Well, my dear friend, this is a good question for sure! I’m not certain that the Scripture gives us a definitive answer on this, but perhaps Genesis 29:23 might give us a hint. In that verse we read: “Now it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her.” We see a clue to this mystery in the fact that after the wedding feast, it was evening, perhaps quite dark outside, so possibly he could not see Leah well enough to distinguish her from another woman of perhaps a similar size and build. I am only guessing that Leah was probably veiled also according to eastern customs, and perhaps this added to his being deceived.

William MacDonald in his commentary on this portion said, “According to custom, it was arranged that the bride should go in to the groom on the wedding night, veiled and perhaps when the room was in darkness.” Now, you might well ask if Jacob didn’t know Rachel by sight and voice since he spoke to her at the well (verses 11 and 12), why did he not recognize her on the wedding night. Here, I can only guess. Leah may have been of similar size, and likely enough, she was veiled, and it was dark, and their conversations may have been very minimal on the wedding night. I’m also certain that Leah had been coached by her father Laban, so I’m sure she did her best not to give her true identity away. After all, verse 25 shows us that Jacob did not discover that he had Leah until the morning, and indeed, he was surprised and upset, so clearly the deception worked!

But now, I think that we must understand that in all of this, God had His divine plan for the nation of Israel in mind. Thus, though while Laban’s plan was a deception, God used this in His own way to set up the line of the coming Messiah, and He blessed Leah in the process. We read in Genesis 29:31, “When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.” We see that Judah was Leah’s fourth son, and it was of course out of the tribe of Judah that the Christ would one day come into the world. In Micah 5:2 we read: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.” All was made to fit God’s divine plan. And why did God choose Leah over Rachel for this honor? We read: “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty…,” (1 Corinthians 1:27).

God is sovereign, and there is always His divine purpose in all His actions. It was God’s perfect plan that Leah be married to Jacob and that she should give birth to Judah, from whose line the Savior would someday come. Does it seem a bit unfair that Leah rather than Rachel was the one chosen? We read in Romans 9:14-15: “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” I recall the words of Psalm 118:23 which should be every faithful man’s response to the amazing works of God: “This was the LORD’S doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.”  (SF)  (709.2)