One of the images that came up when I googled "Rachel and Leah." Interesting. Make of it what you will.
There are motifs to this story, refrains, reoccurring themes that should be a caution and a comfort. Man's deception. God's grace.
Laban tricks Jacob over the identity of the daughter he marries. Now Jacob knows something of what his father felt when his son deceived him as to which son received his blessing. A son deceives a father. A father deceives a son.
Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. And Jacob's wife sells the bed of her husband for a son's mandrakes. It amazes me that -- through the domestic battle between Jacob's two wives over their husband and who will give him children and sons -- the twelve tribes of Israel are given birth.
And Laban? One wonders why it was necessary for Isaac's son to avoid Canaanite women and go to the country of his father's upbringing...when Laban is given to household gods and divination. And his daughter? She deceives both father and husband by hiding the household gods that she has indeed stolen.
And so, man deceives. God not only forgives. He blesses. He will turn all this deception between father and son, husband and wife, into eternal truth. Just wait and see.
It's wonderful to read a story and know its end. But, in the case of this story, that does not remove the mystery.
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