Reading between the Lines: Rebekah, Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah, & Rachel

This week on Reading between the Lines, we are learning more about the stories of Rebekah and Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah, and Rachel.

 

This story that stretches across a large portion of the book of Genesis is not one that is easy to read. There is deep brokenness present within this family, divides so deep that set the stage for the narrative that will come next and will shape the identity of God’s people and influences how God’s people relate to one another today.

These are stories that seem to simultaneously buck against the patriarchal systems of the time through Rachel working as a shepherd, side-by-side in the wilderness with other male shepherds, with no one being scandalized. But, then the patriarchy shows up again in how Laban uses Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah, and Rachel as pawns in attempts to earn more wealth and status for himself, along with years of free service from Jacob.

There is abuse and sexual abuse throughout these stories. Even though they were abiding by common practices at the time, these practices stripped Zilpah and Bilhah of agency over their own bodies; they could not grant or deny access. And, at least in the case of Bilhah, this spanned male members of multiple generations of the same family.

In the midst of this, God claims this family to be the origin of God’s people. It is through Leah, Zilpah, Bilhah, Rachel, and Jacob that generations of God’s people trace their genetic and spiritual lineage. It is through this broken family that God’s promise made with Abraham and Sarah is fulfilled; this is the beginning of those generations that would be so large that they would be impossible to count. This is a sign of God’s faithfulness, but there is also cost to those involved.

 

CW: infertility, rape and sexual violence, slavery