Discovery BoxGenesis 30:9-18 
Context30:9 When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she gave 1 her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. 30:10 Soon Leah’s servant Zilpah gave Jacob a son. 2 30:11 Leah said, “How fortunate!” 3 So she named him Gad. 4
30:12 Then Leah’s servant Zilpah gave Jacob another son. 5 30:13 Leah said, “How happy I am, 6 for women 7 will call me happy!” So she named him Asher. 8
30:14 At the time 9 of the wheat harvest Reuben went out and found some mandrake plants 10 in a field and brought them to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Give me some of your son’s mandrakes.” 30:15 But Leah replied, 11 “Wasn’t it enough that you’ve taken away my husband? Would you take away my son’s mandrakes too?” “All right,” 12 Rachel said, “he may sleep 13 with you tonight in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.” 30:16 When Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, “You must sleep 14 with me because I have paid for your services 15 with my son’s mandrakes.” So he had marital relations 16 with her that night. 30:17 God paid attention 17 to Leah; she became pregnant 18 and gave Jacob a son for the fifth time. 19 30:18 Then Leah said, “God has granted me a reward 20 because I gave my servant to my husband as a wife.” 21 So she named him Issachar. 22
1 tn Heb “she took her servant Zilpah and gave her.” The verbs “took” and “gave” are treated as a hendiadys in the translation: “she gave.”
2 tn Heb “and Zilpah, the servant of Leah, bore for Jacob a son.”
3 tc The statement in the Kethib (consonantal text) appears to mean literally “with good fortune,” if one takes the initial בְּ (bet) as a preposition indicating accompaniment. The Qere (marginal reading) means “good fortune has arrived.”
4 sn The name Gad (גָּד, gad) means “good fortune.” The name reflects Leah’s feeling that good fortune has come her way, as expressed in her statement recorded earlier in the verse.
5 tn Heb “and Zilpah, the servant of Leah, bore a second son for Jacob.”
6 tn The Hebrew statement apparently means “with my happiness.”
7 tn Heb “daughters.”
8 sn The name Asher (אָשֶׁר, ’asher) apparently means “happy one.” The name plays on the words used in the statement which appears earlier in the verse. Both the Hebrew noun and verb translated “happy” and “call me happy,” respectively, are derived from the same root as the name Asher.
9 tn Heb “during the days.”
10 sn Mandrake plants were popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac in the culture of the time.
11 tn Heb “and she said to her”; the referent of the pronoun “she” (Leah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
12 tn Heb “therefore.”
13 tn Heb “lie down.” The expression “lie down with” in this context (here and in the following verse) refers to sexual intercourse. The imperfect verbal form has a permissive nuance here.
14 tn Heb “must come in to me.” The imperfect verbal form has an obligatory nuance here. She has acquired him for the night and feels he is obligated to have sexual relations with her.
15 tn Heb “I have surely hired.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form for emphasis. The name Issachar (see v. 18) seems to be related to this expression.
16 tn This is the same Hebrew verb (שָׁכַב, shakhav) translated “sleep with” in v. 15. In direct discourse the more euphemistic “sleep with” was used, but here in the narrative “marital relations” reflects more clearly the emphasis on sexual intercourse.
17 tn Heb “listened to.”
18 tn Or “she conceived” (also in v. 19).
19 tn Heb “and she bore for Jacob a fifth son,” i.e., this was the fifth son that Leah had given Jacob.
20 tn Heb “God has given my reward.”
21 tn The words “as a wife” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for clarity (cf. v. 9).
sn Leah seems to regard the act of giving her servant Zilpah to her husband as a sacrifice, for which (she believes) God is now rewarding her with the birth of a son.
22 sn The name Issachar (יְשָּׁשכָר, yishakhar) appears to mean “man of reward” or possibly “there is reward.” The name plays on the word used in the statement made earlier in the verse. The Hebrew noun translated “reward” is derived from the same root as the name Issachar. The irony is that Rachel thought the mandrakes would work for her, and she was willing to trade one night for them. But in that one night Leah became pregnant.
