Chapter 6: The Mandrakes

During wheat harvest, Leah's eldest son Reuben was out in the fields when he found mandrakes growing among the crops. Mandrakes were rare and precious. People in that time believed they could help a woman conceive. Reuben brought them home to his mother.

Rachel saw the mandrakes and wanted them. She went to Leah and asked for them. What came out of Leah's mouth carried years of buried pain.

LEAH“Wasn't it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son's mandrakes too?”

Rachel offered a trade.

RACHEL“Jacob will be with you tonight in exchange for the mandrakes.”

Leah agreed. Not because she believed in mandrakes. But because after everything — the rejection, the silence, the years of watching Jacob choose her sister — she still wanted to be with her husband. Even if she had to bargain for it.

That evening, Jacob came in from the fields. Leah went out to meet him on the road before he could reach Rachel's tent.

LEAH“You must come to me tonight. I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.”

A wife, standing on a dusty road, paying for the right to be with her own husband.

God listened to Leah. She conceived and bore a fifth son. She named him Issachar, which means reward.

LEAH“God has given me my reward, because I gave my servant to my husband.”

Rachel had the mandrakes. But it was Leah whom God answered.