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We left Ya’akov, Jacob in Bethel pouring oil on his pillow and making it a pillar and making his father Isaac’s God his God, now he comes to the land of the people of the east, to his mother’s people in Paddan-aram and stumbles upon Rachel and his mothers family in a field. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale! The God he vowed a vow to in Bethel is guiding his every step, and if He is your God and you made your pillow a pillar last night, then He hears your payers and He is guiding your steps right now too. Psalm 37:23 says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, (YHVH) and He delights in his way.” And as George Mueller used to say, “The stops too!” He first happens upon Rachel and Gen. 29:17 says, “Rachel was beautiful and well favored.” In fact she is so beautiful the writer needs two words to describe her beauty and form, and both words are compound words. It wasn’t only her face that was beautiful, lovely and fair to look upon but her form was also so beautiful and she is described as ‘well-favored’ you will have to do further research. This word is used only one other time in the scriptures in Deut. 21:11 when referring to a captive woman. In fact she was so beautiful that when Jacob first saw her he lifted up his voice and wept. You might say, well he met a relative, but he didn’t weep when he met Leah.

Now, Leah was ‘Tender-Eyed,’ soft, gentle, tender, she could melt chocolate on the table by just looking at it. She had a look about her, have you ever met a child like this, who looks up at you with those big brown eyes, and maybe there is a tear in the corner of her eye and she has a little dirt on her cheek and she hands you her doll with a torn arm and says trembling, “Please!” That’s Leah, got the picture now? Get the cross-eyed girl out of your camera lens, that is not what this word means. It means gentle, smooth, soft, delicate, silky like velvet, smooth like satin, you just want to hug her and hold her in your arms but v.18 says, “And Jacob loved Rachel;” yeah obviously, the flesh was attracted to the flesh but Laban her father loved both of his daughters and especially, his little Leah! So, Ya’akov/Jacob makes a deal for Rachel and promises to work for Laban for seven years for her and it seems like a few days and on the wedding night Laban slips in little Leah instead of ravishing Rachel and when Jacob wakes up in the morning he has the wrong daughter or does he? You see God’s plans are accomplished in spite of our schemes. So he ends up getting Rachel after fulfilling Leah’s week and works another seven years without wages. (Too much wine on the wedding night could be a problem in the morning)

We could entitle Gen. 29, “The Prayer of The Barren Womb,” you have two marriages, four sons, Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah and no mention of prayer or altars. In v. 31-35 Leah gives birth to four sons, is it possible she was in prayer to El Shaddai the One who enriches and makes fruitful. Why do I say that? Look at the names of her sons, ‘Reuben v.32, “Looked on my affliction” or “See a Son;” v.33, Simeon, “Hearing” or “The LORD has heard;” v.34, Levi, “Attached;” and finally v.35, Judah, “Praise,” or “Now I will praise the LORD.” Gen. 30:17 says, “And the LORD listened to Leah and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.” God listened to Leah, He heard her prayers, her pleas, her cries for children and she conceived and bore children. I am convinced that Leah, being the first wife and being rejected cried out to El Shaddai and He heard her and blessed her womb and gave her four sons including Judah, through whom the Messiah was to come and closed Rachel’s womb. In fact it is Leah who is later buried in the cave of Machpelah with Jacob, along with Isaac and Rebekah and Abraham and Sarah not Rachel.

Does prayer work? Does El Shaddai give children in answer to prayer? Can He make the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear? Does He open the womb of a woman who has dried up or is sterile? Ask Leah, ask her mother-in-law Rebekah, ask Rebekah’s mother-in-law Sarah, ask Hannah, ask Rachel, or my wife or her friend Dee or millions of other mothers who prayed, “LORD open my womb!” Ask David who wrote Psalm 127:3, “The fruit of the womb is His reward.” ‘The Prayer of The Barren Womb.’ Are you barren? Does your womb ache for children? Have you born any spiritual children lately? I don’t mean last year, this year, this month, this week, this day? THEN PRAY! Pray to the God of the womb, El Shaddai, The Many Breasted One, this name means fruitful! He is the God of the womb not the God of the tomb!

  Gen. 30 the ladies are at it again but not Ya’akov, Rachel cries out to Jacob at first instead of God, so he goes in unto Bilhah and she conceives and bears Dan v.6, and Rachel says, “God has heard my voice,” or “He has judged my case” and “Given me a son.” Has God heard your voice, has He judged your case, has He given you a son? Have you cried out to Him for one, for ten, for fifty, for a hundred? What is your soul goal for this year, do you even have one? Rachel learned form Leah, the answer for children is El Shaddai! Gen. 30:17,  God listened to Leah and she conceived again, and again, and again… These ladies knew the pattern, they were on track, v.22 God listened to Rachel and opened her womb, fourteen years have passed and as far as we know Jacob is still not praying, but his wives sure learned how to get a hold of God in prayer for children. Oh my friend, are you barren? Are you without spiritual children? Then pray, NO! Cry out to God, to El Shaddai, He desires to give you spiritual children more than you desire to birth them. He is waiting to open your womb. If a Christian is childless it is not because they are sterile, it is because they don’t know their God. Now Jacob has waited 20 years, a few days have turned into many years and still no altars, no prayers, no worship, no spiritual blessings, physical yes but no spiritual blessings! We’ll see this when he crosses the Peniel River (The face of God) and wrestles with the Angel of the LORD in Gen. 33. In the mean time, it’s between time as we meet…   “…Between The Lines…”

“El Shaddai, our wombs are barren, empty, dry, but not dead. Lord, give us children, lest we die. Open our wombs, increase our faith, strengthen our testimonies, and give us boldness to proclaim Your truth. Keep us close to You LORD, as we worship You daily, praise You continually, and speak of You unceasingly. In ha Shem Yeshua we pray. Amen!

“Portraits of Prayer in Genesis”  Jacob The Angel-Wrestler – Part 2