Genesis 29:17

(17) Leah was tender eyed.—Leah, whose name signifies languor, weariness, had dull bleared eyes. Probably she suffered, as so many do in that hot sandy region, from some form of ophthalmia. Rachel (Heb., the ewe) was, on the contrary, “beautiful and well favoured” (Heb., beautiful in form and beautiful in look). Leah’s bleared eyes would be regarded in the East as a great defect, just as bright eyes were much admired. (See 1 Samuel 16:12, where David is described as fair of eyes.) Yet it was not Rachel, with her fair face and well-proportioned figure, and her husband’s lasting love, that was the mother of the progenitor of the Messiah, but the weary-eyed Leah.