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Genesis 29 – Marrying the Wrong Person
Heard a song’s hook that made me think, “Ouch!” The title suggested a love song. Hearing it shocked me because it wasn’t, which was surprisingly unexpected.
There is a book called, “I Married the Wrong Person”. Definitely not the kind you leave laying around the house! Or, else you might not have that problem any more – or you still will but even worse! Jacob literally did this. Laban tricked Jacob into marrying his older daughter, Leah. When he woke up out of his (probably) drunken stupor (from which we get the word “stupid”), he realized the beginning of a lifelong error. Whether he realized or not, this was payback for tricking his father, Isaac.
Now the text doesn’t say exactly why Jacob couldn’t tell the difference between Leah and Rachel, but here is the solution I think makes the most sense – From thetorah.com:
Another approach, first suggested by Josephus, is that Jacob was drunk, ostensibly based on the fact that Jacob was coming from Laban’s feast; the Hebrew word for “feast,” משתה (mishteh), literally means “drinking party” (Ant. 1:301, Feldman trans. adjusted).
Everyone wants to marry the right person; few want to be the right person. The latter choice can be powerful enough to convince your partner to become themselves the right person. I think Leah finally earned Jacob’s love because the two were buried together. That’s encouraging to anyone who sees their partner reading that book.
The aforementioned song is by The Civil Wars and is called, “The One Who Got Away.” The hook line adds 4 words – “I wish you were…the one who got away”. Ouch.
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