Scripture Daily

Context No. 1618 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 30:22-26: in context

22God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her, and opened her womb. 23She conceived, bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” 24She named him Joseph, saying, “May the LORD add another son to me.” 25When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country. 26Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know my service with which I have served you.”

For years Rachel had been barren, longing for a child, watching her sister and the servants bear sons while her own womb stayed closed, grieving under the reproach of childlessness. And then a turning point, stated with tender simplicity: God remembered Rachel, and listened to her, and opened her womb. She conceives and bears a son, Joseph, and says, God has taken away my reproach. Soon after, Jacob asks Laban to release him to return to his own land.

The words that carry the weight of the passage are these: God remembered Rachel. It does not mean that God had forgotten her, as if she had slipped his mind; in the language of scripture, God's remembering is his turning to act in mercy, his taking up of a matter he had held in view all along. For years Rachel had waited and grieved, and it must have felt to her as if God had forgotten, as if her longing were unheard, her reproach unnoticed. And then, at the appointed time, God remembered, that is, he acted; he listened, and he opened her womb. There is deep comfort in this for those who wait long and feel forgotten. The long silence before God acted was not God forgetting Rachel; he remembered her all along, and acted in his time. When our longing goes long unanswered, when we wait and grieve and it seems that God has forgotten us, this passage is a reminder that God's apparent silence is not forgetting, and that his remembering, his turning to act in mercy, comes at the appointed time. Rachel's reproach was real, and her waiting was long; but God remembered her, and lifted it. He remembers those who wait, holds their longing in view through the long silence, and acts in his time. The God who remembered Rachel remembers still, and the seasons that feel like being forgotten are not that; he has not forgotten, and his remembering, when it comes, is his mercy acting at last.

When I wait long and feel forgotten by God, my longing unanswered and my grief unnoticed, can I trust that his apparent silence is not forgetting, that like Rachel I am held in his view all along, and that his remembering, his turning to act in mercy, will come at the appointed time?

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