Things get a little Old Testament crazy here. These two chapters don’t contain the strangest accounts in the Bible by any means, but things get just crazy enough that my thoughts included “Is that even allowed?” and “I don’t think that was mentioned back in Sunday school.” To give a quick summary that leaves a lot of the specifics out, Jacob is tricked into marrying a woman named Leah, later marries her sister Rachel, and has many children with these women and their servants.
There are a couple of things to note about this passage. First, all of this takes place a long time ago in a specific cultural context. Some of the strangeness perceived by a modern audience may have made perfect sense back then. Second, if you look closely at the scripture, you can see that God is at work in the lives of these people and working for the continuation of His larger story. God is molding Jacob into the man we see in the events of the next several chapters (no spoilers), and Rachel and Leah learn to look to God as a praise-worthy provider.
Maybe your life seems a little crazy right now; things are a little weird or going differently than you expected. Maybe you are being molded into the person you’ll be in the next chapter. Keep your focus on God, our praise-worthy provider.
VC Devotionals 