Love is not enough
Series: Welcome home | Bible text: Genesis 29
Many people believe that everything will be fine as soon as they have found the perfect partner. Those who put the whole burden of their hopes and longings on their partner will crush them with their expectations. The story of Jacob, Rachel and Leah illustrates this matter and shows us the way to freedom.
People’s longing for true love has always been sung about and described, but in our present culture this longing is heightened to almost immeasurable proportions. The stages of our world are filled with the yearning sound of countless love songs. The danger is great that we substitute love and marriage for God. Thus, we make love an idol, give ourselves over to it completely and hope that it will give us a happy life.
Falling for love
After last Sunday when we looked at Abraham, today we are looking at the generations after Abraham. Abraham had Isaac. Many years later, Isaac’s wife Rebekah became pregnant. She was expecting twins, about whom God said: «The first born will serve the second» (Genesis 25:23 GN). With this, God declared that the Messiah would descend from the younger of the two twins. Although God had made his plan clear, Isaac loved Esau, the firstborn, more and preferred him to Jacob, the second son. In doing so, Isaac committed exactly the mistake from which God had saved his father Abraham. His affection for Esau was more important to him than God’s speaking. The result was that Esau grew up to be a proud, selfish and impulsive man, while Jacob became bitter and cynical.
When the time came for Isaac, who had grown old, to pass on the first-birth blessing to his son, he decided to bless Esau in defiance of the divine plan. But Jacob put on Esau’s clothes, went to his almost blind father and obtained the blessing by fraud. When Esau learned of this a little later, he swore to kill his brother. Jacob had to flee into the desert. His life lay in ruins. He had lost his family and his inheritance. When he set out on the long journey to his mother’s and grandfather’s relatives who lived at the other end of the Fertile Crescent, it was a matter of bare survival.
His mother’s relatives kindly took him in. His uncle Laban employed him as a shepherd and said to Jacob:
«I don’t want you to work for me without pay just because we are related. Tell me: What do you want in return?» Now Laban had two daughters: the elder was called Leah and the younger Rachel. Leah had lustreless eyes, but Rachel had a good figure and was beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, «I will work for you for seven years if you will give me your younger daughter Rachel in marriage in return.» «Agreed!» replied Laban. «Stay with me. I’d rather give her to you than to another man anyway.» So Jacob worked for the next seven years, thereby paying the bride-price for Rachel. Time flew by for him because he loved Rachel.» (Genesis 29:15–20).
Rahel had an excellent figure and was also very pretty. Jacob was downright smitten with her. Therefore, he was willing to pay an absurd bride price – about four times what was customary at the time.
After the seven years he said to Laban: «Give me now my wife! For my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her» (21 Elb). This sentence is unusually direct in Hebrew. It was not common to talk so bluntly about sex. Even today, no young man would say to the father of his fiancée: «I can’t wait to finally sleep with your daughter.» Jacob is overwhelmed by his infatuation and sexual desire.
Why was Jacob like this? His inner emptiness had made Jacob receptive to the exaltation of erotic love. In this state he meets the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. No wonder he came to the conclusion that through this woman his life would finally have meaning and significance and he could become happy. He focused all his hopes for fulfilment and affirmation on Rachel. Ernest Becker calls this path, which many take, the search for the «romantic cosmology of two lovers». Man hopes that through the physical and spiritual fusion with his love partner, his life will acquire a meaning that will endure beyond death.
Our society believes that everything will be fine once we have found the perfect partner. The beloved person then becomes our god. The inevitable end of any love story that is overloaded in this way is bitter disappointment. Love that takes the place of Almighty God distorts perception and destroys life.
Whoever marries with the same expectations as Jacob and puts the whole burden of his hopes and longings on his partner will crush him with his expectations. This idolatry will destroy one’s own life as well as the life of one’s partner and blinds one to morbid elements in a relationship.
Disappointed hope
The unscrupulous Laban realised how important the longing for love was for Jacob and shamelessly exploited this circumstance. When Jacob asked him if he could take Rachel as his wife, he only answered evasively. He did not say: «It’s a deal, Rachel will be your wife.», but: «I’d rather give it to you than another man anyway» (19). Jacob desperately wanted to hear a yes from Laban, so he understood the vague answer as a promise.
Seven years passed. Then a great wedding feast was arranged. At the climax of the feast, Laban brought the bride to Jacob, who had hidden herself under precious veils. Jacob retired with her and finally had the sex he had wanted for so long. «But when Jacob woke up in the morning, he discovered Leah beside him!» (25). What a rude awakening! Jacob had consummated the marriage with Rachel’s unattractive older sister. To the furious Jacob, Laban replied that it was customary in his country to marry off the older daughter first. Jacob thought he was going to bed with Rachel and woke up next to Leah.
This recurring disappointment is found in all areas of human life, but we become particularly painfully aware of it where we have invested a great deal of hope and expectation. No matter what we put our hope in, the next morning we always wake up next to Leah, not next to Rachel.
Why was Jacob so naive and gullible? What he displays here is the typical behaviour of an addict. Erotic love is like a drug that makes us forget the heaviness of everyday life and escape from the reality of our lives. Rahel was not only to become his wife, but also to deliver him from all suffering. He desired and needed her so much that he could only see what he wanted to see. Jacob’s life suffered because he put Rachel in God’s place. By loving Rachel’s sons more than Leah’s children, he hurt all his children. Some were coddled, others embittered, and the whole family atmosphere was poisoned.
But it hit Lea the hardest. She was unattractive and spent her entire life in the shadow of her sister, who was an unusual beauty. Lea was the daughter her father tried to get rid of, and now became the wife of a man who wanted her sister. «Then Jacob also slept with Rachel – and he loved her more than Leah» (39). She was the girl no one wanted. The emptiness in her heart was no less than that in Jacob’s soul. So it is not surprising that she expected from Jacob what he had expected from Rachel and what Isaac had hoped for from Esau. All her hope was for Jacob’s love. She hoped to find happiness and self-worth by upholding traditional family values and giving her husband many sons. That was the surest way for a married woman to gain recognition at that time. Unfortunately, however, her disappointment grew with each child and she became more lonely and desperate.
God as the centre
Jacob is in search of the «romantic cosmology of two lovers». Lea commits herself to traditional values, has one child after another and tries to find her self-worth in the role of wife and mother. Neither gets what they are looking for and remain disappointed. You hear over and over again that men fake love in order to get sex, while women put up with sex in order to get love. No matter which way you look at it, the inflated expectations of sex and love will always be disappointed. Lea had access to her husband’s body, but not to his soul. His love and devotion were denied her. But that was exactly what she longed for. Her life remained empty and sad. Women become easily manipulated, vulnerable victims through their longing for devotion and commitment. Both forms of life blind us, prevent wise decisions and destroy our lives.
But Leah is the only person in this story who developed spiritually and humanly. Every time she was named, she referred to God, to Yahweh. Elohim but was the usual word for God at that time. The name «Yahweh» referred exclusively to the God who revealed himself to Abraham and later to Moses. Jacob must have told her what Yahweh had promised his grandfather Abraham, and Leah sought this God.
With the first son, Reuben, she said: «The Lord has noticed my need, now my husband will love me» (32). With Simeon: «The LORD has heard that I am not loved, and has also given me this son» (33). This was followed by the third, Levi: «For sure, my husband will give me his affection now, because I have borne him three sons!» (34). When her last son Judah was born, she declared: «Now I will praise the Lord!» (35). For the first time she mentions neither her husband nor her child. Her hope is now no longer in the love of her husband and in her children, but entirely in Yahweh. Laban and Jacob had robbed her of the courage to live, Yahweh gave her back her life. Leah put God at the centre of her life and found a home with Yahweh.
In Genesis 49 we read that from Judah the true king, the Messiah, would descend. God made the unloved woman, whom no one wanted, the ancestress of Jesus. The Saviour did not come into the world through the beautiful Rachel, but through the despised Leah. God writes His history with weak people who put God at the centre of their lives!
God wants our lives to succeed! His heart beats full of enthusiasm for you. He is the one who can give meaning, happiness, love and purpose to our lives. Whoever elevates this God to number 1 in his life and finds a home with him will experience how all his longings are satisfied. This also applies to people who cannot find their dream partner. And people who are in a partner relationship will experience a new quality in their community – without excessive expectations and needs. We are not to love our partner less, but to deepen our relationship with God and love him more. «The greatest love is shown by the one who lays down his life for his friends.»(John 15:13). This is what the descendant of Leah says. This love is the basis for a fulfilled life – be it with or without a partner relationship.
Possible questions for the small groups
Reading the Bible text: Genesis 29
- What does Jacob’s behaviour have to do with his origin story?
- How do you explain the development of Leah? Why did the fourth son get a name with a completely different meaning?
- Have you ever had the impression that you went to sleep with Rachel and then woke up with Leah? With which themes has this happened to you?
- How can Jesus Christ become/remain the centre of your life? How can love for him grow?
