“Seven Years, Two Sisters, and a Whole Lot of Questions: Sitting With Genesis 29”
I woke up in my childhood bedroom — purple walls and all — barely awake enough to blink, let alone analyze Scripture. But it was Saturday, and that means Sex & Scripture Saturday, so… I crawled out of bed, said a prayer, and opened my Bible to whatever was next.
Genesis 29.
And oh my goodness.
This chapter is straight-up soap opera.
My brain was barely awake and still said, “Wait… WHAT?” every five verses.
The First Thing That Got Me: Rachel as a Shepherdess
I’ve read Genesis before, but somehow never noticed that Rachel — yes, Rachel — was a shepherdess.
A female shepherd.
Which is wild because shepherding was an intense, physical, dangerous, totally male-coded job in that world.
And here she comes, walking up with her father’s flock like a total badass.
That did something in me.
Like… “Oh, women were doing the strong things. They just didn’t always get named for it.”
And then Jacob basically falls in love on sight.
Then we get to that part that made me laugh out loud
Jacob kisses Rachel and cries???
Sir… slow down.
But the real jaw-drop comes later:
He works seven years for Rachel.
Seven YEARS.
Where is that energy today?
Most men can barely wait three dates.
This man labors like a lovesick ox for seven years.
Wild.
…and then the wedding happens
Except… it isn’t Rachel.
Leban literally swaps her sister Leah into the marriage bed.
Which made me immediately ask:
How did Jacob not notice?!
Like… sir.
You didn’t notice a whole human person being swapped?
So of course I had to look it up.
Turns out:
it was dark (no electricity)
brides were veiled until after sex
wedding feasts involved drinking
the sisters may have looked similar
That combination honestly made my stomach drop a bit because:
We’re dealing with deception, alcohol, darkness, and lack of consent clarity.
It’s not romantic.
It’s… uncomfortable.
Then I got curious about the language
In Adam and Eve’s story, sex is described as:
“Adam knew Eve.”
The Hebrew word yada — meaning deep, mutual, relational knowing.
In this story, it’s described as:
“He went into her.”
Hebrew: vayyavō — meaning the physical act, male-initiated, tied to contractual duty.
That contrast hit me hard.
One language is intimacy.
The other is transaction.
And that alone says so, so much about the emotional landscape of this story.
Then everything escalates into polygamy, jealousy, and womb politics
After the deception, Jacob marries Rachel too — but only after completing a seven-day wedding week for Leah and committing to seven more years of labor.
So now we have:
Jacob
Leah
Rachel
Leah’s servant
Rachel’s servant
And ALL of them eventually bear him children, forming the 12 tribes of Israel.
Yes.
The entire future of God’s people comes from a messy, competitive, emotionally chaotic four-woman household.
And this line hit me in the chest:
“When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, He opened her womb.”
I don’t know how to feel about that.
Part of me loves that God saw her pain.
Part of me aches at the idea that Rachel’s barrenness was allowed or caused for some greater storyline.
My heart doesn’t settle easily with that.
But I also know — because I’ve read ahead — that Joseph (Rachel’s son) needed to be born later in the birth order for the later narrative to unfold.
And that brings up a whole thing about suffering, timing, justice, and the mystery of God’s bigger picture.
And then I spiraled back into the monogamy question
If some of the heroes of the faith had multiple wives…
why do Christians insist monogamy is the biblical ideal?
And the explanation that helped me the most was this:
The Bible describes MANY things it does not endorse.
Just because something happened doesn’t mean God said “yes” to it.
There’s a difference between:
Description vs. Prescription.
But I’m still wrestling with that.
The silence in some of these stories is confusing.
The pain of the women is real.
The cultural norms bleed into today whether we realize it or not.
This whole chapter stirred up so many threads:
intimacy vs transaction
patriarchy and power
deception and vulnerability
women being acted upon rather than choosing
God working through imperfect, messy, human situations
the question of monogamy vs polygamy
and the ache of women longing to be loved, chosen, or seen
It was… a lot.
But also?
It reminded me again that Scripture is not sanitized.
It’s real.
And confusing.
And deeply human.
And God is not afraid of my questions.
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z_NGS8EcMs