Jacob, Rachel and Leah

As a kid, certain passages in the Bible stick with you for any number of reasons. For example, I always remember Genesis 29:17 and the description of Leah. I appear to have remembered it incorrectly, so instead I'll go through some different translations and show how Leah is described:

Translation	Description
NIV	Weak eyes
King James	Tender eyed
NIV 2010	Weak (adds footnote that says "or delicate")
Message	Nice eyes
Amplified	Weak and dull looking
New Living	No sparkle in Leah's eyes
God's Word	Attractive eyes
21st Century KJV	Tendereyed

And the part that bothers me the most is that I never found the description that I recall and still use to this day, which is that Leah is "fair-eyed." No matter which translation you like, they all seem to go to great lengths to portray the fact that Leah was, how shall we say this delicately, less than desirable looking. We can use this to determine just how beautiful Rachel must have been, since the same translations use words that are just as flattering to her as they are disparaging of Leah. And, clearly she was beautiful enough that Jacob thought nothing of working seven additional years, or a total of fourteen, for the right to marry her.

Now, for some real fun with genealogy, let's map out the mothers of Jacob's sons, in order of birth.

Son	Mother
Reuben	Leah
Simeon	Leah
Levi	Leah
Judah	Leah
Dan	Bilhah
Naphtali	Bilhah
Gad	Zilpah
Asher	Zilpah
Issachar	Leah
Zebulun	Leah
Joseph	Rachel
Benjamin	Rachel

I get exhausted just thinking about it. I don't  want to get too far ahead at this point, but look at that list of sons and remember whom the line of Jesus went through--it's a common theme that runs rampant through Genesis, which is that first-born doesn't always count for everything.

Scott