Study Desk

But in the evening he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob went in to [consummate the marriage with] her.

But in the morning [when Jacob awoke], it was Leah [who was with him]! And he said to Laban, "What is this that you have done to me? Did I not work for you [for seven years] for Rachel? Why have you deceived and betrayed me [like this]?"

But Laban only said, "It is not the tradition here to give the younger [daughter in marriage] before the older.

Now when the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He made her able to bear children, but Rachel was barren.

But Leah answered, "Is it a small thing that you have taken my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also?" So Rachel said, "Jacob shall sleep with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes."

But Laban said to him, "If I have found favor in your sight, stay with me; for I have learned [from the omens in divination and by experience] that the LORD has blessed me because of you."

"For you had little before I came and it has increased and multiplied abundantly, and the LORD has favored you with blessings wherever I turned. But now, when shall I provide for my own household?"

Laban asked, "What shall I give you?" Jacob replied, "You shall not give me anything. But if you will do this one thing for me [which I now propose], I will again pasture and keep your flock:

but when the flock was sickly, he did not put the branches there; so the sicker [animals] were Laban's and the stronger Jacob's.

and he said to them, "I see [a change in] your father's attitude, that he is not friendly toward me as [he was] before; but the God of my father [Isaac] has been with me.

"Yet your father has cheated me [as often as possible] and changed my wages ten times; but God did not allow him to hurt me.

"It is in my power to harm you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, 'Be careful not to speak to Jacob, either good or bad.'

"Now [I suppose] you felt you must go because you were homesick for your father's house and family; but why did you steal my [household] gods?"

So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and the tent of the two maids, but he did not find them. Then he came out of Leah's tent and entered Rachel's tent.

Now Rachel had taken the household idols and put them in the camel's saddlebag and sat on them. Laban searched through all her tent, but did not find them.

So Rachel said to her father, "Do not be displeased, my lord, that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is on me and I am unwell." He searched [further] but did not find the household idols.

Laban answered Jacob, "These women [that you married] are my daughters, these children are my grandchildren, these flocks are [from] my flocks, and all that you see [here] is mine. But what can I do today to these my daughters or to their children to whom they have given birth?

Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha (stone monument of testimony in Aramaic), but Jacob called it Galeed.

"The God of Abraham [your father] and the God of Nahor [my father], and the god [the image of worship] of their father [Terah, an idolater], judge between us." But Jacob swore [only] by [the one true God] the Fear of his father Isaac.

But he got up that same night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and waded over the ford of the Jabbok.