Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Provision, Protection
- Provision: God gives us what we truly need. God knows our needs better than we can know them. We learn to trust God to provide for us.
- Protection: God shelters us. He knows our threats and knows how to bring us through them. We learn to trust God to protect us.
Today we see the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel. I’m going to look at Leah specifically
through the lens of two parts of the hexagon: provision and protection. Leah is the tender one – sometimes translated
as weak one. Leah is the overlooked
eldest daughter. Leah is described as “hated”
by Jacob because he really wanted Rachel.
However, God knows what He is doing. In spite of her rejection, God opens Leah’s
womb and she becomes quite fertile. She
bears four sons to Jacob, and each of these sons will play a very significant
role in the rest of the story of Genesis.
Reuben and Simeon will be the family leaders for much of the time. Levi will become the great line of priests
and Levites. Judah will eventually become
the family leader and will ultimately produce the line of David. It is out of the line of Judah that Jesus
comes. God provides incredible honor for
Leah in spite of being hated by the world.
God also protects Leah. She
could have been forgotten in this world, but through Laban God grafts Leah into
His people. She could have been abused
and neglected by Jacob, but God opens up Leah in order to provide Jacob’s first
four sons. God not only grants her
provision but protection by grafting her into a family that can care for her
and bring her into a place where God can literally work through her and her
offspring.
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