How many times have you read the Bible? Notice I didn’t distinguish which Bible because I personally recognize only one. But just to clarify, the King James Version. While I have read or been taught scripture most of my life, I have never taken the opportunity to read from cover to cover till now. Let me give you an insight to what I have read recently and my recent notes……
Genesis 29:31–30:24 and 35:16-26 tell of the births of the twelve sons of Jacob, whose name means “deceiver.” His name was later changed by God to Israel, which means, he “struggled with God” (32:28).
Jacob’s life was characterized by favoritism (29:18, 30), spousal neglect, jealousy, and rivalry (29:31–30:1).
That God would name His chosen nation after Jacob and use his twelve sons to become the ancestral heads of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel points to His covenantal love and unmerited grace (see Romans 9:10-18). Equally noteworthy in Leah’s sad story is that two crucial institutions of the nation of Israel—the Aaronic-Levitical priesthood (Numbers 18:1-7) and the kingship (Genesis 49:10)—come from her third and fourth sons, Levi and Judah (29:34-35).
These two sons were from a marriage in which she was unwanted and unloved. Yet God honored Leah and graciously looked after her (vv. 31-35; 30:17-21).
I, like so many others, had missed this lesson in love.
