Women...and the O.T.: Leah

I was going to write about Rebekah tonight. But when I read about Leah today, I wanted to write down my thoughts. I want to remember the way I felt this morning. You see, I understand Leah. She was not Jacob's first choice. Her father tricked Jacob into marrying Leah. But Jacob had labored seven years for Rachel. And even after he was married to Leah, he labored seven more years for Rachel.

It must have been hard.

Now I don't fault either women, although I'm sure the situation could hardly foster sisterly love and affection. But tradition held that Leah had to marry first because she was the oldest. I know she had her consolation, that she could bear children while Rachel could not. But to me, that would seem like a hollow victory, especially because it didn't matter to Jacob. He still favored Rachel. That and in the long run, one-up-manship is rarely satisfying. I think Leah wanted to know that she mattered to Jacob.

Of course, I am not in a polygamous relationship involving my sister. That is something to be quite grateful for, actually. But I do know what it is like to feel like the left-over, the last choice, the unwanted one. I know what it is like to want something with all your heart and yet that thing eludes you, no matter what you do.

And so I feel Leah's pain.

But this part of her story brought me to tears. Rachel had died and was buried in Bethlehem. Jacob and Leah were old, too, of course, and so Leah died as well. And in Genesis 49:31 it says, "There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah." I find a great deal of love in that verse because Jacob recognizes Leah's importance to him. She is the one who is buried with him, his wife as Sarah was to Abraham and as Rebekah was to Isaac. We know that Sarah and Rebekah came first to their respective husbands. I thought it was a beautiful way to honor a woman who hadn't come first. It seems like such a simple thing, but I think it speaks volumes of Leah. And I think Jacob had truly come to love her.