Genesis 30:22 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 30:22

Comments

At last Rachel has a child of her own, Joseph, meaning ‘he will add’. She had been blessed with her own child late in the day, only after having resorted to unlawful means to obtain a son through Bilhah. She rightly attributes this to the Lord, and the text says that this was now in answer to her own prayer, for which she is thankful. The name Joseph is testimony to the fact that she believes that God will hear her and give her yet another son in the future, as indeed he did.Now that she has her own son, she seems so pleased. When she was given sons through her handmaid she worked herself up into thinking it was hers, but she soon drops her claim to Bilhah’s sons when she has a child of her own.This narrative gives us a telling insight into the advantages of monogamy. Leah was almost hated. It is not necessary to believe that Jacob detested her, but he hated her in the sense that he did not love her. Both loved Jacob, but that love was not fully returned to one of them. It was a torment to her. Leah had herself to blame to some extent. She had gone along with it. She bore child after child, first of all herself, and then through her maid, and then again through herself. And practically all those children, their very names, reflect the anguish of a mother saying, now he will love me; now I will be accepted; now I will be received. There was such jealousy within the family, and such hostility, and such unhappiness. Jacob had to pay for that also, desperately trying to maintain the standards of God, desperately trying to keep them away from idol worship. He never wholly succeeded in that. Strangely, Leah only praised the Lord for the one of her sons, and that was Judah. For the others, she praises God only because the son will surely get me love and affection; each one counted only for that. You rather think she must have known somehow that Judah would carry the seed royal, because he is the only one for which she says, I praise Jehovah for this boy, and didn't think of herself. But that may be reading too much into a name. It was the same with Rachel. She was loved, but she testifies to being in a constant struggle with her sister. The two sisters were at each other's throats. What a price to pay! What a difficult home and family!

Application

Some do something similar to Rachel with their own assurance. Some constantly attribute this and that event in their lives to the Lord, as if they were full of the joy of faith, but it is not real. If the day comes when they are really given assurance, they will know they have been fabricating something which is not real. We should never speak in swelling terms when we do not really feel it. Pray for real blessing from the Lord, and do not try to manufacture your own. It is impossible for us to deceive ourselves about these things.

Questions

Why did God allow it? Well in the goodness of God, he allowed that terrible mistake to be made for the benefit of subsequent generations. God does not just say to mankind, marriage is between one man and one woman for life; God does not just arbitrarily command it. He says, ‘Look what happens when you try it another way. Look at this family with a godly father’, and yet he cannot hold the family together in happiness and bliss, because of this departure from the God given pattern. God in his goodness not only gives the command, but gives the explanation for the command also in an event like this. So actually, miserable as it was for them, it is the will of God that we should look into this account and see the lesson. The same is true with other polygamous relations in the Old Testament. They are holding up a lens to show us. There is God, who is not obliged to do this, in his great kindness, giving us the reasons for his commands, and explaining it so carefully through these examples of when things go wrong.

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Genesis 30:22 Commentary and Bible Study