Genesis 30 Myth of the Self Made Man

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsack and is a part of the series Beginning with God, Walking Through the Book of Genesis.

If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

If you can find your seats, that would be great. I'm Don Filsack. I'm the Lead Pastor here, and I just want to start off by saying welcome. I'm glad you've joined us together here for our second service here in the Lader Elementary School.

Be sure to fill out the connection card you received when you walked in. There's a black box back here on this table under the clock, and you can turn in any connection card that you fill in. Remember that if it's your first time filling in one of those connection cards and sharing your information with us, then please take a free coffee mug there, just our way of saying thanks for joining us.

And then we are looking for feedback as we've moved to the schools, and we've had, you know, the crews are setting up and all of that stuff. And if there's something that maybe you feel like we've left out or something that you'd like to share with us about that, you can put that on that connection card as well.

And any encouragement about that, too, would be helpful. What is working would be good. So be sure to interact with us on that. And any offerings you would choose to give this morning, an envelope has been provided for you.

Again, those go in the same black box back there. And remember that we are planning on being in the schools indefinitely until we're able to build our own building. And so if anything that's marked expansion fund is going to go towards a fund that eventually will be used to build a building on the property that we purchased up here on McGillan.

And so anything marked that way will go in that direction. If you're not going to use that envelope, though, please recycle that. There's a place to recycle it right next to that black box. With all that out of the way this morning, we're going to be digging into Genesis chapter 30.

God Promises Blessing Through Broken People

And at the outset, I want to remind everybody that God promised to bless Jacob. Now for all to what appears to our eyes as we're going to read through this text, Jacob seems to be the main character. And we know that we're following his life really moving forward in the book of Genesis to a large degree.

And we've been talking about him for a couple of weeks now as we're marching through this book. But remember that whenever you're reading scripture, there's a main character that whether he's mentioned or not is always there, right?

And it's God. God is always there. And he is one of the main characters in this text as we're moving forward. But God chooses to use his people to tell his story. He chooses to use people like Jacob. God chooses to use the swindler and cheater to tell his story to us here where we live in 2014.

And the fact that he uses this cheater and the swindler tells us both something about us as well as something about our God. God has only broken people to use and I'm sure you've heard me say that before.

What does it say about us? Us personally? Consider this. What if God used you to tell his story? What if he recorded down for the pages of people to read centuries from now your life, your experiences, the things of your walk with God?

What if he was still recording scripture and he was writing about your life? We know that God only has broken people to use. And yet if you think about that, would there be any embarrassment there? If your life was laid bare by the pen of God to centuries from now, would there be, there might be some cause for some of us to blush if our story, if our lives were laid bare and open to the eyes of others?

How many of you just kind of like that kind of gives you the chills, the thought like God might like expose all of those things and use you as an illustration? And that's what we're dealing with with Jacob here.

Jacob is used as an illustration for all of us to learn from, to see, to grow in our walk with God here. Also, we get to see a God who chooses to use us though. And so that's the second thing that we see in the life of Jacob as we're going through this.

The fact is he hasn't given up on the human race. How many of you are grateful for that? He has not given up on us, but he is still telling his story through us. And he chose to reveal himself in real history through real people and through real messes like Jacob.

God is going to build up his people through a sibling rivalry here in our text, a pretty messy rivalry. He is going to fulfill his promise of abundant blessing through a messed up family. And then also he's going to increase the wealth of Jacob despite some sketchy attempts on Jacob's part to get ahead himself.

Jacob's life is not all easy street. You saw some of that last week and we're going to dive in and see more of that. He has a life of toil. He has a life of family upheaval. But in the midst of all that messy life, God is indeed with Jacob.

And this makes Jacob's life a great example for us of what life looks like on a fallen planet with God. So let's open up to Genesis chapter 30. If you're not already there, you can use your Bible app, use your own Bible, or there's Bibles on the table back there if anybody needs to get up and grab one of those.

I do want you to have a Bible with you so that you can kind of follow along, see what the text has to say to us, and then remember that if you don't have a copy of the Bible, you can take that one home with you if you would like.

But having the Bible open in front of you is beneficial and helpful. Follow along. Genesis chapter 30 in its entirety. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, give me children or I shall die.

Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel and he said, am I in the place of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? Then she said, here is my servant Bilhah. Go into her so that she may give birth on my behalf that even I may have children through her.

So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife and Jacob went into her and Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan.

Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali. When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.

And Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, good fortune has come. So she called his name Gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. And Leah said, happy am I for women have called me happy.

So she called his name Asher. 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 in from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, you must come into 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.

Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar. And Leah conceived again and she bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment.

Now my husband will honor me because I have borne him six sons. So she called his name Zebulun. Afterwards, she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel and God listened to her and opened her womb.

She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph saying, may the Lord add to me another son. As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, send me away that I may go to my own home and country.

Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you that I may go for you know the service that I have given you. But Laban said to him, if I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination.

That the Lord has blessed me because of you. Name your wages and I will give it. Jacob said to him, you yourself know how I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me. For you had little before I came and it has increased abundantly and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned.

But now when I provide for, when shall I provide for my own household also? He said, what shall I give you? Jacob said, you shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flocks and keep it.

Let me pass through all your flock today removing from it any speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb and the spotted and speckled among the goats and they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me when you come to look into my wages with you.

Everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs if found with me shall be counted stolen. Laban said, good, let it be as you have said. But that day, Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted.

Everyone that had white on it and every lamb that was black and put them in charge of his sons. And he set a distance of three days journey between himself and Jacob and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's flock.

Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees and peeled white streaks in them exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is the watering places where the flocks came to drink.

And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks so that the brought so the flocks brought forth stripes speckled and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flock toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban.

He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban's flock. Whenever the stronger of the flocks were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the trough before the eyes of the flock that they might breed among the sticks.

But for the feebler of the flock, he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us. Father, we read this text and there's I'm sure it's a text that some of us have read many times and yet as far as encountering application in it, how we apply this to our life can be a bit sketchy and strange and Father, we believe that this is your revealed word and I pray that you would open our eyes to the reality of people people trying to make your promises come true and how often we live our lives in that way and there are a lot of parallels between the people in this in this text in ancient times and the way that we live our lives today.

And so Father as we draw out those parallels and we recognize the way that we try in our own efforts and in our own strength to be self-made men and self-made women and try to do it on our way and on our terms and there you are, the one who blesses, the one who keeps his promises, the one who is faithful and you are the one that is worthy of our gratitude.

You are the one that is worthy of our thanks and all ultimately belongs to you. And so Father, I pray that even as we have an opportunity to reflect that in song now to sing before you Father that we would lift up our voices not like a perfect choir with everybody in pitch and harmony, but Father as a people who are moved in our hearts and worship you with enthusiasm and joy because you really are worth it.

You really are awesome. You really are glorious. You are majestic and you are the one who is accomplishing your will here in our midst. Let us praise you with joy this morning in Jesus name. Amen. Thanks a lot to Josh and Heidi for leading worship and just encourage you to keep your Bibles open to Genesis chapter 30 as we move through.

Be sure to get comfortable. Remember, I know that the chairs might not be the most comfortable you've ever sat in if you need to get up and stand in the back and stretch out or whatever. I do also need to make mention that I think there's been some confusion.

If you walk out of here, the sign wasn't pointing this way last week. The bathrooms are that way, men's upstairs, women's downstairs. So they're labeled down that way, but we want you to use those restrooms that are on that end of the hallway.

The ones that are down here are for children only and they're back by the children's area. So just to clarify that if you need to use a restroom, head that way. We left Jacob last week and he had been tricked into marrying two sisters, a dirty trick that his father-in-law pulled on him.

He was in love with Rachel, the younger, but Rachel's father, Laban, gave his oldest daughter, Leah, to marry Jacob after a drinking party on the first night of his wedding. He thought he was marrying Rachel and woke up in the morning and found Leah there with him in the tent.

Not, not a great surprise. Jacob loved Leah, or loved Rachel, but not Leah. And so God heard Leah's sorrow and frustration and he opened her womb according to the text and he blessed her with four sons and we read the accounting and talked through the accounting of the birth of those first four sons and then we come to verse 1 of chapter 30.

Envy, Barrenness, and Rivalry in Jacob's House

And we find out right away that Rachel did not conceive and had no children and she envied her sister. Now, how many of you have a really good understanding of the word envy? Like you just, you have a good dictionary definition that most of us have some knowledge of what that word means.

But then when you put that word in contrast to the word covet, can you, can you describe to me the difference between coveting and envying? Envy is a particularly sinister word, a particularly evil word.

Not that coveting is like good, but envy is sinister. So if I contrast those two words, I think it'll make clear what Rachel is feeling in her heart and what's going on with her. If you covet something, you simply want what somebody else has.

Now that could be said of her here, but it's not said of her. It's said that she envies. So are you, are you tracking with me? You, you see this, the nice tv that somebody else owns, you see their car, you see something that they have, and you want that too.

Coveting is something that's focused on the self wanting good things. Now, how many of you say, okay, wait a minute, if coveting is primarily just focused on wanting more good things for myself, does that sound like a way of life in America?

We are a covetous nation. We are a covetous people, always wanting more, always wanting what other people have. The thing that makes it interesting in America is particularly our ability to obtain what we want, right?

It's called credit cards. It's called getting a loan. I mean, honestly, isn't that a big problem in our culture? We see, we want, we go, we buy, we obtain, even if we can't afford it. And so that's a major problem.

So coveting is that. It's about self-centeredness, about wanting more, not being satisfied with what I have, envy is a different animal. Envy is focused on the other, not on self, not on desire to have, but it is an animosity towards the other person who has.

So let me contrast this in a, in using an illustration. If you covet somebody's TV, you work and do, you, you want to obtain it. You want what they have, and so you might go out and buy it on credit or buy it in a way that you can't afford it or whatever, but you get it anyways.

But to envy someone for their TV is to want to take a sledgehammer to it, to their TV. You don't want them to have the good thing that they have. Do you, are you understanding the difference between coveting and envy now?

One wants to do harm to the other, the other just wants to obtain for themselves. And certainly I'm not saying that, okay, so coveting is better, but I'm just trying to point out to you, I'm trying to point out to you what the depth of Rachel's frustration and animosity is here towards her sister.

She is angry and she does not like the good that her sister has. When Sarah, her, the grandmother in this situation, so Jacob, Jacob, uh, his grandmother was Sarah. She couldn't conceive. What did she do in our text a long time ago?

I'd be surprised if you remembered, but you might have a guess. She, she prayed. She prayed when she couldn't conceive. Later in the Old Testament, we're going to see multiple examples of women who could not conceive.

There seems to be a lot of issues with barrenness that come up in the people of God. And, um, we see in the Old Testament, um, later Hannah, the mother of Samuel, she cannot conceive. She goes to the temple and she prays.

When Rachel cannot conceive, she goes to her husband and whines dramatically. That's her M .O. And, and we will see some significant indications, by the way, in case you're wondering, I don't want to be too, I don't want to be perceived to be too hard on Rachel.

Um, we'll see next week that she didn't have a particularly robust relationship with God. As a matter of fact, we're going to see her steal some idols from her father's household to go and keep with her to worship for herself.

And so we see that she had, um, a streak of idolatry in her heart. So she says to her husband, give me children or I'll die. Can you, can you imagine that kind of conversation? Can you imagine that happening in a family situation?

Will anybody, anybody agreeing with me that that's a pretty dramatic statement? Give me children or I'm gonna die. But that shows the depth of despair that Rachel is feeling. How many of you have ever felt an, an inner emotion that felt like it was going to kill you?

You actually thought, is this, is this the end? I mean, it's not like you're, it's not like you're literally going, I mean, I think, I think I'm going to die, but it just, it hurts, right? Have you ever experienced that, that almost physical pain associated with heartache?

And that's where Rachel is. She felt rejected by God and most likely she was rejected by others. Who knows what torment she may have received from Leah. Have you ever considered that? It doesn't say it in the text and I don't want to overstate that or make a major point on that.

But, um, I would imagine that there might have been some conversations with Leah and her four children, her four sons and her sister who had the love of her husband, but no children. There might have been a little bit going on there.

Jacob was not in the place of God. It's not up to him to give her children and he acknowledges that and he, uh, he can't give her children. Only God can do that. Is that a pretty decent response from Jacob?

Is he rational and reasonable? Yeah, he's like, I can't give you children. And he gets angry with his sweetheart over this conversation. He loves Rachel, right? We know that. The text has said that over and over again.

He loves her. But how many of you have ever been angry at somebody you love? A couple times. Those of you in the, let's try that again. Because, I mean, I see a lot of married couples in here that did not raise your hand.

How many of you ever been angry with somebody that you love? Okay. Thank you. You're awake. Um, get the blood pumping here. Um, I know that you have. Um, and Jacob faces all kinds of family conflict. Not just from those he's frustrated with and not just from those he, um, you know, the situations that have been foisted upon him.

But even those that he loves are a source of conflict in his life. Rachel follows then the social custom of giving a maid servant as a surrogate mother in the case of barrenness. This, this is a strange thing to our eyes.

Certainly a strange thing for us to consider and contemplate. But it's very common in ancient times. As a matter of fact, some of the most ancient documents that we have, the Newsy tablets that date like, like a few millennia before, uh, Christ, um, account for this type of family interaction where a maid servant could be given to the man of the household to produce offspring for a barren wife.

And this was as strange as it seems in our modern culture. It wasn't that rare in these times for this to happen. So Bilhah, and this is important because the word, there's a couple of different words that could be used in the Hebrew language.

How many of you ever heard the word concubine? That's a, that's a different, different word. We don't use that very often. And then there's the word wife and those are two different Hebrew words. Bilhah here becomes Jacob's third wife.

There's a, they could have chosen the word concubine. That's not the case. She is actually, becomes part of the family. Um, and she conceives on behalf of Rachel. These children are born to Bilhah, but are adopted by and credited to Rachel.

She is the one who gets to name them and that indicates that they are indeed her children. They belong to Rachel even though Bilhah has them. She names the first Dan, which in the ESV is translated judgment, but might make better sense if you understand judgment in the sense of vindication.

So she names her first son vindication because the Lord had vindicated her with the birth of this child. The second son born through Bilhah is named Naphtali, which means wrestling. Rachel feels like she has had a mighty wrestle fest with her sister.

Now, this isn't like wrestle mania, you know, it's not coming off the top ropes kind of, you know, picture that. Um, that's not what's going on here, but it's obvious that Rachel has perceived a level of competition with her sister.

You see that in the text? She's making a competition out of it. I've wrestled with mighty wrestlings with my sister and I have prevailed. What Rachel wants, I've got to point this out, what Rachel wants is children.

What Leah wants is the love of Jacob. Notice that each one has what the other wants. You see that in the text? How often in life do we want what the other person has? Rather than each counting our own blessings, we look around and we want the blessings of others.

But how many of you would raise your hand and say, I already have more than I deserve? Just being honest, I already have more than I deserve. We would do well to thank God for the good things he has given us rather than complaining and then comparing our blessings to the blessings of others.

It's ironic that Rachel makes it a contest and thinks she's prevailing. Okay, do the numbers, do the math, because now Leah gives her maidservant as a wife to Jacob and she conceives two children as well.

The first is named Gad, which means good fortune. She says, God has shined fortune on me and he shined his face on me and good fortune. And that brings the score. I mean, we might as well keep score, right?

Because Rachel wants us to. The score is five to two in favor of Leah. The second, she names Asher, meaning happy, happiness. And others identified Leah. This is key because it's one thing to call yourself happy, but if others see you and perceive you as happy, that means that there's probably something, you're a little bit lighter.

You've got a swing in your step, right? I mean, if how many of you, I mean, it would be known around the workplace as somebody who's happy. We ought to be known that way to some degree, right? And yet, she is named, she names this son happy because others have identified her that way.

Most of the competition, the competitive spirit that we see in the text, by the way, is, it is given to Rachel. It is hers to own. She is the one who is credited in the text with envy. She names her children with particular mention of her battle with her sister.

While Leah is shown in the realm of offspring and reproduction to be a fairly happy person, of course, it's easier to be happy and calm when things are going in your favor, right? How many of you enjoy the game when you're winning?

Anybody? It's like, I mean, my wife would testify that I'm much more fun to play a board game with when I'm winning. Sometimes she says when I win, well, I let you so that we both have fun. Which we know isn't true.

Of course, I won. What would you expect? I'm going to get myself into trouble here. But we're going to see that it certainly, Leah is happy when it comes to offspring. She's having sons, which in that culture was a big deal.

And of course, I mean, part of it is the agricultural society of being able to work on the farm and take care of the sheep and tend to all of those things. And to have sons was to have good labor in the household.

But Leah has a raw nerve too, and it's going to get struck here in a moment. In verse 15. And really in verses 4 through 16, we get a bizarre section of the story that seems a bit out of place. Verses 4 through 16, there's a couple of bizarre things in this text that we've got to just deal with head on.

Reuben is the oldest of this, of the children of Leah. And he's somewhere between 6 and 10 years old at the time of this accounting in verses 4 through 16. He's out in the field and he stumbles upon some rare and valuable mandrakes.

Mandrake is a plant. Mandrakes have always held a place in superstition. They've always had some notion of superstition, witchcraft, bizarre traditions. They appear in the Harry Potter series, you know, that kind of thing.

And all down through the centuries, mandrakes have had a superstition about them. The major reason, so you kind of go, why does, how does superstition get attached to a plant? If you pull one of them up by the roots, you'd see because it looks like a person.

Okay, so you pull it up and it's like a carrot, but picture a carrot with two legs and two arms. Okay, so when you pull it up, it looks like a body like that. So then you kind of go, oh, that's weird.

And so people back in the day said, that's strange. That looks human. That's unnatural. And so they all got kinds of superstition about it and things like that. Now, the other thing, so now you take its form and you go, that's creepy.

And then you eat it and it's a narcotic. So then it does all kinds of loopy things to you when you eat it. And so it actually, if you ate the whole root, it could kill you. So there's all kinds of things like that that would happen.

And it was used for millennia in medicines and ointments and it produces berries that can be eaten. So it's like a carrot, like the carrot top, but it produces berries on top of it and stuff like that.

According to most ancient records, the number one property of mandrakes, the number one thought about mandrakes, was fertility, that it would produce fertility. Now, no documentation that that's actually the case, but it was all the superstition and all of that.

And can you see all of a sudden now, why would mandrakes occur in the middle of this text? What is the primary issue that's being discussed and talked about is the birth of kids and all of that stuff.

And now Rachel, I mean Leah, Leah's son finds some mandrakes. So that's the reason that it's significant in this text. Rachel, and this is key, Rachel politely asks her sister for the mandrakes. It makes me wonder if there was all of this animosity and it's boiling under the surface, or if at times it exploded and at times it was okay.

And if there were times that were good between Leah and Rachel, and then there were other times where it just kind of blew up and you know, there's kind of this back and forth, but she asks politely. She's been infertile and she wants to have a child and of course mandrakes are going to do that for her in her mind.

Leah's retort though shows that simmering just below the surface in her heart is the notion that Rachel has stolen her husband. Oh, sure. Sure, Rachel, steal my husband and now you want to steal my mandrakes too.

That's what the text tells us is Leah's response to her. These guys behaving well? They're not working together. I can tell you that. There's all this, you know, back and forth. And like I said, it's just brewing under the surface.

Now that's really an unfair statement from Leah, isn't it? That Rachel stole, I mean who stole whose husband and how did that all come down? And we talked about that last week. And really isn't it their father Laban that's to blame for their plight and their situation?

Isn't it really, isn't he really the one who did poorly and put them in this situation to begin with? So the sisters strike a deal. Strange deal. Rachel gets the superstitious fertility plant in exchange for Leah getting a night with Jacob.

This indicates that Jacob was no longer even sleeping with Leah and so she has to buy a night with her husband. So Jacob gets home after a long day of work out in the field. Leah confronts him with an obligation.

Let's just, we'll leave it there. Let's call it an obligation, okay? She has hired him for the night. And she hired him pretty cheap too. He was, he was pretty cheap. Just some mandrakes. But there's an irony in this word being used for Jacob and it's not by accident that the word, the word is used hire.

He was hired for the night because Jacob is always for hire. That's part of the plight of Jacob's life. Laban hired him and used him to gain wealth and to build Laban's own wealth on the shoulders of Jacob.

Now we see indications that even within his household he is a commodity for hire. Before anybody gets the idea that Jacob has a good arrangement, four wives fighting over him, this is, this is not a good arrangement.

You got to read the story again if you walk away with that kind of an understanding of what's going on here in the text. He's Laban's servant and never quite welcomed into the family. He is an employee of his wives and the only one he truly has loved is demanding that he provide her a child.

And he can't. Can you, I mean, can you feel Jacob's situation? Does that, does that sound exciting? Does it sound good? Does that sound, he's, he's not a happy man. As a matter of fact, I just read something in my own quiet time this morning that's not in my notes here.

But later on, and I'm going to steal a little bit of thunder from way forward in the book of Genesis, he's going to be standing an old man at 130 years in front of the throne of Pharaoh and he's going to say this statement, Many and evil have been the days of my sojournings on this earth.

That's Jacob. He says that to Pharaoh, 130 years have I walked and many and evil have been my days. He has a rough life. Would you agree with me on that? For him to make that statement. Now, that's not giving credit where credit is due.

Jacob doesn't have, he's not saying that in the spirit of God with gratitude and thankfulness for what God has done. But that's his testimony. That's what he has to say about it. That night Leah conceives, Jacob obviously fulfills his obligation of hire.

She conceives and she names her son reward or wages. The ESV, I think, uses the word wages, right? Because she thinks God has rewarded her for giving her servant to Jacob. Now, I'm not sure that God indeed was rewarding her for this.

That he was like, Oh, you can have a child now because you gave your servant. Throughout this text is people thinking they are causing things to happen while behind the scenes God is doing what God wants to do.

God listened to the prayers of Leah, but nothing indicates that he rewarded her for giving her maidservant to Jacob. So Issachar is born and his name appears in the psalm that we often turn to when we think about children.

Children are a blessing from the Lord. Psalm 127 verse 3 has the name Issachar right in it. It says this, sons are a heritage from Yahweh or sons are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is an Issachar, a reward.

The fruit of the womb is a reward. And that word, that very name appears in that psalm. Leah then goes on, it goes on to say in passing that Leah has a daughter named Dinah. Often in these recordings of Ancestry, we don't see a lot of women.

But here we see Dinah and that's because she's going to factor into a story that I'm not looking forward to preaching in a few weeks. Those of you who know the story, but we'll get there and we're going to go through it because I'm committed to the word of God.

Dinah is mentioned here by name, her birth to Leah and the score, just to clarify in case you're having a struggle keeping the numbers together, the score is now 8 to 2 Leah. Were you already keeping score?

Are you trying to figure that out? 8 to 2. And Leah conceived again and gives birth to Zebulun, meaning honor. Leah has born six sons herself and her maidservant too, bringing the score when you count Dinah to 9 to 2.