Some modern commentators have taken the examples of polygamy in the Old Testament to mean that this was God's ideal marital situation or at least proof positive that God is okay with serial monogamy. I think they don't read this passage for its message, so much as for the agend they want to promote.

Polygamy in the Bible never resulted in good. Oh, good things might come from these relationships, but true good without complications never did.

Jacob had two women and a house full of children, but it came with the price of discord, jealousy and, later, outright hostility. The two sisters competed with each other in child-bearing, and sex, and eventually treated Jacob like he was a prize stud to go to the highest bidder.

"When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to become pregnant while Rachel remained childless. So Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, "The Lord has looked with pity on my oppressed condition. Surely my husband will love me now." Genesis 29:31-32

I think Leah must have had a rough time. She was married to a man who never wanted her and refused to give her the love she desperately wanted. God, in His mercy, gave her children as a substitute. It was Leah, not Rachel, who gave Jacob his first son, his heir. The evidence of Leah's fertility meant that Rachel at least had to wait for sex, if not for love. Sadly, fertility did not gain Leah any of Jacob's love. Please read verses 33-35 to note that she came to realize that God loved her far more than Jacob ever could and that became enough for her. At the birth of Judah, her fourth son, she essentially named him "praise the Lord."

Leah found it easy to praise God with four sons at her side. Meanwhile, Rachel fumed with jealousy.

"When Rachel saw that she could not give Jacob children, she became jealous of her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children or I’ll die!" Jacob became furious with Rachel and exclaimed, "Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?" Genesis 30:1-2

Both Rachel and Jacob were frustrated with the situation. I don't know that Rachel was actually threatening suicide (as some commentators contend), but that she was miserable and taking it out on Jacob. Neither responded in a godly manner. They blamed each other. Jacob was right in recognizing that God had kept Rachel from bearing children, which was something he could not change. However, his attitude needed adjustment. He blamed God rather than take responsibility on himself. Just because our argument sounds pious doesn't mean we're right spiritually.

When Rebekah had not produced an heir for Isaac, Jacob's father had prayed on Rebehak's behalf and God gave his wife children (Genesis 25:21). Jacob doesn't seem to have done that. God heard the petition of the wives, inferring that Jacob did not pray for them.

Jacob clearly loved Rachel, but she was insecure in that love because her husband was clearly spending a great deal of time with his other wife. In desperation, she offered Bilhah, her maid, to produce an heir for Jacob on Rachel's behalf.

There are clear similarities here to Sarai's proposal in Genesis 16. Rachel intended to adopt the child as her own, for example. However, Sarai offered her proposal when Abram had no children. Jacob already had sons through Leah. Sarai proposed from circumstances that seemed to demand desperate measures while Rachel's demand stemmed from pride and jealousy. She must have children of her own, even adopted ones, because she feared the loss of Jacob's affections.

Bilhah did produce two children for Rachel at a time when Leah appears to have entered menopause. Rachel acted as though she'd done a most wonderful and sacrificial service by giving her maid to Jacob. In reality, she could only see that that she was beating her sister at the breeding game. She saw herself in a great struggle with Leah rather than asking herself why God had blessed Leah's womb and not hers. Rachel was clearly not a spiritual woman in humble submission to the will of God. She was a cat in a fight with her rival.

Leah, apparently, fell into the cat fight as well. She'd given Jacob four sons; that should have been enough, but now she gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob as if to win the next round in this breeding war with her sister. In the fervent heat of the bride battles, the two women have little thought to religious devotion or marital ethics. Leah had previously recognized her children as gifts from God; now Zilpah's children became pawns in her fight with Rachel.

"At the time of the wheat harvest Reuben went out and found some mandrake plants in a field and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, "Give me some of your son’s mandrakes." But Leah replied, "Wasn’t it enough that you’ve taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes too?" "All right," Rachel said, "he may sleep with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes." When Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, "You must sleep with me because I have paid for your services with my son’s mandrakes." So he had marital relations with her that night. God paid attention to Leah; she became pregnant and gave Jacob a son for the fifth time. Then Leah said, "God has granted me a reward because I gave my servant to my husband as a wife." So she named him Issachar." Genesis 30:14-18

This passage makes me shudder. The two wives bargained over Jacob like he was a prize stud. While this resulted in the birth of a fifth son for Leah, it shows how depraved this polygamous relationship had become.

It should be noted that mandrakes are berries that were considered aphrodesiacs. The women now had resorted to lust rather than a contest of breeding. I suspect Rachel had Jacob with her almos every night, even though she seemed unable to get pregnant. Leah longed for his touch if not his affection. People think the Bible doesn't get down and dirty, but these are real people acting in very real ways. Leah was the first wife who felt that Rachel had stolen her husband. Knowing what it was that Leah wanted from the mandrakes, Rachel proposed a bargain. She would assure Leah that Jacob would sleep with her that night in exchange for the mandrakes that Rachel hoped would make her more fertile.

Poor Jacob! He comes in from the field and is essentially told that he's been sold to stud. What a miserable existence! Sadly, despite her scheming, Rachel did not become pregnant. Leah did! She later produced a sixth son and a daughter.

The incident iwth the mandrakes must have finally brought Rachel to the end of her schemes. Like Sarai before her who had abandoned hope of children of her own, Rachel received the blessing of God when she least expected it. Prayer never seened to occur to Rachel as the solution to her barrenness, but it did become her last resort. How very much like us she was!

Imagine being the first readers of this book. The Law forbade a man to marry sisters (Leviticus 18:18); this was why. The origins of 12 tribes of Israel were hardly a source of national pride. The twin miracles of the exodus and the conquest of Canaan would have made some think too highly of themselves and their nation. They might falsely conclude (as they later did) that God had blessed them because they were noble and great with wonderful roots. This story reminded them that their roots were convoluted and messy. They must not trust to their heritage (as the Jews of Jesus' day did), but in the God of their heritage (Deuteronomy 26:5).

We have a tendency to think of the Bible as "long ago, in the sweet by-and-by" and not look for application to our own time, but doesn't this series of events remind anyone else of the Jerry Springer Show? No, I'm not a fan, but I have tuned in a couple of times -- just enough exposure to be appalled. Despite the difference in culture, there are many similarities to those twisted people on Springer. Jacob lived with four battling wives simulanteously, while we live with ours consecutively. We do with divorce what Jacob did with polygamy. Reading what we've just read, do any of us think this man was any happier than the one today with four ex-wives and all sorts of child support payments?

I don't!

Sex, love, marriage and family can never be fully satisfying unless enjoyed within the confines of the will of God and the Word of God. Jacob's family life was a disaster! Jacob was outside the land of promise. He belonged to God and had been assured of His presence, protection, provision, and future promises; but he could never be happy in Haran. Love, sex, marriage, and family are all gifts from a good and loving God, but their enjoyment cannot be complete apart from fellowship with Him.

While love without sex may be frustrating, sex without love is folly. Those years with Rachel where sex was not possible or permissible were frustrating (Genesis 29:21), but sex without love with Leah was just as bad. It degenerated to mere prostitution. This occurs today as it did than. Sex without love is tragedy.

Neither sex nor children can create love. Leah learned no amount of sex could ever earn the love of her husband. Even after six boys, she was still unloved. Love cannot be manufactured through sex. Additionally, children will not save a marriage that is already in trouble. Producing children does not produce love. Children consume love; they don't create it.

When a man or a woman places sex on an extremely high level of priority they comes slaves. Jacob’s love for Rachel seems to be largely based upon her physical attractiveness, on his hormonal response to her rather than on any sort of enjoyment of her mind or personality.

Our society informs men and boys that their masculinity resides in their sexual conquests. The more they make, the more of a man they are. Jacob did rather well by these standards. He must have had sex every night and plenty of children to prove it, but look at what happened to him in the process. He was not the master of his harem. Pushed from bed to bed by his wives, he was eventually purchased for the night. He was a slave of sex and marriage, not its sovereign leader.

Marriage cannot run for long on the fuel of romantic love. Romantic love such as Jacob and Rachel experienced is not necessarily wrong, it's just insufficient to carry most peope through the humdrum and pressures of married life. That romantic dinner with candles fades away when you wake up in the middle of the night to deal with a sick child. Romance can quickly come and go.

Jacob got four wives and a household full of kids. Eventually he seems to have learned somewhat beneficial from that, but we certainly can't say that this experience was an endorsement of polygamy or serial monogamy. It was a mess of Jacob's own making, the result of his sin and disodience. We should heed the warning rather than try to use it to glamorize a lifestyle choice that the Bible always depicts as resulting in tragedy.