In the Morning, It Was Leah

The seven years were finished, and Jacob went to Laban. “Grant me my wife, for my time is complete, and I want to sleep with her.” He had named Rachel when he offered his service. Now he asked for the marriage for which he had worked.

Laban invited all the men of the place and prepared a feast. The account moves from Jacob’s request to a public celebration, with the neighbors gathered. But when evening came, Laban took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob. Jacob slept with her.

There is no explanation of what Laban told Leah before he brought her. There is no account of what she said, or whether she said anything. Her father took her and gave her to the man who had asked for her sister. The telling leaves those actions plain.

Laban also gave his servant girl Zilpah to Leah as her maidservant. That detail stands beside the marriage: Leah entered it with a servant assigned by her father. Rachel had been the daughter named in the bargain. Leah was the daughter Laban brought in the evening.

When morning came, Jacob found Leah. The account gives the discovery its own abrupt exclamation, then turns at once to his accusation against Laban. It records no conversation between Jacob and Leah that morning. His words went to the father who had arranged it.

“What have you done to me?” Jacob said to Laban. “Wasn’t it for Rachel that I served you? Why have you deceived me?” Seven years of service stood behind the question, and Rachel’s name was still the one he spoke.

Laban answered with the order of his daughters’ births. “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older.” When Jacob had offered seven years for the younger daughter, Laban had told him to stay. Now, after the feast and the night, he explained what could not be done in that place.

He also had another bargain ready. “Finish this week’s celebration, and we will give you the younger one in return for another seven years of work.” Leah’s marriage celebration was still underway. Before its week was over, her father was arranging her sister’s marriage to the same man.

Jacob accepted the terms and finished the week. Laban then gave him Rachel as his wife, and gave Rachel his servant girl Bilhah as her maidservant. Rachel did not wait until the second seven years were complete to marry him. The marriage came after the week; the years of work followed.

Jacob slept with Rachel as well, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. The account does not soften that comparison after naming both women as his wives. Marriage had changed Leah’s place in Jacob’s household. It had not changed which sister he loved more.

So Jacob worked for Laban another seven years. The first seven had seemed like a few days because of his love for Rachel; these seven followed a deception and a second agreement. Leah was now his wife, Zilpah her maidservant, Rachel her sister and his other wife. All of them belonged to the household made by those bargains.

The celebration ended, but the comparison remained. Leah had been given the marriage that Jacob intended for Rachel, and Rachel had followed her into it a week later. The next words of the account turn toward Leah herself. They begin with what the LORD saw: she was unloved.