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Discover God's Biblical festivals!

Why Leah? Why Israel?
Why You?
By Sam Nadler

Why Leah?
We read in Genesis 29:31, “Now the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, and He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.” Being barren was a genetic family condition for both sisters as with their Aunt Rebecca and Great Aunt Sarah.

Though God allowed Rachel to remain barren He allowed Leah to conceive. But why Leah? Rachel, like the nations of the world was alluring, but spiritually unproductive. Leah was the unlovely and unloved one. And keeping His promise, God uses Leah because, in her weakness, she best pictures the people of Israel.

Why Israel?
God chose Israel not because it was the greatest of the nations, but because it was the least of all peoples (Deut. 7:7-8). Israel of all the nations was the least likely to succeed (apart from God). God blesses “the least.” Therefore, we can understand why God chose Abraham and Sarah.

Doesn’t it seem ironic that God enabled the only couple who were barren, not only to conceive, but also to bless “all the nations of the earth” through their seed (Genesis 12:3, 22:18). Furthermore, through this unlikely seed of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Leah the blessed Redeemer would come.

However, what is even more interesting is that it was not only a miraculous birth, but also through the seed of the unloved wife, Leah. This weak-eyed Leah, who had no outer beauty, pictures our Messiah. Just as Leah was not attractive to Jacob, in the same way Israel did not find Yeshua appealing to their sight. Leah’s initial suffering would picture the suffering Messiah. Likewise, Messiah would “have no beauty that we would desire Him” and He would be “rejected by men,” but yet amazingly fruitful and prosperous, for “He will see His seed” (Isa 53:1-12).

God’s choice of Leah demonstrates that it is not our external beauty, but rather God’s eternal blessing that brings true and lasting fulfillment.

Yeshua starts His hillside sermon, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). God champions the needy and afflicted. The Lord’s love is for the unloved and His grace for the rejected because they know that apart from Him they can do nothing (John 15:5).

Why You?
When each of us see ourselves as we really are, we will acknowledge that we are truly poor. Yeshua goes against the grain of all human judgment as it points out in 1 Cor. 1:20, “God has made foolish the wisdom of the world.” His kingdom is given to the poor, not the rich; the feeble, not the mighty; the unloved, not the desired. The unloved Leah is fruitful; the much loved Rachel is not. And so for all who believe in Him we, too, admit that “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong” (1 Cor. 1:27). Yes, it is through weakness His power is made perfect” so we may prove that “His grace is sufficient” (1 Cor. 12:9). When we recognize our unloved weaknesses and choose to depend on His grace, then God will use us to be the witness of His everlasting love.

Many believers can feel unqualified to witness effectively to “the lost sheep of the House of Israel.” Paul was well trained in the Torah, the Hebrew language and rabbinic theology. Yet with all these credentials Paul was spiritually blind, but only after he was physically blinded could he gain spiritual sight. He could see the crucified One who is the Victor, who overcame death and also saved Paul, and one day would redeem all Israel.

Therefore, Paul was unashamed to preach the Good News. He knew that the power to save all who believe is not found in all the qualifications, or education that this world can offer, but in Good News alone, “to the Jew first and also to the Gentile” (Rom. 1:16). Like Paul, our main ability to effectively witness to the Jewish people is not in our strength, prosperity or status in the world –but by grace alone that God provides. Paul had to become like Leah to be used by God. As with Paul, God sometimes has to make the high places low, for He still chooses the weak and unloved as witnesses of His love and power to all with ears to hear.

Being Unloved
Leah is unloved once again. Following the Holocaust, Israel was tolerated by the nations of the world. But now with oil, Iran and Islamic terrorists, Israel and the Jewish people everywhere are once more the bulls-eye of Satan’s war with God. When Yeshua saw His people, Israel, He felt compassion for them, “because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). Things haven’t changed much since then. Israel is still without their Shepherd and Yeshua still feels compassion for them.

Today the harvest is plentiful and the need for the laborers remains great. Consequently, we should seize the opportunity to minister God’s grace to the Jewish people. All local churches and believers can take part in ministering His compassion and grace to “harassed and helpless sheep.”

Being His Instrument
Just as God chose Leah and Paul in their generations, He also chooses us today to point others to Messiah. How will he do this? God keeps His promise and uses each of us just as we are poor and weak, but trusting in His all sufficient grace and power. Unrecognized by Jacob at the time, Leah was God’s instrument of blessing for Israel’s future; and unrecognized by Jacob today, we modern “Leahs” are God’s instrument of blessing for Israel today.

We do not have to be recognized in order to be a blessing to Israel. Let us trust in His promises and together reach out to His lost sheep of the House of Israel whether they are in Berlin, Richmond, Brooklyn, or right next door. For the God of Leah is the Savior of the World. Y

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