Women of the Bible: Leah

There are two kinds of beauty. There is a beauty which God gives at birth, which withers as a flower and there is another kind of beauty, namely, the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. The first beauty is given by grace and so is the second beauty accomplished by God in the hearts of his redeemed. Leah was denied the first beauty as she is specifically reported that her eyes were weak to suggest that her eyes were lacking that lustre which always and everywhere is looked upon as a conspicuous part of female beauty. Compared to her sister Rachel, Leah's appearance had no beauty that we should desire her, or that humanity should boast about the excellences of her feminine frame.

Women who feel the lack of praise for their feminine physique should not feel the urgency to desire such earthly praise from the world, for was not the Lord Jesus himself depicted as a commoner, one who had no majesty in the likeness of Rachel or in the manner of the Hercules of this world that we should desire him. Christ had no Olympian figure, amidst a crowd his features were not to be lauded but yet it was in Him that the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell.

I fear for the women of this age that they have bought into the heresy of the time that beauty is all that matters. Outward appearance has become the crown and gold of the end of their desires. Many feeling themselves to be the Leah's of this world have idolized the Rachel's and thus sought with all of their envying energy to become like the Rachel’s and thus have commenced their own ruins. Leah in wanting her sister's husband conspired with her deceitful Father to engage in an act of great wickedness that she heavily veiled herself to hide her identity in order to gain Jacob in whom he had not worked for. Surely, she could have at any time told poor Jacob that she was not his beloved Rachel and having compassion and love to God she could have told the truth and spared herself the ache of polygamy.

But such is the conduct of omnipotent hands that Leah although entering into the marriage through a deceitful means was to be the most favoured and pitied for it was Leah that bore Jacob six children before beautiful Rachel was given the grace to conceive her Joseph.

God does not look at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart and although there was nothing in particular which distinguished Leah's heart from Rachel‘s, yet Sovereign grace according to God's free choice chose Leah to conceive Judah and in Judah, David and in David, Jesus. Leah it can be said was the mother of the Christ.

To the Leah's of this world, do not hate your sister Rachel but praise God for her beauty and thank God for yourselves that he created you in his own image and that which God has called beautiful, do not call ugly.

Awake and sleep with this passage, 1Peter 3:3-4 "Do not let your adorning be external--the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear- but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious."

K.Oni