Genesis 30:7

30:1-13 Rachel envied her sister: envy is grieving at the good of another, than which no sin is more hateful to God, or more hurtful to our neighbours and ourselves. She considered not that God made the difference, and that in other things she had the advantage. Let us carefully watch against all the risings and workings of this passion in our minds. Let not our eye be evil towards any of our fellow-servants, because our Master's is good. Jacob loved Rachel, and therefore reproved her for what she said amiss. Faithful reproofs show true affection. God may be to us instead of any creature; but it is sin and folly to place any creature in God's stead, and to place that confidence in any creature, which should be placed in God only. At the persuasion of Rachel, Jacob took Bilhah her handmaid to wife, that, according to the usage of those times, her children might be owned as her mistress's children. Had not Rachel's heart been influenced by evil passions, she would have thought her sister's children nearer to her, and more entitled to her care than Bilhah's. But children whom she had a right to rule, were more desirable to her than children she had more reason to love. As an early instance of her power over these children, she takes pleasure in giving them names that carry in them marks of rivalry with her sister. See what roots of bitterness envy and strife are, and what mischief they make among relations. At the persuasion of Leah, Jacob took Zilpah her handmaid to wife also.

3-9. Bilhah … Zilpah—Following the example of Sarah with regard to Hagar, an example which is not seldom imitated still, she adopted the children of her maid. Leah took the same course. A bitter and intense rivalry existed between them, all the more from their close relationship as sisters; and although they occupied separate apartments, with their families, as is the uniform custom where a plurality of wives obtains, and the husband and father spends a day with each in regular succession, that did not allay their mutual jealousies. The evil lies in the system, which being a violation of God's original ordinance, cannot yield happiness.

Verses 7, 8. - And Bilhah Rachel's maid conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son. And Rachel said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, literally, wrestlings of God have I wrestled with my sister , meaning, by "wrestlings of Elohim;" not great wrestlings in rivalry, with Leah (A.V. Vatablus, Ainsworth, Rosenmüller, Calvin), nor wrestlings in the cause of God, as being unwilling to leave the founding of the nation to her sister alone (Knobel), but wrestlings with God in prayer (Delitzsch, Lange, Murphy, Kalisch), wrestlings regarding Elohim and his grace (Hengstenberg, Keil), in which she at the same time contended with her sister, to whom apparently that grace had been hitherto restricted - and I have prevailed (scarcely in the sense of achieving a victory over Leah, who had already borne four sons, but in the sense of drawing the Divine favor, though only indirectly, towards herself): and she called his name Naphtali - i.e. "My Wrestling." Genesis 30:7

Bilhah, Rachel's maid, bears two sons. Rachel becomes impatient of her barrenness and jealous of her sister, and unjustly reproaches her husband, who indignantly rebukes her. God, not he, has withheld children from her. She does what Sarah had done before her Genesis 16:2-3 , gives her handmaid to her husband. No express law yet forbade this course, though nature and Scripture by implication did Genesis 2:23-25 . "Dan." "God hath judged me." In this passage Jacob and Rachel use the common noun, God, the Everlasting, and therefore Almighty, who rules in the physical relations of things - a name suitable to the occasion. He had judged her, dealt with her according to his sovereign justice in withholding the fruit of the womb, when she was self-complacent and forgetful of her dependence on a higher power; and also in hearing her voice when she approached him in humble supplication. "Naphtali." "Wrestlings of God," with God, in prayer, on the part of both sisters, so that they wrestled with one another in the self-same act. Rachel, though looking first to Jacob and then to her maid, had at length learned to look to her God, and then had prevailed.

Bilhah's Sons. - When Rachel thought of her own barrenness, she became more and more envious of her sister, who was blessed with sons. But instead of praying, either directly or through her husband, as Rebekah had done, to Jehovah, who had promised His favour to Jacob ( Genesis 28:13 .), she said to Jacob, in passionate displeasure, "Get me children, or I shall die;" to which he angrily replied, "Am I in God's stead (i.e., equal to God, or God), who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?" i.e., Can I, a powerless man, give thee what the Almighty God has withheld? Almighty like God Jacob certainly was not; but he also wanted the power which he might have possessed, the power of prayer, in firm reliance upon the promise of the Lord. Hence he could neither help nor advise his beloved wife, but only assent to her proposal, that he should beget children for her through her maid Bilhah (cf. Genesis 16:2 ), through whom two sons were born to her.

The first she named Dan, i.e., judge, because God had judged her, i.e., procured her justice, hearkened to her voice (prayer), and removed the reproach of childlessness; the second Naphtali, i.e., my conflict, or my fought one, for "fightings of God, she said, have I fought with my sister, and also prevailed." אלהים נפתּוּלי are neither luctationes quam maximae, nor "a conflict in the cause of God, because Rachel did not wish to leave the founding of the nation of God to Leah alone" (Knobel), but "fightings for God and His mercy" (Hengstenberg), or, what comes to the same thing, "wrestlings of prayer she had wrestled with Leah; in reality, however, with God Himself, who seemed to have restricted His mercy to Leah alone" (Delitzsch). It is to be noticed, that Rachel speaks of Elohim only, whereas Leah regarded her first four sons as the gift of Jehovah. In this variation of the names, the attitude of the two women, not only to one another, but also to the cause they served, is made apparent. It makes no difference whether the historian has given us the very words of the women on the birth of their children, or, what appears more probable, since the name of God is not introduced into the names of the children, merely his own view of the matter as related by him ( Genesis 29:31 ; Genesis 30:17 , Genesis 30:22 ).

[Reformed Biblical] to me for my reward or hire; ## before thy face, i.e. thou being present and diligently observing whether I have any cattle of another colour. But the Hebrew word tabo is also of the second person, and so the sense seems to be this, When thou shalt come upon my hire or reward, to wit, to observe and see whether I have any other cattle than what belongs to me. And so these words come in by way of parenthesis; and the following words, before my face, are to be joined to the former words, thus, so shall righteousness answer for me in time to come (when thou shalt come upon my hire) before thy face. This I prefer before the other, because the phrase of coming upon his hire seems more properly to agree to a person than to his righteousness. Genesis 30:34 ## Laban trusted to the course of nature, whereby cattle usually bring forth their young of their own colour; and Jacob relied upon the providence of an Almighty God, and his gracious Father. Genesis 30:35 ## The he-goats that were ring-straked, which had lines or strakes like bands about them of diverse colours from the rest of their body. ## Every one that had some white: this word some is oft understood in other texts of Scripture, and here it is so necessarily; as appears both from the thing itself, as it is related, and from the phrase; for he saith not that was white, but that had white in it, to wit, mixed with other colours. Genesis 30:36 ## Three days ’ journey; under