Welcome to my Hebrew reading & language series.
Genesis 30:14-18
We have a story that compares to life today. Sisters, mostly the ones in high school or college, will fight over clothes, over space in a bedroom, over boys they like and even the last mandrake. Then the nit picking starts.
Rachel: Your son brought you mandrakes, can I have some?
Leah: Well you took my husband and now you want my son's mandrakes too?
Rachel: Okay, I will trade your mandrakes for a night with our husband.
Leah: Sounds good.
Rachel: Deal!
So Rachel keeps her end of the sex bargain by telling Jacob that she will be taking the night off. He will have to sleep with the unwanted sister to pay for those mandrakes. Jacob should understand because he was the less-wanted son who did not care for hunting but made a deal, trading food for a birthright. Then he later took his wages in the form of his father's blessing.
Then Leah gets pregnant again and the child is reckoned to be little more than a trade for some mandrakes. Leah then names him something that he can never live down. I imagine him asking one day, "Mom why did you name me 'wages'?"
"God has given me my wages...his name Issachar"
"My Paycheck"
I pity Leah that her father did not value her enough to find a man that truly loves her. It is more like him banishing her to live a life of scorn, unwanted in her own house and by her own husband.
Then there is the bickering. "But, I married him first. He's more my husband than yours!" and on and on.
And the names of these boys, having been born under competitive conditions, cause them to grow up with much jealousy and deal making. These are the same brothers that will one day sell their younger brother into slavery.
Back to the mandrakes
Who feeds their family mandrakes for dinner? Not many that I can think of, but there is another reason that Leah wanted them. They are an aphrodisiac and Leah probably wanted to do the date-rape trick and slip it into her husband's salad... (even though that would not be rape). Rachel caught her meaning the moment her sister expressed a desire to have some.
Today's reading
English
In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes." But she said to her, "Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also?" Rachel said, "Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes." When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, "You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes." So he lay with her that night. And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18 Leah said, "God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband." So she called his name Issachar.
Hebrew
Next week, Leah continues trying to earn Jacob's love...
Info on each letter starting at the beginning
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Thanks for reading.
