Leah bore Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah and then ceased giving birth, whereas Rachel was barren. Because she heard Jacob say that Abraham had prayed over the barren Sarah and was heard and that Isaac had also prayed for Rebekah and was answered, she thought that it was because Jacob had not prayed for her that her closed womb had not been opened. For this reason, she said in anger and in tears, Give me children, or I shall die!

Why, Jacob says, do you ignore the Lord of nature and fix the blame on me? He it is who has deprived you of the fruit of the womb. Why not make your request to him, who can open nature’s workplace and quicken the womb to childbirth? So understand that God is the one who has deprived you of the fruit of the womb and granted your sister such fertility. So don’t look to me for what I am powerless to provide and over which I have no lordship. I mean, if it lay in my power, I would certainly give you pride of place ahead of your sister by securing greater respect for you. But since, no matter to what degree I am kindly disposed to you, I can do nothing to solve your problem, address your request to him who inflicted the sterility and has the power to remedy it. See the good man’s common sense in that, though provoked to anger by her words, he replied to her with great wisdom, instructing her precisely in everything and making the responsibility clear to her, lest by ignoring the Lord she might seek from another what God alone was able to provide.

So, lest she nag him, asking him every day for children, Jacob, who was sent from his parents to take a daughter of Laban, agreed to take the foreign woman. But it was also so that the sons of the maidservants might become joint heirs with sons of the freewomen that Jacob took maidservants and freewomen. So he took Bilhah, and she conceived and bore Dan and Naphtali.

Some say that the mandrake is a plant whose fruit resembles apples, which have a scent and are edible. So by means of these mandrakes, with cheerfulness seasoned with faith, Leah made Jacob take her that night.

Nothing is really more efficacious than meekness and nothing more powerful than it. See at any rate how, by a disarming use of meekness, Jacob also brought Laban to reply to him with great deference. Laban replied to him, the text goes on, remember, If I have found favor in your sight, and the omens do not deceive me, God has blessed me in your coming. Name your wage to me, and I will pay.^[1] I am not unaware, he is saying, that in the wake of your coming I enjoyed favor from God more richly. So, since I recognize the kindness done me in your coming, name any wage you care to mention, and I will readily pay it.

Consider what a great thing meekness is, and don’t pass idly by these words. Instead, keep in mind that the good man had made no mention of this nor looked for any payment for his trouble. [He] had said only this: Let me have my wives and children, for whom I was in your service, so that I may depart. And yet the other man, out of respect for the good man’s great meekness, replied, Tell me what wage you want to be paid by me, and I will cheerfully pay it. After all, were not Jacob’s wives and children in his company? So why did he say, Let me have my wives and children? Jacob was giving him due respect and displaying in every circumstance his typical behavior, and wishing as well to take his leave without hindrance. Notice, at any rate, from these words how he won Laban over to the extent of promising to pay a wage and to leave the decision to him.

I call you to witness my labors, he is saying. I mean, you know how I did my best with good grace and how, after taking charge of your poor creatures, I made them grow into a vast herd through my attention and vigilance. Then, to show his godly attitude, he added, The Lord, you see, has blessed you in my coming. So isn’t it high time for me to build a house of my own? You yourself know that after my arrival grace from on high increased your prosperity. So now, since I too have made every effort on my part with good grace in discharge of my service and the grace of God has become manifest, it is only fair that I too should build a house for myself. Now, what is the meaning of build a house for myself? It means, to live now in freedom and to pay attention to a house of one’s own.

The just man Jacob comes in like a hired hand and yet is the master who, in his ministry of preaching the gospel, gathered together a flock that is resplendent in the brilliance of its many signal virtues.^[1] Thus, when the flock came to drink, he would set before them in the troughs the bough of storax and walnut and that from the plane tree; those who felt desire for the mysteries of the most blessed Trinity that were prefigured there could engender offspring that were not at all discolored, by conceiving them in a devout mind.^[2] Good were the sheep that produced the offspring that were good works and that were not degenerate in holy faith. By the storax is meant the incense and the evening sacrifice that is offered to God the Father in the psalm;^[3] by the walnut bough, the priestly gift that is offered by Christ. For this is Aaron’s bough, that blossomed when it was set down, and through it the grace of priestly holiness was manifested.^[4] By the plane tree is meant an abundance of spiritual fruit, because a vine attaches itself to this tree so that the tree may be fertile through the symbiosis and pour itself out into rich offspring. Even so, the addition of the grace of the Spirit has generally nurtured the gifts of the Lord’s passion as well as the forgiveness of all sins.

Because the three rods have been mentioned, we can examine further, if you are agreeable, the symbolism of the kingdom implicit in them. The patriarch chose for himself three rods from three trees. The first was perfumed from the storax tree, the second smooth from the plane tree, the third unbending from the almond tree.^[1] The plane contains the Spirit, the storax the Virgin, and the almond Christ. For the plane extends its spreading branches to provide shade; so the Holy Spirit fashioned Christ by casting his shadow over the Virgin. I believe that the rod from the storax, the tree of David, is the Virgin who in childbirth brought forth a sweet-smelling Blossom. The rod of the almond tree is Christ, for there is food within that tree, which has an outer casing consisting of bitter bark over its green skin. Here you must recognize the divine Christ clothed in our human body. In that flesh he can be broken; the food lies in the Word, the bitterness in the cross. His hard covering consists of the tidings of the cross and the food of that cross, and it encloses within the divine remedy in the flesh of Christ.

The rod also enigmatically symbolizes for us the Immanuel, for he is actually called by this name in the divinely inspired Scriptures. And there shall sprout a rod, the divine Isaiah says, out of the root of Jesse, and a blossom shall come up from his root.^[1] David . . . proclaimed to the heavenly Father and God: Your rod and your staff have comforted me.^[2] We received consolation in Christ and made him our pillar. In fact, it was written, The Lord shall support the righteous.^[3] And Christ in a sense displays a sort of rod to us as to reasonable goats and herds spread all over the earth and in the whole world. But it is not a rod of any kind, but it is made out of storax wood and walnut and plane tree. The storax tree is placed as a witness of righteousness. This tree is the symbol of death. The body of the dead is treated with perfumes, and a very sweet perfume is the oil of the storax tree. Christ died for us and was buried, according to Scripture. The rod made of walnut wood is a symbol of watchfulness.

But where did Jacob place his rods? In the troughs of water. And these troughs, in which the reasonable herd, that is we, go to water, must be interpreted as the writings of Moses and the prophetical predictions that nearly burst forth for us like a heavenly sermon from God. In fact, it was written, You draw water with joy out of the wells of salvation.^[1] And there we will find the Immanuel, the rod of power. And in his death for us he is also the firstborn from the dead,^[2] and is exalted in glory and increases the number of the believers, as I have just said. Every word of the holy prophets, including Moses, hints at the mystery of Christ. Therefore also the wise Paul says, Christ is the end of the prophets and the law.^[3] Jacob peeled in the rods white stripes alternated with green ones, and the sheep that were by them conceived a spotted and speckled progeny. Jesus somehow removed the shadow from the law and the veil from the prophetical writings. And he showed the pure and beautiful doctrine which was in them, and he transferred it to the spiritual song, in order that he might lead people to virtue since they wanted to be speckled, that is, they wanted to exercise a double virtue in words and actions. And therefore the divine prophets of those who were justified in the faith, by bringing the image before them, openly proclaim, Because of the fear of you, we conceived, O Lord, and were in pain and brought forth the spirit of your salvation.^[4] And the same blessed Isaiah, in another passage, says properly: Strengthen your relaxed hands and palsied knees; comfort one another, you faint-hearted; be strong, fear not. Behold, our God renders judgment, and will render it. And again: Behold the Lord! The Lord is coming with strength, and his arm is with power. He shall tend his flock as a shepherd, and shall gather the lambs with his arm and shall soothe them who are with young.^[5] That is, he will be a spiritual consolation for those who have already brought forth the divine sermon, for those who will be fruitful and for those who are about to bring forth the glories of evangelical life. This is the fruit of the holy and uncorrupted soul.

The good man did this, not of his own devising but with grace from on high inspiring his mind. You see, it was not done according to human reasoning but was quite unusual and beyond natural logic.

There is no association between the holy and the profane, between the pure and the impure. Those who belong to Christ are separated and refuse to mix with those who are in the world; they are free from carnal desires. They are marked by their way of life or rather are distinguished by their virtue. The unmarked ones were Laban’s, and the marked ones were Jacob’s.

Again, Jacob was in no sense the creator of the piebald colors of the flocks he managed, just because he put the peeled and particolored rods in the drinking troughs for the ewes to gaze at as they conceived. Nor for that matter were the ewes creators of the piebald effects in their young, just because the vivid impressions of piebaldness they received from look-ing at the particolored rods remained embedded in their souls. And so [these impressions] could not help having a sympathetic effect on their bodies, which were animated by these souls thus affected, so that the impression was passed on to color the progeny in their sensitive and impressionable beginnings. That soul and body should thus psychosomatically react upon each other is due to those archetypal harmonies of reason which live immutably in the very wisdom of God, something that is not localized within the limits of space. While this wisdom is unchanging in itself, it does not hold itself aloof from anything that is, even in a changing mode of existence, because there is nothing that was not created by it. That the ewes gave birth to lambs and not to rods is due to the unchangeable and invisible disposition of God’s wisdom by which all things were created. And that the lambs conceived were colored as an effect of the particolored rods was due to the souls of their pregnant mothers being affected from the outside through their eyes and having inside them their own proper program of embryo formation which they received from their Creator, whose power was active at the inner roots of their being.