Genesis 29

Seven Years for Rachel, and the LORD Who Saw Leah

Jacob reaches Haran, rolls the stone from a well for Rachel, and serves seven years for her, only to wake beside Leah. After seven more he has both sisters, and the LORD, who saw that Leah was loved less, gives her four sons, the fourth named Judah, “praise.”

Genesis chaptersChapter 29 of 50

Jacob’s arrival in Haran, the start of twenty years there (Gen. 31:41). The text gives no year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Jacob comes to Haran with two charges behind him. His father told him to take a wife from the daughters of Laban, his mother’s brother (Gen. 28:1–2), and at Beth-el the LORD…

Jacob comes to Haran with two charges behind him. His father told him to take a wife from the daughters of Laban, his mother’s brother (Gen. 28:1–2), and at Beth-el the LORD promised, “I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest” (Gen. 28:15). He would stay twenty years, fourteen of them worked for Laban’s two daughters and six for his flock (Gen. 31:41).

Having “received the birthright,” he “traveled to his mother’s homeland to find a wife.” Chapter 29 begins that stay. In Haran his household takes shape: of the twelve sons, all but Benjamin were born there, and Genesis 29 and 30 tell of eleven of them and Dinah.

Later scripture remembers the two sisters as one pair. Bethlehem blessed Ruth with the prayer that she would be “like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel” (Ruth 4:11).

The chapter has three parts: Jacob at the well and in Laban’s house (verses 1–14), the seven years and the wedding night (15–30), and the births of Leah’s first four sons (31–35).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 29 is a chapter about looking. Jacob “looked, and behold a well” (verse 2).

Genesis 29 is a chapter about looking. Jacob “looked, and behold a well” (verse 2). When he “saw Rachel” he rolled the stone from the well (verse 10). Rachel is “beautiful and well favoured,” literally “beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance” (verse 17), and the Hebrew word for “appearance,” mar’eh, is a noun made from the verb “see.” On the morning after the wedding he looks again: “behold, it was Leah” (verse 25). Jacob sees what an evening, a veil, and a feast let him see.

The LORD is not named in the chapter until verse 31, and when He is named, He sees: “the LORD saw that Leah was hated” (the Hebrew verb is the same ra’ah, “see”). Leah names her first son Reuben, “see, a son,” because “the LORD hath looked upon my affliction” (verse 32). Her four speeches end with the LORD alone. The first three sons are named with her husband in view (“my husband will love me,” “I was hated,” “my husband be joined unto me”). The fourth is the only one that says nothing of Jacob’s feelings: “Now will I praise the LORD.” He is Judah, from whom the Savior descends (Matt. 1:2–3).

The chapter also puts Jacob on the other side of a trick. Laban’s excuse (“the younger before the firstborn”) and the word Jacob uses for the trick (“beguiled”) both recall Jacob’s own part in Isaac’s house. The note on verse 25 says how far the text lets that echo be pressed.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–14

At the well in Haran

In plain words

Jacob went on to the land of the people of the east. In the open country he saw a well with three flocks of sheep lying beside it, and a great stone over its mouth. When all the flocks had gathered, the shepherds rolled the stone away, watered the sheep, and put it back. Jacob asked them where they were from. “From Haran.” “Do you know Laban, Nahor’s descendant?” “We do.” “Is he well?” “He is well, and look, his daughter Rachel is coming with the sheep.”

Jacob said it was still broad day, not time to bring the animals in; they should water the sheep and take them back to pasture. They said they could not until all the flocks were gathered and the stone was rolled away. While he was still speaking, Rachel arrived with her father’s sheep, for she was the shepherd. When Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother, with his uncle’s sheep, he went up, rolled the stone from the well, and watered Laban’s flock. He kissed Rachel and wept aloud. He told her he was her father’s relative, Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.

When Laban heard the news about his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, embraced him, kissed him, and brought him home. Jacob told him everything. Laban said, “You are my own bone and flesh,” and Jacob stayed with him a month.

1 Then Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the people of the east.

Context #

Where Jacob arrived

Jacob has come to the country around Haran, where Laban’s family lived.

Jacob has come to the country around Haran, where Laban’s family lived. “His branch of the family remained at Haran when Abraham moved on into Canaan.” “The people of the east” is the Hebrew bene qedem, “sons of the east,” which the lexicon glosses as “dwellers in the east, tribes east or northeast of Canaan” and lists this verse first among its examples. The phrase is general; the shepherds name the place when they answer, “Of Haran are we” (verse 4).

Sources: “Laban”, Bible Dictionary. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 And he looked, and behold a well in the field, and, lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it; for out of that well they watered the flocks: and a great stone was upon the well’s mouth.

Context #

Why the stone, and why the shepherds waited

The stone over the well explains why the shepherds will not water their flocks yet.

The stone over the well explains why the shepherds will not water their flocks yet. A well here was a cistern, “often covered with a large stone requiring two or three men to remove it,” which “protected the water from the rays of the sun and from mischief or pollution.” The shepherds’ answer, “We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered together” (verse 8), states their rule, and in one reading the well “seems to have belonged to the community, and was not opened for use, until all the herdsmen and shepherds had come.”

How heavy the stone was the text does not say. The shepherds roll it away together (verse 3); Jacob, when he sees Rachel, “went near, and rolled the stone” (verse 10), which one reading takes as “a feat of great personal strength.” What that effort means in the story is taken up at verse 10.

Sources: Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 And thither were all the flocks gathered: and they rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well’s mouth in his place.

4 And Jacob said unto them, My brethren, whence be ye? And they said, Of Haran are we.

5 And he said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor? And they said, We know him.

Language #

Son of Nahor, grandson of Nahor

Jacob asks after “Laban the son of Nahor,” but Laban was Nahor’s grandson.

Jacob asks after “Laban the son of Nahor,” but Laban was Nahor’s grandson. His father was Bethuel (Gen. 24:24; Gen. 24:29), and he is “Son of Bethuel, grandson of Nahor, grandnephew of Abraham.” The Hebrew ben, “son,” covers “grandson” and descendant, and the lexicon lists this very verse as one place where the bare word “son” carries that sense. In one reading Nahor is named as the more famous ancestor, as Jehu is called “the son of Nimshi” though Nimshi was his grandfather (2 Kgs. 9:20; 2 Kgs. 9:2).

Hebrew “brother” (ach) is as wide. Jacob tells Rachel that he is “her father’s brother” (verse 12) when he is Laban’s sister’s son, and the lexicon marks this and verse 15 as “relative,” “nephew.” That is why Laban can say “brother” to Jacob in verse 15 and mean a nephew.

Sources: “Laban”, Bible Dictionary. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

6 And he said unto them, Is he well? And they said, He is well: and, behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep.

7 And he said, Lo, it is yet high day, neither is it time that the cattle should be gathered together: water ye the sheep, and go and feed them.

8 And they said, We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered together, and till they roll the stone from the well’s mouth; then we water the sheep.

9 And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep: for she kept them.

10 And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother.

Related Scriptures #

A betrothal at a well

This scene belongs to a pattern in which a traveler from far away meets his future wife at a well.

This scene belongs to a pattern in which a traveler from far away meets his future wife at a well. Abraham’s servant meets Rebekah at one (Gen. 24:11–20), and Moses will meet Zipporah at one (Ex. 2:15–21). Scholars call this a “type-scene,” a story “modeled after a basic outline, with the specifics being changed depending on the individual story being told.” Listeners who knew the pattern expected a betrothal and listened for what was different.

In Genesis 29 the difference is the stone. “The effort Jacob has to put in to move the stone out of the way before being able to water Rachel’s flocks is fitting in light of the effort Jacob is going to have to make before he is able to marry Rachel: seven years of work.” As in the pattern, the woman runs home to tell her family (verse 12), as Rebekah did (Gen. 24:28).

Sources: Scripture Central, “Why Does Boaz Allude to a Well in Connection with His Meeting Ruth?”, KnoWhy #854, May 26, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

11 And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.

12 And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother, and that he was Rebekah’s son: and she ran and told her father.

13 And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister’s son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. And he told Laban all these things.

14 And Laban said to him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him the space of a month.

Language #

Kin first, then wages

“My bone and my flesh” is the language of close kinship, and Laban follows it with a question of wages.

“My bone and my flesh” is the language of close kinship, and Laban follows it with a question of wages. The lexicon lists this expression with Adam’s “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23), with Abimelech’s appeal to his mother’s kin at Shechem (Judg. 9:2), and with the tribes’ words to David (2 Sam. 5:1). Laban says it when they meet (verse 14); when Jacob has stayed a month, he raises the question of pay: “Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages be?” (verse 15).

The verse does not say whether the offer was generous. What followed was twenty years in which “There was a good deal of mutual deception, each trying to outdo the other.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. “Laban”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 15–30

Seven years for Rachel, and seven more

In plain words

Laban said, “Because you are my relative, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.” Laban had two daughters, Leah the elder and Rachel the younger. Leah’s eyes were “tender” (weak or soft; see the note), and Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Jacob loved Rachel and said, “I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.” Laban answered, “Better that I give her to you than to another man. Stay with me.” Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him like a few days because he loved her.

Then Jacob said, “Give me my wife, for my time is complete.” Laban gathered all the men of the place and made a feast. In the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob went in to her. Laban gave his servant Zilpah to Leah. In the morning, there was Leah. Jacob said to Laban, “What have you done to me? Did I not serve you for Rachel? Why have you deceived me?”

Laban said, “It is not done in our place to give the younger before the firstborn. Finish this one’s wedding week, and we will give you the other also, for seven more years of service.” Jacob did so. When he had finished Leah’s week, Laban gave him Rachel as his wife, and gave his servant Bilhah to Rachel. Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah (the verse that follows says “hated”), and he served Laban seven more years.

15 And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages be?

16 And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.

17 Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured.

Language #

What “tender eyed” means

“Tender eyed” may mean weak eyes or soft, lovely ones, and the Hebrew does not decide.

“Tender eyed” may mean weak eyes or soft, lovely ones, and the Hebrew does not decide. The word is rakkot, plural of rak, “tender, delicate, soft,” and the lexicon files this verse under “delicate, weak, of eyes.” Taken in its gentler sense, the word “means ‘soft, delicate, or lovely,’” and then the verse “seems to suggest that Leah’s eyes were her most attractive feature.” Most translations choose “weak”: the Septuagint reads “the eyes of Lea were weak,” and the ESV, NIV, and NRSVUE all say “weak,” though the ESV and NIV give “soft” and “delicate” in their footnotes and the NRSVUE marks the Hebrew’s meaning as uncertain.

What the verse says plainly is that Rachel was “beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance,” and that Jacob loved her (verse 18).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway. Genesis 24–36: The Covenant Line Continues with Isaac and Jacob, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

18 And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter.

Context #

Seven years of work in place of a bride-price

Jacob offers labor because he has nothing else to give. A bridegroom customarily brought a gift, the mohar, as when Abraham’s servant gave Rebekah’s family “precious things” (Gen. 24:53).

Jacob offers labor because he has nothing else to give. A bridegroom customarily brought a gift, the mohar, as when Abraham’s servant gave Rebekah’s family “precious things” (Gen. 24:53). That servant had come with ten camels (Gen. 24:10). Jacob “cannot as bridegroom, or suitor, offer the usual gifts… So he offers the equivalent in work.” Hosea sums up the bargain: “Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep” (Hosea 12:12).

The bride-price mattered to the bride. Rather than giving each daughter a dowry “derived at least in part from the bride price paid to the bride’s family,” Laban had “quite devoured” it, and Leah and Rachel were angry with him for it (Gen. 31:14–16). The later quarrel traces back to this bargain: the sisters say their father “hath sold us” (Gen. 31:15).

Sources: Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

19 And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me.

20 And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.

Language #

A few days that were seven years

“A few days” is the phrase Rebekah used when she sent Jacob away. She told him to stay with Laban “a few days,” until Esau’s fury turned (Gen. 27:44), and the stay became twenty…

“A few days” is the phrase Rebekah used when she sent Jacob away. She told him to stay with Laban “a few days,” until Esau’s fury turned (Gen. 27:44), and the stay became twenty years (Gen. 31:41). The Hebrew is yamim achadim in both verses, “in the sense of ‘a short time,’” and Rebekah’s plan “was, in this respect, destined to be signally frustrated.” Jacob’s love, meanwhile, made seven of those years seem few.

The verse gives its own reason: “for the love he had to her” (be’ahavato otah).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

21 And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her.

22 And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast.

23 And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her.

Context #

How Jacob could not tell

The switch worked because a bride came veiled, in the evening, at a feast.

The switch worked because a bride came veiled, in the evening, at a feast. Laban “passed her off as his daughter Rachel; being veiled, the mistake was not discovered till after the marriage had taken place.” A bride could come veiled: Rebekah “took a vail, and covered herself” when she met Isaac (Gen. 24:65), and “veils most often indicated respectability,” so that Leah “was probably veiled for her wedding.” The text sets the scene in verse 22: Laban “gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast,” and Leah is brought “in the evening.”

Genesis reports Jacob’s dismay and says nothing of Leah’s. In one Latter-day Saint reading, Leah and Rachel were “pawns in their father’s strategy,” and “no mention is made of the women’s response.” Later the two sisters say together that Laban “hath sold us” (Gen. 31:14–15). Whether Leah had any say in it, Genesis does not tell.

Sources: “Leah”, Bible Dictionary. Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

24 And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid for an handmaid.

25 And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me?

Language #

Beguiled, and the trickster

“Beguiled” is the word that sets Laban’s trick beside Jacob’s own, and the text leaves open what the echo is for.

“Beguiled” is the word that sets Laban’s trick beside Jacob’s own, and the text leaves open what the echo is for. The Hebrew is rimmitani, from ramah, “beguile, deceive.” When Isaac learned that Jacob had received the blessing, he said that Jacob “came with subtilty” (Gen. 27:35), in Hebrew bemirmah, a noun the lexicon renders “treachery, craftiness” and lists for that verse. The noun is “from ramah in the sense of deceiving,” so Isaac’s word for what Jacob did and Jacob’s word for what Laban did share a root. Laban’s excuse in the next verse adds a second echo. Its “younger” (hatse‘irah) is the word of the LORD’s answer to Rebekah, “the elder shall serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23); the lexicon lists both verses under it. And “the firstborn” is the title Jacob had claimed before his father: “I am Esau thy firstborn” (Gen. 27:19).

Read as comedy, the scene is poetic justice, in which Jacob “goes from being the trickster (in the Esau story) to being tricked.” That reading “seems to read Jacob’s experiences from back to front,” judging the earlier story by the later one, and “The text never states that such trials come as a result of divine retribution because of Jacob’s deceitful past.” Nor do the Church’s sources take Genesis 27 as a simple fraud: “The supposed deception of his father in obtaining the blessing… cannot be taken at face value” (see the notes at Gen. 27:13 and Gen. 27:33). So the echo is in the words; the text does not say it is a judgment.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890): Hebrew dictionary entries, Read on Bible Hub (the “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance” line of each entry). Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Aaron P. Schade, “Isaac and Jacob: Succession Narratives, Birthrights, and Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 335–84. “Jacob”, Bible Dictionary.

26 And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn.

Context #

Laban’s rule about the younger

Laban defends the switch by appeal to a local custom he had not mentioned seven years before.

Laban defends the switch by appeal to a local custom he had not mentioned seven years before. “Laban’s excuse was specious, that it was necessary to conform to local customs, and that Jacob, as a stranger, did not know them.” If there was such a custom, he “should in decency and honour have explained the custom to Jacob before consenting to the marriage with the younger sister.” Genesis gives no other evidence of the rule, and Jacob does not dispute it: he finishes Leah’s week and agrees to seven more years (verses 27–28).

27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.

28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.

Context #

Two wives, by a deception Jacob did not plan

Jacob did not plan two marriages. He asked for Rachel, received Leah by Laban’s trick, and then took Rachel as well.

Jacob did not plan two marriages. He asked for Rachel, received Leah by Laban’s trick, and then took Rachel as well. The order matters. Laban says, “Fulfil her week,” and after Leah’s wedding week Jacob received Rachel, with the seven further years of service still ahead (verses 27–30). In one reading this makes “two wives in eight days.” Jacob’s later words, “I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters” (Gen. 31:41), look back over the whole.

Whether these marriages were approved is answered at Gen. 16:3, where the Church’s position on plural marriage in biblical times is set out: latter-day revelation says that Isaac and Jacob “did none other things than that which they were commanded” (D&C 132:37).

The story shows how hard these marriages were. Leviticus later forbids taking “a wife to her sister, to vex her” (Lev. 18:18). But in Jacob’s time “there was no positive law on the point in existence then.” The later law was meant “to prevent the evil effects of jealousy,” and that jealousy is what this household goes on to show (Gen. 30:1).

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.

30 And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.

Verses 31–35

The LORD sees Leah

In plain words

When the LORD saw that Leah was loved less (the KJV says “hated”), He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben, saying, “The LORD has looked on my affliction; now my husband will love me.” She conceived again and bore a son and said, “The LORD has heard that I am hated, and so he has given me this one also,” and named him Simeon. She conceived again and bore a son and said, “Now at last my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons,” and named him Levi. She conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will praise the LORD,” and named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

31 And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.

Language #

“Hated” means loved less

“Hated” here means loved less, as the two verses on either side show. Verse 30 says Jacob “loved also Rachel more than Leah”; verse 31 calls Leah sene’uah, “hated,” using the…

“Hated” here means loved less, as the two verses on either side show. Verse 30 says Jacob “loved also Rachel more than Leah”; verse 31 calls Leah sene’uah, “hated,” using the passive participle of sane’. The lexicon files the verse with Deuteronomy 21:15–17, where a man has two wives, “one beloved, and another hated,” and “hated” names a place in a household that the law protects: he “may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn.” Leah uses the word of herself in verse 33.

So the word describes Jacob’s preference, not cruelty: “Though we have no reason to assume that Jacob treated Leah poorly… Regardless of the translation, the text indicates that Jacob preferred Rachel.” The text gives Leah’s side in her own words (verses 32–34); of Jacob’s it says only that he loved Rachel more.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Genesis 24–33, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

32 And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me.

Related Scriptures #

The affliction the LORD sees

Leah’s words use the language Genesis and Exodus use for what the LORD does for the afflicted.

Leah’s words use the language Genesis and Exodus use for what the LORD does for the afflicted. Hebrew ra’ah be‘onyi, “has looked on my affliction,” is listed with the same noun in other verses: Hagar is told that the LORD “hath heard thy affliction” (Gen. 16:11); Jacob will say, twenty years later, “God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands” (Gen. 31:42); and the LORD says at the burning bush, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people” (Ex. 3:7). When Israel hears that the LORD “had looked upon their affliction,” they bow and worship (Ex. 4:31). Simeon’s name in verse 33 uses the paired verb, “heard.” Of Leah in particular: “Similar to Hagar’s experience, God showed His tender love and care for Leah in her difficult circumstances by blessing her with children.”

The naming is a play on sound. Reuben is read as “see, a son” (re’u ben), which sounds like ra’ah be‘onyi; that is a popular rather than a strict etymology.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 24–33, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.

33 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Because the LORD hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also: and she called his name Simeon.

34 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have born him three sons: therefore was his name called Levi.

35 And she conceived again, and bare a son: and she said, Now will I praise the LORD: therefore she called his name Judah; and left bearing.

Literary Structure #

From her husband to the LORD

Leah’s four naming speeches end with the LORD alone. In the first she names the LORD and “my husband” (verse 32).

Leah’s four naming speeches end with the LORD alone. In the first she names the LORD and “my husband” (verse 32). In the second she names the LORD and says she was hated (verse 33). In the third she names only her husband: “Now this time will my husband be joined unto me” (verse 34). The fourth names only the LORD and says nothing of Jacob: “Now will I praise the LORD” (verse 35). Her third speech and her fourth share one Hebrew word, hapa‘am, “this time,” which the KJV renders “Now this time” in verse 34 and “Now” in verse 35: this time her husband, this time the LORD.

The names fit the speeches. Levi is read as “joined” (lavah), the word of her third hope; Yehudah sounds like odeh, “I will praise,” which the verse sets beside it. In one Latter-day Saint reading, the four names “may reflect her growing realization that the Lord’s grace and enduring love for her personally was compensation for any feelings of heartbreak or inferiority.” The shift is in the words of the text; what it shows of Leah’s heart is that reading’s suggestion.

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 29

The line of the Savior runs through the son Leah named in praise. Matthew’s genealogy has “Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar” (Matt. 1:2–3); Hebrews says, “it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda” (Heb. 7:14); and in John’s vision He is “the Lion of the tribe of Juda” (Rev. 5:5). Jacob’s blessing takes up Leah’s word: “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise” (Gen. 49:8). Judah came through Leah, the wife loved less, not through Rachel, and “through her son Judah, Leah was an ancestor of the kings of Israel and Judah from David until Jesus Christ.”

The One who sees her is Jehovah, who “is the premortal Jesus Christ.” The Septuagint renders Leah’s “affliction” with the Greek tapeinōsis, the word Mary uses in the Magnificat: “he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden” (Luke 1:48).

Worth exploring next

Other wells. Gen. 24:10–27; Ex. 2:15–21. KnoWhy #854 (Scripture Central) explains the type-scene through Ruth 2.
Jacob and Laban afterward. Gen. 30:25–43; Gen. 31:1–55, where Jacob says that Laban “changed my wages ten times” (Gen. 31:7) and Leah and Rachel speak of their dowry (Gen. 31:14–16).
The sons born in Haran. Gen. 30:1–24; Gen. 35:16–26; Jacob’s blessings in Gen. 49:1–28.
Plural marriage. Gen. 16:1–3; D&C 132:34–37; Jacob 2:27–30.
Judah. Gen. 38:1–30; Gen. 49:8–12.
Hosea’s summary of Jacob’s years. Hosea 12:12.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890): Hebrew dictionary entries, Read on Bible Hub (the “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance” line of each entry).
The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint.
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition, Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010; read in the interlinear on Bible Hub.
New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425.
Aaron P. Schade, “Isaac and Jacob: Succession Narratives, Birthrights, and Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 335–84.
Scripture Central, “Why Does Boaz Allude to a Well in Connection with His Meeting Ruth?”, KnoWhy #854, May 26, 2026.
“Laban”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jacob”, Bible Dictionary.
“Leah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 24–33, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 24–36: The Covenant Line Continues with Isaac and Jacob, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).

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