Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Monday, July 30, 2018 | Topic: Conscience 84
Scripture: And when they saw Joseph afar off, even before he came near to them, they conspired against him to slay him. Genesis 37:18
Note: The birth of Judah opened a new phase to Leah that heralded a new phase and a new beginning in her life. Judah was the first of her four sons to have been offered to God as a sign of gratitude. For out of Leah ascended praise to Yahweh. The curious thing about Leah in the naming of her first three sons was that it was always about her and her preoccupation with the earnest desire to be loved by Jacob. Leah’s obsession with Jacob’s love for her was the main driver that informed the names that she gave to Reuben, Simon and Levi.
Reuben was born out of Leah’s affliction; Simeon was out of Jacob’s hatred for her; Levi was out of a yearning desire for her husband to be joined to her. Her marriage to Jacob was a false start from the beginning. Jacob didn’t love Leah. He was deceived into the union by Laban. Their marriage was a classic example of a heartless and loveless union orchestrated by Leah’s father. Any relationship that’s based on the foundation of deception or falsehood is doomed to suffer repercussions, that’s if it should survive at all. Untruthfulness, false pretence to be who and what you are not, resort to artificial body parts to enhance the looks of women, are some of the modern day caricatures that have come to be identified with both sexes.
The evolution of surgical gender change in our society is one of the revolutionary caricatures of modern day technological products. Today, in the advanced Western world, marrying a lady that you just met could carry sufficient risks that should be sufficient to scare the daylight out of you. For all you know, the lady that you intend marrying was probably birthed into this world as a male child. The tricks and deception used by Laban on Jacob, ended up with Leah becoming the eventual sufferer for it. This created a deep crack in the family that became a channel and a conduit for bitterness that almost cost the life of Joseph.
Leah’s three attempts through the births of Reuben, Simeon and Levi to court the love of her husband to her miserable self failed to yield the desired result. Jacob was unmoved. Leah’s attempts typify the fruitless attempts of man at redemption. Man on his own accord and effort will amount to nothing. Leah means weary. She grew tired trying to pull the strings in her bid to strike the right chord that would resonate with Jacob’s love for her. Jacob’s response continued to put her in grief, further offending her. The birth of Judah with the lifting up of praise to Yahweh released Leah from the bondage of grief, bitterness and offense.
Food for thought: Praise carries the power and capacity to release man from the bondage of bitterness and offenses, to a point of new beginning.
Declaration: And she conceived again and gave birth to a son: and she said, “Now will I praise the LORD”: therefore she called his name Judah; and left bearing. Genesis 29:35
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
