Genesis 29:27

"Fulfil her week;" i.e., let Leah's marriage-week pass over. The wedding feast generally lasted a week (cf. Jdg 14:12; Job 11:19). After this week had passed, he received Rachel also: two wives in eight days. To each of these Laban gave one maid-servant to wait upon her; less, therefore, than Bethuel gave to his daughter (Gen 24:61). - This bigamy of Jacob must not be judged directly by the Mosaic law, which prohibits marriage with two sisters at the same time (Lev 18:18), or set down as incest (Calvin, etc.), since there was no positive law on the point in existence then. At the same time, it is not to be justified on the ground, that the blessing of God made it the means of the fulfilment of His promise, viz., the multiplication of the seed of Abraham into a great nation. Just as it had arisen from Laban's deception and Jacob's love, which regarded outward beauty alone, and therefore from sinful infirmities, so did it become in its results a true school of affliction to Jacob, in which God showed to him, by many a humiliation, that such conduct as his was quite unfitted to accomplish the divine counsels, and thus condemned the ungodliness of such a marriage, and prepared the way for the subsequent prohibition in the law.

This chapter gives us an account of God's providences concerning Jacob, pursuant to the promises made to him in the foregoing chapter. I. How he was brought in safety to his journey's end, and directed to his relations there, who bade him welcome (Gen 29:1-14). II. How he was comfortably disposed of in marriage (v. 15-30). III. How his family was built up in the birth of four sons (Gen 29:31-35). The affairs of princes and mighty nations that were then in being are not recorded in the book of God, but are left to be buried in oblivion; while these small domestic concerns of holy Jacob are particularly recorded with their minute circumstances, that they may be in everlasting remembrance. For "the memory of the just is blessed."