Sibling rivalry. The relationships between sisters, and brothers, can be complicated. Maybe there is a sense of injustice in how you were parented. You might feel that your sibling was treated as the favorite. Maybe the way your parents applauded success resulted in you competing for their approval. Maybe you look at how their lives have turned out and can’t help comparing, making you either self-righteous or bitter. Being sisters can be complicated, but imagine how complicated it would be if you shared a husband!
Perhaps
Leah thought, ‘if only I had Rachel’s looks, then I would be happy,’ or, ‘if
only my husband loved me the way he loves her, then my life would be complete.’ If only I had their marriage. Rachel might have thought, ‘if only I could have
children like Leah.’ If only I had their
life. We are on a dangerous road when we
start comparing our lives to others. It
is a road marked discontent, and it’s downhill.
Bitterness
is an acid that eats its own container.
It rots our bones. Watch how
these two women end up using their children as a pawn in a competition with
each other. It is not unusual for
parents to use their children as a tool to try to impress the world and prove
their worth. Rachel’s chief desire, for
most of this passage, for having children, was to spite her sister.
Rivalry damages our relationships and ruins our
peace (1-13)
‘When
Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, ‘Give me children or I
die!’ (1).
You are in
a bad place when anything in this life becomes so important to us that it feels
that life is not worth living without it.
Don’t build your life around getting those grades, grabbing that career,
meeting the right person or being the perfect parent. Remember that in Christ we have been given
every spiritual blessing. Surely if we
know God’s forgiveness, realize His acceptance and have the sure hope of an
eternity with Him, then everything else is secondary.
But be careful
how you say that to other people, though.
They may look at you and say, ‘that is easy for you to say with your
life, you don’t have to live in my pain.’
Begin with each other by being aware of the hurts they carry and be
willing to mourn with those who mourn.
It is then that you may get the opportunity to show them how to count
their blessings.
Jacob seems
to be quite rough in his response to Rachel.
‘It is not me who is stopping you having babies, it is God.’ He is really angry with Rachel. That is a problem when we become jealous of
other people. Bitterness puts a strain
on all our relationships. Rachel is
looking to Jacob for children, not God.
But then Jacob is not like his father, Isaac, who prayed for Rebekah
when she was in the same situation.
The
horrible thing is that Rachel’s desire for children is motivated by her
jealousy of Leah. As often happens,
rather than wait of God, Jacob and Rachel come up with their own plan, a
foolish plan. Rachel gives her servant,
Bilhah, as a substitute wife and Jacob has sex with her. The resulting child was considered
Rachel’s. Think how cruel all of this is
to that servant girl!
Rachel
feels that she has been vindicated. When
her second son is born, she Naphtali, meaning wrestling, and declares, ‘I’ve
won!’ She put one over on Leah. One commentator writes, ‘can a woman get so
low that she would hit her sister over the head with a baby? Rachel did!’ (Barnhouse).
It is
tragic to watch Leah join this competition.
At the end of the last chapter Leah had found her peace in God. Now that peace is unsettled by sibling
rivalry. Leah though she could have no
more children, so she gives her servant Zilpah to Jacob. Gad and Asher are born. Asher means ‘happy.’ She gives him this name. ‘For I am
happy. The women call me happy’
(13). Her focus is no longer God’s
goodness to her, but simply what other people think of her life!
Remember
that you are a sister or brother with every other Christian. You are a sister or brother with every
believer in your church. You are a
sister or brother with the believers in every other church. In Christ, you have a heavenly husband who
shows no favoritism, and is working out his individual plan in each of our
lives. Don’t compare your life to him or
her. When Peter realized the suffering
that he was called to endure for the gospel and asked of John, ‘what about
him?’, Jesus replied, ‘what is that to you? You follow me’ (John 21:22).
Discontent spreads (14-21)
Sadly,
things get more pathetic between Rachel and Leah. Leah’s son Reuben finds some mandrakes. Reuben is probably about five or six. He brings them to his mother, and Rachel is
desperate to have some.
Commentators
aren’t sure what the mandrakes are. The
Hebrew possibly means ‘love flower.’
They were probably rare and precious.
Matthew Henry comments that ‘the Lord of nature has not only provided
for our necessities, but for our delight.’
God’s creation is both functional and beautiful. He not only provides for us, He loves to
delight us.
Look how
far these women have sunk. When Rachel asks
for some of the mandrakes, Leah erupts in bitterness, ‘Is it not enough that
you took my husband, but you must have my son’s mandrakes too?’ (15). It
may be that Mandrakes were thought to induce fertility, which is why Rachel is
so desperate for them. She longs for a
child.
Leah has
now fallen back into the trap of her value in Jacob’s assessment of her. ‘This time my husband will honor me for I
have borne him six sons’ (19). She has
enslaved herself to the opinion of others.
Do you the downward
progression of discontent? They had been
arguing about a husband and children, now they are fighting over flowers. The heart grows harder and harder if we let
bitterness get the better of us. So how
do we counter-act bitterness? Ask the
Holy Spirit to shape you as you set your eyes of God’s goodness. My friend Brenda is a lecturer in psychology
in the university of Maynooth. She talks
of the positive affects of gratitude.
Practicing thankfulness can actually reorder the neurological pathways
of our brains. Gratitude even
strengthens us to face future traumatic events.
My friend Betsy always tells people to work through the alphabet
thinking of things to thank God for!
God can soften our jealous hearts (22-23)
‘God
remembered Rachel’ (22). In the Old
Testament, when it says that God remembered, it is not implying that He had
forgotten. It indicates that God is
about to take a significant action. He
‘listened to her’. She has finally
turned from blaming Jacob for her lack of children, to praying to God for His blessing. He ‘gave her a son’.
Rachel has
acted appallingly in this story. But God
has not stopped being kind to her. He
does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to His loving-kindness.
‘God has
taken away my reproach.’ Fertility was a
seen as a sign of God’s favor. No doubt
Leah had often reminded her of this.
‘May the
LORD add to me another son’. Some
commentators see this as a declaration of Rachel’s renewed confidence and faith
in God. Certainly, we can see her faith
in how she is now referring to God as LORD (Yahweh), the name of the
promise-keeping God in relationship with His people, not simply as the more
general word for God (Adonai). There is
a tragic sequel to this prayer. When
that son does come she dies in childbirth.
He is names Ben-oni (‘son of my sorrow’).
Every time
these two women inflicted pain on each other they were presented with a
junction in the road. They could either
chose to respond with bitterness or trust in God. The same is true for us. When people say things and do things that
hurt us we can either harden our hearts towards them or we can plead with God
to help us love them. It seems that at
every point in this story these two women chose bitterness. But God did not give up on them. The story ends with Rachel expressing trust
in God. It is never too late to put an
end to gossip and a critical spirit. God
still wants to soften your heart and help you overcome.
Climax:
This story
is a reminder of the imperfect people God uses to fulfil His purposes. This is a horrible story of two bitter and
jealous women. This is sibling rivalry
at its very worst. This is moral
compromise and hatred. Yet God uses
these two women, in all their sin, to bring about His purpose. God had promised Jacob’s grandfather,
Abraham, that his descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the sea shore
and the stars in the sky. Their rivalry
was helping to bring this about.
No-one’s sin stops God’s plans coming into being. As is seen most clearly on the cross, where
wicked men motivated by bitterness and jealousy crucified Jesus, and in so
doing made the way for us to become a part of Abraham and Jacob’s spiritual
family.
But what
about your life? What about those areas
where it doesn’t seem as great as other people’s lives? You might be content in singleness, but you
might not be. Maybe you never met Mr.
Right. Maybe no one considered you to be
Mr. Right. Maybe you have struggled with
your fertility or endured the pain of miscarriages, and the sight of other
people’s children pains you. What about
sibling rivalry? Did your father or
mother favor your brother or sister? Did
they fail to met your hopes and do you feel like you have not reached their
expectations? Has your career gone
backwards? Have your children gone
wayward? Has your own bitterness
consumed you?
There is
always restoration in Jesus to those who will let Him soften their hearts. Of the eunuchs God said, ‘I will give them a
memorial far greater than sons and daughters could’ (Is. 56:7). Surely the blessings associated with
fertility in the Old Testament pointed in part to the uncountable brothers and
sisters, sons and daughters, that we have as children of the Living God! Surely when we feel we have missed out God
calls us to remember that we have received every spiritual blessing in
Christ. Surely when we mess up we need
to remind ourselves that God wants to soften our hearts and fill us with
love. Behold Jesus, let His love
transform you, and let that love flow from us to each other.
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