1
¶ And when Rachel saw that she bare
Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me
children, or else I die. 2 And Jacob’s
anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath
withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? 3
And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear
upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. 4 And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife:
and Jacob went in unto her. 5 And Bilhah
conceived, and bare Jacob a son. 6 And
Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given
me a son: therefore called she his name Dan. 7
And Bilhah Rachel’s maid conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son.
8 And Rachel said, With great wrestlings
have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed: and she called his name
Naphtali. 9 When Leah saw that she had
left bearing, she took Zilpah her maid, and gave her Jacob to wife. 10 And Zilpah Leah’s maid bare Jacob a son.
11 And Leah said, A troop cometh: and
she called his name Gad. 12 And Zilpah
Leah’s maid bare Jacob a second son. 13
And Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed: and
she called his name Asher.
Rachel envied her older sister’s success at giving
their husband four sons. She holds Jacob responsible for her infertility. Jacob
angrily states that it is God who has withheld a baby from her, which is true.
God is in complete and immanent control of conception and birth, the entire
process.
Here, she does something entirely alien to us, a
repeat of Sarah’s behavior with Hagar. She offers her handmaid, who obviously
has no rights to herself, as a surrogate to herself as a wife. This, what we
would consider adultery, must not have been uncommon in the ancient world. Here,
and elsewhere, we get a picture of the method of childbirth used in this part
of the ancient world. …she shall bear
upon my knees. Note the following;
Exodus
1:16 And he said, When ye do the office
of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son,
then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
The modern child-bearing position is on your back. The
ancient was sitting on someone’s knees or a stool, a birthstool, pictures of which
relics can be found on the internet if you are interested. I have read, though
I cannot confirm, that birthstools were used in Europe during the Middle Ages.
One Jewish source I read reported that ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics show the
development of a chair type device with a hole where the seat is normally, much
like a toilet seat today.
Bilhah does conceive and bear a son whom Rachel called
Dan. The power to name is the power of dominion over someone or something as we
saw from Adam. Rachel owns Bilhah and counts her children as her own. Dan, from
the context, means judge and Strong’s confirms this. The Hebrew word also comes
from a primitive root meaning to plead a cause before a judge so that we can
see from the context, if we do not go to Strong’s, what God wants the name to
mean.
Again, Bilhah, on behalf of Rachel bears Naphtali,
whose name means wrestling. Then, Leah, realizing that she was no longer having
children, gave her maid, Zilpah, to her husband. She then conceived and bore
Gad, whose name means a troop. Certainly, their family was becoming a troop.
Zilpah then bears Asher for Leah and Jacob. The word blessed here is defined as being happy in something you have received at the hand of God.
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