Timeline of Jacob's Life

A table showing Jacob's age at various events in his life.

Event	Jacob's Age
Esau married two Canaanite women	40
Jacob flees Esau & Betrothal to Rachel	77
End of Leah's 7 years & Marriage to Leah & Rachel	84
End of Rachel's 7 years & Birth of Joseph	91
Jacob leaves Laban	97
Joseph is sold by his brothers	108
Joseph is brought before Pharaoh & Beginning of the 7 years of plenty	121
Beginning of the 7 years of famine	128
Jacob stands before Pharaoh	130
Jacob dies	147

My first thought on laying this out was "Why did Jacob wait so long to find a wife?" Evidently, like his mother Rebekah, he knew the Canaanite women were unacceptable, but he wasn't willing to strike out on his own without direction from his parents.

My second thought was "Jacob was 77 years old when he fell in love with Rachel," and she returned his love! People were longer lived, so he remained healthy and virile much later than men do today, but women also married young. Rachel was likely between 15 and 25, probably somewhere in the middle.

And my third thought was "All 6 of Leah's sons were born between when Jacob was 84 and 91. Could Leah really have had 6 children in just 7 years?" But my mother had 5 children in 5 years, so why not? Breastfeeding tends to suppress fertility, naturally spacing children out every couple of years, but it doesn't always work that way.

Things that make you go "hmm."