(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)
“In the evening, he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to Jacob. He went in to her. Laban gave Zilpah his servant to his daughter Leah for a servant.”
(Genesis 29:23-24)
Seven years had passed. There had been so much time to tell the truth. But Laban didn’t. He took from Jacob and he plotted to take more. He did NOT give the promised bride, but instead gave his eldest daughter Leah. To Leah he gave a maidservant, which was at least proper. It looks to me that it was the one proper thing Laban did.
Leah had to be similar to Rachel or this would not have worked. We can assume there were veils involved. We can assume Rachel wasn’t participating in the feast in an open and honest way. Perhaps she had been locked up. Perhaps Laban had told her all about the scheme. We have no idea. We’re not told what she knew or didn’t know. But you cannot swap two completely different women for each other and expect it to work. So we know Leah wasn’t frumpy or a completely different shape or height. There were similarities. They were both good looking girls.
My heart goes out to Leah in this narrative. She was a compassionate girl. She had feelings. Her heart led her. She loved Jacob. Who knows what Laban had told her. What deception he used or what authority. What threats. We don’t know how he got her to go along with it. But she did out of her love for Jacob. What a wonderful night followed by such a terrible morning. My heart hurts for her.
What kind of father was Laban? He was a schemer where Jacob was concerned. Greedy. Desirous of prosperity in any way he could wrangle it. But who puts their children through this? Who uses their children as pawns? I don’t know what he felt for them, but it is hard to see him as a loving and doting Dad.
The sage Rav Hirsch writes: ‘V. 24. He was very careful to give her, not to Jacob, but expressly to Leah as her own personal property. This is also not unimportant for later on. For if, later on, Jacob married her too, this could only occur on the initiative of Leah the mistress to whom she belonged.’
The sage Radak writes: ‘ויהי בערב, the Torah uses this opportunity to teach us that sexual intercourse even with artificial light, i.e. during the night is not appropriate, how much more so is it inappropriate during daylight hours. If it were appropriate to indulge in intercourse using artificial light Lavan could not have passed off Leah as Rachel without Yaakov becoming aware of this. It is clear from the text that Yaakov did not realise Leah as having been his partner in bed until the following morning. ויתן לבן לה את זלפה שפחתו, when she was led under the wedding canopy Lavan gave her this handmaid to be her personal maid.’
The sage Or HaChaim writes: ‘ויהי בערב, It was in the evening, etc. Laban caused great pain by deceiving such a righteous man as Jacob; the exchange resulted in a dilution of the hold holiness exerted on earth. You are well advised to study what the Zohar סתרי תורה on Parshat Vayetze item 176 has to say on the subject. According to the Zohar, Laban’s having switched Leah for Rachel was the cause that the sanctity of the birthright became downgraded. Originally both monarchy and priesthood would have been the share of the firstborn just as the firstborn receives a double portion of the inheritance from his father. When Jacob slept with Leah he intended to impregnate Rachel (since he was not aware of his partner’s real identity). This meant that his marital relations with Leah at the time were not totally pure. As a result the sanctity that he could have achieved by this union if his partner had truly been his intended bride, the sanctity he hoped to create, was diluted, was significantly reduced. ויקח את לאה, he took Leah. Perhaps Leah did not intend to deceive Jacob but was forced by her father Laban to go through with this charade. It is also possible that Laban managed to persuade her. Unless one of these two reasons is correct the Torah did not need to write “he took,” but could have simply written: “he brought his daughter Leah to him.” ויבא אותה, he brought her. Laban was careful to do this personally; this was part of the deception. He did not allow time for the deception to be discovered. It would have been very unbecoming for the bridegroom to have demanded at that moment that Leah (Rachel) identify herself. ויבא אליה. He had marital relations with her. The reason that Jacob did not notice that the woman beside him was not Rachel was that a righteous man of his calibre did not engage in actions that would arouse him before performing the commandment of marital intercourse in order to produce children. There was no one who could match Jacob in this kind of piety. The Torah itself testifies in Genesis 49,3 that he was able to say of himself that Reuben was the product of the first time he emitted semen, i.e. ראשית אוני. Look at our commentary on that verse. He joined Leah without engaging in what is called “foreplay” in our parlance. Even after completing intercourse with Leah Jacob did not recognise her since everything took place in darkness as required by halachah (compare אור החיים 240). ללאה בתו שפחה. for his daughter Leah as a maidservant. Why did the Torah have to mention that Leah was Laban’s daughter? Surely we know this by now! If it was sufficient to write: “Laban gave her her his maidservant Zilpah,” why did the Torah have to add “to Leah his daughter” at the end of the same verse? Besides, why did the Torah write שפחה, maidservant, instead of לשפחה, as a maidservant? We must explain this by referring to the tradition that Zilpah and Bilhah respectively had been inherited by Rachel and Leah from their mother. This is what the Torah meant by the words “to Leah his daughter a maidservant.” The Torah merely points out that the maidservant was Leah’s personal property because she had inherited her from her mother. The Torah emphasises בתו, to hint that Leah had acquired this maidservant because she was Laban’s daughter and the maidservant had been part of the marriage settlement, כתובה, of her mother; Leah had not purchased the maidservant in some other way. This is also why the Torah needed to write ויתן לבן, that Laban gave. Otherwise Laban’s name did not need to be repeated here again as we know of whom the Torah was speaking. The Torah wanted us to know that Laban did not give his daughter a gift in the usual sense of the word.’
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