But before she died she heard she was giving birth to another son. The text tells us that "she named him Ben-oni" - "son of my sorrow" (Gen 35:18). All of the sons of Jacob had been named by their mothers according to the circumstances surrounding their birth, and "son of my sorrow" was an apt choice of Rachel. In the same verse, however, we read "but his father called him Benjamin" ("son of my right hand"). Rachel's dying wish was ignored by her formerly devoted husband.

Despite the optimistic expectations we might have had for this beautiful and much loved woman, as Rachel's name lives on in Israel's story it is the sadness and pain of her experiences that seem to be remembered. In Jeremiah we read of her symbolic status as matriarch of the exiled northern kingdom when we are told "Rachel is weeping for her children who are no more" (Jer 31:15-21) and Matthew in the New Testament takes up this image of tragic motherhood as he recounts the massacre of innocent children by Herod following the birth of Jesus.

This is a sad story - especially as it sets up sisters as rivals which seems to continue on through the next generation. But let us look at it another way. Is the real tragedy of it that it is a story told through patriarchal lenses? After all, much of the Old Testament has this bias. The central concern of the story as it is told in Genesis is maintaining the position of Jacob and the honour of the family through the successful production of twelve male heirs who would become the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel. The primary place of the women in the story is to be the mothers who give birth to the children. Guess what the names Leah and Rachel mean in Hebrew? "Cow" and "Ewe" respectively!! In order to achieve its aim the story puts these mothers in competition against each other, each striving through whatever means to be the best producer. But, as one commentator of the story has put it, ambition is "primarily a patriarchal prerogative". Telling the story through this lens of ambitious competition may well distort the relationship between the women. I read a very interesting novel based on this story called The Red Tent (by a Jewish author Anita Diamant). It tells the story from a very different perspective, presenting Leah, Rachel and their handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah as a community of women who supported each other in the midst of the patriarchal environment in which they lived. In the story told from this perspective life is not about winning against rival wives and concubines. Life is about living, learning, growing, sharing, celebrating, mourning, learning to know and accept oneself in spite of one's limitations. Of course the pain of Rachel's infertility may well have been there - something a woman can well imagine. And at a time where childbearing was a woman's reason for existence, barrenness might well have been as good as death. But pain shared in a community of women is a different story to the painful conflict of competition. Interestingly enough, the high point for the women in this imaginative version of the story is the birth of Dinah, a daughter who will be able to carry on the women's traditions and practices for the next generation! In fact, this is virtually the only biblical story of the birth of a woman - in the case of all the heroines of the bible they appear only at marriageable age, and most often disappear once the sons they have borne are on their own. Their almost sole purpose as a foil to the men in their lives precludes the possibility of character development and transformation such as we'd see, for example, in the person of Jacob. Motherhood is the most exalted female role in the biblical stories, but the lack of depth and complexity shown of them as characters mean that none can really function as a fully-fledged human role model. We need imagination to flesh out a full story for women like Rachel and Leah, and even more so, the servant women Bilhah and Zilpah who are completely ignored by the ongoing tradition.

Our world still thrives on competition, and values winners, which naturally means some will always be defined against others. The ones admired are the ones who are more beautiful, richer, faster, stronger and so on. We might not use the language of God being on their side, but we do think people deserve to succeed if they work hard and have a competitive attitude (don't they say now that top athletes give as much attention to psychological training as physical: to be highly motivated might give the edge that puts you milliseconds ahead of your opponents).

We, however, are part of a community that has a different culture to the world around us. Jesus left his disciples with a new commandment, not one that the world knows. In the church the ethos that holds sway is love. Not romantic love or natural family love that ties mother and children together. The love Jesus speaks of is between members of a community, embodied in people and seen in action. Jesus asked his followers to love each other with his quality of love. He is the model: "Love one another as I have loved you."

This type of love is respectful of others, recognising the God-given unique and precious nature of the other person. The love that Jesus modelled for us includes proactive forgiveness: forgiveness which takes the initiative and reaches out to those who have offended. And it was love that went beyond its comfort zone, ultimately to self-sacrifice for Jesus. But throughout his ministry leading up to the cross Jesus would put the needs of others first. The New Testament church seemed to be a community who gave their time, talents and property for the common good of all. They impressed others outside of their community by the quality of love they showed.

Love means the valuing of each person's dignity, achievement and contribution for the simple fact that they are created by God in God's image, so we need to resist the language of competition and see our church community as an opportunity to grow, learn, share, celebrate, mourn and accept ourselves and each other. The story of Jesus will give us a model to follow, and other stories may also provide challenges and encouragement along the way. But as we've seen today, even these stories may need to be studied with different lenses so that we may all be better at being a community of people made in the image of God.

11/05/03

Last updated: 12 May l2003