Leah means "wild cow”, a common title with ancient goddesses like Inana, Urash, and Nanshe.

Noegel says there's an irony involving Laban's flocks within this detail, one is on generative acts, - Give me my wife for my days are fulfilled, that I may go into her (אליה) (29:21).

[b] Earlier passages in the Book of Genesis give some background on her father's family, noting that through him, she is the niece of Rebecca, who is the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau, and the granddaughter of Bethuel, and rabbinic literature goes even further, with the Book of Jasher claiming Leah and Rachel were twins and recording her mother's name as Adinah and her brothers' names as Beor, Alub, and Murash.

According to Genesis 28:2,[7] the family resided in Paddan Aram, an area believed to correspond with the historical Upper Mesopotamia.

[8] Prior to her and Rachel's mentioning, the book of Genesis details how their first cousin and future husband, Jacob, with the help of his mother, Rebecca, willfully deceives his dying father, Isaac, into giving him his twin brother Esau's birthright.

Fearful of his brother's wrath, Jacob flees his homeland for Haran, where he meets his maternal family, including Laban and his daughters.

Jacob is ultimately allowed to marry Rachel, which he does immediately after the festivities related to his wedding to Leah end, in exchange for another seven years' labor.

Due to the extreme emotional distress suffered by both Leah (and Rachel) during the marriage, Yahweh later strictly clarified his opposition to uncovering the nakedness of a woman and her sister while both were still living (Genesis 30:1, Leviticus 18:18).

He also favored Rachel's sons, Joseph and Benjamin, over Leah's, and made no attempts to hide that from her or his other children.

In the Rabbinic mind, the two brothers are polar opposites; Jacob being a God-fearing scholar and Esau being a hunter who also indulges in idolatry and adultery.

Leah was the mother of six of Jacob's sons, including his first four (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah), and later two more (Issachar and Zebulun), and a daughter (Dinah).

Rachel envied Leah's tearful prayers, by which she merited to marry the tzaddik and bear six of his twelve sons.

[17][20] The Talmud (Megillah 13b) says that Rachel revealed to Leah the secret signs which she and Jacob had devised to identify the veiled bride, because they both suspected Laban would pull such a trick.

[24] Dante Alighieri's Purgatorio includes a dream of Rachel and Leah, which inspired illustrations by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others: "... in my dream, I seemed to see a woman both young and fair; along a plain she gathered flowers, and even as she sang, she said: Whoever asks my name, know that I'm Leah, and I apply my lovely hands to fashion a garland of the flowers I have gathered.