Immerse: Beginnings Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 55
29:6-25
G enesis
43
“Yes, we do,” they replied.
“Is he doing well?” Jacob asked.
“Yes, he’s well,” they answered. “Look, here comes his daughter Rachel
with the flock now.”
Jacob said, “Look, it’s still broad daylight—too early to round up the
animals. Why don’t you water the sheep and goats so they can get back
out to pasture?”
“We can’t water the animals until all the flocks have arrived,” they replied. “Then the shepherds move the stone from the mouth of the well,
and we water all the sheep and goats.”
Jacob was still talking with them when Rachel arrived with her father’s
flock, for she was a shepherd. And because Rachel was his cousin—the
daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother—and because the sheep and
goats belonged to his uncle Laban, Jacob went over to the well and moved
the stone from its mouth and watered his uncle’s flock. Then Jacob kissed
Rachel, and he wept aloud. He explained to Rachel that he was her cousin
on her father’s side—the son of her aunt Rebekah. So Rachel quickly ran
and told her father, Laban.
As soon as Laban heard that his nephew Jacob had arrived, he ran out
to meet him. He embraced and kissed him and brought him home. When
Jacob had told him his story, Laban exclaimed, “You really are my own
flesh and blood!”
After Jacob had stayed with Laban for about a month, Laban said to him,
“You shouldn’t work for me without pay just because we are relatives. Tell
me how much your wages should be.”
Now Laban had two daughters. The older daughter was named Leah,
and the younger one was Rachel. There was no sparkle in Leah’s eyes, but
Rachel had a beautiful figure and a lovely face. Since Jacob was in love with
Rachel, he told her father, “I’ll work for you for seven years if you’ll give
me Rachel, your younger daughter, as my wife.”
“Agreed!” Laban replied. “I’d rather give her to you than to anyone else.
Stay and work with me.” So Jacob worked seven years to pay for Rachel.
But his love for her was so strong that it seemed to him but a few days.
Finally, the time came for him to marry her. “I have fulfilled my agreement,” Jacob said to Laban. “Now give me my wife so I can sleep with her.”
So Laban invited everyone in the neighborhood and prepared a wedding feast. But that night, when it was dark, Laban took Leah to Jacob,
and he slept with her. (Laban had given Leah a servant, Zilpah, to be her
maid.)
But when Jacob woke up in the m
orning—it was Leah! “What have you
