Back to Genesis 29

Genesis 29:27-30

Fulfill the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you will serve with me for seven more years.”

Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week. He gave him Rachel his daughter as wife. Laban gave Bilhah, his servant, to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. He went in also to Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him seven more years.

World English Bible · Public Domain
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Genesis 29:27-30 sits inside this longer paragraph.

Laban said, “It is not done so in our place, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfill the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you will serve with me for seven more years.”

Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week. He gave him Rachel his daughter as wife. Laban gave Bilhah, his servant, to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. He went in also to Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him seven more years.

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Parallel Translations

  • WEB World English Bible

    Fulfill the week of this one, and we will give you the other also for the service which you will serve with me for seven more years.”

    Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week. He gave him Rachel his daughter as wife.

    Laban gave Bilhah, his servant, to his daughter Rachel to be her servant.

    He went in also to Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him seven more years.

  • KJV King James Version

    Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.

    And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.

    And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.

    And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.

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  • JPS JPS Tanakh (1917)

    Fulfil the week of this one, and we will give thee the other also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.'

    And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week; and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife.

    And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her handmaid.

    And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.

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Cross-references (27)

  • Genesis 31:41 (v30) These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you…
  • Leviticus 18:18 (v27) “ ‘You shall not take a wife in addition to her sister, to be a rival, to uncover her nakedness, while her sister is still alive.
  • Genesis 29:18 (v30) Jacob loved Rachel. He said, “I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.”
  • Genesis 29:20 (v30) Jacob served seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had for her.
  • Genesis 31:15 (v30) Aren’t we considered as foreigners by him? For he has sold us, and has also used up our money.
Show all 27 cross-references
  • Genesis 44:27 (v30) Your servant, my father, said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.
  • Judges 14:12 (v27) Samson said to them, “Let me tell you a riddle now. If you can tell me the answer within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then…
  • Matthew 10:37 (v30) He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.
  • Genesis 2:2-3 (v27) On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. God…
  • Genesis 8:10-12 (v27) He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship. The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her…
  • Genesis 29:24 (v29) Laban gave Zilpah his servant to his daughter Leah for a servant.
  • Genesis 29:31 (v30) Yahweh saw that Leah was hated, and he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.
  • Genesis 30:3-8 (v29) She said, “Behold, my maid Bilhah. Go in to her, that she may bear on my knees, and I also may obtain children by her.” She gave him Bilhah…
  • Genesis 30:25-26 (v30) When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country. Give me my wives and my…
  • Genesis 35:22 (v29) While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it. Now the sons of Jacob…
  • Genesis 44:20 (v30) We said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left…
  • Deuteronomy 21:15 (v30) If a man has two wives, the one beloved and the other hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated, and if the…
  • Judges 14:10 (v27) His father went down to the woman; and Samson made a feast there, for the young men used to do so.
  • 1 Samuel 18:17-27 (v30) Saul said to David, “Behold, my elder daughter Merab, I will give her to you as wife. Only be valiant for me, and fight Yahweh’s battles.”…
  • Hosea 12:12 (v30) Jacob fled into the country of Aram, and Israel served to get a wife, and for a wife he tended flocks and herds.
  • Malachi 2:15 (v27) Did he not make you one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit,…
  • John 12:25 (v30) He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life.
  • Genesis 35:25 (v29) The sons of Bilhah (Rachel’s servant): Dan and Naphtali.
  • Genesis 37:2 (v29) This is the history of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. He was a boy…
  • Matthew 6:24 (v30) “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other.…
  • Luke 14:26 (v30) “If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he…
  • 1 Timothy 6:10 (v27) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves…

Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)

Explain this passage (17 sources)

Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.

John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv27, 30 27. Fulfil her week. Laban now is become callous…

27. Fulfil her week. Laban now is become callous in wickedness, for he extorts other seven years from his nephew to allow him to marry his other daughter. If he had had ten more daughters, he would have been ready thus to dispose of them all: yea, of his own accord, he obtrudes his daughter as an object of merchandise, thinking nothing of the disgrace of this illicit sale, if only he may make it a source of gain. In this truly he grievously sins, that he not only involves his nephew in polygamy, but pollutes both him and his own daughters by incestuous nuptials. If by any means a wife is not loved by her husband, it is better to repudiate her than that she should be retained as a captive, and consumed with grief by the introduction of a second wife. Therefore the Lord, by Malachi, pronounces divorce to be more tolerable than polygamy. (Malachi 2:14.) Laban, blinded by avarice, so sets his daughters together, that they spend their whole lives in mutual hostility. He also perverts all the laws of nature by casting two sisters into one marriage-bed, so that the one is the competitor of the other. Since Moses sets these crimes before the Israelites in the very commencement of their history, it is not for them to be inflated by the sense of their nobility, so that they should boast of their descent from holy fathers. For, however excellent Jacob might be, he had no other offspring than that which sprung from an impure source; since, contrary to nature, two sisters are mixed together in one bed; in the mode of beasts; and two concubines are afterwards added to the mass. We have seen indeed, above, that this license was too common among oriental nations; but it was not allowable for men, at their own pleasure, to subvert, by a depraved custom, the law of marriage divinely sanctioned from the beginning. Therefore, Laban is, in every way, inexcusable. And although necessity may, in some degree, excuse the fault of Jacob, it cannot altogether absolve him from blame. For he might have dismissed Leah, because she had not been his lawful wife: because the mutual consent of the man and the woman, respecting which mistake is impossible, constitutes marriage. But Jacob reluctantly retains her as his wife, from whom he was released and free, and thus doubles his fault by polygamy, and trebles it by an incestuous marriage. Thus we see that the inordinate love of Rachel, which had been once excited in his mind, was inflamed to such a degree, that he possessed neither moderation nor judgment. With respect to the words made use of, interpreters ascribe to them different meanings. Some refer the demonstrative pronoun to the week; others to Leah, as if it had been said, that he should not have Rachel until he had lived with her sister one week. But I rather explain it of Rachel, that he should purchase a marriage with her by another seven years’ service; not that Laban deferred the nuptials to the end of that time, but that Jacob was compelled to engage himself in a new servitude.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv27–30 Gen 29:27 Fulfil her week, and we will give…
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv27–28 Fulfil her week, the seven days usually devoted to…
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv27–30 Fulfil her week,.... Not Rachel's week, or a week…
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v27 We will give thee this also - Hereby he…
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv27–28 Verse 27. Fulfil her week] The marriage feast, it…
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v27 Gen 29:27. Fulfil her week — The seven days…
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv28, 30 Week. Seven days; not years, as Josephus would have…
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv28–29 gave him Rachel also--It is evident that the marriage…
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On v27 27. Her week — The seven days of the…
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On v27 27. Fulfil the week] Laban’s proposal is that when…
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv27–28 (27) Fulfil her week.—The marriage festival seems to have…
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv27–30 Fulfill her week, literally, make full the week of…
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v29 He loved also Rachel more than Leah
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v29 Gen_29:31. Leah was hated.] The word is to be…
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v28 Jacob did so, and completed Leah's week
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv28, 30 29:28-30 After the bridal week ended (29:27), Jacob also…
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