A few of my favorite stories deals with delayed recognition due to a veil.
Jacob and Leah and Rachel, Genesis 29
Many people have woken up to be shocked at who is in bed with them, thanks to so called "beer goggles" or some other substance that has plays games with those important brain processes of perception and inhibition and decision-making.
Maybe he had had a few too many drinks himself on his big wedding night. I don't know, but the story says it was a veil that was to blame. Leah kept her true identity veiled for the wedding and beyond, long enough to consummate the marriage and help her father trick the Trickster.
Usually this story is told to children with greater sympathy for Jacob and Rachel, but I was glad to see that Douwe's little Jesus storybook Bible interprets this story a little more favorably toward Leah. Jacob has met a good match in Leah, he who used his own tricky ways to grasp something precious away from his brother Esau. The less beautiful, less noticed sister now gets her turn to have some recognition, well, not in love, but in bearing many sons. And lots of sons mattered much more than love in this family, it seems.
Delayed recognition, bed trick, all part of the process of building a nation called Israel.
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