Have you ever typed something into Google that you hoped no one would ever see? I sure have. It feels safe to reveal our hearts in the questions we ask a search engine. You can’t raise your hand in small group and ask something like this: “What if I desperately want to be Rachel, not Leah?”
Wow.
Yes, someone typed that into that blank white bar and found my website, specifically this original post on Rachel and Leah and beauty.
Now, I don’t want to leave this truth-seeker hanging, with only the answers from the last post. Her question is one that I, myself, would have typed into Google if we had had anything like Google when I was a younger person. (We didn’t. Accordingly, looking that sentence up in the card catalog would have been ineffective and just plain weird.)
When you really want to be physically beautiful.
This is a noble goal for most women in our culture. Beauty is valued above all else. If you look good, you are good. That’s what our media leads us to believe.
But then there’s Leah in the Bible. Poor, dim-eyed Leah.
Genesis 29 tells us her story. God’s word actually juxtaposes her looks to those of Rachel, her younger sister, who was beautiful in form and face.
Rachel was hot. Leah was not. The Bible tells us so.
Yikes. Isn’t it kind of rude for God to say that about Leah?
I sure thought it was. And, then to compare her looks to those of her sister? Is there anything worse that could happen to a woman.
Oh, yes, yes there is. It happened to Leah.
Her daddy decided to trick the man who was in love with Rachel into marrying her. It’s bad enough that her father felt he had to fool a man into marrying her. But, couldn’t he have chosen a man other than the one who spent all day ogling her sister? Why that guy? Doesn’t that make the sting of rejection even worse?
Sure does.
Leah. Poor, Leah.
In some ways my heart breaks for her. Who would want to be Leah in this epic of sister bride versus sister bride? Anyone want to sign up for that? Me neither.
But the story of Rachel and Leah shows us a beauty that is less obvious but more meaningful than Rachel’s physical appearance. The story of these two sisters reveals a great truth about beauty and body image that we often overlook.
That is: What we look like doesn’t matter nearly as much as we believe it does.
Now, I know that’s kind of hard to swallow. But, bear with me for just a second. 
What if the beauty of Leah’s story foreshadows the story of another to come: Jesus?
Scripture tells us that Jesus was nothing to look at. He was a man of sorrows (Isaiah 53:2-3). Sounds a bit like Leah, right? Scripture doesn’t give us great detail on how she felt growing up, but we can see through the end of Genesis 29 that Leah desperately hoped bearing children would garner her better standing with her husband. Here’s what she says when she has her first child, Reuben.
“Because the LORD has seen my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.”
But, apparently, having one baby boy didn’t change much. So, Leah tries again. And bears another son, named Simeon. (Gen 29:33) And the scripture records her response:
“Because the LORD has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.”
Third times a charm, right? Another son (Levi) will certainly give Leah the love she craves. (verse 34)
“Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.”
Alas, nothing poor Leah could do would win her the heart of Jacob. See what she says when she bears a fourth son, Judah. (verse 35)
“This time I will praise the LORD.”
I’m not sure what your struggle is.
Maybe it’s its the mirror or with that stubborn twenty/thirty/fifty pounds you keep gaining and losing. Or, maybe it’s in your marriage: You, like Leah, desperately want the attention and love of your man–yet he seems distracted and distant.
It’s kinda nice to know that Leah experienced the same thing. But, what’s even more reassuring is that Jesus did too. He wasn’t just misunderstood and ignored, he was despised and rejected.
Ouch! Let those words sink in. Despised and rejected? It’s one thing to not feel like others care to make a fuss over you, it’s quite another to be despised.
The beauty of the story of Leah is that we can get a clearer picture of how God works. It’s not in the ways we’d expect. Rather, he uses the broken, the banged-up, the dim-eyed, and the hurting to accomplish his purposes here on earth. And, lest you think Leah was the only sister struggling, I’d encourage you to read Genesis 30. Beauty didn’t make Rachel’s life a bag of Hershey’s Kisses either.
Does God Know What He’s Doing?
I wonder if our struggles with beauty and wanting to be a Rachel in our story instead of a Leah uncover a deeper struggle. The same struggle that Adam and Eve faced, the same struggle that got Satan kicked right out of heaven. That is: Does God know what he’s doing? Does he really want what’s best for us?
Like Eve, we’re tempted to want to know the whole story–the truth about what’s good and what’s evil. Little did Even know that through partaking of the fruit, she’d experience things like shame, guilt, and sorrow–all feelings that tax the human soul. And now, thousands of years later, her daughters face the same sin of wanting to know what God knows. Interestingly enough, it often results in the same outcome: shame, guilt, and sorrow.
We don’t know why God made some women physically beautiful, while others were born with physical deformities. We can’t control our culture that tells us 5’10” weighing 100 pounds with 2% body fat is perfection. But, we can control how we respond.
What if we determined to just trust God with how he made us? Or, what if we could, like Leah, stop trying to do things to win the love and approval of others and instead, start everyday with a “Now I will praise the Lord.”?
Could it be that God has a tremendous plan for our lives that doesn’t require us to have thin thighs or great shoulders or even flat abs? What if God needs willing temples more than he needs physically beautiful ones?
In case you don’t know the whole story, that fourth son, Judah, is a great-grandfather of Jesus Christ. Yes, Leah is in the lineage of Jesus–not her sister Rachel. God had great purpose for her life. Leah’s dim eyes and “uglier than my sister” status didn’t stop him from accomplishing them.
I wonder what he has planned for you?
You know, my father said he named me after Rachel in the Bible because he “liked” her name and she was beautiful. He never fully even understood the true story….just superficially. I had (until recently) an older sister named Natalie. She was ALWAYS jealous of my outward beauty (albeit my beauty inward is just as awesome). My sister persuaded and contrived for my father to remove me from his will merely months before he died. She lied to me all through childhood and lied yet again and again even into adulthood. She was NOT pretty outwardly or inwardly. She used to tell me that the reason I am infertile is because God didn’t bless me like he did her. Let it be known that both her children are substance users/abusers and just NOT acceptable honest human beings. My sister had been lazy all her life, barely working or caring for her family and husband. She ended up addicted to opioids and died recently from a heart attack. She never took care of her health and ate foods unhealthy, smoked cigarettes endlessly, and vaped. She planned to enjoy the fruits of my father’s riches (which quite honestly I helped him acquire through my smarts and knowledge of investing in the stock market). However, God had other plans and she died five months almost to the day of my father’s death. He consequently died on her birthday…how ironic? So, she never was able to enjoy what she persuaded him with pure evil to do to me. But guess what? I don’t need his money or riches to be happy in life. I have ALWAYS worked as a teacher and taken care of myself. Now, my sister’s brat kids (materialistic and shameful to say the least) get my father’s inheritance. Surely, they will blow it all away in no time selfishly. My niece is co-habitating with a self-proclaimed Satanist. She has one child born with major intellectual disabilities and the latter is lame at best. My nephew is in rehab for using methamphetamines and other illicit drugs. They both have NO work ethic. I was the only one in the family to earn up to a master’s degree in education with a 4.0 GPA. My sister, in sharp contrast, got pregnant on purpose and married quickly only to find twenty years later her husband is a pedophile and also gay. So, God has a PLAN and it will always work out the correct way. I don’t think I am cursed with the name Rachel as I do exude beauty and grace (So what? Call me vain). But I KNOW my heart and soul reflect my inner beauty which makes me even more attractive on the outside. But you should know, I have suffered my share and I still stay true to my Father God and am living a wholesome life! So, stop the Rachel shaming! I also grew up with men constantly “wanting” for me – old and young and still do. My father even abused me and not my sister because he must have found me more desirable. Outer beauty can be a curse…but I won’t allow myself to sink to that level. I know my worth and I am a mature woman now and realize my strengths, and of course my weaknesses which may have led me here to read your nonsense about Lleah being more in God’s favor. Rachel did NOTHING to be ashamed of at the time. She was purely in love and guess what? I am also infertile and so I teach, that is how I get to enjoy the innocence and loveliness of children. By helping them learn and grow into awesome people! (In all healthy ways of course so you sickos who think otherwise, poof! be gone!). Thanks for your time in reading just a fraction of my life story. Be well and praise God!
It’s not only women who have empty lives when they’re physically unattractive. I’m a man who was cursed with a lousy facial structure and premature baldness. I’ve heard the same line from every woman I’ve ever fallen for….the old “I like you as a friend” line that women use when they’re afraid to hurt a homely man’s feelings. Now I’m 64 years old and gave up on love a long time ago. But I feel sorry for Leah and women like her who were also cursed to be alone and unattractive.
Rachel was Jacob’s choice but not God’s. She was a woman of serious character disorder. Wht do you say a woman who give her housemaid to her husband to sleep with? that resulted in the birth of two sons, Dan – who is not found among the 12 Tribes of Israel in the Book of Revelation. He was a devilish man. Then the son Naphtali. They were a headache to the rest of the tribes. they became pig rearing people.
Yehoshua Ha Mashiah cmae through the Tribe of the Royal tribe Judah. Priesthood came through the tribe of Levy.
Though not physically beautiful, Leah was God’s choice.
I have a very important question? HOW can JUDAH be the GREAT GRANDFATHER of JESUS, YESHUA?
It is totally impossible! Fourteen generations between Abraham and King David. There are 420 Year exactly between Jacob going to Egypt and Moses leading Israel out of Egypt. Then another long period between Israel entering the promised land and David becoming King of Israel! Fourteen generations between David and Israel going onto captivity in Babylon! AND another FOURTEEN GENERATION BETWEEN the start of captivity to Babylon and the birth of Joseph, recognised by people as the father of YESHUA HA’MASCHIAH, JESUS CHRIST in Greek. READ Matthew 1: 1-17. PLEASE GET YOUR BIBLICAL FACTS CORRECT!
THIS PROVES THAT JUDAH COULD NEVER BE THE GREAT GRANDFATHER OF YESHUA
Hey friend, relax. If you read it carefully I say “a great grandfather” not “the great grandfather.” It would have taken me many many lines to list all the “greats” in order to get that title correct. I appreciate your commitment to biblical accuracy.
I am a guy who is struggling with body image it’s not just women to
I’m so sorry, JJ! Yes, I absolutely know that men struggle with this too. I wish I had a great site to send you to that speaks more directly to men. Alas, if you can get through the female pronouns–I’ve had several men tell me they found my book, Compared to Who? helpful. Praying you can find your path to freedom from the bondage that is body image struggles!
This is oh so good! Thank you for addressing the Rachel and Leah story more than once!