And she conceived again, gave birth to a son, and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she named him Judah. Then Leah stopped having children. (Genesis 29:35)
Many people look at the stories in the Old Testament and think that the people in antiquity were ignorant, unintelligent, uncultured, even barbaric. We think, “In this day and age we would do things very differently because we know more, we’re informed, we’re cultured.” But are we? The Bible’s message to us is a timeless one because it speaks to the human condition, one that has not changed from the first man until now. We still yearn for acceptance and love, admire beauty and intelligence, and are outraged by injustice and treachery. Some things never change.
It is with this understanding that we identify with Leah, the wife of Jacob. She was deceptively given to Jacob by her father Laban because he knew that Jacob wanted Rachel, the younger, the beautiful daughter, and that Leah might possibly never get married otherwise. Leah felt lesser, unloved, rejected, insignificant–invisible. Seeing her condition, God, in His compassion opened her womb allowing her to bear children for Jacob. Longing for her husband’s affection and acceptance she tells herself with each son she bears, “Now he will love me, now he will accept me”, only to be disappointed time and again. But by the time she has her fourth son, something amazing happens—a shift in her heart. She has come to understand that it is the Lord that has loved on her, the Lord has blessed her, the Lord has found favor in her. Her significance is no longer found in the approval of Jacob her husband, but in her True Heavenly Husband, Yahweh! That is why she says “THIS time….I will praise the Lord.” She names the fourth child Judah, which means “praised”. It is astounding that God chooses weak and rejected people to accomplish His perfect will and redeem mankind, for from the line of Judah came the Messiah, Jesus, the savior of the world!