Some people live for just one purpose;
they fight with all their might to accomplish their life’s one single
goal. Mrs Leah Jacob was the perfect
example of that. Her sole lifelong ambition was to win the heart of her
husband. She knew that Jacob’s heart was never hers to begin with, and that her
rival had done nothing to prevent him from loving her.
Jacob’s heart simply clung
to Rebecca like a new-born to breast milk. He had been irresistibly attracted
to her since the very day he set his eyes on her, and for him there was no
other love.
Jacob was probably still hurting from
the fact that Leah had acted so cheaply by conniving with her father to rob him
of the succinct pleasure of sharing his wedding night with his sweetheart- the
one for whom he had laboured under intense conditions for 7 good years. Instead,
he woke up to find Leah in his arms. What an unprecedented robbery! Jacob would
never forgive her. Though he still got
Rebecca- two wives, double pleasure after accepting to serve his father-in-law
for seven extra years, he made it clear that Leah was the extra baggage that
could only be tolerated, never fully accepted.
Leah wished she could make him
understand that it was never her fault. Her father gave her the orders, and who
was she, a common female, to defy
him? It was unheard of. Besides, her scheming father had scared her to death
when he had threatened that no man would ever woo her once he got to know that
her younger sister had got married ahead of her. It was even a taboo- it meant
that she was cursed and mangled with bad luck. He showed her what he thought
was the best possible alternative, and she had no choice.
Jacob, however, was a one woman man,
his heart was meant for only Rebecca; he would take care of Leah, fulfil his
husbandly obligations to her and give her all she needed to meet her basic
needs- but nothing more than that.
Fortune smiled on Leah early enough,
she gave birth to her first child very fast- a male. She was thrilled. Now,
maybe, just maybe Jacob’s heart would soften towards her and she would become
more than an obligatory bed mate. She
wanted to show off to her husband and the rest of her haters that she could
produce. What man would not love a woman who could give him sons? Sons were the
sure proof of a man’s strength. The boy
was given the name ‘Reuben’ (See, a son).
Well, Jacob saw the son, but his attitude towards her was unchanged. She
was so delighted when her next child turned out to be another son, whom she
named ‘Simon’ (for God has heard me), the next boy she rolled out was given the
name ‘Levi’ (God will now attach my husband to me), and then the next Judah (God
be praised). Yet in all this, amazingly, Jacob was unmoved. He must have been
happy with the sons, of course they were HIS sons, but that did not increase
his affection toward Leah one inch.
Her younger sister, her rival was
barren and could only look on amidst this drama; she had her husband’s love,
but nothing more. Leah eventually gave birth to six sons and a daughter, yet
she showed through it all that she was continuously discontent because she
could not win her husband’s heart.
She even knew how to fight dirty when
the need arose. There was an incident in which Reuben (Leah’s son) got some
mandrakes (a kind of herb that enhances sexual activity) from his trip to the woods.
Rebecca asked him to give her some of the mandrakes, and this got Leah enraged,
“Isn’t it enough that you have stolen my husband’s heart, must you rob me of my
son’s mandrakes too?”
Leah would only sell the mandrakes to
her sister for her night in their husband’s bed. Now, that was harsh- even
disgusting! One cannot but wonder what was going through Leah’s mind in all
this. It’s easy to want to be sympathetic with her, we all know many a woman
who has been subjected to a life of emptiness and depression because their
husbands did not give them the love they deserved, but come on, how low could
she sink, simply because she wanted a man’s heart?
Did her desperation come as a result
of those ancient traditions? Maybe her prominence in the community was diminished
because of her husband’s lack of regard for her. Maybe he took only Rachel out
to functions, or was always boasting about his love for Rachel to his friends. Maybe
Leah felt so boxed out, so irrelevant. Maybe people saw her as the shameless
woman who wanted to snatch away her own sister’s husband on their wedding
night, because she was not woman enough to win a man’s love.
Maybe Leah felt that she had to take
matters to her hands, had to prove to everyone that she still had something
enviable- she could produce sons! And this became the driving force for all her
actions. Even when a frustrated Rachel decided to give her maid servant to her
husband, so that the maid could produce the sons that she could not, and the
maid servant produced two sons in rapid succession, Leah saw it as another
whistle for a competition. She also handed over her poor maid servant to Jacob
(who it seems had such an insatiable appetite for sex with other women!), and
the girl produced two sons for Jacob.
Leah was too enveloped in her ‘husband
– love’ seeking world that she forgot something very crucial- the more
important role of being a mother who would raise her children in the way of the
Lord. Come to think of it, her children would also have been wide-eyed
spectators in this fiasco; they could see where their mother’s concern was
directed, definitely not at them.
She deprived them of the motherly
affection she should have shown them, and left them to grow up without the right,
sound counsel, and they were all the worse for it. The facts speak for themselves;
consider for instance Reuben, the first son, his father’s pride, who was caught
in bed with Bilhah, Rebecca’s maid servant, his father’s third wife, and Dinah,
her daughter got into an illicit sexual affair with a foreigner.
Simon and Levi were the orchestrators
of the killing escapade unleashed on the city of the man who slept with their
sister, when men from the city courted Jacob to make an alliance with them. Two
of her grandsons were struck down by the Lord because of their wickedness and
Leah’s sons connived with the rest of their step brothers to sell of their own
blood- Joseph and give their father a false report that would have drowned him
in misery till his dying day. In fact, it was Judah, who suggested the sale.
How did these children get to be so
wicked? It is obvious that they hardly
had any training in godly principles; of course Jacob also has a share in their
coarse upbringing, but the blame I believe, must majorly be attributed to
Leah. What did she gain at the end of
the day? Where did all her love seeking efforts get her? Nothing! The Bible has
nothing more to say about her, save that she gave rise to children, and sought
the love of a man who would never love her back, the energy of a lifetime gone
to waste.
-Tolulope Fapojuwo
About
the writer: Tolu is a
graduate of Biochemical Engineering; she is currently training to be a
Mathematics Teacher. Tolu loves singing;
she uses her talent for God by being a member of the Choir at her local
Church. In her spare time, she likes to
read Christian books; she particularly loves listening to audio Christian
messages.
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