Ge 30:1-24. DOMESTIC JEALOUSIES.
1. Rachel envied her sister--The maternal relation confers a
high degree of honor in the East, and the want of that status is felt
as a stigma and deplored as a grievous calamity.
Give me children, or else I die--either be reckoned as good as
dead, or pine away from vexation. The intense anxiety of Hebrew women
for children arose from the hope of giving birth to the promised seed.
Rachel's conduct was sinful and contrasts unfavorably with that of
Rebekah (compare
Ge 25:22)
and of Hannah
(1Sa 1:11).
JFB.
Outline
1 Rachel gives Bilhah her maid unto Jacob
5 She bears Dan and Naphtali
9 Leah gives Zilpah her maid, who bears Gad and Asher
17 Leah bears Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah.
22 Rachel bears Joseph
23 Jacob desires to depart
27 Laban keeps him there on a new covenant
37 God blesses Jacob whereby he became rich.
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