(Genesis) Genesis 30:1-24

Let me read chapter 30, verse 1. And when Rachel saw that she bared Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. You see, a woman in that day was disgraced. Unless she did have offspring, and the more, well, the more she had, maybe not to marry her, but the more the better, it was for her.

That is her position. Now notice verses 2 and 3. And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold, my maid Billa, go in unto her, and she shall bear upon my knees that I may also have children by her. Well, again we see this was the practice of that day.

And you will recall, I'm sure, those of you following this study, that Abraham and Sarah practiced it, and God did not approve it then, and He's not going to approve it here. The record is here, and it's an accurate record, but it doesn't mean God approved it. In fact, it's quite obvious that God disapproved it.

My, the strife that we've already called attention to that was in the family of Abraham was in the family of Isaac, as we saw. Now it's in Jacob's family already, and he's in for a great deal more trouble. Now we find that Billa was Rachel's maid, and she bared Dan and Naphtali.

And then we find that Zilpah, the maid of Leobor, Gad, and Asher. So we have here, well, another, Issachar. And we find, I'm not reading these verses in this chapter, as you see, just a record of the birth here of these boys.

You'll remember that there were twelve sons of Jacob, and they're very important, because from these twelve sons will come the twelve tribes of Israel. That is, the nation will come from them. Believe me, Jacob had his hands full with these twelve boys.

We find also that there's a girl there from Leah's maid. Her name was Dinah. And I guess she served a good purpose, because there are a lot of restaurants today named Dinah's Shack or Dinah's Dining Room or something.

And so she did serve a good purpose. And Issachar and Zebulun are mentioned here also. Now I'm going to read in verses 22 here.

Well, I'll read down to 24. And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her and opened her womb. She conceived a bare son and said, God hath taken away my reproach.

And she called his name Joseph and said, The Lord shall add to me another son. Now, this is the boy that will follow down into the land of Egypt and make way for the rest of his brethren later on. He's quite remarkable.

We'll have to save that story of him until another day, but it's coming up, you can be sure.