Genesis 29:23

23 And at night he brought in Lia, his daughter, to him,

Genesis 29:23 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 29:23

And it came to pass in the evening
After the feast was over, and the guests were departed; when it was night, a fit season to execute his designs, and practise deceit:

that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him,
to Jacob, in his apartment, his bedchamber, or to him in bed: for it is still the custom in some eastern countries for the bridegroom to go to bed first, and then the bride comes, or is brought to him in the dark, and veiled, so that he sees her not: so the Armenians have now such a custom at their marriages that the husband goes to bed first; nor does the bride put off her veil till in bed F15: and in Barbary the bride is brought to the bridegroom's house, and with some of her female relations conveyed into a private room F16; then the bride's mother, or some very near relation, introduces the bridegroom to his new spouse, who is in the dark, and obliged in modesty not to speak or answer upon any account: and if this was the case here, as it is highly probable it was, the imposition on Jacob is easily accounted for:

and he went in unto her;
or lay with her as his wife; a modest expression of the use of the bed.


FOOTNOTES:

F15 Tournefort's Voyage to the Levant, vol. 3. p. 255.
F16 Ockley's Account of Southwest Barbary, c. 6. p. 78.

Genesis 29:23 In-Context

21 And he said to Laban: Give me my wife; for now the time is fulfilled, that I may go in unto her.
22 And he, having invited a great number of his friends to the feast, made the marriage.
23 And at night he brought in Lia, his daughter, to him,
24 Giving his daughter a handmaid, named Zelpha. Now when Jacob had gone in to her according to custom, when morning was come he saw it was Lia.
25 And he said to his father in law: What is it that thou didst mean to do? did not I serve thee for Rachel? why hast thou deceived me?
The Douay-Rheims Bible is in the public domain.