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Rachel: Here’s my servant, Bilhah. Sleep with her so she can be a surrogate for me. I’ll have my children through her.

What Rachel suggests is not at all improper for her time. As you may recall, Sarah and Abraham had a similar situation with Hagar (16:1–4). Custom allows for these kinds of arrangements, just as technology today allows for an infertile woman to have a child through a surrogate. Any child born to Bilhah is regarded as Rachel’s, because she has the right to name the child. As we have seen, the naming of a child carries great significance.

So she gave Jacob her servant Bilhah to be another one of his wives, and Jacob slept with her. Bilhah conceived and gave birth to Jacob’s son.

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