How It All Goes Down
- Rachel starts to become very quiet after all of these babies are born.
- Bilhah, who can sense Rachel's sadness, asks her a huge question. Like, huge question.
- Bilhah asks Rachel if she can be the vessel for Rachel's first child.
- After a long, awkward few days of silence, Rachel hugs Bilhah and agrees.
- Bilhah sleeps with Jacob and later gives birth to a boy, Dan.
- But Rachel holds Dan first, making Bilhah pretty darn jealous.
- Unfortunately, the happiness Rachel feels while helping Bilhah give birth to Dan vanishes when she realizes he really isn't her child.
- Then it is Zilpah's turn to have a child: she really doesn't want to, but Leah convinces her that she needs to finally have a child.
- These women sure do like their babies.
- Zilpah wants a daughter desperately, but she ends up giving birth to a son—and he nearly kills her.
- But the pain of childbirth doesn't stop after Zilpah's first son, Gad. She's having twins.
- Luckily, Zilpah has the second child easily. She names him Asher.
- Leah then has twin boys: Naphtali and Issachar.
- Don't worry—we wouldn't be able to name all of these children off the top of our heads, either.
- Unfortunately for Bilhah, she isn't able to have any more children, and those she has die before weaning.
- Jacob's sons all love their father.
- Jacob ends up telling his sons about his own father, Isaac.
- When Isaac was born, his father, Abram, held a knife to his neck and prepared to sacrifice him.
- Luckily, a fiery spirit stopped Abram's hand and brought a pure white ram to be sacrificed instead.
- Meanwhile, Ruti, Laban's newest wife, is treated horribly. Laban beats her, and the daughters all ignore her.
- When Ruti is pregnant again, she asks Rachel to "cast out the baby." In other words, she wants her baby to be aborted.
- The women all work in secrecy, and they are able to give Ruti herbs so that she won't give birth.
- Leah also doesn't want to have any more children; she's growing very weak from frequent childbirth.
- But, lo and behold, Leah gets pregnant again.
- This time, Leah asked Rachel to do the same to her as she did for Ruti. But Rachel advises against it, because Leah is carrying a girl.
- Hmm, how do these people know these things?
- So Leah goes through with the pregnancy, and she gives birth to Dinah—otherwise known as our narrator.
- Then, finally, there's some good news for Rachel: she gets pregnant again, but this time she actually has the child.
- It's a long, painful pregnancy. Rachel is pretty much on her deathbed, but somehow she survives the birth.
- Rachel named the child Joseph after her favorite kangaroo.
- Wait, never mind; these people aren't in Australia.
- Joseph is probably just the name Rachel wanted all along.