Jacob goes off toward Haran. On the way he sees some shepherds with their sheep waiting around a well. The well had a large rock on top to keep it safe. He stops by and makes small talk, and asks if they know his uncle Laban.
“Know him?” they answer. “Heck, that’s his daughter Rachel coming with his sheep right now!”
Jacob replies, “Wow… she’s pretty. Hey, so, like, why don’t you guys water your sheep and skedaddle, know what I mean?”
“No way, man. That rock is heavy. We wait for everyone to get here so we only have to move it once. Don’t tell us how to do our jobs.”
Rachel gets there and being the nice guy that he is, Jacob moves the rock and waters her sheep, then plants a big wet kiss on her lips and introduces himself as her cousin. Rachel runs home and tells her father, and Laban welcomes Jacob into his home.
After a while, Laban says, “Hey you’ve been working here a while. I should probably pay you. How much do you want?”
Jacob offers seven years labor for the hand of Rachel. Laban agrees.
Seven years goes by quickly and Laban holds a marriage feast for Jacob and Rachel. But in the evening, once it’s dark, Laban pushes his other daughter Leah into Jacob’s tent. Jacob wakes up in the morning and is shocked to see that he’s slept with the wrong daughter.
“LABAN! WHAT THE HECK?” he cries.
“Oh, yeah, about that,” Laban says. “Well, you know Leah’s the older daughter and it wouldn’t be proper for her younger sister to be married before she is. So I switched them. Hope you don’t mind. How about this – I’ll give you Rachel, too, but you owe me another seven years. Sound good?”
“Ugh, fine…”
So Jacob gets both sisters (plus their female slaves), but he loves Rachel more. But he doesn’t dislike Leah so much that he doesn’t sleep with her, and she has some sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Each time she thinks the birth of a child will make Jacob love her more, and each time she is disappointed.
Rachel gets jealous that she doesn’t have any children, and tells Jacob that if she doesn’t have a baby she will die! Jacob says he’s trying, but God’s in charge of the baby-making success rate. So Rachel gives him her female slave Bilhah for baby-making purposes. Jacob gets Bilhah pregnant twice with sons named Dan and Naphtali.
Now Leah sees that Rachel is catching up to her and gives Jacob her servant Zilpah for more babies. Zilpah has sons named Gad and Asher.
If you’ve lost track of the baby score, it’s Leah 6, Rachel 2.
One day Leah’s son Reuben finds some mandrakes and brings them home. Rachel asks if she can have some.
Leah replies, “Seriously? You stole my husband and now you’re taking my son’s mandrakes? What kind of scheming wench are you?”
“Fine… you can have Jacob tonight in exchange for some mandrakes.”
When Jacob comes home, Leah informs him that it’s her turn to sleep with him tonight since she bought him with mandrakes. And she gets pregnant again and has a son named Issachar. Then she has another son named Zebulun and a daughter, Dinah.
Rachel finally has a son of her own named Joseph.
Final tally: Leah 9 (well, 8, since one is a girl), Rachel 3. But Jacob still loves Rachel more.
As soon as Rachel has Joseph, Jacob asks Laban if he can go home. Laban says that Jacob is really a valuable member of the team and the reason he’s doing so well right now, so asks him to stay on for a while longer and offers Jacob a raise.
Jacob asks for all the speckled and spotted and black sheep and goats. Laban decides that’s fair and Jacob goes and splits up the flocks. He sends the spotted flock off with his sons to separate them from the white ones. He keeps watch over Laban’s white herd.
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| I get the cool looking ones, k? |
Then he peels some sticks and puts them in front of the animals’ watering trough when the animals come to drink and mate. Somehow, looking at striped and spotted sticks while mating causes Laban’s white animals to have striped and spotted offspring. Jacob sends these animals off to his sons, since the agreement was that Jacob gets all the speckled animals.
He also makes sure that he only does this with the really nice strong animals. Any of the weaker or smaller animals, he lets them breed without sticks. Since they’re not looking at the magic striped sticks, those animals are just plain white.
Eventually, Jacob’s herd has a lot of strong speckled and spotted sheep and goats. And Laban’s herd is full of weak, puny all-white animals.
And Laban is not happy.
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