This episode uncovers the profound and poignant journey of Jacob, who navigates a complex web of love, deceit, and familial obligations. With captivating narratives from biblical history, learn how Jacob’s persistence and cleverness not only win him the love of Rachel but also forge the future of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Explore how timeless values and divine intervention shape the lives of these ancient figures and the generations that follow.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 01 :
When you were young and in love, what would you have paid for your wife? What do you mean, what do I mean? You expect a good wife to come free? Well, of course you do. One of the curses of the modern world is we think love is free. Marriage, well, it doesn’t cost you anything. It may cost the father of the bride a few thousand dollars. But the guy, all he’s got to do is show up at a wedding in a rented tuxedo. He doesn’t have to bring anything in terms of money or wealth to the table. But, you know, in ancient times, it didn’t work that way. One of the great men of the Bible had to work for 14 years to get the woman he wanted. The man was Jacob, grandson of Abraham. He had gone to his father’s homeland to find a wife, and he found a beauty. And she was a fine woman to boot. This is the problem. Jacob arrived penniless. Now, in the ancient world, you didn’t go up to a man and say, hey, I’d like to marry your daughter. I don’t have any money, but I’d like to marry your daughter. Forget about it. A daughter, for one thing, to a father was an asset, but apart from that, he wanted to be sure that the man that married his daughter was substantial, that he could take care of his daughter. He could give her a home, give her a life, be able to afford to support her children. They didn’t stand for the kind of stuff that we seem to tolerate so easily today. Well, poor Jacob showed up here. His father had sent him away to find a wife because he didn’t want him taking a wife of the country where he lived. He didn’t like the culture, didn’t like the religion, a lot of things he didn’t like. He sure didn’t like the wives that Jacob’s brother had taken locally. So he sent him away. He sent him away to find a wife where his own mother came from. Well, Jacob made his way down there, long story to make it short, and he found, actually came by chance straight to the land of Laban, who was the uncle, his own uncle. And when he got there, he found out he was there. He met the herdsmen. They were at a well. And while they were standing there talking, a woman came up. Her name was Rachel. She came up with her father’s sheep because she took care of them. It came to pass when Jacob saw her and he looked at her, he went over, he rolled a stone from the well’s mouth and watered her sheep for her and identified himself. And he kissed her and lifted up his voice and cried, wept. He was absolutely overwhelmed with what had happened to him and where he had come. And another thing I think he was overwhelmed with was this woman, this young single woman was beautiful. Well, Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kinsman and that he was Rebecca’s son. And she knew who she was. And she ran and told her father. And then came all the family greetings. Laban ran and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. And they told everybody all the story. And Laban said, Surely you are my bone and my flesh. He stayed with them there for about a month. And Laban said, Because you’re my kinsman. You shouldn’t serve me for nothing. What shall your wages be? Well, Laban had two daughters. One of them was Leah. The name of the younger one, though, was Rachel. Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful and well-favored. You know, I don’t know what the difference between these would be. Tender-eyed, I think, must have something to do with disposition, that she was a tender woman. Her eyes were kind and tender and probably reflected her character as well. Rachel, though, was definitely the more beautiful of the two and well-favored. And Jacob, as men will do, loved Rachel. And he said, I will serve you for seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter. And Laban said, well. It’s better I give her to you than I should give her to another man. It’s a deal. And so Jacob went to work, took care of his herds, took care of his flocks. And it says he served seven years for her. And they seemed to him like just a few days for the love he had for Rachel. Seven years he yearned for this girl. Seven years he worked for this girl. And finally, I guess he had earned enough. that he could afford to be the wife of Laban’s daughter. And so he went to him and said, Give me my wife, my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast. It came to pass in the evening he took Leah, his daughter, and brought her to him, and he went into her. Now, I don’t know exactly all… We really don’t know very much about the customs at that time. We know in later times that the whole marriage contract deal that was cut involved a finalization with a couple actually going into the same house or the same room. And the whole idea of the canopy at a Jewish wedding, the canopy is symbolic of taking your bride into your tent and… sharing a dwelling together. But there’s always a contract in the ancient world on these marriages. So he took her in. He also gave unto his daughter Leah, Zilpah, his maid, for a handmaid. Well, it came to pass in the morning, look, it was Leah. And Jacob said to Laban, what have you done to me? I served you for Rachel. Why have you beguiled me? Now, don’t ask me how he made it through that night without knowing. It says in the morning he found it was Leah. He would have thought there would have been a lot of giggling and slapping and whatever it was that goes on on wedding nights in the ancient world. And if somebody would have said something, and he would have realized, this isn’t Rachel, this is Leah. Well, whatever the case is, He felt like he’d been had seven years of work for the wrong girl. And Laban, he said, oh, I’m sorry. We can’t do it that way in our country to give the younger before the elder daughter. Oh, I see. That’s your custom. Now you tell me. He then says, well, you fulfill her week, and we’ll give you this one also for the service, which you shall serve me yet another seven years. So he was going to have to, to get the woman he loved, serve this man for 14 years. So Jacob did it. He fulfilled Leah’s week, and he gave him Rachel then to be his daughter to wife also, and Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Billa his handmaid to be her maid. And then Jacob went into Rachel, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he worked for Laban seven more years. You know, you read this story, and the heartache, the pain, it all lies just behind the words But you know the hurt that there had to be in that family. You know the jealousy that was there. You know the tears that were shed into pillows at night because Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb and Rachel was barren. It’s an interesting thing about God, isn’t it? He looks down on this, rather what I would call a dysfunctional family, and he looks at the wife the man doesn’t love, and just like you and I would, he felt sorry for her. And so he gave her the first child. Rachel, Rachel was barren. She had no children. So Leah conceived and bare a son and called his name Reuben. For she said, The Lord has looked upon my affliction. Therefore my husband now will love me. And the pain behind that is there too. Now that I’ve had a boy for him. And a boy, a boy child in that world was so important. It was the heir. He was the firstborn. And I just know that now that I’ve given him a son, he will really love me. But he didn’t. You know, this is a momentous occasion. It’s the birth of the first of the 12 tribes of Israel. Jacob’s name will later be changed to Israel. And of all these boys that form the Israel of the Bible, Reuben was the first one born. And he’s the fellow who is the namesake, as it were, of all those down through all the years that have turned out to be named Reuben. She conceived again and bear a son. And she said, Because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, he has given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon. And then there was another one. She said, This one, my husband, now finally at long last will be joined to me. I’ve got him three sons. And she named him Levi. Oh, the hurt of this poor woman. You know, her husband is having sex with her on a regular basis. She’s bearing children. And all through it all, she knows every day, every time, he loves Rachel more. You really have to feel sorry for Leah. You know, this is another momentous occasion, though. Levi was the father of a man named Moses, and his descendants would form the entire priesthood of Israel. God’s at work here. Things are happening. When I come back, I’ll tell you more of what God is really doing.
SPEAKER 02 :
What in the world is God doing? Does he have something in mind, or is life just a grand soap opera and God a spectator? For a free introductory CD in the series titled, What Is God Doing?, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44 and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 01 :
Sweet Leah was not through having children. She had one more son, and he turned out to be pretty significant. His name was Judah. And he was the father of all the Jews. Now, this is four children for Leah. And Rachel, poor Rachel, beautiful Rachel, has had no children. And she envied her sister. There’s no question. And she finally came to Jacob and said, Give me children or I will die. Jacob was angry because he said, I’m not God. who’s withheld from you the fruit of the womb? I haven’t. I guess Jacob’s telling her, look, I’ve done my part many, many, many times. It’s not my fault. And she said, look, here’s my maid, Billa. You go in unto her, and she’ll bear for me so I can have children by her. Surrogate motherhood. Now, this didn’t work very well at all for his grandfather, Abraham. And here they are. They’re going to try it again. Well, it happened. She gave Bilhah to her husband as a wife. Jacob went in to her, and she bore Jacob a son. And Rachel said, God has judged me and heard my voice and given me a son. And she called his name Dan, which is related to the word judge. And they didn’t stop there. Why not go on, I guess? Jacob said, went to her again, and she conceived again and bore another son, called his name Naphtali. Because Rachel said, I’ve wrestled with my sister and prevailed. This poor kid had carried the rest of his life, a name that meant the fact that his mother had wrestled with her sister and had finally got herself a boy. It’s a sad, sad family situation. Well, Leah, when she saw all this going on, a little jealousy of her own, and she wasn’t having any more kids, she brings her maid into Jacob. And her maid’s name is Zilpah. And she bore a son. And he called his name Gad. And she had another one. And he called his name Asher. One by one, the 12 tribes of Israel are being built by two wives and their handmaids. Well, the firstborn son’s growing older by now, and one day in the days of wheat harvest, he went out in the field and he found mandrakes in the field. He brought them to his mother, Leah. And Rachel saw them and said, let me have some of those, please. Now, you have to understand the dynamics, what’s going on here. Mandrakes in the ancient world were considered a kind of aphrodisiac and a fertility drug. And Rachel, poor Rachel, beautiful Rachel, still has no children. And she says, just give me some of the mandrakes, would you? And she said, you know, Leah answering her said, it’s a small matter that you have taken my husband, and now you’re going to take away my son’s mandrakes? And Rachel said, well, he can sleep with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes. Now picture this family, folks. Picture the heartache. Picture the pain. Picture the politics. and visualize one wife selling her husband to the other wife for some little plants that will form as an aphrodisiac or perhaps a fertility drug to have some children. Well, Jacob came in from the field that evening, and Leah went out to meet him. And she said, You have to sleep with me tonight. I’ve hired you with my son’s mandrakes. And Jacob said, like a lot of husbands, did as he was told. He slept in the bed he was supposed to sleep in. And there he was. God hearkened to Leah. She conceived. And believe it or not, she bore him a fifth son. And Leah said, God has given me my hire because I’ve given my maid to my husband. And she called his name Issachar. And all his life, this poor boy Issachar had to carry around the name that referred to the fact that his wife, his mother, had hired his dad for the evening. Leah conceived again, bore a sixth son. She called his name Zebulun. And the reason there is connection with the word dowry, that I’ve borne him six sons, and I now have a good dowry. Finally, she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. Now, Jacob had been kept pretty busy by his wives and concubines, but he wasn’t finished. Two of the most important boys were yet to come. Well, finally, in verse 22, God remembered Rachel. God listened to her and opened her womb, and she conceived and bore a son. And she said, God has finally taken away my reproach. She called his name Joseph. The Lord, he said, shall add to me another son. Now there’s something curious about all this. This is son number 11, and he will turn out to be, in some ways, the most important of the lot. He will be the one upon whom the birthright is ultimately settled. And you kind of wonder, why son number 11? Why not son number 1? Well, there’s a curious thing about all this, because when Abraham started out, he was in love with his wife, Sarah. She was his wife. She was his beloved, the wife of his youth, the one he wanted all of his life. And so consequently, when they didn’t have children, they did the same thing. And he had Ishmael born by Sarah’s handmaid. But it was no good. God did not accept this one born here as the firstborn. And the curious thing about this situation is that because Rachel was the wife that Jacob wanted, it is almost as though God looked down and looked upon her as his really legitimate wife. The others? Well, in the ancient world, it was permitted to have more than one wife. It was permitted to have concubines. It was done as long as the situation was legitimized, as long as it was contracted, as long as it wasn’t sleeping around, you know, sleeping with this woman tonight and then throwing her out and getting another one tomorrow night. That was not allowed. But the formal relationship of a contracted marriage was allowed. But from the beginning, in Genesis, it was God’s intent that one man be with one woman for life. And in this case, and in Abraham’s case, it seems to have been that the intended wife, the one loved, the one that he really bargained for and contracted with, that was the one that God looked upon as the legitimate heir. There’s another interesting thing about this. There’s a principle in the Bible that the first shall be last and the last shall be first, and it comes to us again and again and again from different directions, that God often chooses the least to be over the greater. He often chooses the last to be ahead of the first. And here we go all the way down to son number 11 before we finally decide on the birthright. But he is the firstborn son of the legitimate union, the one that Jacob thought he was getting in the first place. Well, after Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob is ready to go home. And he says, send me away. I want to go to my own place. I want to go to my own country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you and let me go because you know all the service that I have done. And Laban doesn’t want him to leave. There are several reasons for this. One of them was this was a very energetic young man, and he had made Laban a lot of money over the years. He had developed his herds. He developed his cattle. He had really brought considerable wealth to Laban, and he didn’t want to let him go. And Laban said, look, if I’ve found favor in your eyes, stay here, because I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me because of you. And he said, appoint me your wages. Just tell me what you want. I’ll give it to you. You know, Jacob said, how I have served you. And you know how your cattle was with me. For it was little that you had before I came. You really didn’t have very much, did you? And now it’s increased into a great multitude. And the Lord has blessed you since my coming. And now how am I going to provide for my own house? Look, you know, I’ve worked for you. You’ve gone from being an ordinary poor dirt farmer, not quite dirt farmer, but a sheep herder, to a very wealthy man. Now when am I going to get to take care of my own house? And he said, well, what do you want? And Jacob said, I don’t want you to give me anything. If you will do this one thing for me, I’ll take care of you and feed and keep your flock for you. I’ll continue. I’ll pass through your flock today, removing from there all the speckled and spotted cattle and the brown ones among the sheep and the spotted and speckled among the goats. That’ll be my hire. This was generally, I think, perceived to be the inferior animals of the group. And there probably weren’t that many of them. Most of them were probably solid colors. And all he said, just give me the speckled, give me the striped, give me the brown sheep. You keep the white ones because that’s the one you want. And my righteousness, he says, will answer for me in time to come when it shall come from my hire before your face. Every animal with me that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and brown among the sheep, that will be counted stolen if I’ve got it because it belongs to you. And Laban said, I would wish that it could be just as you have said. And he removed that day the he goats that were ring-straked and spotted, and all the goats that were speckled and spotted, and everyone that had some white in it, and all the brown among the sheep. He gave them into the hands of his sons. So they put then some distance between themselves, and Jacob contracted with him to take care of all the cattle. What Jacob did with this is fascinating, and I’ll tell you that story when I come back.
SPEAKER 02 :
For a free CD of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 01 :
So Jacob took himself some green rods of green poplar and hazel and chestnut trees, and he peeled white streaks in them so he could see the white in the rods. And then he set the rods before the flocks in the gutters and the watering. And whenever the flocks came in to drink, they would then conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods and brought forth cattle, ring-streaked, speckled, and spotted. Now, I think some people have looked at this in the past and said, wow. He said these cattle came up. You can sort of visualize a round-eyed cow sitting there staring at these cattle. peeled steaks, except eating it before her, and when the bull mates with her, because she’s looking at these things, therefore she has rings streaked and spotted and so forth, cattle. Not really. What Jacob did was to create a kind of cattle guard with ditches and rods over them. You know how that’s gone. You’ve gone to the country and driven over cattle guards. Well, the cattle don’t, you know, they look at this and they think, I don’t want to step on those things. I could fall in a hole and get hurt. So what he did was to create ditches, lay these rods over them in the form of a cattle guard, and to create breeding pens. When they came down to water, he would put these things in there and hold them in position. He would see to it that the right bull was with the right cow, so that the breeding took place along the lines he wanted it to go. And he separated the lambs, he set the faces of the flocks toward the ring-streaked and all the brown, the flock of Laban. He put his own flocks by themselves. He didn’t let them breed just freely with Laban’s cattle. So it came to pass, whenever the stronger cattle did conceive, he laid the rods down before their eyes in the gutters to keep them there so they would conceive in these little pens that he had made with these cattle guards. And when the cattle were feeble, he didn’t put them in there. So the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger were Jacob’s. Smart man. He actually worked this thing out to get his flock stronger and stronger. But unfortunately, it did so at the expense of Laban. He increased exceedingly. He had cattle, cattle and more cattle and maidservants and manservants and asses. Jacob was fast becoming a rich man. He was a shrewd operator. It’s small wonder he made enemies along the way. He bargained his brother out of the birthright and then craftily gained his father’s blessing over his firstborn brother. Now he cuts a cattle deal and controls the outcome. Laban, you know, would have respected a random outcome of this, which meant not very many of his cattle would have been streaked and spotted and so forth. He got nothing of the kind. Now about this time, things started to get sticky. He heard the words of Laban’s sons, for example, saying, Jacob has taken away all that belonged to our father. Everything that belonged to our father, he’s gotten all this glory. Look at him and look at my father. And Jacob, he saw the face of Laban, and it just wasn’t like it used to be. The man was becoming increasingly unhappy. And the Lord said to Jacob, it’s time for you to go home. To your kindred, I’ll be with you. And so Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah out to the field where he was. And he said, Girls, I see your father’s countenance. It’s not like it used to be. It’s time for me to make a move. You know that with all my power I have served your father. And your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times. But God never permitted him to hurt me. And this is a little new element involved in this. And you do have to remember, I mean, Jacob, you could blame him a little bit for what he did. But on the other hand, Laban pulled this deal of making him work seven years for Rachel. And then when the time came to get Rachel, he gave him Leah instead and made him serve seven more years. And I gather from this remark, his wages got changed again and again. And every time they changed them, God kept right on blessing Jacob. But, of course, Jacob was helping God bless him along the way as well. Well, Rachel and Leah answered and said, well, we don’t have any portion or inheritance in our father’s house, and we’re like strangers to him because he sold us, and he has really quite devoured all of our money. That’s rather interesting because the dowry that should have been theirs, their father, he’d eaten that up. So it isn’t exactly as though Jacob is taking advantage of an innocent man. So Jacob told his wives of his dream, and they say, we might as well go. He has sold us for all the riches which God has taken from our father that is ours and our children’s. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do it. So Jacob got up, put his sons and his wives upon camels, carried away all his cattle and all his goods he had gotten from this time to go to Isaac, his father, in the land of Canaan. So Jacob loaded up his wives and all his kids on camels and started the cattle drive on his way back home.
SPEAKER 02 :
But that’s another story for another day. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-877-7000. 888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at
