And afterwards she bare a daughter, and called her name Dinah.
Afterwards Leah bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. The event belongs to the account of Jacob's visit to Laban, his marriages to Leah and Rachel, his years with Laban, and his departure for Palestine. It falls between Jacob's morning after the dream at Bethel and his return to the land of Canaan guarded by angels, while he journeyed to the land of the children of the East and served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters.
The chapter is part of the story of the channels through which the Promised Seed would come, and of Jacob's trials and victories culminating in a change of heart and his place among the Israel of God. Despite Jacob's selfishness and unfaithfulness, God cared for him and prospered him in flocks and herds despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right. His troubled experiences were marked by selfish plotting and suffering, in which his overreaching was answered by being overreached himself, for Laban's deception in the matter of the daughters answered Jacob's deception of Esau without justifying Laban's sin, teaching that God's providence brings retribution sooner or later.
The verse stands within a patriarchal family history that plainly violated the marriage institution, but that violation did not destroy or diminish the sacred character of marriage, just as any violation of the Sabbath in the patriarchal age would not destroy the sacred character of the Sabbath. Jacob's polygamous family history in Genesis 30 shows that polygamy was evil and wrong and brought very great unhappiness into every family where it entered, even though it was allowed among God's ancient people through the whole Old Testament period.
Afterwards Leah bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. The event belongs to the account of Jacob's visit to Laban, his marriages to Leah and Rachel, his years with Laban, and his departure for Palestine. It falls between Jacob's morning after the dream at Bethel and his return to the land of Canaan guarded by angels, while he journeyed to the land of the children of the East and served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters.
The chapter is part of the story of the channels through which the Promised Seed would come, and of Jacob's trials and victories culminating in a change of heart and his place among the Israel of God. Despite Jacob's selfishness and unfaithfulness, God cared for him and prospered him in flocks and herds despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right. His troubled experiences were marked by selfish plotting and suffering, in which his overreaching was answered by being overreached himself, for Laban's deception in the matter of the daughters answered Jacob's deception of Esau without justifying Laban's sin, teaching that God's providence brings retribution sooner or later.
The verse stands within a patriarchal family history that plainly violated the marriage institution, but that violation did not destroy or diminish the sacred character of marriage, just as any violation of the Sabbath in the patriarchal age would not destroy the sacred character of the Sabbath. Jacob's polygamous family history in Genesis 30 shows that polygamy was evil and wrong and brought very great unhappiness into every family where it entered, even though it was allowed among God's ancient people through the whole Old Testament period.