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Genesis 29
On his arrival at Haran, the incidents are exceedingly similar to those which took place when Abraham’s servant went to seek a wife for Isaac. The servant, however, when he came to the well outside the town, had camels, attendants, and stores of precious things; but the son stands by the same well alone, and empty of all things but his claims and his hopes. Jacob also tarries by the well, till the damsel destined to become his spouse appears; but she comes not, like Rebekah, to fetch water for domestic use from the well, but to water the home flock of her father Laban, which is under her care. Here, also, Jacob, as became his youth and appearance, waits not to receive the notice of the maiden, as did the steward of Abraham, but hastens to show her manly and becoming attention, by rolling away the stone which covered the well’s mouth, and by watering the flock for her. He knows who she is, for as she approached, the shepherds at the well had told him that this was Laban’s daughter Rachel. There was much to awaken strong emotion—the damsel was the daughter of “his mother’s brother;” the sheep were “the sheep of his mother’s brother.” It is not without purpose that his mother is thus presented to us. It apprises us that his mother was present to Jacob’s mind. He pictured to himself, that just as that maiden appeared there before him, so, in that very place, had his mother appeared before Abraham’s servant some forty years before—and that now he was among the scenes of her youth, of which she had often spoke to him. We can therefore well understand how; when he kissed his fair cousin, and told her who he was, “he lifted up his voice and wept.” This is a fine touch of nature; and had the faults of Jacob been much greater than they were, we could forgive them for those tears. We begin to feel that there is truth in this man, of whom we have not yet seen much that is good. Our hearts begin to go with him. We begin to like him. His future career begins to interest us.
Notwithstanding the selfish and ungenerous character which Laban evinces in the sequel, his conduct on the first arrival of Jacob was by no means wanting in that hospitality and warm affection for kindred, which even at the present day, distinguish the eastern people. He no sooner heard from his daughter that his sister’s son was out by the well, than “he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house.” Some commentators have striven to make out interested influences even from the first in the conduct of this man. But no selfish man is invariably selfish—no mean-spirited man always mean. We may therefore suppose that Laban was properly affected by the arrival of his sister’s son, by whom he might hear tidings of her welfare, without allowing himself to be influenced by Jacob’s humble and destitute appearance, or by his obvious inability to offer those rich presents which might be expected from Isaac’s son. When he heard Jacob’s story, he simply remarked, “Surely thou art my bone and my flesh;” as much as to say, “Although thou camest empty-handed, and hast no immediate resources; yet thou art my near relative, dear for my sister’s sake, and art truly welcome here.”
During the month which followed his arrival, Jacob made himself so very useful in the business of the flock, and showed so much skill in the management of cattle, that Laban began to think of establishing an abiding interest in his services. We must confess, that there is much in the narrative of this twenty-ninth chapter, which we can only explain on the supposition, that Jacob had, during this month, heard from home, through some channel or other—perhaps by a caravan—that there, circumstances were not likely to admit of his return so soon as had been expected; that Esau was still so implacable, that he could not prudently either return, or claim any separate settlement for himself out of the paternal estate; and that his father’s health had been so far reestablished, as to afford no likelihood that his death would, for a good while to come, make any change in the posture of affairs. When, also, we consider that the patriarchal wealth was not in money, but in cattle; and that even money existed only in the form of precious metal, difficult and dangerous to transport in bulk, we may understand, that if Jacob did hear this, he would have inferred that he had little aid to expect from home, and that he had only to do the best he could for himself in Padanaram, until, after the lapse of some years, circumstances should admit of his return.
It was probably the arrival of news of some such tendency, that induced Laban to make him an offer to engage his services at an adequate remuneration. On this, he offered to serve his uncle seven years for the hand of his daughter Rachel; whom by this time he tenderly loved. That he made an offer to pledge his services for so long a time, shows that, from some cause or other, he had by this time abandoned the hope with which he left Beersheba, of any speedy return to his own home. This period of service was to be in lieu of the remuneration, or, as it is now plainly called, the price, which a father has always in the East been entitled to expect for his daughter, and which, indeed, it would be discreditable in a husband not to pay, in some shape or other. Personal servitude to the father, is still, in some parts of the East, including to this day Palestine, the mode in which this price is paid by young men who have no other means of providing what the parent has a right to expect; and seven or eight years of such servitude, during which the man receives only food and clothing, is still regarded as but a fair remuneration for the daughter of a person of any consideration. It appears to us, that this arrangement was not so absolute in its condition of servitude, but that, had circumstances arisen to alter Jacob’s position, and to afford him the means of direct payment, he might so have redeemed from Laban any portion of his term of years that might then remain unexpired.
By an infamous trick, when the time came that Jacob should receive his wife, another and elder daughter of Laban’s, named Leah, was substituted by the father. This was apparently done in the calculation, that Jacob loved Rachel too well thus to part with her, and that he would offer another term of his valuable services to obtain her also. So it came to pass. He offered another seven years for Rachel and thus, only on the hard terms of fourteen years service, could obtain the only bride he desired to possess. Yet he thought her not too dearly purchased by his long service; and he seems to have felt an honest pride in being thus enabled to show the depth of the love he bore to her.
It is remarkable how much against his will, and against his eventual peace, Jacob, who would have been content and happy with Rachel only, was absolutely driven, by the force of circumstances, to take not only two wives, but four. Having got the wrong wife in the first instance, he could only obtain the right one, by taking her as an addition to the first. Then, as the beloved one proved childless, he could not refuse her importunities to take her handmaid Bilhah, as Abraham had taken Hagar, that she might, through her, obtain children, and be put on equality with her fruitful sister and rival, Leah. Having done this, and the plan having produced the desired results, he could not, in justice, refuse Leah the same advantage, and was obliged to take her handmaid, Zilpah, in like manner. Thus Jacob became encumbered with four wives at once, all though his first disappointment, by the culpable contrivance of Laban. With respect to these handmaids, it should be observed, that they were slaves, whom Laban had presented to his daughters, as their own peculiar property at the time of their marriage, and who were entirely at their disposal, and free from the control of the husband. Such handmaidens had before been given to Rebekah, and had accompanied her to the land of Canaan. We meet with these dotal servants frequently in the ancient and modern East, and even among the classical ancients.
Their condition, indeed, among the Greeks and Romans, seems to have been in all respects similar to that in which it here appears. Many curious instances might be collected, from the dramatic poets in particular. Take one or two as examples. In his Iphigenia in Aulis, the tragic poet Euripides represents Clytemenstra as preparing all things for her daughter’s marriage, and she says—“I, as the bride-leader, am present; let, therefore, the dotal maids, whom, as part of the dowry I bring, go forth out of the chariots,” etc. And again, in the same tragedy, the queen thus says to one of her confidants—“I know you to be an old servant in my family.” “And know you not,” this her servant answers, “that king Agamemnon received me as part of your dowry,” or, “as one of your dotal servants.”
Again, king Phalaris, in one of his epistles, gives orders for four of such dotal maidens to be sent, for the service of the bride at a marriage he had appointed. In the Asinaria of Plautus, also, one of the characters, old Demænetus, is told by his slave that his wife had brought him such a dotal servant, as had more in his hands than even he himself had. Furthermore, Cato writing to enforce the Lex Voconia, produces the case of a rich lady who had brought a great fortune to her husband, but had reserved to herself part of the estate, out of which she lent a considerable sum to her husband. But some difference arising between them, she ordered her dotal and reserved servant, to go and demand of her husband all that he had borrowed of her, and unless he paid it, to commence a suit against him for it. On which case, it is remarked by Aulus Gellius, that as none of her husband’s servants could be commanded by her in this affair, she was obliged to make this, her exempted and reserved slave, to be her solicitor for the money, he not having been given away by her, but retained by the marriage-contract under her sole and separate jurisdiction.
By these instances, we see that the dotal servants of the wife, whether male or female, were at her entire disposal, and that the husband, apart from her, had not the slightest authority or control over them. This is still the case throughout the East, as we could show by many instances, if space allowed.