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We look in depth at the story of Jacob and his wives, Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah. What were their experiences? Is polygamy a blessing or a curse? Why was Jacob a polygamist? And what was the real reason Jacob (and Abraham) were not condemned for their polygamy?

Scriptures

Genesis 28 – 33
Genesis 9:8, D&C 107 (Evidence against primogeniture)
Mosiah 3:19

Links

Hebrew word tsarah
MANDRAKES – they are REAL and grown in Oxford!

Summary

In this episode, Michelle Stone explores Jacob’s polygamy, examining whether his multiple marriages were commanded by God or simply the result of human deception and cultural customs. She critically analyzes Genesis 29–31, breaking down the complex and painful dynamics between Jacob, Leah, Rachel, and their handmaidens, Bilhah and Zilpah. The episode challenges traditional LDS interpretations of Jacob’s polygamy, framing it as a cautionary tale rather than a divine mandate.

Key Themes:

  1. The Hebrew Word for “Plural Wife” Means “Trouble”
    • Stone introduces a linguistic insight: the Hebrew word “Tsarah” (צרה) means both plural wife and trouble—a fitting description of Jacob’s story.
    • She suggests that Jacob’s polygamous relationships were not a blessing but a source of endless suffering, reinforcing the idea that polygamy was not divinely instituted.
  2. Jacob’s Polygamy Was the Result of Deception
    • Jacob worked seven years to marry Rachel, only to be tricked by her father, Laban, into marrying Leah instead.
    • Laban then allowed Jacob to marry Rachel a week later—but only in exchange for another seven years of labor.
    • This deception forced Jacob into a polygamous marriage he never intended, contradicting the idea that God commanded him to practice polygamy.
  3. The Deep Pain and Rivalry Between Leah and Rachel
    • Leah, though unloved, bore multiple sons, hoping that Jacob would finally love her—but he did not.
    • Rachel, despite being Jacob’s true love, suffered barrenness, leading to desperation and competition between the sisters.
    • This family rivalry escalated when both women gave their handmaidens, Bilhah and Zilpah, to Jacob to bear more children in their name.
  4. Bilhah and Zilpah: The Forgotten Concubines
    • Stone highlights that Bilhah and Zilpah had no voice in the story—their children were named and claimed by Leah and Rachel.
    • This parallels Hagar’s experience with Abraham and Sarah, reinforcing the theme of powerless women being used for reproduction.
  5. Mandrakes and the Trade of Intimacy
    • The story of Reuben gathering mandrakes (a plant believed to promote fertility) introduces a disturbing dynamic—Rachel trades a night with Jacob in exchange for Leah’s mandrakes.
    • This further commodifies Jacob’s relationship with his wives, showing how polygamy reduced intimacy to bargaining and manipulation.
  6. Jacob’s Prioritization of Wives and Children
    • When Jacob fears an attack from Esau, he physically arranges his family in order of importance:
      • Handmaidens and their children in the front (most at risk).
      • Leah and her children in the middle.
      • Rachel and Joseph in the safest position.
    • This act visibly demonstrated Jacob’s favoritism, setting the stage for Joseph’s later betrayal by his brothers.
  7. Laban’s Final Demand: No More Wives
    • In a shocking twist, Laban, the very person who forced Jacob into polygamy, makes him swear not to take any more wives.
    • Stone argues that this proves polygamy was never a divine command, as even Laban saw the chaos and suffering it caused.
  8. Conclusion: Polygamy as a Cautionary Tale
    • Stone challenges the LDS belief that Jacob’s polygamy was divinely sanctioned, arguing that the Bible presents it as a source of pain, deception, and dysfunction.
    • She urges listeners to see the story for what it is—a warning rather than an example to follow.

Transcript

[00:00:01] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. Please remember to listen to these episodes in order, starting with number 1 and continuing on from there. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is episode 12, Jacob’s Polygamy. Thank you for joining us as we take a deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. This episode has been a long time in coming. It has been such a challenge. The story is huge. It’s been really hard to edit it down to know what to include, what to leave out, and to feel like I’m doing it justice. It also is just, oh, it’s just a hard story. It’s so heartbreak heartbreaking and in some ways, harder than the story of Abraham, um, Sarah and Hagar. Maybe because there are so many more people involved, but there are just more people to suffer and to try to, to tell their story. So, um, So we’re going to do our best. Um, fun fact, something I learned clear back when I started preparing for this. The Hebrew word that means plural wife is the same as the word that means trouble. Sara, T S A R A H, is defined as adversity, affliction, anguish, distress, tribulation, trouble, and also plural wife. Wow. I, and from what I have seen, I think that this Story is the reason for that. The first time that that word is used in the Bible is by Jacob in Genesis Genesis 35:3. So, interesting thing that we’re going to go on and learn why that is the case. So, OK, like so many other parts of the Old Testament, I have really come to believe that this story is best viewed in many ways as a cautionary tale. Just like with all great literature and history, when we study it, I do. we can use their examples to teach us what actions lead to what outcomes. So we can choose what outcome outcomes we hope for and try to choose our actions accordingly. So, um, one example, in all the generations of the patriarch stories, there is parental favoritism, which I think is so sad and which always leads to really bad outcomes. That’s something that hopefully we can, or at least should learn. Um, Jacob was both a victim and a perpetrator of parental favoritism. So we’ll go back to his parents, Isaac and Rebecca quickly. They each had a favorite son, which is just so sad. And you, you’ll remember Rebecca’s and Jacob’s plotting to steal the birthright blessing from from Esau to fool Isaac with the, with the goats, the skin of the kid that, um, Anyway, Jacob pretended to be Esau so that he could receive the birthright blessing. That led to terrible outcomes. Um, it led to complete, complete family division. Esau was so upset by the betrayal and the theft of his blessing. He threatened to kill Jacob. So Rebecca sent Jacob away.

[00:03:08] She again used some level of plotting, which seems to be her relationship with Isaac, and sent Jacob away. It it says she thought for just a few days, but it ended up that he was gone for over 20 years and The scriptures record the forgiveness filled reunion of those two brothers, but there is no account of the reunion of the mother Rebecca and her son, which leads me to believe she had likely died, so she probably saw her family divided and never saw her son again, which is just heartbreaking, an important lesson for us to learn. Um, I’ll also just note before we get into the story that both Isau and Jacob, those two brothers, were both polygamists with 4 wives each. That brings up some very interesting questions and implications that we will have to save for another episode, cause this one is already very full. So we’re going to catch up with Jacob in Genesis 28 when he’s on his way to Leben’s. Likely very low in spirit and seeking divine comfort and insight, he says that the rocks were his pillow. He had a profound dream. God showed him the highly symbolic ladder that’s so interesting to study, and he also reaffirmed now to Jacob the same promises that included infinite posterity and other blessings that he had made both to his father and his grandfather. Now, just really quickly, because Jacob in particular, his is used to explain, well, he needed this infinite infinite posterity, right? We just need to point out again that these promises were made to Abraham, promise of infinite posterity, only to be fulfilled through Sarah and Isaac. The promise was reaffirmed to Isaac with his one wife, um. Rebecca and to be fulfilled through Jacob. And then it was again made to Jacob. Another thing that’s interesting to remember, this promise was also made independently to Hagar, who, as a woman, clearly didn’t need polygamy to fulfill this promise. And her son only had one wife. We only know of the one wife, the Egyptian that she chose, with whom he had 12 sons. So it’s, we have to be really careful. to claim that somehow God needs us to break his consistently repeated commandment of monogamy in order to help him fulfill his promises to, to us. That doesn’t make much sense, especially in the context of all of the people who received this promise. So, OK, we’re going to go on, and it is in chapter 29 that Jacob First meets Rachel when he sees her at the well. So after his long, solitary, lonely journey as an outcast, he finally learns that he has reached Laban’s home, Laban’s family, but even better, he sees this gorgeous girl who he instantly falls head over heels for her, and he finds out that she’s his cousin and he hopes his future bride. He waters her sheep, and she runs and gets Laban, and he meets Laban and is welcomed into the home with gladness, starting at verse 16, and Laban had two daughters, so this is Genesis 29:16. Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Lea was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful, beautiful, and well favored. There doesn’t seem to be a clear sense of what tender-eyed means. Lots of different interpretations. Um, and it varies also in with the different translations,

[00:06:33] but it does clearly imply some sort of fault in her appearance or demeanor. We, I don’t know for sure what it means other than it makes her less appealing than her younger sister. So in my mind, I see Rachel as the. Popular, confident, outgoing, beautiful face and figure, the girl that seemed to have everything going for her, and I see Leah as the far less confident, less assured, less attractive. Maybe somewhat jealous older sister who felt like she was in her sister’s shadow. That’s kind of the dynamic that I imagine from these sisters. So, um, the scripture continues verse 18, and Jacob loved Rachel, and he said to Leyden, I will serve these 7 years for Rachel, thy younger daughter. And Jacob served 7 years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had to her. And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast. What happens next is the plot twist that starts this entire tragic course of events, and it came to pass in the evening that he, Laban, took Lea, his daughter, and brought him brought her to him, and he went in unto her. So, OK, I’m just trying to imagine this situation. Poor Leah, who it seems Laban believed would never be able to find a husband, and of course, you know, couldn’t remain single and have a fulfilling life in that culture. She was traded out for her sister on what should have been her sister’s wedding night. I, I mean, I can only imagine the conversations or the feelings of both of these girls. Like, Rachel, from everything I can gather also loved Jacob. And yet Lea was being made to take her place. It, it’s hard to imagine that it contributed to closeness or love between these two sisters. I, I, I guess I wonder if maybe perhaps Leah, naively was happy for the opportunity to be married and to marry Jacob. So maybe she was a willing participant without having any way of understanding the pain that this would bring for her. And I, I just don’t even know. I, I have to imagine that Rachel must have wept very bitter tears. This is an interesting story to actually think about. Um, there’s a really bitter irony here for Jacob as well. Jacob, who tricked his father by taking his his brother’s place. is now on the other end of the deception, and a deception, a higher stakes deception. So it’s really interesting how this all seems to be happening. So if we’re OK, if we’re reading these stories literally, just like with Isaac being fooled into thinking that Jacob was Esau, it’s also really strange to think that Jacob didn’t know his bride on his wedding night, didn’t know it was the wrong sister. The best way I can make sense of that is that the feast that it goes, that it makes a point of saying that Laban prepared, it must have included much wine, similar to the um the wedding feast that where Jesus performs his first miracle of creating more wine because they ran out. I’m wondering if, you know, the plotting Laban. Intentionally got Jacob a little smashed and then, you know, it must have been very dark in the tent.

[00:09:53] So although it seems very strange, we can let that slide. But in any case, in verse 25, ah, this, this is hard. In verse 2 to 5, it says, and it came to pass that in the morning, behold, it was Leah. Ah, I can only imagine the horror for both Jacob and Leah that morning. just, can you even think of Jacob waking up and Rachel in his arms, who he’s just spent his wedding night with, it’s the wrong girl. And, um, can I just can’t even imagine the expression on his face. It would, it would, it’s hard to see how that kind of trauma could ever be erased for either of them. What, what it must have done to Leah to see the shock, disgust, and then anger and contempt on the face of her new husband, who she just spent her, spent her wedding night with. Um, man, I think that that would probably haunt both of them for the rest of their lives. That would be a traumatic experience. So the pain for both caused 100% by Laban’s awful deception is, it’s terrible to consider, and I think that it should inform the rest of it does inform the rest of the story and our understanding of it. So, Jacob angrily storms out to confront his deceitful father-in-law, continuing to verse 25. What is this thou hast done? Did I not serve thee for Rachel? Wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban’s lame excuse. It must not be so done in our country to give the younger before the first born. So I’ve heard that said like, no, this was cultural. Well, you know, if it was cultural, then talk to Jacob. Offer him. Would you like to marry Leah as well? It seems to me rather clear that Laban knew that Jacob wanted to marry Rachel and only Rachel. And so he used this deception. You know, Laban, we find out later, we find out more about his character. He is a very, very selfish. You know, I would say the more I studied narcissism, the more I see it around me. I’m like, whoa, Layman was a full on narcissistic father who cared about himself and I think didn’t want to be stuck providing for an unmarried daughter, so he dished her off onto Jacob. We’ll get into that a little bit more. Maybe that seems like too harsh of a reading of him, if so, I apologize, but He continues and says to Jacob, fulfill her week, and we will give, and I, and we will give this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me even yet 7 other years. So he said, OK, here, just be married to Leah for a week. I’ll let you marry Rachel in a week, and you can serve me another 7 years. And Jacob did so and fulfilled her week, and he gave him Rachel, his daughter to wife also.

[00:12:35] So I just let’s pause here to ask, was Jacob’s polygamy in any way the result of a commandment to live a higher law? Is that the case, or as the Bible makes very clear, was his polygamy due to his selfish father-in-law’s dishonesty? I, I think it’s very clear. So, so we’ll move on to um Let’s see. OK. This is what’s so hard is that Jacob loved Rachel and not Leah. If Leah had just been his sister-in-law, that would have been exactly how it should be. You should love your wife and not your sister-in-law as much. But since Leah was also his wife, it just caused so much suffering. So, um, OK, another thing that I think it’s interesting to think about with these girls, I I know I can. I’m sure most of us can think of kind of the painful, frustrating dynamics of sibling rivalry that we grew up in. And, you know, most of us that are parents have watched it play out in our own homes, and sibling relationships can be really difficult. The best thing about sibling rivalry is that it ends. Each child grows up and goes their own way to establish their own perfect life, where their own best life, where they’re not forced to live every day of their lives in those same dynamics with their siblings. For Rachel and Leah, that was not the case. They were forced into this difficult and I would say. You know, made far more difficult sibling relationship for the rest of their lives by sharing the same husband. It is just so hard to think about. So, um, OK, it, it goes on verse 30. And he went into unto Rachel. This was after a week. He went in unto also unto Rachel, and he loved Rachel more than Lea and served with him Laban yet 7 other years. And when the Lord saw that Lea was hated, she was hated by these two, which is understandable but hard. He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. So, man, just the pain for both of these girls, um. And listened to Lea’s pain in being the hated wife. Verse 32, and Leah conceived embarrassed son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, Surely the Lord hath looked upon me in my affliction. Now, therefore, my husband will love me. And she conceived again arsed son and said, Behold, because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also, and she called his name Simeon, Simeon, and she conceived again embarrass son and said, Now this time my husband will be joined unto. Because I have borne him three sons. Therefore, she called his name Levi, and she conceived again and bear a son and said, Now will I praise the Lord. Therefore, she called his name Judah and left bearing. Ah, it is so hard to hear Lea trying desperately to earn Jacob’s love. You can hear how she is just suffocated for want of love. She needs it like she needs air.

[00:15:44] Um, it reminded me, I looked up, I’m sure many of you are familiar with Emmeline Wells. She was an early Mormon polygamist wife who went on to become a relief society president. She was a beautiful writer who kept diaries. And um a couple of entries in her diary show that I think she knows exactly how Lea felt. This is one thing that she wrote. My husband came. My heart gave one my heart gave one great bound towards him. Oh, and how enthusiastically I love him truly and devotedly. If he could only feel towards me in any degree as I do towards him, how happy it would make me. Both women’s husbands Jacob and Daniel Wells, as Emmeline put it, did their duty, and both women bore children. Emmeline Wells said he did his duty toward me, and that’s how it feels with, um, Leah as well. But both shared this painful sentiment that Emmeline again articulated so well. Oh, if my husband could only love me even a little and not seem so perfectly indifferent to any sensation of that kind, he cannot know the craving of my nature. He is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out. Oh, my poor aching heart, where shall it rest its burden? Only on the Lord. Only to him can I look to every, for every other avenue seems closed against me. I have no one to go to for comfort or shelter, no strong arm to lean, lean upon, no bosom bared for me, no protection or comfort in my husband. It’s just so hard to imagine the experience these women had in common. It’s a hard situation. So one insight, I just kept feeling like there were things I was missing in this story, and one insight that I had that felt really profound to me is, for me, I think that we can see Leah as an example of the painful futility of trying to earn love, God’s man’s love, or especially God’s love. I think we too often tend to believe that we must somehow work or perform to deserve love. That is always as we see it was with Lea is always a bottomless pit when we’re caught up in this mindset, believing our actions or even our thoughts can make us worthy or unworthy of love, especially God’s love. Our efforts will always be as painful and futile as Leah’s were. We Trade off spending some time either feeling somewhat arrogantly superior because we think we are worthy and undeserving of love because we do measure up through our actions, or we’ll spend other times feeling hopeless and unworthy because our efforts are always lacking and are never enough. That often also becomes. We, we can begin to become competitive or judgmental of both ourselves and others as we look sideways to see how we measure up to see, am I worthy or are they worthy? Who’s, you know, how, how we compare. The way out of this trap is to learn that God’s love is not ever something we earn or deserve. It just is. It is constant, eternal, infinite. It is unchanging regardless of our own perception of our worth. We don’t ever earn. God’s love, that is impossible. Instead, we seek to discover it, to feel it, and then ideally to dwell in it. When we learn to dwell into God’s in God’s love, that’s when we can overcome these painful, this painful circle that Leah was going in of trying to earn. Or win or deserve love. Um, I think it’s, it’s really important to me that the love comes first,

[00:19:29] God’s love comes first, and then the actions that it is that God’s love inspires grow joyfully out of that. We love him because he first loved us, not the other way around. So if we’re ever feeling weighed down by all the things we need to do and that we need to keep working and keep performing to be worthy of God’s love, it’s a good, it’s good to think about Leah and get that perception changed to we could to where we can say God. Please let me feel your love for me. And then whatever actions God inspires, we’re not doing them because we feel obligated or pressured to. We’re doing them because we feel inspired to and empowered to, and they bring us joy. And, um, so that’s one lesson that I think I was really happy to be able to gain from Leah. So back to the story, Lea was in, oh, OK, so anyway, uh, like Lea, many of us find ourselves in very painful, difficult situations, and I think You know, we have to, we, we will experience the pain, but the way to have the most peace and joy possible, no matter what life gives us, is to learn to dwell in the love of God, so that we’re never in doubt of that, so we won’t have as much pain as Leah. Experienced in her, in her experiences. So Rachel was also suffering. This is verse one of the next chapter. And when Rachel saw that she bear Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. Um, even the incredible pain of childlessness was worsened and intensified by polygamy. It made that experience even worse for her. Um, Sarah suffered the pain of childlessness, but she didn’t have a sister there, having children with her husband to, you know, Sarah couldn’t even handle it with Hagar. Rachel had to dwell in it every single day with Lea. Um, hard, hard stuff, and Jacob, who was not able to be quite as long suffering as his grandfather Abraham when Sarah let him have it, Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God’s stead? Who hath withheld from thee the fruit of thy womb? Jacob, he loved Rachel so much, and he wanted to please her in everything, but she was demanding why he had no power to give, and he He just couldn’t handle that, you know. So we’re going to rewind a bit two verses that we left that we skipped over in Genesis 29:24 says, And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah. Oh, unto his daughter Leah, Zilpa, his his maid for a handmaid, and then verse 29, and Laban gave to Rachel, his daughter Bilha, his handmaid to be her maid. So both of these girls, their wedding present was their own personal servant girl. And, um, Rachel, like Sarah before her, in her desperation to have children, resorted to the same solution to use her slave girl as a surrogate.

[00:22:33] So verse 3, and she said, Behold, my maid Bilha, go go in unto her, and she shall bear upon my knees that I may also have children by her. And she and she gave him Bilhaw her handmaid to wait to wife, and Jacob went in unto her, and Bilha conceived and bear Jacob a son. Now listen to this, and Rachel said, God hath judged me and hath also heard my voice and hath given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan. Note whose child Dan was considered to be, who named him, who claimed him. Bill Ha, both Bilha and Zilpa never even have a voice in this story. We never even hear their own words, and they certainly could not even claim their own newborn children. And Bha Rachel’s maid, conceived again and bear Jacob a second son, and Rachel said, with great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed. And she called him naftily. And then the competition revs up and gives Jacob his 4th wife, and Lea saw that she had left Being, and when, when Lea saw that she had left Being, she took Zilpa, her maid, and gave her to Jacob to wife, and Zilpa, Leah’s maid. Jacob’s son, and Leah said, a troop, a troop cometh, and she named his name. She called his name Gad. Then Zilpa, Leah’s maid, bear Jacob a second son, and Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed, and she called his name Asher. Oh, so sadly we are not giving any insight at all into the feelings of Jacob’s concubines, the slave women. Bilha and Zilpa, who were simply used as surrogate wombs to bear children for their mistresses to name and claim. Um, a few people have commented on my episode with Abraham. They’ve commented to object to my description of Abraham’s relationship with Hagar as sex slavery. And um the same relationship that’s now repeated with Jacob and Bilha and Zilpa. And so I want to clarify because I do understand what they’re saying, that term could imply that these women were brought, were bought and used only for sex and were prostituted out to others in a sex trade. That’s not at all what I was trying to imply, so. What I am saying that I obviously these women were not used unprostituted in a sex ring, but they were slaves who were used as surrogates which required sex, so they were slaves who with no bodily autonomy or freedom to choose. They were given no opportunity to have their own marriages and their own families. They were put into sexual relationships with their masters, with their master, to bear children to be claimed by their mistresses. So it really is a Handmaid’s Tale. That’s where that comes from. So while it isn’t the the worst form of sex trafficking we can imagine. I still think that sex slavery is an appropriate term to call it. It is slavery that involves sex, and it should be abhorrent to us, as are many other things in the Bible. Like I think that we need to be careful to be looking to excuse it away or say, well, it wasn’t about like, let’s actually put it into our own lives and our own day and say, you know, God is unchanging. What,

[00:25:54] what is this and what should it be? So, OK, so now back to the story, because the story isn’t over. We have been told that Leah left bearing, but from the continuing narrative, it sounds less like she stopped being able to conceive and sounds more like Jacob stopped giving her opportunities to conceive because she was clearly still fertile. And, um, she had to buy a night with her husband and what happens next. So this interesting incident with the mandrakes. It just gives us additional, rather, I don’t know, confusing insight into both the marriage dynamics as well as the belief system. So, OK, quick info on mandrakes. Thanks to Harry Potter, we’ve at least heard of them, the screaming roots that are pulled up. Um, if you look in the Bible dictionary in the Bible, they are only listed in the Bible dictionary under superstition. So they most likely refer to a plant that is called Mad Madragoras, and um that’s what, that’s what we think mandrakes referred to. From this story, I assumed that they were mainly thought to increase fertility, but there actually isn’t a strong association between mandrakes and fertility anywhere else, only in this story. So it’s only our assumption that that’s what it was about. They are toxic and deadly, but in smaller doses, they are psychoactive, so they make you high. Um, although you will be very sick afterward. Anciently they were used, they were very much tied to superstition and magic. In Rome, they were used as an anesthetic for difficult surgeries, or they were commonly, they were also used as the only other biblical reference to them in the Song of Solomon refers to them as an aphrodisiac. So not so much a fertility drug, more an aphrodisiac, which It’s just really interesting in this story. So, OK, I’m gonna link a fun video at the bottom about a guy that is growing Mandrakes at Oxford, and he can give you a little bit more history about them. So, um, OK, you have to forgive me here, but this story seems to be the earliest recorded incident of swapping sex for drugs. So, so let’s go on to it in a, in an unusual way though. OK, verse 14, and Reuben, Leah’s oldest son, went in the days of the wheat harvest and found mandrakes in the field and brought them in, brought them unto his mother Leah. And Rachel said to Lea, Give me, I pray thee of thy son’s mandrakes. And she said unto him, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? And whatst thou take away my son’s mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore, he shall lie with thee tonight for thy son’s mandrakes. So Rachel has the power to Trade Jacob for the Mandrakes that she values, and Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leo went out to meet him and said, Thou must come in unto me, for surely I have hired thee with my son’s Mandrakes, and he lay with her that night. Ah. And she had to buy a night with her husband, and God hearkened unto Lea, and she conceived and bear Jacob the fifth son and still. And Lea said, God hath given me my hire because I have given my maiden to to my husband,

[00:29:08] and she called his name Isakar. Then Lea and Leah conceived again and bear Jacob the 6th son, and Lea said, God hath endued me with a good dowry. Now will my husband dwell with me because I have borne him 6 sons, and she called his name Zebulon still. After 6 failed attempts, she still is hoping that her performance as a fruitful wife should somehow. Make her deserving of her husband’s affection. And then verse 21, and afterwards she bare a daughter and called her name Dinah. I’m really glad we’re told at least about one daughter, maybe it’s the only daughter Jacob had, but But I, I have a feeling we’re told about Dinah for other more tragic reasons, so that are hard and we’ll get into in a different episode. So she’s the only daughter that we hear of. OK, we don’t hear anything more about the Mandrakes, which is curious. I, I just find myself wondering, did Rachel take them? Did she give them to Jacob? Did, did they both get high? What was their experience? And Are we supposed to credit the mandrakes with Rachel’s later conception, even though it came years later, Leah had 3 more children in the meantime before Rachel conceived Joseph. So, and, and, and shouldn’t we give the credit for her conception to God who opened her her womb rather than a superstitious folk remedy? I just, I don’t know how to make sense of this. So, um. OK, it is an interesting insertion into the narrative and, you know, we’re gonna move on from it, but it is, it is very interesting. OK, so finally in verse 22, after years of painful waiting, it says, and God remembered Rachel. And God hearkened to her and opened her womb, and she conceived embarrassed son and said, God hath taken away my reproach. There’s that word we talked about with Isaiah. God hath taken away my reproach, and she called his name Joseph and said, The Lord shall add to me another son. So her, her inspiration was already that she knew that there was another son. Despite everything that happened, I cannot help but be so glad that Rachel finally had a child of her own, and clearly Jacob was thrilled, and he just as happened with Sarah and, um, Isaac, as soon as he and Rachel had a child of their own. Immediately all of the other children became far less relevant, um. The rest, Joseph was everything to both Rachel and Jacob, and at least um. The one good thing here is that probably because, well, in part because Leah was an official wife, the other wives and children couldn’t be abandoned as Hagar and Ishmael were when they now had Joseph because they were Jacob was officially married to Leah. She was the first wife, so they at least had the rights of protection and to be provided for and couldn’t be excluded, but I think there’s a similar dynamic going on of Joseph being the child that Jacob had been waiting for. And so, And again, I feel a little inclined to be, I feel inclined to be a little slow to harshly judge Jacob,

[00:32:21] Rachel and Leah. Um it seems God was slow to judge them as well. I I, I mean, ideally they could have handled their difficult situation a little bit better than they did, but they were all victims. None of them wanted or chose to be in this situation, and they didn’t have the benefit we do of hindsight. They couldn’t read their own story as a cautionary tale to teach them what to avoid. So we do have that benefit if we’re smart enough to pay attention and learn from it. Um, and, and I also again want to point out that like Abraham, Jacob was the victim of polygamy, not the master of it. He was basically in many ways treated like a breeding stud as his wives jockeyed for position and competed for his affections. He did not in any way see his children and wives, his wives and children, as a means to demonstrate or increase his power and glory. Either in this life or in the next. He didn’t like, like Abraham, he didn’t exercise unrighteous dominion. He seemed compliant, like his wife tell him, uh, Rachel, and Leah tell him, Hey, I bought you tonight. I get you. Or, Hey, go in unto my handmaid or like, OK, he, he did his best to keep all of these wives happy when really he just wanted his happy, peaceful life with the one woman he loved, Rachel. And so it’s just a really complicated situation and in many ways it’s hard to even know who to feel the most sorry for. Le Leah, the fertile but hated wife, Rachel, the loved but barren wife who was sharing the husband she loved, Jacob, who did just want his wife, his life with his one wife, um, Bilha and Zilpa, who We slaves without any say in any of it and then also even the children who were born into this very complicated situation that went on to affect them. And so it becomes just more and more in the story, it becomes more clear why sara is a word both for Dress and trouble and tribulation and for plural wives, it’s, it’s very interesting. It should teach us pretty much what we need to know about Jacob’s polygamy, but the story still isn’t over. So after being cheated repeatedly by Laban, and, um, and then Jacob was, uh, he, he had And cheated. He goes into it a little bit. And both Rachel and Leah also voiced their objections to what Laban has done. Laban just wasn’t a good guy. So God finally tells Jacob to leave, and he finally decides to risk going back home. So we’re gonna skip past the intrigue of him getting ready to leave. And in chapter 31, We learned that um Lea, Jacob, and Rachel all had very hard feelings against Leban for his selfish and dishonest ways,

[00:35:14] but Another really troubling, interesting thing, even more troubling than the Mandrakes. In verses 19 and 32, we learn that Laban worshiped idols. He had images that were gods, and that Rachel stole them to take them with her. So now not only superstition of the mandrakes, but actual idol worship is part of the story. And um, So, so to put this in context of our subject, the man who was the author, the cause of Jacob’s polygamy was not only a crook and a deceiver, he was also an idol worshiper. The text doesn’t give any indication of Rachel’s motive for taking the idols. I can imagine it might have been to punish Laban because she had such hard feelings against him. Or the other thing I think is that maybe she took them to continue to worship them herself. We don’t know. She, we just know that she took them with him and With her and hid them from him. Um, Jewish apologists for a long time have claimed that she took them in order to sort of do a, an intervention for Laban to make it so he wouldn’t worship idols anymore. That makes by far the least sense to me in terms of the text. She never seems to have any kind of a problem with his idol, well, for many reasons, but in any case, so we’re gonna leave that aside as well. But let’s please note that in the story of our patriarchs is also idol worship. So, OK, we have that to, to consider. So Laban, um, Rachel and Leah’s father angrily pursues them both because he realized they left and he’s angry about that, but he also realized that they took his gods. And so, um, that’s when Rachel, you know, her, her period comes in handy at that point, and, um, she hides the idols, so she’s not killed for taking them. And at this point, Jacob, after 20 years of mistreatment of, uh, he finally reached his boiling point and let Laban have it. So I’m going to read this just because it gives us a sense of who Laban was in addition to the things that Rachel and Leah have already said. This is 31, 36, and Jacob was wroth and chilled with Laban, and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? What is my sin that thou hast so hotly pursued me it’s gonna be a 38. This 20 years have I been with thee. Thy ewes and thy she goats have not cast their young. That means I’ve, I’ve done a good job taking care of them. And the rounds of thy flocks have I not eaten. That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee. I bear the loss of it. Of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. Thus I was in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night and my. Departed from my eyes. Thus have I been 20 years in thy house. I served thee 14 years for thy two daughters and 6 years for thy cattle, and thou hast changed my wages 10 times, except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely thou hast sent me away now empty. God hath seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, so. That’s been Jacob’s experience living with Laban for 20 years. Laban, in true narcissist style, refuses to acknowledge anything Jacob just said, and he certainly didn’t apologize. Instead,

[00:38:26] he just Gaslighted Jacob, and then he swore a pledge of peace with him. So Jacob sets up a pillar in 45 and 46. It makes it clear that Jacob sets up a pillar and his men help him. Um, Laban takes credit for the, for setting up the pillar in verse 51, which is also in keeping with his character, it seems. So then Laban had them both make a pledge that neither would cross over the pillar they set up to attack the other. But with this one stipulation, That Jacob not take any other wives. This is verse 50. If thou shalt afflict my afflict my daughter’s er, or if thou shalt take other wives besides my daughters, no man is with us. See, God is witness between me and thee. So Jacob, he’s having Jacob swear before God that he will not take any other wives. That is interesting. Laban, this is my reading of this. Laban knew. He knew that polygamy was not good for women. It was, he could certainly see that it was not good for his daughters. He had seen the tremendous problems and pain that he himself had caused, and he now bolstering the facade he had to have of being the good caring father he needed to appear to be. He did what he could to make sure his daughters wouldn’t have any other rivals. So This is interesting because Mormon polygamists taught and believed that polygamy was an eternal doctrine where the number of wives equated directly to the number of kingdoms you would have in the next life, to your degree of to your degree of exaltation and eternal glory. So why would Laban. How could he both be the inspired one to bring about polygamy, but then also limit Jacob’s polygamy. It just, it doesn’t make any sense at all. So the clear truth. If we will see it is that Jacob’s polygamy was in no way inspired or instituted by God, he was only a polygamist at all because of the terrible deception. Uh, that his selfish, dishonest, idle worshiping father-in-law foisted on him. His polygamy then grew through the desperate, desperate rivalry of the two sisters who felt compelled to compete for their husband’s love and their own worth as wives. And then that competition competition sucked in their slaves who were employed as, forgive me, I can’t resist, who were employed as weapons of mass reproduction. And in that futile battle, a mess was created that bore awful implications for even the next generation. So, you have to forgive me for weapons of mass reproduction that I spent so many hours on that, and I laughed aloud when I found myself typing that, so I decided to include it. I hope you liked it. So anyway, OK, there’s, we’re almost to the end of this long story, but there’s one more episode that I think is important to cover, um. Jacob leaves Laban and goes on his way, and he’s going back home. And when he sent word to Esau of his return, he learned his, his, um, messengers came back and reported to him that Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men. Jacob was terrified that Esau still held a deadly grudge and was coming to slaughter them, so. He did the best he could. He divided all of his people and all of his possessions into two different groups, hoping that maybe only one of them would be slaughtered and one of them would be spared. And that night

[00:41:54] in his terrible concern was when Jacob wrestled with the Lord. And his name was changed to Israel and he beheld God face to face. So that’s all again in very interesting language, but it was a profound experience. And the next morning, as Isau approached with his band of 400, as Jacob thought to attack them. Jacob made the most clear demonstration of how he valued his wives and his children. In verse one, and Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked and beheld Isa Cain, and with him 400 men, and he divided the children of Lea and unto, and he divided the children unto Lea and unto Rachel and into the handmaids, and he put the handmaids and their children foremost and Lea and her her children after and Rachel and Joseph hindermost. So he literally put his wives and children in physical order of who he most valued and who he most wanted to protect. They were stood, physically stood in order of who he could stand to let die first and um I just. That is such a graphic demonstration of how he valued their very lives and not only his wives were subjected to that, but his children. He had many children who would have very well understood what was happening, and I think that experience right there is just. Such a pinpoint to help us understand the dynamic that would grow between these brothers to, um, you know, as they are stood out more closer to danger and can look back and see their baby brother and the chosen, the, the preferred wife in the place of most protection. Of course, resentments grew, right? And, um, it, that would be a, a really hard situation for them to experience. And that dynamic continued to be their experience every day of their lives. And so, uh, so I think that it’s just important to consider that as we consider these horrible brothers who were literally, like, you know, it’s one thing to say, oh, I want to kill them, you know, but to actually carry it out, they actually Committed fratricide only because of, I think it was Ruben that interceded. Did they sell him as a slave rather than actually kill him, but that was what they wanted to do. That is a terrible outcome of this family dynamic. That is really something we should consider. And so, um, just a little while later in chapter 25, Rachel died in child. We’re gonna move on in the story. Rachel died in childbirth with Benjamin, her second son, who she had been inspired to know that she would have, and This is interesting. She was buried alone. Leah, who outlived her sister and at long last only in death, had the benefits of being the first wife by being buried in the family tomb where Jacob would later be buried as well, so.

[00:44:58] I guess it’s not surprising that we are not told anything about the deaths or burial burials of Bill Ha and Zilpa. So, but there is something really interesting about the sons of Bil Ha and Zilpa that I think we should consider. So if you remember in the episode on on Abraham, as we discussed, and I think that was episode 6, maybe a big deal was made of. Covenant only going through Isaac and not through the son of the Bond woman. Um, we read, well, there are many scriptures that talk about it. I’ll just read Galatians 4, which goes into it in depth. The last verse of that, verse 31, is, so then, brethren, we are not children of the Bond woman but of the free. That was a real, real point of pride for them. It was really important that they were not from the Bond. So it seems strange that this ceases to be a problem in this generation. Four of Jacob’s sons, Dan, Naftali, Gad, and Asher, were born of Bilha and Zilpa, the Bond women, yet they have full representation among the 12 tribes, and they don’t seem to be considered inferior. There was nothing I could find that showed that those tribes were inferior. So, and again, Makes me wonder if Sarah could have been a bit more caring and generous and allowed Ishmael to be a brother and share an inheritance with Isaac instead of kicking him out so that her son would be the only inheritor. I don’t see a reason that it had to be that way because it wasn’t that way in in a later generation. And um, so looking at the story as a whole, this whole story of Jacob, the interactions between God and Jacob, which we haven’t got into, which really should be the most important part of the story. It is very strange that the main thing supporters of Section 132 seem to take from the story of Jacob, which is the story is so much more expansive than even what we have covered, but the main thing they seem to take is the idea that polygamy is an eternal doctrine ordained and commanded by God. There is simply nothing in the biblical narrative that can possibly support that, and again, so much to contradict it. It’s hard to understand. How, how we can believe this, a far more central theme of the stories of the patriarchs, starting with Abraham was the idea of primogeniture. That’s one inheriting birthright son, that there needs to be one birthright son, which seems, seems to me to have begun with Sarah insisting that Ishmael would not share the inheritance with Isaac. I haven’t found evidence of that, of, of that idea before that. Um, a couple of examples. Genesis 9:8 and God spoke unto Noah and his sons saying, um, and his sons with him saying, and I behold, I will establish my covenant with you and with your seat after you. So God included all of Noah’s sons in the covenant and the birthright. And then Doctor Covenants 107 talks about Adam, and he gathered all of his righteous posterity and blessed all of them, and they all came into the presence of the Lord and were all given the covenant promises and blessings. So Adam and Noah didn’t have this one, this primogeniture idea, and yet I guess. Maybe in part because of Abraham or maybe mostly because of Abraham, it became

[00:48:09] a big part of the world’s culture and the heritage. It hung on through centuries of cultures and it lasted all the way through, even up until the recent monarchs and aristocracies with their inherited lands and titles. I know it was certainly the case in England that the oldest son. Was the inheritor and the other sons had to join the army or do some do some other thing. And so I’ve always been really thankful that America broke away from that idea and claimed what I consider to be far more inspired and advanced ideas of equality and freedom of opportunity and what Thomas Jefferson coined as the natural aristo aristocracy. I think we’ve all been extremely thankful for that. So. If we’re looking to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the ultimate examples of all doctrine, then why like everything they did must be how God wants it to be done. Then why didn’t we need to claim that primogeniture needed to be restored and that the American system was wrong? Um, slavery was also more ubiquitous in the stories of the patriarchs even then. Um, plural marriage. And so why wasn’t that a doctrine that needed to be restored? that you can’t find any more evidence for polygamy than you can for slavery, and you can find more evidence for primogeniture, it seems. And then concubinage, right? Which I think we can refer to as sex slavery. That showed up in these stories and was actually included as part of the doctrine in 132, as we talked about in the last Episode. Yet that didn’t seem to be officially restored or at least practiced. Thank heaven. And so, so it’s really confusing. There are so many other social relics we could claim from these stories and say they needed to be restored. Why did we just pick this one? I think that’s a good question to consider and to ask ourselves. It teaches us maybe a little bit about human nature and I, I think Just like with all other scripture stories we have examined so far, if we look seriously and honestly at the story of Jacob and his wives. I don’t, I, I think we should easily see that polygamy was not in any way a doctrine or a higher law or commanded or instituted by God, as the synonym that we’ve talked about tells us, the word sorrow, it was an unfortunate burden that brought suffering and distress, which is why I believe God consistently instituted and commanded monogamy. Just like Abraham, Jacob was not condemned for his polygamy. I think that this is an important point to consider, and again, I think it’s good to look at the reasons. I think the main lesson that we can and should take from that, at least the main lesson I see in it, is the crucial importance of avoiding unrighteous dominion. Both Abraham and Jacob. In opposition to their own genuine desires, found themselves in very difficult situations, not of their own makings, of having many wives and or having multiple wives. And to me, the way they each responded reveals why they were chosen men of God. It’s evidence of the kind of men that they were. Neither of them ever seems to have seen their wives or children as possessions or Symbols of their greatness either in this life or in the next life. They were both very faithful men who taught their children the things of God, but Neither seems to have seen themselves as the rulers of their homes or families, though the word preside doesn’t show up anywhere in either of their stories, not even that word. Rather like the example and teachings of Jesus, these powerful patriarchs were, this is Mosiah 3:19, and I think it describes it perfectly. They were submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon them,

[00:52:18] even as a child doth submit to his father. I think that’s the lesson that we can and should take from these great men. Those are the examples they set and the lessons they taught. I don’t believe either of them would agree with or support Section 132. I know that’s a big claim to make, but really think about it. I actually think that they would be somewhat upset that their stories and examples were twisted to make the claims that 132 makes that neither of them in any way seemed to have lived out in their own lives. I think the whole idea of the gospel and and our understanding of what Joseph Smith restored is to receive the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, right? And so if we want to receive the blessings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I think it’s important that we seek out and strive to emulate. Who, who the scriptures teach us that these men really were, rather than the strange ideas we have had passed down to us of who people wanted to imagine them to be. So I think that it is important that Abraham and Jacob were not condemned for their polygamy, but I think it’s very important that we take the true lessons from that instead of twisting it again into the opposite of what I think it really was. So anyway, thank you so much for sticking with this long episode. I think they’ll be quite a bit shorter from here on. But again, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you being here with me. I hope if this is valuable to you that you will share it and putting so much time and effort into it. I would, I want as many people to hear it as, as possible so it can help more people. But anyway, thank you so much for being here. I am Michelle Stone, and this is 132 Problems.