bought

I’ve always felt really bad for Jacob when I read Genesis 30, which describes the escalating tension between his two sister-wives as Rachel, the favorite, struggles to have children and Leah hopes her fertility will win her Jacob’s heart. In the end, Jacob becomes a tool for parenting as both wives get their servants involved.

And then, to me, verse 16 has to be the absolute worst. It reads, “So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. ‘You must sleep with me,’ she said. ‘I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.’ So he slept with her that night.”

What must that feel like, to be treated as an object of barter by your wives? To be told, not asked, which bed to get into? To be swapped for some plants?

It’s another example of how God’s people in Genesis manage to mess up their marriages. And it’s a reminder of how easily I can make a hash of my own relationships.

After all, Leah and Rachel were both trying to solve important problems; they both wanted to be treated with respect and dignity by Jacob and each other. Their solutions just led to more drama and dysfunction, but what they wanted wasn’t so bad.

As I look among the people I interact with all the time, I see broken marriages and extra-marital affairs and cohabitation without marriage. I see all kinds of soap-opera behavior with kids and exes. Even a happily married man can show a messed-up idea of sex within his own marriage, or on the Internet. And I don’t have to broaden the circle very far to find same-sex relationships and even gender confusion.

The sad truth is, very few people still have a clear idea of what God meant sex and marriage to be. And there are all kinds of wrong ideas that weasel their way into my head every day, from the songs I hear, the books I read, TV shows I watch or even the daily news.

It’s a shame that God’s most beautiful gift to us, the one meant to show us what His relationship with the church is like, has been so sadly twisted by Satan. Oh, how desperately this world needs a Savior.