Well, Mr. Metaxas, you can poo-pooh the concept of soulmates all you want, but the fact remains that I married mine nineteen years ago.
I don’t apologize for it, either, because he is a blessing.
That's fantastic and as it should be. The author must really have poor reading comprehension:
Let me be perfectly clear: No matter how many ads for Christian dating services you hear or trendy books you read, we simply don’t have “soul mates,” at least as our confused culture understands that term. Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t. Look for that concept, by the way, in the Bible, and the only thing you can find remotely close to it is the fierce friendship of David and Jonathan. “Jonathan made a covenant with David,” Scripture says, “because he loved him as his own soul.”
Now those are soul mates, friends. But the Bible knows nothing of romantic “soul mates.”
He never got a clue from Jacob and Rachel? Sure there's work involved, but it goes like this:
Genesis 29:20 And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
And Leah sure knew. It is clearly reflected in the manner she named her sons. Lots of effort involved, but..
Reuben: Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me.
Simeon: Because the LORD hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also:
Levi: Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have born him three sons:
[Instead of lamenting, she praised the Lord upon the birth of Judah, who was destined to rule.]
And it goes on, with Leah "purchasing" a night with Jacob with Reuben's mandrakes.
And then there's the irony with *that* story. Mandrakes - dudaim - what those are have been debated since forever. The etymology strongly reflects a double belovedness. Does a son bring his mother a hideous root yanked up from a field? No, he lovingly gives her flowers. And what happened? Leah traded them off to Rachel.
My own thought is that the flowers were forget-me-nots, called in Hebrew in the positive, that is zichrini, "remember me". Rachel was Jacob's soulmate. She perceived wisely.
Leah bore two more sons after that, but then it is written:
Genesis 30:22 And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.
Joseph is known as Joseph the Tzaddik - the Righteous - the foundation of the world.
As we have already seen, early on Joseph is linked to the fulfillment of Jacob's legacy...