The Wrong Motivation: How we settle for Bilhahs and Zilpahs
A deep scriptural scholarship isn’t necessary to access the story in Genesis 30: 1-21. It is the tale of one man (Jacob) mired in a tussle between two women (Rachel and Leah), each with a point to prove in the affair of corroborating their marital place and preference in the eyes of a biased husband (arguably rightfully so) and a watchful society—an element common with polygamous arrangements.
But this is not about Jacob; nor is this one of those homilies on polygamy, which often constitute the most common conversations where this chapter is concerned. No. The issue of engagement unfurls itself in the first three verses:
When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” Then she said, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees, and even I may have children through her.”
There is no wrongdoing in a wife bemoaning barrenness, especially if they are willing to have children. The Word of God, clearly stating that children are a blessing, a reward from Him, buttresses the convention of desiring children in marriage. It is a natural desire (childbirth), putting the pangs aside of course(we can thank Eve for that), and the absence of it would naturally generate expressions of discontent.
After seeing her sister give birth to four sons, anyone can understand Rachel’s restlessness and ire. Think about it. All those dreams and fantasies, keeping herself sanctimoniously untouched till that precious ‘wedding night’, when and where she would have legitimate grounds to taste ‘the fruit’, just to resort to Bilhah to bear children for her husband. Yet, this is not the issue, not for this piece anyway. We are still only picking at the icing.
The real piece of cake would be the reason she settled for Bilhah, the conflagration of emotion that spurred that decision. It was a fierce thing, so fierce anyone could easily tell from her expression to Jacob—give me children or I shall die—that she was an overheating engine ripe for explosion. But why was she so vexed? If your answer is that she was stirred by her barrenness and Leah’s apparent fruitfulness, you’re not wrong. But if it is the only answer, there’s something you’re missing.
The first verse of the passage says, and at the risk of repetition, When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children or I shall die.”
Is it coincidence that Rachel’s outburst came after she envied her sister? I think not.
Rachel was hurt, yes. But her decision-making was spurred by envy at her sister’s overwhelming success at childbirth. How, you might ask.
Beyond the implied meaning held in the syntactic arrangement of that sentence, we can look at her decisions and actions and prod them for their root. Jacob was right in asking her if he was God, the supplier of children. Why did she ask him instead? Why not cry out to God? Even after her husband had rightly rebuked her, also indirectly pointing the way to the right source, she did not heed him. She did not go to God. What did she do instead? She gave him Bilhah so that “even I may have children…”. In modern day speak, that would be “so I too can have kids.” The comparative structure in that expression points right back to the root, the reason for Bilhah, which is, envy.
Reading further, to verses 6 and 8, where she named the sons she got through Bilhah, you can see her motivation for using Bilhah, further expressions of her envy for Leah.
Why is this important?
We should not bother so much about the symbolism of Bilhah or Zilpah if it was all just a story. But the Bible is way more than that. It is Spirit-born, the believer’s manual, God’s word, and that is why we cannot ignore the meat of this treatise.
The wrong motivation will have us, just like Rachel, looking in the wrong place, asking the wrong questions, and settling for quick fixes. There is a design for us all—a God-given plan—and because it is experiential, because we bring life and fulfillment to the design by living it, process becomes crucial and important. The place of process is undermined where there is wrong motivation. We can become blind to the true essence of the bigger picture, of what is ahead, and delve into methods that could subvert our design.
Rebecca, too, was barren. But when she conceived and inquired of the Lord, she realized she had two nations in her womb. The birth of such children was an event that eclipsed all her years of barrenness. No one would gaze at the stature of the people they became and think ‘their mother was a barren woman’. The real world runs on the exact same loop. The process might be ugly—scratch that—it might be almost always unpleasant, but when the design comes into fulfillment, when you have attained the prize at the end of the journey, no one seems to recall the discomfort and toil that preceded the present moment. You will remember, but it becomes something else now, something soft, meaningful definitely, but not the bubbling broth of confusion, pain, and struggle that it once was.
Rachel did not understand that the quality of conception lay in the quality of the child not the quantity. For, when she conceived and gave birth to her own son, following the design for her as a married woman, it was none other than Joseph, who turned out to be the largest individual of the lot in their lifetimes.
This does not exclude the place of uncertainty while undergoing the drilling of process. Of course not. That uncertainty when all seems beyond control is understandable, normal even. Most times we don’t see what is at the end of the design, but we can ask. Yes, that’s very possible. We can make inquiries. Our Heavenly Father is always open and willing to help us out in these issues. Jesus says to come to him with our burdens and he will give us rest. He also enjoins us to ask and it shall be given to us. But there was no asking from Rachel. She turned to her husband, and that was it. She forayed for her own option, her own way out. She turned to Bilhah.
However, for all that can be said about Rachel’s motivation, it appears that one fact is being ignored. Rachel did indeed get children from Bilhah. As a result, a case can be opened for the undermining of motivation in decision-making since her decision turned out to be productive.
But it is important to not forget that the only productivity that matters is one that comes as a result of the design, one that comes as a fruit of going through the process. We look at the productivity of Rachel’s decision and say ‘thank God Bilhah was not Haggar’. Because indeed, a maidservant like Haggar would have deepened Rachel’s wounds rather than heal them.
Was Rachel’s decision productive? Yes.
Did it open up an avenue for problems, especially problems that could rock Rachel in the long run? Also yes.
Results that come from living the design and engaging the process do not leave one with problems that can question the legitimacy and right to said results.
Moreover, say there was a head-to-head on the metrics of Rachel’s productivity. The results of her design, Joseph alone, far outweighed that of Bilhah.
Didn’t Rachel also thank God for the birth of Bilhah’s children to God? This question opens up another reality about decisions spurred by wrong motivations. So she knew God before? And knew He gave children. Why didn’t she just go to Him then in the first place?
Do you see how powerful the wrong motivations can be?
In the throes of undergoing the process, it is possible to lose track of certain things, including the essence of the design mapped out by your maker. It is possible to know that God oversees a particular thing and yet not seek His face for it. Why? We have been motivated by the wrong things.
It is possible to settle for Bilhah, get results and thank God for them. Meanwhile, you’re living outside of your own design. A lot of people do that these days. Ask yourself this: if Rachel had not eventually gotten Joseph, what would have been said of her lineage? What value would’ve been attached to it?
Therein lies the difference between walking the path of your design, and going for Bilhah.
Leah is not exempt from this discourse on wrong motivation. Her unhealthy competition with her sister drove her to adopt Zilpah when she discovered her womb had closed; not that we can blame her. Leah seemed to have adopted a system of supplying sons (through the Lord’s aid) for what Rachel received via love. However, the focus is less on her because unlike Rachel, she had conceived and given birth to children of her own. She picked Zilpah so she could continue to have one up over her younger sister. That, too, is wrong motivation.
It is obvious there was a shift in the inspiration behind her naming system when there was no reference to the Lord as usual in naming the children Zilpah bore her (verses 11 and 13). Interestingly, when you read further from verses 16 to 21, you see she went right back to referencing God again when Jacob eventually went into her and she bore more children.
When I write about the wrong motivation, I reference Bilhah and Zilpah in terms of subverting design, but it also manifests itself in an Esau-Jacob-pottage-for-birthright type of way, an exchange of something meaningful for the ephemeral, more often pleasure or convenience. Verses 14 to 15 of our passage of focus unfolds this issue thus:
In the days of wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah. “Give me, I pray, some of your son’s mandrakes.” But she said to her, “Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also?” Rachel said, “Then he may lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.”
Because Rachel’s motivation for childbirth was envy, she had sought a quick way out to quell that emotion (Bilhah). Doing so took her eyes away from the process, which in this case would definitely be trying to get her own child. It is important to note that from Leah’s complaints, Jacob had been spending so much time with Rachel. For he was to Rachel as Leah’s sons were to her—treasure, a stake of wifehood in Jacob’s family. Jacob would have likely been going in to Rachel as many times as he wanted, though without results. So, if Jacob was to Rachel what Leah’s sons were to her, why would Rachel let Leah have him in exchange for mandrakes?
Note that the period this happened was the period Leah had turned to Zilpah. Her womb had been closed after Judah. So, Zilpah meant invariably she would bear no more children. Her reason for envy was simply no more. Given the rivalry between the two, all indications point that Rachel would not have battered Jacob for those mandrakes if she knew Leah would give birth to not just one, but three children. If her eyes were still on the process wouldn’t she have held on to Jacob a bit more? A few more nights may yield her the outcome she desired after all. But from the onset, she had taken her eyes away from the design. She had moved it from having her own child to having a child at all costs. Why? Envy. It prompted her to settle for Bilhah and take her eyes away from Jacob who was part of the process for her conception.
So, she exchanged her piece of value for a bit of pleasure. It was with this mindset that Esau traded his birthright for pottage. There was no sight of the big picture, no vision of the long run because in running with the wrong motivation, she had fell for short-term appeasements.
How many times have we undervalued what we have? Looked down on our path and process, exchanging it for moments of pleasure and convenience because we think it is of little consequence? Rachel probably thought ‘You’re barren. When he goes in to you, you can’t conceive. He’ll come back to me and I’d have gotten my mandrakes. Win-win.’
That decision turned out to Leah’s advantage.
Decisions like that only set us back, and keep us further out of reach of what is ours. These situations do not only confront us in life, societal, and industrial spaces. How often do you trade prayer, fasting, and studying for convenience or pleasure? How often do you forego the meaningful for what is ephemeral?
You do not have to go the way of Bilhah or Zilpah when the results of your process and design is Joseph.
God help us.