Jacob Meets Rachel
So Jacob came to Haran; and he paused, even as Eliezer had paused by a well outside the city. But this was a well farther away among the fields, where shepherds watered their flocks. He inquired for his mother’s people; and the shepherds pointed to where Rachel was coming with her flock to the well. Jacob with his usual craft hurried the shepherds away so that he remained alone, to help Rachel water her sheep and then tell her who he was. She welcomed him gladly with a kiss and ran to tell her father.
This father was Laban, the brother of Rebekah, who had given the latter to be Isaac’s wife. Laban was a man of Jacob’s own type, well-meaning perhaps at heart, and bold where needed, but full of guile and trickery. The two men were not ill-matched. At first, Laban had all the advantage of their intercourse; for Jacob was after all but an ignorant country lad, and besides he had fallen at first sight deeply in love with Rachel. The purest, noblest, strongest sentiment of his life had come to him there by the well when he had kissed his cousin. For her sake, he forgot his own home and prospects and remained in Haran.
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