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Leah sat in the shade of her tent nursing Judah, watching Zilpah play with Reuben and Simeon a short distance away. Levi napped just inside the tent, close enough that Leah could see him through the tent’s open sides. She closed her eyes, grateful for the good health of the child in her arms. Birthing him had taken all of her strength, and she still had not regained it forty days later. The thought troubled her, but even more the fear that Jacob would have no more use for her if she could not bear him more children.

And yet why this great need to prove herself to him? Hadn’t she already given him four fine sons? She looked down with affection on Judah’s serene face and stroked the soft curls from his smooth brow. So contented. So guileless and free of the worries life would one day bring to him. What would this child face? Please, Adonai, let this child be obedient to Your ways.

She had not thought to pray such a thing with the first three sons and now realized she should entrust each of them to Yahweh’s care. But her prayers, even her praise over Judah’s birth, could not ease the desire for more children. For more of Jacob’s attention.

Female voices came to her, and she glanced up, shading her eyes against the sun’s angled glare to see who approached. But it was only Rachel and her maid returning from a visit to Laban’s house. A visit Leah had no strength to make even yet.

“There you are,” Rachel said as they drew near.

“Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?” She hadn’t meant to snap but realized by Rachel’s raised brows that she had spoken harsher than she intended. “Forgive me. I am weary today.”

Rachel looked like she would offer a response but then seemed to think better of it. “Your mother sent these to you.” She placed some of Leah’s favorite pomegranates in a basket at Leah’s side. “Do you want me to take one of the children for you?” She glanced at Judah, her look telling, the longing evident in her large dark eyes.

“I can manage.” She tightened her grip on Judah ever so slightly. “Levi is napping, and Zilpah is with me.”

Rachel shrugged as though it mattered little to her, though Leah knew the truth. Rachel glanced at her maid and lifted her chin. “Come, Bilhah. I want to cut these pomegranates and fix them the way Jacob likes them.” She cast Leah a parting glance, then moved gracefully past Jacob’s tent to her own.

Leah’s stomach twisted, and she struggled against the inadequacy Rachel always managed to make her feel, the uselessness of her position in Jacob’s household. It wasn’t true. Jacob had even indicated stronger affection for her, especially since Judah’s birth, of which he seemed doubly pleased over any of the other sons. But she felt it in Rachel’s look just the same.

She watched Rachel’s retreating back and Bilhah’s slightly bulging middle evident now beneath her robe, the cause of Rachel’s recent haughty spirit. She swallowed, surprised by the sudden anger and the unexpected sting of tears. She could not possibly be jealous. She had four healthy, beautiful sons! But as she examined her heart, she knew she could not deny it. She was jealous of Rachel’s beauty and the coming child of Rachel’s maid.

It was too soon for her to conceive again anyway, she told herself yet again. And in truth, she had no strength for the task. Her body needed time to recover, and soon she must tell Jacob that he could not come to her until she had healed, something that she expected would take much longer than she hoped.

Laughter coming from Rachel’s tent set her teeth on edge. She glanced once more toward Rachel and Bilhah discussing some private sentiment they shared, keeping her out, as Rachel always did. And keeping Jacob to themselves far too often.

Anger fought its way to the surface of her heart, and she knew she could not quash the emotion. She glanced at Zilpah still sitting on the ground making pictures in the dirt with her sons. Two could play at Rachel’s game. And she was already ahead with four sons to show her worth. If Rachel could give Bilhah to Jacob, she could give him Zilpah.

Then they would see just how haughty Rachel would remain.

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Jacob lifted the cup of barley beer to his lips and sipped the lukewarm, frothy brew. The fire turned to glowing embers, clustered sparks like the stars above. Rachel had left his side some time ago not feeling well, and Bilhah slept in her own tent, more tired now that the babe had grown larger within her. The voices of Leah’s children grew silent as Leah and Zilpah put them to bed. He should go to his own tent and rest, but he could not seem to gather the energy needed to rise. He took another drink instead and briefly closed his eyes.

Footsteps rustling the grasses outside the fire’s circle drew his attention. He looked up to see Leah coming toward him. He stiffened, knowing by her look that she wanted something from him. He had little left to give, but he smiled at Leah’s approach just the same, masking his impatience as he beckoned her to sit beside him.

“What do you need?” he asked, not wanting to belabor the point. Were her cheeks paler than normal? It struck him that she had not seemed as well and strong as she normally did in quite some time. “Are you ill?” The thought troubled him.

She shook her head. “Not ill exactly.” She glanced beyond him. “That is, Judah’s birth was not easy on me, Jacob.” She looked at him then, imploring, her pale eyes filled with a sense of sadness he had never seen in her before. “I am afraid I have still not recovered. To bear more children now would likely injure my health further.”

He studied her, understanding dawning. She could not risk another pregnancy until she was strong again. Would she be strong again? Perhaps she would have no more sons than the four she now had.

“But you will recover?” Despite their beginning and the fact that he did not love her in the way he loved Rachel, he did hold some affection for her. He could not imagine his life now without her in it.

She nodded. “Surely in time. Yes.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “Until then—”

“I understand,” he said, wanting to spare her the embarrassment of stating it. He placed a hand on her knee, then reached for her hand and squeezed.

She looked up at him, tears skimming her lashes. Was she so fearful of losing her time with him? But one look into her eyes told him what he had spent countless hours trying to deny.

“I would like you to sleep with my maid Zilpah in my place, so that I may procure sons by her.” She swallowed and made a valiant effort to keep the tears at bay. She had never cried in front of him, and he was moved to pity.

“You already have four sons, Leah. You need not bear me more.” He meant the words to comfort her, but her startled look made him realize too late that she did not take the comfort he intended. “That does not mean you will live as a widow.” He released her hand and placed an arm around her shoulders instead, pulling her head against his chest. “I will still care for you.” He spoke softly against her ear, discomfited by her tears. “It’s all right, Leah.”

He hadn’t meant to sound impatient and chided himself for not keeping his tone gentle. “That is, there is nothing to fear. You will be well and have more children in time.” Though he knew his mother had never borne another after he and his brother were born. Perhaps that was all God had intended. How was a man to know such things?

“Will you take my maid then? Please?” She sniffed and dried her tears with her sleeve. She sat up to look at him. “It is my right, Jacob.” He could not tell if the sudden glint in her eyes was her determination or the remnant of her tears.

“I do not see the need.” But still, he felt pulled between the two sisters, until he wondered how long he could survive their jealousies and competition.

“If Rachel can give you her maid, then so can I. I want this, Jacob.” She held his gaze, unrelenting, with a look that told him he would not win an argument with her.

He nodded, defeat settling over him, as though clouds had blotted out the stars, and yet they remained transfixed in the heavens, winking down on him. “When?” But he knew the answer.

“She can come to you this night. Or tomorrow.” She touched his arm. “Please do not make me wait.”

He stared at her. “Do you think me some kind of animal that you can call to come at your beckoning?” Both Leah and Rachel had treated him thus, and he had had enough. He stood abruptly, and she stood with him, alarm in her expression.

“No, of course not. Forgive me, my lord.” She took a step back and hugged herself as though chilled. She truly did not look well, and he suddenly regretted his anger.

“I’m sorry, Leah.” He pulled her close again and patted her back. “Send your maid to my tent. I will do as you ask.” He was a victim of his love for Rachel and trapped by the yearnings of his beloved and her sister.

He released Leah and watched her walk back to her tent to call Zilpah to him. She would place Zilpah’s hand in his, as Rachel had done with Bilhah, and they would be man and wife. He glanced at the heavens, the stars too numerous to count, and wondered just how many sons he must produce to no longer be able to count them.

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Rachel awoke with a start several months later to the sound of Bilhah’s moans. She had insisted her former maid stay with her in her tent until the babe’s birth and had worried and fretted over her like she would a small child. She hurried to the young woman’s side and, at her anguished nod, woke a servant girl and sent her scurrying to her father’s house to bring her mother.

“What can I get you? Some water? Does it help to walk?” Rachel’s nerves tingled and her words rushed from her.

“I am fine.” Bilhah drew in a long, slow breath just as Rachel’s mother had taught her days earlier. She rubbed her lower back and paced the sitting area. “Some water, perhaps.”

Rachel flew from the tent and retrieved some of the water from the jug still left from last night’s visit to the well. They would need more, but she would send Zilpah or some other maid to get it. She caught herself at the thought of Leah’s maid, no longer a maid but another of Jacob’s wives and already carrying his child.

How could Jacob have done such a thing? He had told her that he could no more refuse Leah than he had her. It was a wife’s right. But Leah had no reason!

She strained the water through a thin piece of linen to remove the gnats and set it where Bilhah could easily reach it, all the while her thoughts churning with the argument she and Jacob had shared the morning after he had taken Zilpah to his tent.

“How could you do this without even consulting me?” She had followed him to the sheep pens, keeping a short distance between them due to her uncleanness.

He had jerked to face her, his cheeks flushed, angry. “Since when do I need to consult you on every choice I make? I recall you made the same decision with your maid.”

“Yes, but I had a reason. I did it to have a family through her. Leah already has four sons! She doesn’t need more. She is only using you to stay ahead of me.” Her voice had cracked on the words, and she sounded like a petulant child.

“Aren’t you doing the very same thing?”

She could not hold the fierceness of his gaze, shamed even now by the accusation he had flung at her.

“No,” she whispered as Bilhah’s moans deepened, snagging her thoughts back to the birth about to take place. I wouldn’t do that to you. I had no choice, don’t you see?

The memory of her defense to him rang hollow in her ears now. He had looked at her long and hard, then shook his head and walked off, calling the sheep to him. He didn’t see then, or now. And he had stayed in the fields for a week, letting the shame of her words continue to trouble her.

That he had at last returned held little comfort, for he had avoided her tent and everyone else’s, retreating to her father’s house after the meal or to his own tent alone. Would he come to hold Bilhah’s child on his knees and claim it as his own? For her sake? Had his love grown cold?

Unshed emotion burned at the back of her throat, accompanying the guilt that condemned her one moment and justification that absolved her the next. She had done nothing any other woman wouldn’t do. She was not wrong. Leah was the one adding to the conflict by giving Jacob a fourth wife. And a pregnant one now, though Rachel took some comfort in knowing that at least Leah was not carrying another.

The thoughts wearied her, and she pushed them away as her mother and Farah arrived to attend Bilhah. The hours passed in agonizing slowness, but at last a son burst from Bilhah’s womb. Rachel was the one, guided by Suri, to catch him, clean him up, and claim him as her own. She glanced at Bilhah, who looked on the boy with motherly affection and longing, and felt her heart twinge with the slightest hint of jealousy. The baby was not really hers, though by all legal rights he would be her adopted son. Still, she could not nurse him, and he would never bond to her as he would to the one who had borne him.

She glanced away from Bilhah’s pleading expression, not wanting to give her the boy but knowing she must. She tucked the blanket closer around him and walked through the tent’s door to the small crowd waiting near the fire pit. She searched for Jacob, relieved to see him sitting with her brother Bahaar.

She strode to him, lifting her chin. “You have another son, my lord,” she said, holding the boy out to him.

Jacob met her gaze and smiled, though the smile seemed forced. She must speak to him. Apologize for her earlier outburst if she was ever to enjoy the presence of his company and the love they had once shared.

He took the child from her and rested him on his knees. “What will you name him?” He looked at the boy, touched a finger to his soft cheek.

“Dan,” she said, grateful when he looked up once more and held her gaze. “God has vindicated me,” she said softly. “He has heard my plea and given me a son.”

He nodded. “A good name, beloved.”

She released a long-held breath, relieved. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Perhaps now you can find some peace?” His look held such hope and expectation that she longed to assure him all would be well. But the niggling fact still troubled her. Bilhah was Dan’s true mother. How could she find peace apart from bearing a son of her own?

“I hope so, Jacob.” If only Adonai would notice her too.

She took the babe from Jacob’s arms and looked into the child’s sweet face, knowing the peace Jacob hoped for would be a long time coming.

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Jacob stood at the edge of a cliff, staff dug into the dirt, bracing himself against the wind. Dark clouds billowed overhead, the scent of coming rain in the swirling air. He glanced at the sky, its darkness matching his mood. The rare moment away from the sheep, away from the chaos of his household and the women fussing over another birth through Bilhah for Rachel’s side, should bring some sort of relief. But relief would never come as long as Rachel remained dissatisfied.

He should never have listened to Leah and taken Zilpah to wife. For Zilpah had also borne him a son and then conceived again shortly after Bilhah. “What good fortune,” Leah had said, as if the child’s birth were part of a game of chance and she was fortunate enough to have won a round. And so Gad had joined Leah’s family, making five for her, soon to be six, and two for Rachel.

He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, glad for the feel of the wind’s relentless strength pushing against him, flattening his robes to his body, whipping the edges of his turban about his face. Let it pummel him. The wind’s beating was preferable to the cackling of the women in his tent, the fierce, endless restlessness of Rachel always vying for more sons. If she found another maid to give him, he would refuse. He was weary of her unhappiness and yet, in the same breath, felt his own unease, knowing he could never deny her. How he longed to give her what she asked!

How long, Adonai? Would God ever remember her and give Rachel a son? Please. Let it be so.

He had stopped worrying about losing her in childbirth. None of the other women had been lost to him, and he realized that though such things sometimes happened, his worries were unfounded. Surely God would take care of her.

His prayers for her had come haltingly at first. But somewhere in the past year or so, they had become a daily necessity. As he watched the trees sway in the valley below him, felt the first fat drops of rain hit his cheek, he knew he would not stop seeking God’s favor until He granted Rachel’s deepest desire for a child. He could do no less than his father had done for his mother. If he did not do this, did not give her his heart in prayer and petition on her behalf, his love for her would be found wanting. He could not let that happen.

For though he would prefer to be rid of the need for such prayers, he would never be released from his intense love for Rachel. He was as bound to his prayers as he was to his love for her. And he would wrestle the wind to bring the answers forth if that was what it took to please his beloved.