Leah is doubly marginalized first within her own family but also by later interpreters who favour Rachel. The reader is perhaps predisposed to dismiss Leah’s importance due to the problematic translation of ‘her soft eyes’ versus Rachel’s more obvious beauty (Genesis 29:17). Ancient and modern translators have varied between understanding Leah’s ‘soft eyes’ as weak—implying a defect—or as lovely (Kugel 1997: 220; Gafney 2017: 62). However, even when the descriptor ‘lovely’ was employed, ancient interpreters qualified this compliment by speculating that it was Leah’s only redeeming feature (Kugel 1997: 221).

Telling the stories of biblical women is frequently a process of excavation, of unravelling long trajectories of interpretative choices that devalue and isolate their narratives. The three chosen art works in this exhibition, each in its own way, do the opposite by capturing moments too easily forgotten, providing another opportunity to reassess Leah and her story. 

Hendrik ter Brugghen’s painting is noteworthy as it intentionally highlights Leah while partially obscuring both Jacob and Rachel. The facial features of the patriarch are shadowed and indecipherable while Rachel is hidden in the background. Leah stands out in this scene as the light falls directly on her face, capturing her expression. The stillness of her posture further isolates her from the rest of the characters in the tableaux who are all caught in some form of movement. Jacob and Laban are depicted leaning towards one another arguing while Rachel actively eavesdrops in the background. In contrast, Leah’s motionlessness disengages her from the immediate unfolding drama inviting the viewer to consider her reaction and thoughts. In visual terms, Brugghen effectively ‘silences’ both Jacob and Laban in favour of Leah and her distress as the rejected wife.

Portraits of pregnancy in recent decades have celebrated the beauty of the female body (in photographs of Demi Moore and Beyoncé, for example). In contrast, Ghislaine Howard in Pregnant Self Portrait features a pregnant woman both physically and emotionally exhausted. Whereas Brugghen used light to expose Leah, Howard does the opposite by shrouding the features of the woman. This is an ordinary moment often not captured in works of art as it honestly reveals the toll that pregnancy takes on women.

In Genesis, Leah’s particular emotional hardships are recorded in the prayers that she offers upon the birth of her children. Acknowledging Leah’s laments as active forms of resistance to her situation helps correct tendencies that view her as a flat and uninteresting character. It is not difficult to imagine Leah similarly adopting Howard’s posture of exhaustion with her gaze directed inward as one birth follows another. Howard’s Self Portrait is a reminder of the everyday invisible lives of women whose interior struggles and physical hardships of childrearing are not often acknowledged or preserved.

The inclusion of Leah and Rachel alongside Moses on the Tomb of Julius II is testament to the legacy of the matriarchs as builders of the nation of Israel. Although Michelangelo’s monument gives prominence to women like Leah and Rachel, it also omits other important mothers in the biblical narrative. Leah’s suffering elicits sympathy as she must continually share her husband and the spotlight with her sister, but she is also complicit in perpetuating trauma towards her slave Bilhah by using her as a surrogate (Claassens 2020: 22). Though Leah and Rachel may stand as founders of Israel alongside Moses on the Tomb of Julius II, the visual omission of the slave women Bilhah and Zilpah, who also gave birth to the nation of Israel, is a striking example of the sisters’ privilege compared to other disregarded characters.

Leah’s story remains entangled with that of her sister Rachel both in textual and visual form, continually serving as a source of comparison and contrast. Brugghen’s deliberate focus on Leah rather than Rachel gives momentary prominence to a woman often neglected by later readers and interpreters. Similarly, Howard’s emphasis not only on the pregnant body but one caught in such a commonplace pose draws attention to the inner world of the mother. It acts as a window to appreciate the physical and emotional burden carried by women like Leah in struggles that often occur in the background. Finally, Michelangelo’s choice to include both Rachel and Leah alongside the lauded figure of Moses highlights their ongoing legacy as founders of Israel.

Leah emerges as a complicated character remembered for her struggles within her own family but also as a model and blessing for future women (Ruth 4:11).

References

Claassens, L. Juliana. 2020. ‘Reading Trauma Narratives: Insidious Trauma in the Story of Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah (Genesis 29–30) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale’, Old Testament Essays, 33.1: 10–31

Gafney, Wilda C. 2017. Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press)

Kugel, James L. 1997. The Bible As It Was (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)