God saw that Jacob favored Rachel, so he allowed Leah to become pregnant, but not Rachel. Leah had 4 sons, each time thanking God and believing Jacob would love her more.
Rachel was jealous of Leah’s sons and gave her servant to Jacob to sleep with so that she could have a child on Rachel’s behalf. The servant, Bilhah, had two sons with Jacob.
Leah had stopped having children at this point, so she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob to have more children. Zilpah had two sons with Jacob.
Reuben, Leah’s oldest son (from her servant), finds mandrakes, apparently something special, during harvest time, and Rachel demands some of them. Leah refuses until Rachel offers to let Leah sleep with Jacob for the night in return for the mandrakes.
So when Jacob comes back from the field, Leah tells him he must sleep with her that night, and the result is a fifth son. A sixth son comes later, and a daughter.
Rachel also has one more son, Joseph, finally a son of her own rather than through her servant.
Jacob fools Laban
After having Joseph, Jacob told Laban to let him to back to his homeland with his family. Laban wants Jacob to stay and continue tending his flocks, and tells Jacob to name his price. Jacob says he will stay if Laban lets him remove every spotted or dark-colored lamb or goat from the flocks. Laban agreed.
Jacob took fresh branches from some trees, peeled them, and placed them in the water for the animals. The animals would mate in front of this water, and the result was spotted and speckled babies. Jacob did some selective breeding and placed the branches in the water when the strongest females were ready to mate. He allowed the weak animals to mate without the branches, meaning their babies were white. The result was a nice strong flock of spotted animals for Jacob, and an unhealthy white flock for Laban.
Jacob is so dishonest!
I still can’t forget how Jacob screwed his brother Esau when he was young. And now he is screwing over his uncle Laban. Laban has it coming because he also fooled Jacob into marrying Leah, but the whole thing seems so foolish and unholy, and so far, Jacob is not someone to be admired!