"... his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah"

Often I feel like Leah, and envying the love Rachel receives. It seems a little outlandish to compare myself to an unloved wife in a Genesis story, but...

Tonight, in feeling under appreciated and thinking how my life has been a flop in the dating world (not that it is currently a flop... though that is still yet to be determined). I again feel like Leah.

Anyone who knows me well would tell you that I will soon be the only non-married child in my family. Not a huge deal, except like Leah---- I'm the oldest. It isn't like I do not wish to be married, it just hasn't panned out for me in the gold rush of the early adulthoodness.

I cannot help but feel...cheated.

Let us go to Genesis 29.

Imagine, Rachel rushes in to tell her sister she has met a boy out in the field, and better yet, he has kissed her. Was Leah excited for her sister? I'm sure, any good sister would be. Was she upset? Likely. It was custom she'd be the first wed-- and now to hear that Jacob was asking for her sister? Oh, snap!

Leah had to be crushed. Jacob worked for seven years for her sister (and failed to check the merchandise before using it) to wake up next to Leah. Picture the reaction Leah had to see as Jacob realized he'd been cheated. (Though it is hard to say she should have found it unexpected.) Jacob went back for a refund only to be stuck with poor Leah.

Leah must have been humiliated. Not even a day had passed before Jacob inquired about her sister Rachel. I can only guess at what Leah must have heard that morning, "This is a terrible mistake. I worked so hard to have Rachel and I get you instead, absolutely ridiculous. Your father is such a cheat!" A week after she was married to Jacob, Jacob also marries Rachel, the woman of his dreams. On top of this he works an additional 7 years to have her. Jacob loved Rachel 14 years worth of hard labor, he loved Leah for nothing. Leah wasn't what Jacob wanted. As the title says he loved Rachel more.

God seeing the utter heartache of Leah's lackluster marriage decides to gives Leah children. (Yay! We all know this doesn't work....for well...the majority of the population.) To make the situation more favorable, God even makes Rachel miserable by not allowing her to have children. (Surely, Jacob will love Leah more now--she even says so herself.)

As I read the names of Leah's children..... Leah bore Reuben, she bore Simeon, she bore Levi, and then Judah ( She bore a few more naturally) ....it dawned on me. Leah may have been less loved by Jacob, but she was surely loved by the Lord. Why do I say this?

Leah, not Rachel, bore Levi---> This tribe become the priests of God's people.
Leah, not Rachel bore Judah ---> This is the tribe of David---> think Jesus.

I had always felt pity for Leah. Her death isn't even mentioned. She gets no gold star.

However, I now realize that Leah, the less loved by Jacob, is the source of the branch of David and thus the branch from which our Saviour is born.

God must have felt :
a) really bad for the situation Leah was in, or
b) really loved Leah tremendously.

It is hard to say. For Leah is a minor character that falls off by the 35th chapter of Genesis. She is only again mentioned in Ruth along side her sister Rachel.

As for now, I shall rest easy knowing that regardless of which woman I relate to more, both together "built up the family of Israel".