And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.” So she called his name Zebulun. Afterward she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah.
Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” And she called his name Joseph, saying, “May the LORD add to me another son!”
As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you. Name your wages, and I will give it.”
Comment: These two families are living in a devious, relationship which now needs to be sorted out! Laban, the head of the family in this region, many miles away from where Abraham and Lot had moved to when they had heard the call of God, had, with tricky subclauses, given his two daughters in marriage to Jacob. The dowry was 14 years of free labour for Laban – seven years before his promised marriage to Rachel, and another seven after Laban’s deception and after he had collected 2 wives in a week or so! But then, due to the relative infertility of Rachel and the competitiveness of the two sisters who brought their maidservants into Jacob’s bed with him, we have a very complex issue. Can you imagine the noise and problems with 4 women wanting their own ways, Jacob pulling his hair out, eventually 12 sons and a daughter produced in quick succession (with no waiting for the delivery of one baby before another one or two were on the way!) running around playing their version of Cowboys and Indians with their flock of cousins – Laban’s other grandchildren? And all this against the background of Jacob basically having to put all the results of his labour into his father-in-law’s pockets! At least when Jacob raised the issue of fair pay Laban was honest enough to say that Jacob had been successful as a shepherd for him. Jacob did have some livestock of his own that he had brought with him, so that he wasn’t totally dependent on the in-laws.
Prayer: We tend to blame others but we do mess up our lives, Father. Please teach and help us to walk worthy of You, our God and Saviour!
As I read it! 