Why Leah Named Her Son 'Wages' (Genesis 30:14–24)

Issachar, the son called Wages

Issachar sounds like there is a wage, and his name comes from sakar (H7936), to hire. Leah used the verb twice in one breath when she met Jacob that evening. Word for word she said hiring, I have hired you, which the BSB gives as "for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes" (Genesis 30:16). When the boy was born she said, "God has rewarded me for giving my maidservant to my husband" (Genesis 30:18), and rewarded there is the noun sakar (H7939), wages. Issachar (H3485) carries it in his name. An English reader sees two different words and misses that Leah used one word for the deal she struck with her sister and for the son God gave her.

That noun had already been spoken by God Himself. The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward" (Genesis 15:1). Reward there is sakar. Psalm 127 uses the same word for children: "Children are indeed a heritage from the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward" (Psalms 127:3). Leah reckoned in wages, a servant for a son and mandrakes for a night. God had named the wage He gives, and it was Himself.

A plant named for love

Rachel wanted the mandrakes because in her world the plant was believed to help a woman conceive. Its forked root looks like a small human figure, and across the ancient Near East it was prized as a love charm and a cure for barrenness. The Hebrew name, duday (H1736), sounds like dod (H1730), love or beloved. The only other passage that names the plant, Song of Solomon 7:13, puts the two words in one verse: the mandrakes give off their fragrance, and the bride has stored up every delicacy for her beloved, dodi. A Hebrew listener heard Rachel ask for the love plant.

Rachel held the love plant, and her son came from God's remembering. Each time Genesis says God remembered a person, using zakar (H2142), God acted next. When the cities of the plain burned, "He remembered Abraham, and He brought Lot out of the catastrophe" (Genesis 19:29). Abraham's prayer for Sodom was answered in Lot's rescue, and Rachel's years of pleading were answered in Joseph.

Heard in a land of Baal

Israel heard, among nations whose gods were worshipped for rain, harvest and children, that Rachel, a mother of their tribes, held the famous love plant and conceived only when God remembered her. That was a live question for them. Through Hosea the LORD charged Israel with exactly this forgetting: "For she does not acknowledge that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil" (Hosea 2:8).

The tribes of Issachar and Zebulun heard their own beginnings here too. They were born to Leah one after the other, and Moses blessed them in one breath before he died: "Rejoice, Zebulun, in your journeys, and Issachar, in your tents" (Deuteronomy 33:18). A man of Issachar learned that his tribe's name began as a mother's word for a bargain, and that God had answered her prayer inside it.

Zebulun, a place to dwell

Zebulun means dwelling or honour, and Leah heard two Hebrew words in it, a gift and a husband who would stay. "God has given me a good gift," she said. "This time my husband will honor me" (Genesis 30:20). Gift is zabad (H2064), used twice, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Honor is zabal (H2082), which older translations render as dwell. After six sons Leah still hoped Jacob would make his home with her.

The noun from that root, zebul (H2073), appears when Solomon dedicated the temple and said to God, "I have indeed built You an exalted house, a place for You to dwell forever" (1 Kings 8:13). Exalted house is beit zebul. Zebulun (H2074) was named for a wife's hope that her husband would live with her, and the word became Israel's word for the house where God lived among His people.

Then the land of Zebulun received God in the flesh. Isaiah promised that the LORD, who "humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali" (Isaiah 9:1), would one day honour that region: "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light" (Isaiah 9:2). Matthew records that Jesus "went and lived in Capernaum, which is by the sea in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali" (Matthew 4:13). The Son of God came to live in the region that still carried Zebulun's name.

Taken away and added

Joseph means may He add, and Rachel's words at his birth put two Hebrew verbs side by side that his name echoes. "God has taken away my shame" (Genesis 30:23): taken away is asaph (H622), to gather up or remove, and shame is cherpah (H2781), public reproach. Then "May the LORD add to me another son" (Genesis 30:24): add is yasaph (H3254). Joseph (H3130) sounds like both. Centuries later Elizabeth, barren into old age, said the same of her son: the Lord "has shown me favor and taken away my disgrace among the people" (Luke 1:25).

Rachel said her prayer again each time she said her son's name, may He add. God remembered Rachel, listened to her and opened her womb, and the son Leah called Wages was God's answer to Leah's prayer as well. The word Leah used for her bargain was the word God had already used for Himself, and Leah's word for a husband who would stay became Israel's word for the house where God lived among His people. We hold what we have asked Him the way Rachel did, out loud and on record. Write the prayer and its date in the Doxa app, and when He answers, write that beside it, so that reading it back you come to know Him as your very great reward.

This goes with today's Doxa Daily Lift: Rachel Trades a Night With Jacob for Mandrakes (Genesis 30:14–24)