Jacob quickly helps her water the flocks and is overcome with emotion he kisses her and begins to weep, telling her that he is her father’s sister’s son.

When Jacob appears in Haran, he asks the locals about his uncle Laban, and they inform him that the girl approaching now to water her flocks is Laban’s daughter Rachel. Unlike Abraham’s more general command to his servant to find a wife for Isaac from his hometown (Genesis 24), Isaac tells Jacob specifically to marry one of his maternal cousins. 28:2 Up, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take a wife there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother…” He instructed him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from among the Canaanite women.

Gen 28:1 So Isaac sent for Jacob and blessed him. The story of how Jacob ends up marrying his two cousins, Leah and Rachel, begins in Canaan, with the marriage of his older twin, Esau, to two Hittite women of whom Isaac and Rebekah do not approve.

Rachel's Letter by Sarah Price