Seven Years’ Worth
Genesis 29:15-30

July 27, 2008


A week of years usually changes one’s life in some facet or other. One of the old tales I have heard says that the human body undergoes a series of physiological changes every seven years. You can take a guess at which kind of changes. That must be where the seven-year-itch comes into play. Normally, one does become a little smarter after seven years. Normally.

Seven years ago September 11 became a day of infamy. The body of the world has certainly weathered a few physiological changes since then, or has it been our souls? Are we smarter today than seven years ago is a question we all need to be asking.

But for most of us seven years is a significant stretch of time. Few academic or professional qualification programs dare require as much as seven years to complete lest no one would sign up for it. I have known undergraduates and doctoral students who have ended up needing seven years to finish off their degree, but it just happened that way and was never planned. I don’t believe Jacob planned for seven years either, though at first it was no time at all.

Jacob has been on the stairway to heaven and has now reached the old country, the land and family of his mother Rebekah. How he discovered Rachel is not too different from how Abraham’s servant stumbled across his mother Rebekah. It used to be said that you should meet your spouse in church, but a water-well was the place of choice back then. The roles were reversed: instead of Rebekah watering Abraham’s camels, it was Jacob giving water to Rachel’s sheep. Computer matching may be the modern method, but for the Old Testament patriarchs it was old fashioned coincidence.

At first it’s a joyous homecoming for Jacob who knows he has met the love of his life, but like many old country reunions, different cultures and expectations are at work, some beneficial, some manipulative and malevolent. Laban recognizes Jacob as his own flesh and blood, but proceeds to place his nephew under his thumb.

Laban ponders out loud what should be the wages of this new found family member, for he might just pay him nothing at all. This was a little calculating on the part of Laban, for he could see how Jacob and Rachel had become attached to one another. Jacob surprises everyone by suggesting a pretty steep arrangement - seven years of work for the hand of Rachel - an offer Laban couldn’t refuse. Jacob’s craftiness has not left him, plus Rachel was worth seven years, and the years melt away like no time at all, almost like moving to the next line of the story when it is already the wedding night.

There was a sly note slipped into the narrative about the two daughters, Leah the older and Rachel the younger, and their eyes. Leah’s eyes were dull without luster and brightness, while Rachel’s eyes sparkled and were full of life. Remember, the eyes have it.

Weddings were not short then. It only took us about 35 minutes yesterday, but add in all the food and drinking a wedding was supposed to last a week. The dramatic moment happens at night when the bride is brought by the father to the groom’s tent. There were two daughters, of course, and Laban escorted his older daughter Leah to the right place at the wrong time. And it was Leah in the morning.

You have to wonder what was everybody thinking and doing. All right, it was dark and no neon lights then, and wasn’t it supposed to be dark in a wedding tent? Plus that was quite a wedding dress and veil on the bride, so can you blame Jacob for poor eyesight? Leah certainly played along by being as quiet as she could be. The nagging question is: what was Rachel doing through all of this? How much did she know and when did she know it? Feminist interpreters are quite right in that there is not a peep from either of the women throughout the whole process - no assent, no complaint.

Jacob was naturally infuriated, especially because in their customs, Leah was now incontrovertibly his wife, and Rachel wasn’t. The union and the courts would have nailed Laban if it were today, but this was long ago. Laban, anyway, has an interesting retort to Jacob.

“It is not done this way in our country to give the younger before the first-born.” Not exactly a Catch-22, but for Jacob it was a deceptively hidden rule. The irony is that Jacob is here in Haran, working for Laban, because he, the younger son, had jumped ahead in the queue and cheated out the older brother. Now, Jacob suffers the consequences of his treachery - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an act of trickery for an act of trickery. You have to watch what you wish for. Jacob does not say another word.

Laban has another word and this time he is setting the bargain, though for the first time this past week, I realized what it really was. “Complete the week of celebrations for Leah - and maybe the tone of voice implied “and enjoy it!” - and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.” That’s what Jacob did, completed the week of wedding celebration, and Laban gave him Rachel as well in marriage, and then he served Laban another seven years. Jacob did not serve 14 years before he was allowed to marry Rachel. He married two women in just a bit more than one week, sisters at that. Thank goodness Leviticus 18:18 had not yet been written, for it strictly forbids marrying two sisters. Talk about forbidding, this episode ends with the observation that “Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.” That second spouse will catch up with you every time.

This is the Bible, so does that mean that any story told in it is supposed to be a religious experience? For Jacob, he had to be in heaven working those seven years in anticipation of receiving Rachel as his wife. He probably saw her every day and that must have been a vision of divine beauty, just like it was for most of us when we first knew our spouse. I am not certain what kind of religious experience it was in that dark wedding tent. For sure, it was a revelation in the morning!

No, I would not look to the details of the Jacob saga as elements of any religious experience. Much of the Old Testament should not be attempted at home. Jacob and Laban are playing out their less-than-divine games of treachery, trickery and betrayal for as high a stake as they are capable of mustering.

God does not enter and belt out or even whisper clarifying words and commands. God is not mentioned at all in this ungodly behaviour, but it does not take much reading or listening to realize that God is there in the long picture. You can’t hear God, but you feel that God is doing something with the way we live out our lives.

A sneak preview from this story offers an object lesson. Parenthetically, the narrator mentions that Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah when she was married, and later on Laban also gave another one of his maids Bilhah to Rachel. Nice to be wealthy: when did any of your fathers give you a wedding gift of a maid? The necessary element of every story about important Old Testament personalities is that the favourite wife always has to be barren or simply have trouble conceiving children. So eventually Rachel and Leah give their maids to Jacob so that they may bear children for them. That’s how Jacob or Israel as he will be renamed shortly came to have 12 sons, who became the 12 tribes of Israel in honour of whom Jesus chose his 12 disciples. Moses and David were both born of children of Zilpah and Bilhah, and try to imagine Judaism, let alone Christianity, without these two people.

After reading these stories for so long, I am convinced that these characters and families like that of Jacob are remembered in such a way that most of us can only say, “Thank God, that’s not our family! That never has been me!” As bad and error-prone as we have been, we can’t be that bad. Nevertheless, these are the characters and families God chose to recreate the world. What do you think God has already done with us? Can you imagine what God has yet to do with you? Just make sure you love both of your spouses just as much at the same time.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan