Դուգլաս Թիլսթրա
Արտաքին առաջնորդության և կրթության տնօրեն,
Հարավային ադվենտիստական համալսարան


Consider these questions to sharpen your understanding of this tragic story:

1. Picture the dynamics between the two sisters as one of them becomes the “woman of one man’s dreams” (29:1-20). How do you imagine Jacob’s arrival into Laban’s household affected Rachel and Leah as sisters? How might the sisters be affected by the attitude of their father, Laban? Of the "the deeply in love" Jacob?

2. Finally Jacob has worked 7 years for Rachel and has earned the right to marry her. But what a terrible deceptive trick unfolds with the wedding night! (29:21-27). What does this incident tell you about Laban (as a Dad, future father-in-law, etc.)? How might this event have affected Leah? Rachel? Jacob? The nucleus of Jacob’s new family? What might it be like for these sisters to now become rival wives?

3. What might those next 7 years of early married life have been for this “unhappily linked threesome” (29:28-30)?

4. What does it mean to experience God’s presence in the midst of ordinary and sometimes difficult situations? How do we discern the God of “Jacob’s ladder” still connecting with us in family difficulties, financial setbacks, personal failings, and the ins and outs of daily life?

Douglas Tilstra
Director of Outdoor Leadership and Education
Southern Adventist University