In reading the story of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis, I saw a story of love at first sight, at least on Jacob’s part. And I wondered, “How old was Jacob when he fell in love with Rachel?”
Although Scripture records that Esau was 40 years old when he married, and the next incident Scripture records is Jacob’s stealing the blessing and fleeing to Padan Aram where he met Rachel, that doesn’t mean that Jacob was 40 years old when he ran away. Scripture records the events that the Holy Spirit considered important in telling the Story of the Line of the Promise but He usually did not direct the human authors to specify how long it was between events. However, the Spirit did have the human authors include life years for certain individuals. Therefore, the place to start is with those life years.
And I did start with those life years, as I described in My Journey: The First Question, which led to developing an Internal Chronology of the Bible. However, in hindsight, I now understand that all I really needed to do to answer my question was to solve a logic puzzle with six clues found in Scripture.
THE CLUES
- Jacob served Laban for 20 years, 14 years for Leah and Rachel and 6 years for his flocks.
Gen 31:41 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 have changed my wages ten times.
- Having served the agreed upon 14 years, Jacob renegotiated his wages in the year Joseph was born.
Gen 30.25-28 As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. | Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” | But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you. | Name your wages, and I will give it.”
- Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharoah.
Gen 41:46 Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt.
- Joseph interprets Pharoah’s dreams as foretelling seven good years followed by seven famine years.
Gen 41:25-31 Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. | The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years; the dreams are one. |The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty ears blighted by the east wind are also seven years of famine. | It is as I told Pharaoh; God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do. | There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt, | but after them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land, | and the plenty will be unknown in the land by reason of the famine that will follow, for it will be very severe.
- Joseph invites his brothers down to Egypt for the five remaining famine years.
Gen 45:4-6 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. | And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. | For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.
Gen 45:11 There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come, so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to poverty.’
- Jacob was 130 years old when he stood before Pharoah.
Gen 47:9 And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.”
Using this information, one can deduce how old Jacob was when he fell in love with Rachel.
Have fun,
Dori