"It's not our custom here to marry off a younger daughter ahead of the firstborn," Laban replied.

Genesis 29:26

In Genesis 29, Jacob sought to marry his cousin Rachel, but ended up first marrying her sister Leah because of the trickery of his uncle Laban. When Jacob asked why Laban fooled him into marrying Leah rather than Rachel, Laban replied, "It's not our custom here to marry off a younger daughter ahead of the firstborn." In order to assuage Jacob's anger, Laban offered Rachel as well, who became Jacob's second wife. When you're reading stories from the Old Testament, do you ever get tripped up by the foreign customs on display in the narrative? Here we have a man marrying his own cousin, and then marrying her sister for good measure. In order to marry them, he had to work for seven years for each bride. Such practices, while common in the Ancient Near East, can strike us as peculiar, even distasteful or sinful.

How can we discover God's truth in a story from a world that is so distant from our own? For one thing, we can work hard on understanding that world's culture, making an effort to get into the story and the experience of the characters. To be sure, this takes time and effort. Yet it is time well spent if we seek to grow as disciples of Christ.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: When you find something in a biblical narrative to be odd or confusing, what do you do? How can you build a bridge between your own culture and that of the biblical stories?

PRAYER:  Gracious God, the Bible is filled with amazing stories. Yet often we stumble over the cultural distance between us and the world in which these stories take place. Help us, we pray, to understand your Word accurately and sensitively. Give us a strong desire to study so that our grasp of Scripture might be truthful and helpful. May we give your Word the time and effort its due. And may our study of Scripture help us to grow as your disciples. Amen.

SUGGESTED RESOURCE: Recently Dr. Gordon Fee spoke at Laity Lodge. He, along with his co-author Douglas Stuart, has written one of the most helpful books for people who seek to understand the Bible: How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth-3rd edition (Zondervan, 2003).