Laban’s expectations concerning Jacob, at least initially, are disappointed, as Jacob does not carry with him nor appear to represent the type of wealth that was to be found during Laban’s first encounter with the family from which Jacob sprang. Jacob “stayed with him a month” (29:14b), and, with no movement along the lines of what occurred with the servant of Abraham, Laban apparently decides to put Jacob to work. Laban queries Jacob about his desired salary, with Jacob’s response being “I’ll serve you for seven years in exchange for your daughter Rachel” (29:18b), as he had fallen in love with her. Laban agrees to this arrangement, with his personal enrichment at the hands of Jacob now set to take place over a number of years.
Of course, the story if quite familiar to us, in that Jacob puts in his seven years of labor for Rachel. After the wedding feast, Laban swaps Leah (Rachel’s older sister) for Rachel. Jacob discovers what Laban has done, questions him about his trickery, hears Laban’s reasoning for doing so, decides to keep Leah as a wife, strikes another deal with Laban that will enable him to obtain Rachel as his wife along with Leah, quickly takes Rachel as his second wife, and proceeds to work another seven years for Laban.
Now, it is at this point in the telling of the story of Jacob, that the Genesis narrative includes a report about the births, and the circumstances surrounding the births of eleven of the twelve men that will together compose the tribes of Israel (though it is understood that Manasseh and Ephraim and the half tribes that go by those names, being the sons of Joseph, are actually the tribe of Joseph, and that Benjamin comes along later). This, quite naturally, becomes a seminal story in the lives and minds of those that come to be called the covenant people of the Creator God, and for our purposes, serve as further examples of the rather fascinating life that is being led by Jacob after he has departed from his father’s house.
Moving forward we learn that even though Jacob had willingly taken her as a wife, that “Leah was unloved” (29:31). In direct response to this---at least, this is what the author intends to convey---the Lord “enabled her to become pregnant while Rachel remained childless. So Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son” (29:31-b-32a). This son was named Reuben, which was a Hebrew word meaning “The Lord has looked with pity on my oppressed condition” (29:32c). In turn, the name of each child that would be born to Jacob would also be a Hebrew word reflecting the circumstances of their birth or the mindset of the mother. Here, we note with great interest that it is the wives of Jacob, and not Jacob himself, that give names to the sons born to them. Surely this was an oddity in that age; and this oddity would not be lost on the original hearers of the Genesis narrative, so nor should it be lost on those who read this narrative today.
Though we will not take the time to do so here, it is worth pondering that the Scriptures preserve the tradition that the mothers take upon themselves the honor of naming these children, especially considering the fact that these women were, for all practical purposes, the property of their husbands. If we were to take in the wider scope of the whole of the Scriptures, this record of naming is something akin to the unsuppressed and seemingly celebrated fact that in the Gospel narratives, it was women that were first given the responsibility to announce the Resurrection of Jesus---a curious thing indeed in a time in which a woman had no societal standing and in which even their testimony in civil or criminal judicial proceedings carried no weight whatsoever.
The sons of Jacob come forth in rapid-fire succession. This appears to be a competition. Leah becomes pregnant again, giving birth to a boy that she names Simeon. Another pregnancy results in a son that she named Levi. A fourth pregnancy, and along comes Judah. With a growing jealousy of her older sister, while she remained childless, Rachel demands that Jacob also marry her servant named Bilhah, saying that “she can bear children for me and I can have a family through her” (30:3b). Bilhah gets pregnant and delivers a son, whom Rachel names Dan. Bilhah experiences another pregnancy, delivering yet another son. Rachel names him Naphtali. Not to be outdone, Leah, provides Zilpah to Jacob. She becomes pregnant and provides a son that Leah names Gad. With another pregnancy comes another son to whom Leah provides the name Asher. Leah gets into the game again, giving birth to fifth and sixth sons of her own and naming them Issachar and Zebulun. For good measure, Leah gives birth to a daughter named Dinah as well. Finally, after all of these things, “God took note of Rachel. He paid attention to her and enabled her to become pregnant” (30:22). She would give birth to a son and name Him Joseph.
Of course, though it is clear that Joseph does indeed come last of all, we do not need to presume that all of these children came in the precise chronological order in which they are presented in the text. As was said, this appears to be a competition among wives for the honor that could be afforded to them---that of giving sons to their husbands. Though Reuben obviously comes first, there is no reason to imagine, according to the Scriptural record, that there was not significant overlap in these ongoing developments. Must we presume that Rachel waited until after Leah’s fourth child before she insisted that Jacob take Bilhah? With her position at stake, this hardly seems likely. Similarly, do we have to imagine that Leah waited for Bilhah to deliver two children to Jacob and Rachel before insisting that Jacob take Zilpah as a wife, that Leah’s fifth or sixth sons had to come after all the sons delivered by Bilhah and Zilphah, or that Dinah came last of all? There is no reason to do so. That said, what we do notice is that this is a rather riotous series of events.
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