Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible….

Genesis 29:16-20; 30 ESV

16 Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.

17 Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance.

18 Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, "I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel."

19 Laban said, "It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me."

20 So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

30So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years.

Jacob is the dominant person in the Old Testament. From the moment of his birth he is never far from the Biblical writer’s mind. Jacob will be the subject today and for the next four days.

The text we have before us, Genesis 29:20, is one of the most beautiful statements in literature about true romantic love. The only other Biblical character who is described as loving a particular woman is Samson, and it is well to suspicion Samson in most of what he did. But there is no suspicion attached to Jacob’s love for Rachel. It continued throughout her life and extended to the two sons she bore.

It is a credit to Jacob that he could have such an unselfish affection as this is. It is a revelation of the complicated personality of man that he can be so self-absorbed in his life and have such complicated involvements with others and at the same time be tender, and committed deeply, to another person.

This shows us the complexity of human nature and more especially the very complex person Jacob was. Griffith Thomas, a British writer - one of the few who appreciates this lovely description of love - writes, “There are few verses more familiar in the story of Jacob than this beautiful description of his love; whatever else may be said about him, his sharp practices, cleverness, and craft….Love such as this takes little account of time; buoyed up and urged on by its joyous hope, it lives and labors and grows stronger and stronger”. Genesis: A Devotional Commentary, pg. 271 W. H. Griffith Thomas, Ninth Printing 1976.

Sometime in the past I read this description of love, “Love is a peculiar kind of relationship; it is a union which destroys separation but at the same time intensifies distinction,” Well said such a one.