The promise that Abram will become a great nation (Genesis 12:2) arrives in Genesis shadowed by the sentence that precedes it, “Now Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Genesis 11:30), and from that sentence forward the book narrates the beginnings of Israel through a succession of wombs that open only when God opens them. The family promised descendants as numerous as the stars (Genesis 15:5) waits at a closed womb in three generations running, with Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel each bringing the covenant to the point where the next son can arrive only by gift.
A careful reader has good reason to ask whether this amounts to more than convention. Barren mothers whose prayers are answered recur within the Hebrew Bible itself, in Hannah (1 Samuel 1:1–20) and in the mother of Samson (Judges 13:2–5), and the Ugaritic legend of Aqhat gives a righteous and childless man a son by divine favor. Genesis also credits God with conception wherever it occurs, with Eve’s words over her firstborn, “I have produced a man with the help of the LORD” (Genesis 4:1), with the closing of the wombs in Abimelech’s household for Sarah’s sake (Genesis 20:18), and the later poetry calls children a heritage from the LORD (Psalm 127:3). If God gives children throughout Genesis, the opened wombs of the matriarchs could be the ordinary theology of the ancient world applied to a famous family. This article argues that Genesis does something more specific. It slows at four wombs, ties each to the promise, and includes Leah, who conceives without barrenness and still receives the act from God, so that the stories assert the election of Israel by a God who opens the wombs that human effort, human custom, and human affection leave closed or overlook.
Sarah Reaches the Limit of Human Remedy
When Abram answers the promise by naming Eliezer of Damascus the heir of his household, God replies that the heir will come from Abram’s own body (Genesis 15:2–4), and Sarai then proposes a second solution in words that carry more theology than her arrangement requires: “You see that the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave; it may be that I shall obtain children by her” (Genesis 16:2). Sarai names God the one who closed her womb and then reaches for a human remedy, so the matriarch herself states the problem that Genesis will spend four generations working out.
The Hebrew behind “obtain children by her” is ibbaneh mimmennah, literally “I shall be built from her,” from banah, “to build,” the root that also gives ben, “son,” and banim, “sons.” In this vocabulary a son builds a household, and the English “obtain children” carries the sense while releasing the architecture. Rachel will use the same verb of Bilhah, and the rabbis carry the idiom into law, asking in the Talmud’s discussion of a childless marriage whether a husband has merited “to be built” from his wife.
Sarai’s arrangement belongs to a custom that law codes across Mesopotamia record. The Code of Hammurabi addresses the slave woman who bears children for her mistress’s husband and then claims equality with her mistress, which is the situation Hagar creates when she conceives and looks on Sarai with contempt (Genesis 16:4). The parallel establishes a custom shared across the ancient Near East and leaves the direction of any influence unknown, since Hammurabi’s code is centuries older than the final form of Genesis, the practice could have reached both from earlier sources, and no verbal or structural dependence links the two texts. Sarai acts within recognized custom, and the plan works as such plans were meant to work. Hagar conceives and Ishmael is born (Genesis 16:15), and Bilhah will bear Dan and Naphtali. Genesis honors those sons, since Ishmael receives God’s blessing (Genesis 17:20) and Dan and Naphtali stand among the twelve tribes. Each arrangement nevertheless leaves the matriarch’s own womb closed, and the covenant line passes through the sons God promises directly, Isaac through Sarah (Genesis 17:19) and Joseph, whose story fills the end of Genesis, through Rachel. Human ingenuity secures descendants until the narrative reaches its limit, and at that limit the womb opens.
Sarah carries her own authority in this story. When the household divides over Ishmael, God tells Abraham to heed whatever Sarah says to him (Genesis 21:12), and Rashi, drawing on Exodus Rabbah, concludes from the verse that Abraham stood below Sarah in prophecy. Isaiah later calls the exiles to look to Abraham their father and to Sarah who bore them (Isaiah 51:2).
Isaac and Rebekah Pray Facing Each Other
Isaac “prayed to the LORD for his wife because she was barren, and the LORD granted his prayer” (Genesis 25:21). The Hebrew preposition behind “for his wife” is lenokhaḥ, which carries the sense of “in front of” or “opposite,” and the English “for” casts Isaac as an intercessor on behalf of an afflicted woman while lenokhaḥ places him across from her in a shared affliction. Rabbi Yitzhak reads the preposition at full weight in the Talmud, pictures husband and wife praying across from one another, and concludes that both were infertile.
Genesis tells the story at the level of peshat, the plain sense of the narrative, and the rabbis answer at the level of derash, the interpretation that draws out what the plain sense invites. They put to the pattern the question any careful reader asks, why the ancestors were barren, and Rabbi Yitzhak answers that the Holy One desires the prayers of the righteous. A companion teaching hears in the verb of entreaty in the verse, ʿatar, an echo of ʿeter, a pitchfork, because the prayer of the righteous turns the divine attributes from anger to mercy as a pitchfork turns grain from one place to another. Genesis Rabbah gives the conviction a tender voice and hears God call the matriarchs doves in the clefts of the rock, in the words of the Song of Songs (Song of Songs 2:14), whose voices he longs to hear. Each explanation assigns the barrenness a purpose, and in these readings the matriarchs stand among the righteous and the beloved, so that barrenness becomes a place where prayer lives.
Rebekah’s part in the next generation is her own. When the children struggle within her she goes to inquire of the LORD and receives an oracle about two nations and the elder serving the younger (Genesis 25:22–23), so the woman whose womb opened through Isaac’s prayer receives the word that shapes the generation to come. Her generosity at the well (Genesis 24:15–20) is the sign by which Abraham’s servant recognizes the wife God has chosen. The narrative sequence runs from barrenness through prayer to a divine answer, and the answer gives Israel its third patriarch, so that between Abraham and Jacob stands a woman who hears from God directly.
Rachel Exhausts Every Remedy
Rachel watches Leah bear son after son and speaks to Jacob in desperation, “Give me children, or I shall die!” (Genesis 30:1). Jacob answers in anger, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (Genesis 30:2), and his reply carries a theology, since the husband who can father children knows that he cannot open a womb.
Rachel therefore turns to the remedy Sarai used and speaks in nearly her words, “that she may bear upon my knees and that I too may have children through her” (Genesis 30:3), where the Hebrew again says ibbaneh, “I shall be built.” Bilhah bears Dan and Naphtali, and Rachel names them and hears in their births God’s vindication (Genesis 30:5–8). Reuben then finds mandrakes in the field, plants the ancient world associated with fertility, and Rachel wants them badly enough to trade a night with Jacob for them (Genesis 30:14–16). The exchange gives the next pregnancy to Leah, “And God heeded Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son” (Genesis 30:17), and only afterward does Genesis turn to Rachel, whose womb God remembers and opens (Genesis 30:22). Rachel tries a maidservant, a plant, and a negotiated night with her husband, and Genesis sets each remedy inside the story while locating authority over the womb with God.
Rachel’s voice outlasts her. Centuries later Jeremiah hears Rachel weeping for her children and reports God’s answer to her, a promise that her children will return (Jeremiah 31:15–17), so the matriarch whose womb God remembered remains the woman whose weeping God hears.
God Sees Leah
Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah (Genesis 29:30), and Genesis then reports that God sees the woman the household ranks lower, “When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren” (Genesis 29:31). The Hebrew word that the English renders “unloved” in verse 31 is senuʾah, and Leah uses it of herself in the next verses when she says that the LORD has heard that she is “hated” (Genesis 29:33). The word names a standing within a household, since Deuteronomy 21:15–17 applies it to the less-favored of a man’s two wives in a law about the inheritance of the firstborn, and the English “hated” hears a feeling where Genesis describes a rank. God looks at the wife the household ranks lower and acts on her behalf.
The rabbis hear in this verse an entry into Leah’s character. The Talmud rejects the reading in which Jacob literally hated her and reports instead that the Holy One saw that Esau’s deeds were hateful to Leah, and therefore opened her womb. Midrash Tanchuma supplies the story behind that reading, in which Leah sits at the crossroads asking what the elder brother does, weeps and fasts until her eyes grow weak (Genesis 29:17), and receives an answer from the God who hears the prayer whispered in a heart. Genesis Rabbah offers a third picture of a wife whose standing in the household needed repair, with God’s remembrance raising her up, so that Jacob, who had considered divorcing her, asks whether he could divorce the mother of such sons. These readings tie the opening of Leah’s womb to Leah herself and leave Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel among the righteous, so each womb is a particular act of God toward a particular woman, and God sees Leah.
Leah Gives Israel Its Priests and Its Kings
Leah’s naming speeches trace a longing that moves from her husband toward God. At Reuben she hopes Jacob will love her (Genesis 29:32), at Simeon she says that the LORD has heard that she is hated, and at Levi she says, “Now this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons” (Genesis 29:34). The verb behind “will be joined” is yillaveh, from lavah, and the same verb returns when God tells Aaron to bring the tribe of Levi near so that the Levites may be joined to him in the service of the sanctuary (Numbers 18:2). Genesis Rabbah hears the note in the name itself and says that Levi is destined to accompany the children to their Father in heaven. Leah asks for attachment to a husband who withholds it, and her son’s tribe receives attachment to the sanctuary of God.
Her fourth son brings a different speech, “This time I will praise the LORD” (Genesis 29:35). The Hebrew verb odeh gives the name Judah its sound, and the root covers acknowledgment as well as thanks, so that Leah’s speech turns from asking for what she lacks to naming what she has received. The Talmud dates a beginning to the moment, since Rabbi Yohanan, speaking in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, says that from the day God created the world no one had thanked God until Leah did. Genesis Rabbah explains her reaction through the arithmetic of Jacob’s household, in which each of four mothers was expected to bear three of the twelve tribes, so that Leah’s fourth son exceeded her share, and it compares her to a priest who accepts the tithe as his due and thanks only the man who gives from his own. Gratitude follows what exceeds the expected portion.
The Talmud adds one more voice. Rabbi Elazar hears in rakkot, the “weak” or “tender” of Leah’s eyes, the word arukkot, “long-lasting,” and reads the verse to say that Leah’s gifts endure, which the Steinsaltz commentary identifies with the priesthood and the monarchy. The identification fits Genesis, since Moses and Aaron descend from Levi (Exodus 6:16–20), Jacob blesses Judah with the scepter (Genesis 49:8–10), and David comes from Judah (Ruth 4:18–22). The royal line and the priestly line therefore come from the sister whom Jacob loved less. Jacob chooses Rachel. God sees Leah. Human affection points in one direction, and the offices that shape Israel’s worship and government flow from the other.
Genesis Slows at Four Wombs on Purpose
The opening objection rests on solid ground, since Genesis credits God with conception wherever it occurs. The generality sharpens the question the matriarchs pose, because Genesis could tell the story of Israel’s ancestors in the same quiet register it uses for Eve and give the divine act no greater weight than in any other conception. Genesis instead slows at four wombs and names the divine act each time, through Sarai’s own statement that the LORD has prevented her from bearing, through Isaac’s prayer, through the verbs of remembering and heeding that surround Rachel, and, in Leah’s case, through the plain report that God opened her womb. Genesis makes that last claim in its own voice, while Sarai, Rachel, and Leah offer theirs in speech, so the text confirms what the women believe.
Leah shows that the concentration is deliberate, since she conceives without any obstacle for prayer to overcome and Genesis still gives the act to God (Genesis 29:31). The woman introduced without barrenness then finishes in the position of the women who began with it, for her womb closes after Judah (Genesis 29:35), she gives Zilpah to Jacob (Genesis 30:9), and God must heed her before she conceives again (Genesis 30:17), so that fertility reaches her given, withdrawn, and restored. Barrenness varies among the four women while dependence remains constant, and the future of Israel arrives through wombs that God opens, whatever the condition of the womb beforehand.
The Women Answer the God Who Opens Their Wombs
The pattern describes a gift, and the women who receive it hold a standing of their own in the covenant. Sarah speaks with an authority God tells Abraham to obey, Rebekah inquires of the LORD and is answered, Rachel’s weeping reaches God across the centuries, and Leah offers the first thanks the Talmud records. The rabbis conclude that the matriarchs belong among the righteous whose prayers God desires, and Genesis supplies the evidence in what they say and do. The womb opens by God’s initiative, and the women who receive it already speak with him.
Genesis keeps them human. Sarai deals harshly with Hagar (Genesis 16:6), Rebekah arranges Jacob’s deception of Isaac (Genesis 27:5–17), and Rachel takes her father’s household gods (Genesis 31:19). Biblical righteousness describes fidelity within a flawed life, which is why the text can record the failures of its heroines and still hold them up, and its candor about what went wrong gives weight to its praise of what went right.
The Zohar Hears a Hidden World in Leah
At the level of sod, the hidden or secret meaning of the text, the Zohar turns the sisters into symbols of two worlds. Its comment on Psalm 113:9 identifies the barren woman of the house with Rachel and the joyful mother of children with Leah, and it assigns Leah to the concealed upper world and Rachel to the revealed lower world. Elsewhere the Zohar draws the same distinction from the two burials Genesis records, since Rachel is buried in the open on the road to Ephrath (Genesis 35:19) and Leah lies inside the cave of Machpelah with Jacob and his fathers (Genesis 49:29–31).
The Zohar’s own question begins from Genesis 29:31, since Leah is called hated and yet the righteous children come from her. Its answer is that Leah belongs to the hidden world and that her works stayed concealed from Jacob, a reading that treats the verse with full seriousness and preserves the central observation of the plain sense, that Leah’s fruitfulness comes from a place beyond Jacob’s sight. At the level of sod the unloved wife becomes the hidden source of a visible household, and the sisters build Israel in two ways, the one in the open and the other in concealment.
The Builders of Israel’s House
At the end of Ruth the elders of Bethlehem bless Boaz with a wish for his bride, “May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel” (Ruth 4:11). The verb is banah, the verb Sarai and Rachel used when they spoke of being built through a slave woman, and the blessing gives it to the two sisters themselves. The matriarchs’ own strategies for building a house produced Ishmael, Dan, and Naphtali, sons whom Genesis honors, and the house of Israel finally rose through wombs that God opened.
Ancient households had strategies for securing heirs. Servants could bear children, marriages could be arranged, and fertility plants grew in the fields, and Genesis acknowledges each of these without locating the future of Israel in any of them. Sarai devises one remedy and Rachel another, Jacob loves one wife more than the other, and through all of it the promise travels a narrowing road until it depends on something no household can produce. The rabbis heard in that road the desire of God for the prayers of the righteous, and Genesis speaks through the verbs it chooses, in which God sees, remembers, heeds, and opens. The house of Israel is built by the one who opens the womb, and from the opened womb of the unloved Leah comes Judah.
Sources
Primary Texts
- Babylonian Talmud. Berakhot 7b; Bava Batra 123a; Yevamot 64a. Sefaria
- Code of Hammurabi, §§144–147. Yale Avalon Project
- Exodus Rabbah (Shemot Rabbah) 1:1. Sefaria
- Genesis Rabbah (Bereshit Rabbah) 45:4, 71:2, 71:4. Sefaria
- Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, 1 Samuel, Ruth, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Song of Songs. New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Bible Gateway
- Midrash Tanchuma, Vayetzei 4. Sefaria
- Pardee, Dennis, trans. “The Aqhat Legend.” In The Context of Scripture, vol. 1, edited by William W. Hallo. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
- Zohar, Vayetze and Shelach Lekha. Sefaria
Secondary Literature
- Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac). Commentary on Genesis 21:12. Sefaria
- Steinsaltz, Adin Even-Israel. Commentary in the William Davidson Edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, on Bava Batra 123a. Sefaria
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
