What does Genesis 29:34 mean?
Leah's father, Laban, tricked her husband Jacob into marrying her. In fact, Laban had sneakily replaced Jacob's intended bride, Rachel, with Leah, her older sister, on the wedding night. The end result of this chaos was Jacob married to two women, but unexpectedly owing Laban another seven years of labor (Genesis 29:16–30). For this reason, it's not surprising to read that Jacob does not love Leah. Whether figuratively in comparison to his beloved Rachel, or literally, Jacob "hates" Leah (Genesis 29:31).Seeing this pain, God has allowed Leah to conceive sons while the favored Rachel has remained childless. The prior boys were named to reflect Leah's hope that Jacob would come to love her. Their names, Reuben and Simeon, serve as reminders that God has seen (Genesis 29:32) and heard (Genesis 29:33) her pain.
Leah now bears Jacob a third son. Again she names the boy based on her longing for her husband to love her. In Hebrew, Leviy literally means "joined to," and is very similar to the root of a word spoken by Leah earlier in the verse, lavah, which means "to become attached." Leah hopes this third son will cause Jacob to be attached to her in a way that he apparently never had been before.