Genesis 29:18 (NASB)
18 "Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”
And why not fewer years?
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Sign up to join this communityGenesis 29:18 (NASB)
18 "Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”
And why not fewer years?
The answer may be simply that the seven years totaled up to a reasonable value of Jacob's labor which he was willing to "pay" eventually for Rachel and ultimately for Leah. I'm not sure if the exact value may be calculated today so that we may know if the value he was placing on Rachel was more than or equal to the standard rate that was expected for a bride. Whatever the "value" was for those years of work, it was acceptable to Laban. Dickering over the value of a bride may have been an insult to the bride. The "seven" years may have been more reflective of how much Jacobs ability to work was worth.