LEAH NOT RACHEL
A. C. Craig
I would like to say something, beloved brethren, about what came about with Jacob that he buried Leah in Machpelah and not Rachel. It says, “There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife; and there I buried Leah”. Why not Rachel? Rachel was his wife, so was Leah, but he loved Rachel and she is specifically called his wife. In an inferential way so was Leah, but specifically Rachel was called his wife. Why did he not bury her in Machpelah? What came about in his soul that he buried Leah there?
I want to say something, beloved brethren, about the exercises that would be with every one of us to bring us round to God’s mind about His assembly, because in the believer’s history there is bound to be a conflict between our preferences, our feelings, and what the mind of God is, what the will of God is. If we are to get Leah there is bound to be that conflict, and Jacob had it, but he comes to it at some point in his history, and I want to say something that might help us to arrive at that point ourselves—when we come to it that really in God’s mind it is Leah, not Rachel. Rachel had everything to commend her; she had beautiful form and beautiful countenance. Leah was tender eyed. There is not much we can say about that; she was just quite ordinary, quite plain, but Rachel had everything to commend her and Jacob loved her and served fourteen years for her, two sevens, for Rachel, not for Leah. He did not serve for Leah at all. He got her, but he did not serve for her; he served for Rachel. It says, “Jacob loved Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter”.
Perhaps I should give you a little prophetic view of how things appear in this chapter. It may help us when we come to our own exercises on the moral side, so that we go through till we come to the great point of preferring Leah to Rachel. It is an amazing thing that Jacob did not bury Rachel in Machpelah. Rachel died quite close to Machpelah, she died on the way to Bethlehem in giving birth to Benjamin. It was quite close to Machpelah, but he did not bury her there. He came to the point, to the truth, in his soul that she, Leah, not Rachel, belonged to the heavenly family. We are not told where Leah died. If she died in Egypt it would be quite a long journey from Egypt to Machpelah; Jacob was so sure in his own soul by this time that, if she died in Egypt, he would take her there. We are not told when she died or where she died; we are told that she was buried in Machpelah.
I said that Rachel had everything to commend her. It is like Paul’s view of Israel in Romans 9 where he brings forward the wonderful picture of Israel in the mind of God. When the Lord Jesus came here it was, so to speak, what Israel was in His eyes. We do not sufficiently ponder that, beloved brethren, what He misses, what He lost in not having Israel. The Lord Jesus as a blessed Man here looked at Israel through those eyes with which Paul would furnish us. We have that lovely picture in Romans 9, “Whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the lawgiving, and the service, and the promises”. That woman in Revelation 12, with the twelve stars on her head, that is the Israel of God, and that is how Paul presents it, like Rachel here, “beautiful form and beautiful countenance”. That is what Israel was in the Lord’s eyes.
But then, as the brethren know, in the history of things all that breaks down, and Jacob does not have Rachel but he gets Leah. Ah, that is something, and if she had nothing to commend her outwardly, her worth lies in these sons that she bore. That is where Leah’s worth lay, in giving birth to those sons. It is like the Lord Jesus serving in love in going into death and rising again and going into glory, and you come to the book of the Acts and there you get Reuben born. While it is Jewish setting, yet Leah is there and you get Reuben born. The exercise of Leah goes through, yet you would have to say that Jacob is a very difficult lover. It was very difficult to obtain his affections.
Leah says, when Reuben is born, “My husband will love me”; and when the next one is born she says, “Jehovah has heard that I am hated”; and when the next one is born she says, “This time will my husband be united to me”. It is amazing, you know—just like the history of things. In the book of Acts you get all these things coming out, son after son being born. The hatred comes out, then you come to Stephen—that is Levi being born; then later on in the book, Acts 9 especially, you come to Ephesus; I think Judah is born there. It is an amazing thing, beloved brethren; she speaks about her husband loving her when the first one is born, she refers to hatred when Simeon is born, she refers to being united when Levi is born, and when Judah is born there is not a word about being loved, or being hated, but “This time will I praise Jehovah”. She had, typically, come through into the brightness of day, to the full light of the mind of God concerning Christ.
I think that brings us as far as Ephesus. Ephesus fell away; she ceased to bear. We have the breakdown of the church and into that long period came the four sons of the two maidservants. It is remarkable; these two maidservants both had two sons; there was a right father but a doubtful mother, and that is what we have in the dark ages—a right father; you could not question that people were the Lord’s, but the mother was wrong; the teaching that they were under was maidservant’s teaching; that is what we have in that long period of the dark ages.
Then Leah begins to bear children again. Ah, that is remarkable! She bore two more sons and a daughter. These two sons are, firstly, the Reformation. That is the first, then we have the revival, and then we have a daughter born. I believe we are in the time when the daughter is coming to light. It is beautiful that, and then,
remarkably enough. Rachel begins to bear. It looks on to the future when God will take up his earthly people once more and they will be fruitful to him. Now I think that that little picture will help us as to how we ourselves arrive at things, that through moral exercises we are to come to what we are to have in our minds as to the assembly, as to what is to be for Christ. At some point Jacob came to it that Leah, not Rachel, represented the heavenly family.
So, as already indicated, Jacob loved Rachel. He says, “I will serve thee, seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter”. This is Jacob’s proposal, what he came to by way of agreement. He was deceived; Laban deceived him. All this brings up, beloved brethren, the soul exercise that we go through. Jacob was a difficult man; we are all difficult. He had certain things in his mind. I am not speaking of Jacob as being typical of the Lord; I am speaking of him and Leah as being typical of ourselves and what goes on in us e’er we come to this great matter of what the assembly is. I believe, beloved brethren, that few of us have proper thoughts as to the assembly, her dignity, and as to what she is as deriving from Christ.
I think if we had that more clearly before us there would not be the deflection and falling away that we have seen; I think we would hold to what the assembly is for Christ.
Jacob was a scheming man himself; even before he was born he had these instincts. Then you will remember how he deceived his brother so that Esau sold his birthright for a morsel of pottage. He was that type of man. You can see the need for Jacob to come to something, to proper, balanced thoughts about God’s mind. He took up a certain line of things, just like ourselves; we manoeuvre, we take up certain stances; we do things that are not in keeping really with the calling of Abraham,
that high calling. So he has to go through a moral process, as we all have to, so that we have right thoughts and conduct, in keeping with the mind of God, in relation to the assembly. So he has to go through this bitter experience himself. He gets Leah instead of Rachel and he is not a bit pleased. How far God was in that I do not know, I could not tell you. I would not be prepared to say how far God was in that matter of his getting Leah instead of Rachel, although Leah was in God’s mind and what she would represent as being the heavenly family.
He serves “seven other years”, not ‘other seven years’; that is very significant, and, as said, he served the fourteen years for Rachel. But then Rachel had no children. It says in verse 30 that, “he loved also Rachel more than Leah”. Now that is Jacob; he loved Rachel more than Leah; that is to say, things are not in their true perspective. We need to have things in their right perspective; we need to come round to God’s mind about matters, God’s mind about the truth, especially about Christ and the assembly; God’s mind about things, not our own view.
It is very sad, really, the amount of difference there is in views nowadays, but God has His mind about the truth of Christ and the assembly and we want to come to that. We need to come to it in our souls, beloved brethren, about what we prefer. We need to come to God’s view and to hold to that.
Now God comes into this matter definitely and it says that Rachel had no children, she was barren. That brings up again that little prophetic view I gave you as to our Lord in regard to Israel, and that there was nothing for Him; “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought”, yet He says, “My judgment is with Jehovah, and my work with my God”, Isaiah 49: 4. In the interval, in this great period we are in, He has Leah. Oh, that is wonderful! and so God is in this matter and He has certain purposes; Jacob may have schemes and he may suggest things that he should do, but God has His purpose and, beloved brethren, it is a wonderful thing to accept that in the present time, when the Spirit of God is here. His great objective is to lead the saints into divine purpose. You can be sure about that, and a great part of what that purpose is, is what the assembly is in her heavenly character. But a process has to be gone through. We do not just accept things mentally.
I think that we all need to come to a more thorough appreciation of what the assembly is in her own character, that she belongs to heaven. She has come from heaven and she is going to heaven. There is nothing that has not come out of heaven that will ever go into heaven. We are out of Christ, and we are going to Christ in heaven. We have all to come to that and that is what Leah represents, not Rachel. I have come to that myself. I am not saying that I came to it exactly through moral exercises, but I saw it from Scripture that Rachel did not represent the heavenly family; Leah did. Jacob came to it at some point and that is why he buried Leah in Machpelah. She represents the heavenly family. The Lord spoke in Luke 20 of God as being, “The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob; but he is not God of the dead but of the living”; and that is what Jacob does, he puts Leah amongst the living. He had to go through certain exercises until he came to it. He represents the responsible side, but Leah represents the other side, the side of exercise, the painful, exercising side. Jacob is the responsible side; he has got to come to it in his mind. Leah represents the side of moral exercise. Both are in us, the responsible side and the moral side, too, so that we arrive at things.
In the beginning of Romans 7 we have the responsible side and then there is the side that we are to arrive at something; that is where it all begins. But I want to come to this first son. I could stand here all night, the subject is so wonderful as to how a soul arrives at this great matter as to what the assembly is in her heavenly character, and proved to be so by her productive qualities. Leah has nothing outwardly to commend her, it is only said that she was tender eyed; there is nothing much about that. In respect of Israel, how lovely she was, set up by God, so endowed, but the poor Gentiles, what were we? but, ah, by the presence of the blessed Spirit here, so productive.
So Leah called his name Reuben, that means ‘See! a son’. Think of that, beloved brethren. In a sense it is the beginning of everything. We are all sons of God by faith. Getting the Spirit does not make you a son; you get the Spirit because you are a son, a son by faith. Think of having that in your mind; this is all a build-up as to what you and I go through until we arrive at what the assembly is. It is not a sort of mysterious thing, it is an actual, substantial thing that the believer goes through until he arrives at the truth in his own soul. That is Jacob, really; he is the man, the responsible side, but there is the other side that we go through in moral exercises, so it is, ‘See! a son’. Beautiful that! So she says, “Jehovah has looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me”. Think of what she is going through, and where are Jacob’s affections in all this? What kind of a husband is he? What kind of a lover is he? It just brings out the fact as to what we go through on the side of exercise, affliction, pain, difficulty, conflict within, the Spirit of God comes in and helps us. There is an answer to it all in Reuben; he is the fruit of the exercise.
I think, dear brethren, if you will pardon me, we read the books, and we are able to quote them and also the Scriptures, to link up scripture with scripture to make a good connection, but what I am pleading for is this kind of thing, that I submit myself to the exercise and what is involved in it, the pain and the sacrifice. Nothing comes in Christianity without this; it is a question of serious exercise. Leah does not feel loved. It makes you wonder at it, the sort of isolation and difficulty she is going through—and where is Jacob? That is the point, you see; he is a difficult lover. She has difficulty in bringing him round to it, so to speak. Jacob is the responsible side. It is like ourselves, and all the time we are struggling. Leah cannot seem to make a connection with him. This is all soul exercise.
Then she says, when Simeon is born, “Because Jehovah has heard that I am hated”. Think of that! It does not say that Jacob hated her, but it does say that he loved Rachel more than Leah. She feels the condition of things, no sympathy, no support; she is hated. It is, I believe, what the believer goes through in soul exercise. As I said, we are mental and theoretical, but we are to commit ourselves to these exercises and not to be afraid of them; to accept it, to work things out.
The hatred was there in the book of the Acts, but the work of God was standing up to the hatred. They were beaten and suffered shame for His name. That is the prophetic view, but too there is the moral side that the believer has to go through. I believe this firmly. This is the way to it; it does not come in a day; the working out of these things takes years. It is one thing after another. She calls her son Simeon—‘Hearing’—because she realizes that God is listening to her. He hears you; you get that conviction that He is prepared to help you. It brings up the whole question of the intercessory service of Christ; He will support you, and that is a great matter. In 2 Corinthians 4 there is great moral exercise as to weakness in the mortal body, but twice over we get a reference to our not fainting, mercy having been shown us, as things are worked out in our souls. That is what Leah says, “Jehovah has heard”; Simeon represents that element, that strata in our souls, that we are heard. Might I ask sympathetically what station are you at, Reuben or Simeon? Have you the sense that you are heard? Simeon is that, that period when Leah felt she was heard.
Then she bears Levi and she says, “This time will my husband be united to me, for I have borne him three sons”; that is what she wanted, to be united to Jacob. So there is still not clear day; she is coming on to that; but this desire to be united to him brings up something very substantial, the great truth of being united to Christ. You come to the point that there is not another man that you would want, not another you would be united to. No matter what the thing is, or who it is, or whatever the presentation of this world, you would not want to be united to it, because there is only one Man in your view. That is the great point, and Jacob, the responsible man, has to come round to this; she is the sufferer, but Jacob is coming round to it; that is the point, that we long for Christ. John the baptist said, He “takes a place before me, because he was before me”, John 1: 30, it is part of our privilege to be united to Christ.
That is what Leah wanted and then, as I said earlier, as to this fourth son, Judah, she says, “This time will I praise Jehovah; therefore she called his name Judah. And she ceased to bear”. Not a word as to being loved or hated, or being united; that is all behind her; she is out in clear day; the full result of her exercises is, I think, arrived at, and I believe that this was the moment when Jacob came to it that it was Leah who should be buried in Machpelah. There could be no question in his soul, no question of being loved or hated or united, all that is behind. I believe that Jacob had come to the point in his soul exercise where he can say, ‘I can see it all, that my perspective has been all wrong; I have been preferring Rachel, and all the time it should have been Leah’. I believe from that moment on he decided to put Leah in Machpelah. I believe it represents the moment in our history when we arrive at it that Christ is the true Judah, the One to be praised; there is no other in view. He is God’s ideal. I believe Jacob comes to it, and we are to come to it that she represents the heavenly family.
Machpelah represents the place of the heavenly saints—a wonderful company to be amongst, the heavenly saints. Of course, the church is not the only heavenly family, but it is the distinctive heavenly family; that is a wonderful thing, and it is because of divine sovereignty and what has come about as being derived from Christ. There will be other families, the Old Testament saints; there will be Leah herself with the others. They will not belong to the church, but they belong to a heavenly family. The portion of all the Old Testament saints will be heavenly. There are no saints raised from their graves to have a portion on earth. You young brothers and sisters, get that into your minds. Everyone who comes out of their graves at the first resurrection, their portion is heavenly; and not only that, there will be a few families after the church goes, and their portion will be heavenly, and yet they will not appear upon the earth until after the church goes because these families, or those who form the families, will suffer death. Now they are not ever raised to have their portion on the earth. Every saint that is raised out of the grave goes to heaven.
Two families appear in Revelation 20 and the word as to the first is they were “Beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus, and on account of the word of God”, Revelation 20: 4.
That is a family that will appear on the earth after we go and will be so faithful that they will be beheaded. The time will come when they will be raised. The first resurrection extends over a period (1 suppose it began with the Lord’s resurrection, because He is the first-fruits). We shall form part of it; the Old Testament saints will form part of it, and these peoples who will appear, they form part of the first resurrection. “Blessed and holy he that has part in the first resurrection” (Revelation 20: 6); there will be some fine earthly families, but these are heavenly families.
The other family are those that will not accept the mark of the beast and suffer martyrdom and death rather than have his mark. We do not belong to these two families, and they do not belong to us, but what characterizes them should characterize us. I believe that as the Lord helps us to realize that we belong to the distinct heavenly family represented in Leah, we shall be the more ready to accept whatever comes, and not prepared in any sense to compromise, or accept anything lower than the dignity of the heavenly family. We belong to the distinct heavenly family. I commend this word to you, dear brethren, that through moral exercise we come to it, to see the whole truth of what is in the mind of God, that we prefer what is heavenly, distinctively for Christ.
It must be so. She must in every way be suited to Christ in His manhood or He would not be satisfied. May we come to it, like Jacob, that it is to be Leah and not Rachel.
Address at Peterhead
10 March 1984