And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.
Genesis 30 belongs to the portion of Genesis that tells the story of Jacob. The verse belongs to the account of Jacob's years of sojourn with Laban, his marriages to Leah and Rachel, and his eventual departure for Palestine. More precisely, it belongs to the account of the sons born to Jacob while he was in the land of the children of the East, serving Laban fourteen years for his two daughters, after Bethel and before his departure from Haran to return to Canaan.
It falls within Jacob's checkered and unsatisfactory experiences, marked by selfish plotting and the suffering that followed. The narrative shows God's care over Jacob despite his selfishness and unfaithfulness. It is part of a narrative in which God's providence may seem slow, but retribution comes sooner or later.
The chapter belongs to the history of Jacob's family, which proves that polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong and caused very great unhappiness in every family where it entered. Together with Genesis 16, Genesis 25:6, and Genesis 29, it records plain violation of the marriage institution by the patriarchs. Such violation does not destroy the sacred character of marriage, just as violation of the Sabbath would not destroy the sacred character of the Sabbath. Marriage was made for man before the fall, its sanctity is not derived from the Decalogue, and the seventh commandment guards its sacredness as the fourth commandment guards the Sabbath.
In the verse God gives Rachel her son Joseph, giving Joseph twelve or fifteen years of his mother's counsel and training. When a mother is named in the brief record of the early life of a distinguished person in Scripture, it means she had great influence in forming that child's character. Rachel's influence helped form Joseph's character.
Genesis 30 belongs to the portion of Genesis that tells the story of Jacob. The verse belongs to the account of Jacob's years of sojourn with Laban, his marriages to Leah and Rachel, and his eventual departure for Palestine. More precisely, it belongs to the account of the sons born to Jacob while he was in the land of the children of the East, serving Laban fourteen years for his two daughters, after Bethel and before his departure from Haran to return to Canaan.
It falls within Jacob's checkered and unsatisfactory experiences, marked by selfish plotting and the suffering that followed. The narrative shows God's care over Jacob despite his selfishness and unfaithfulness. It is part of a narrative in which God's providence may seem slow, but retribution comes sooner or later.
The chapter belongs to the history of Jacob's family, which proves that polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong and caused very great unhappiness in every family where it entered. Together with Genesis 16, Genesis 25:6, and Genesis 29, it records plain violation of the marriage institution by the patriarchs. Such violation does not destroy the sacred character of marriage, just as violation of the Sabbath would not destroy the sacred character of the Sabbath. Marriage was made for man before the fall, its sanctity is not derived from the Decalogue, and the seventh commandment guards its sacredness as the fourth commandment guards the Sabbath.
In the verse God gives Rachel her son Joseph, giving Joseph twelve or fifteen years of his mother's counsel and training. When a mother is named in the brief record of the early life of a distinguished person in Scripture, it means she had great influence in forming that child's character. Rachel's influence helped form Joseph's character.