Rachel
VIEW:36 DATA:01-04-2020
she
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
RACHEL (Rahel in Jer_31:15 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] , ewe).The younger daughter of Laban, and favourite wife of Jacob (Gen_29:28-30), who married her after her sister Leah. In the quarrel between Jacob and Laban, she, as well as Leah, took the part of Jacob (Gen_31:14-16). When leaving her father, she stole his household divinities, the teraphim (Gen_31:19)an incident which suggests the laxity in worship and in ideas of property characteristic of the times. Her sons were Joseph and Benjamin: she died in giving birth to Benjamin.
Rachels grave.The location of this is disputed. It was near Ephrath. Gen_35:16; Gen_35:19-20, 1Sa_10:2, Jer_31:15 indicate that it was on the N. border of Benjamin towards Ephraim, about ten miles N. of Jerusalem. In other places, however (Rth_1:2; Rth_4:11, Mic_5:2), Ephrath is another name for Bethlehem, as it is also explained in Gen_35:19; Gen_48:7. In accordance with this latter group of passages, tradition from at least the 4th cent. has fixed the spot 4 miles S. of Jerusalem and 1 mile N. of Bethlehem. Either the northern location is correct, or there are here two variant accounts. The former view is probably to be preferred, since Rachel has no connexion with Judah. In that case that is Bethlehem is an incorrect gloss. Cf. also Ramah, 3.
George R. Berry.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
("an ewe.") (See JACOB; BENJAMIN.) (Genesis 29-33; Genesis 35). Jacob's first interview, courteous removal of the stone at the well's mouth, emotion, and kissing her in the usual mode of salutation in pastoral life in the East in those days, are simply and graphically narrated; his love to her making his seven years' service "seem but a few days"; the imposition of Leah upon him, his second term of service for her, and his receiving her in marriage. Even then disappointment followed in her childlessness at first; beauty and the grace of God do not always go together, "Rachel envied her sister" and said with unreasonable and impatient fretfulness, "Give me children, or else I die." Jacob with just anger replied, "am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?" God took her at her word; she had Joseph, and in giving birth to Benjamin "died."
At Joseph's birth she by his name ("adding") expressed her fond anticipation, "the Lord shall add to me another son" (Gen_30:24). In obtaining her wish, the greatest joy to her, she suffered her sharpest pang; Ben-oni's ("son of her sorrow") birth was her death. Her stealing her father's images or teraphim, household gods in human form, used for divination (Jdg_17:5; Jdg_18:14; Jdg_18:17-18; Jdg_18:20; 1Sa_15:23; 2Sa_23:24; Eze_21:21; Zec_10:2), and her dexterity and ready cunning in hiding them, mark a character that had learned much of her father's duplicity.(See TERAPHIM.) The old superstition from which Abraham had been called still lingered in the family (Jos_24:2; Jos_24:14). Not until Jacob reached Bethel did he bury the strange gods under the oak by Shechem. A little way from Ephrath, which is Bethlehem, Rachel died and was buried, and Jacob set a pillar on her grave.
The patriarch on his death bed vividly recalls that tender, deep, and lasting sorrow (Gen_48:7). Though fretful, cunning, and superstitions, Rachel still worshipped Jehovah; and after she had complained to her husband, and received his reproof, she turned in prayer to God, for we read "God remembered Rachel, and hearkened to her, and opened her womb" (compare 1Sa_1:19). She had given up all her idols before the death stroke fell on her (Genesis 35), and, we may well believe, was prepared for her great change by the hallowing influences of God's blessing on her husband and his seed immediately before, at Bethel. Moreover, Joseph, the only son over whom she exercised a mother's influence, was from early years the choice one of the family; such a son must have had a mother not altogether dissimilar. Hers is the first instance recorded of death in childbirth, and her sepulchral pillar is the first on record in the Bible.
Caves were the usual places of sepulcher (1Sa_10:2). Jeremiah (Jer_31:15) says as to Nebuzaradan's collecting the captive Jews at Ramah, previous to their removal to Babylon (Jer_40:1), "a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children ... refused to be comforted because they were not; thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, for ... there is hope in thine end, that thy children shall come again to their own border." Rachel, who pined so for children and died in bearing "the son of her sorrow," and was buried in the neighborhood of Ramah (of Benjamin) and Bethlehem, is poetically represented as "weeping" for her Ephraimite sons carried off by the Chaldees. Matthew (Mat_2:17-18) quotes this as fulfilled in Herod's massacre of the innocents.
"A lesser, and a greater, event of different times may answer to the single sense of one scripture, until the prophecy be exhausted" (Bengel). Besides the reference to the Babylonian exile of Rachel's sons, the Holy Spirit foreshadowed Messiah's exile to Egypt, and the accompanying desolation caused near Rachel's tomb by Herod's massacre, to the grief of Benjamite mothers who had "sons of sorrow," as Rachel's son proved to her. Israel's representative Messiah's return from Egypt, and Israel's (both the literal and the spiritual) future restoration (including the innocents) at His second advent, are antitypical to Israel's restoration from Babylon, the consolation held out by Jeremiah. "They were not," i.e. were dead (Gen_42:13), does not apply so strictly to the Babylonian exiles as it does to Messiah and His people, past, present, and future.
"There is hope in thine end," namely, when Rachel shall meet her murdered children at the resurrection of the saints bodily, and of Israel nationally (Ezekiel 37). Literally, "each was not," i.e. each Bethlehemite mother had but one child to lament, as Herod's limit, "two years old and under," implies; a coincidence the more remarkable as not obvious. The singular too suits Messiah going to exile in Egypt, Rachel's chief object of lamentation. Rachel's tomb (Arabic Kubbit Rahil) is two and a half miles S. of Jerusalem, one mile and a half N. of Bethlehem; Muslims, Jews, and Christians agree as to the site. The tomb is a small square building of stone, with a dome, and within it a tomb, a modern building; in the seventh century A.D. there was only a pyramid of stones.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Ra'chel. (ewe or sheep). The younger of the daughters of Laban, the wife of Jacob, (B.C. 1753), and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. The incidents of her life may be found in Genesis 29-33; Genesis 35. The story of Jacob and Rachel has always had a peculiar interest. The beauty of Rachel, Jacob's deep love and long servitude for her, their marriage, and Rachel's death on giving birth to Benjamin, with Jacob's grief at her loss, Gen_48:7, makes a touching tale. Yet from what is related to us concerning her character, there does not seem much to claim any high degree of admiration and esteem.
She appears to have shared all the duplicity and falsehood of her family. See, for instance, Rachel's stealing her father's images, and the ready dexterity and presence of mind with which she concealed her theft. Gen_31:1. "Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem," (B.C. 1729), "and Jacob set a pillar upon her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." Gen_35:19-20. The site of Rachel's tomb, "on the way to Bethlehem," "a little way to come to Ephrath," "in the border of Benjamin," has never been questioned. It Is about two miles south of Jerusalem and one mile north of Bethlehem.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
the daughter of Laban, and sister of Leah. The Prophet Jer_31:15, and St. Mat_2:18, have put Rachel for the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the children of Joseph, the son of Rachel. This prophecy was completed when these two tribes were carried into captivity beyond the Euphrates; and St. Matthew made application of it to what happened at Bethlehem, when Herod put to death the children of two years old and under. Then Rachel, who was buried there, might be said to make her lamentations for the death of so many innocent children sacrificed to the jealousy of a wicked monarch.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
When Jacob went to Paddan-aram to find a wife, he met and fell in love with Rachel, the younger daughter of his uncle, Laban. Jacob worked seven years for Laban as payment for Rachel, but when the wedding day came, Laban deceived Jacob by giving him the older daughter, Leah, instead. After the wedding festivities he gave Rachel also to Jacob, but made Jacob work for him an extra seven years as payment for her. Laban also gave each of the two daughters a slave-girl as a wedding gift (Gen_29:1-30).
While Leah produced several sons for Jacob, Rachel remained childless. She then gave her maid to Jacob, so that the maid might bear sons whom Rachel could adopt as her own. Leah did likewise with her maid, after which she produced more sons of her own. Jacob already had ten sons and a daughter by the time Rachel gave birth to her first son, Joseph (Gen_29:31-35; Gen_30:1-24).
Although Laban had enriched himself through his daughters bride price (Jacobs years of hard work), he now planned to exclude them from the inheritance, in favour of his sons. This made Rachel so angry that when Jacob and his family left Paddan-aram for Canaan, she took her fathers idols with her. According to local custom, these gave her some claim to his inheritance (Gen_31:1-21). Laban never regained his idols, but Jacob made sure that Rachel did not keep them once the family entered Canaan (Gen_31:34-35; Gen_35:1-4).
Rachel died when giving birth to Benjamin, the only son of Jacob born in Canaan. She was buried near Ramah, on the road from Bethel to Bethlehem (Gen_35:16-20; 1Sa_10:2; Jer_31:15). Centuries later, Jeremiah imagined the dead Rachel mourning from her tomb as her descendants were led past on their way to captivity in a foreign land (Jer_31:15). She might likewise have mourned over the slaughter of the Jewish babies by Herod (Mat_2:16-18).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
rā?chel (רחל, rāḥēl, ?ewe?; Ῥαχήλ, Rhachḗl (Gen_29:6; Jer_31:15, the King James Version ?Rahel?)):
1. Biography:
An ancestress of Israel, wife of Jacob, mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel was the younger daughter of Laban, the Aramean, the brother of Jacob's mother; so Rachel and Jacob were cousins. They met for the first time upon the arrival of Jacob at Haran, when attracted by her beauty he immediately fell in love with her, winning her love by his chivalrous act related in Gen_29:10 ff. According to the custom of the times Jacob contracted with Laban for her possession, agreeing to serve him 7 years as the stipulated price (Gen_29:17-20). But when the time had passed, Laban deceived Jacob by giving him Leah instead of Rachel. When Jacob protested, Laban gave him Rachel also, on condition that Jacob serve 7 years more (Gen_29:21-29). To her great dismay ?Rachel was barren? (Gen_29:30, Gen_29:31), while Leah had children. Rachel, envious of her sister, complained to Jacob, who reminded her that children are the gift of God. Then Rachel resorted to the expedient once employed by Sarah under similar circumstances (Gen_16:2 ff); she bade Jacob take her handmaid Bilhah, as a concubine, to ?obtain children by her? (Gen_30:3). Dan and Naphtali were the offspring of this union. The evil of polygamy is apparent from the dismal rivalry arising between the two sisters, each seeking by means of children to win the heart of Jacob. In her eagerness to become a mother of children, Rachel bargained with Leah for the mandrakes, or love-apples of her son Reuben, but all to no avail (Gen_30:14). Finally God heard her prayer and granted her her heart's desire, and she gave birth to her firstborn whom she named Joseph (Gen_30:22-24).
Some years after this, when Jacob fled from Laban with his wives, the episode of theft of the teraphim of Laban by Rachel, related in Gen_31:19, Gen_31:34, Gen_31:35, occurred. She hoped by securing the household gods of her father to bring prosperity to her own new household. Though she succeeded by her cunning in concealing them from Laban, Jacob later, upon discovering them, had them put away (Gen_35:2-4). In spite of all, she continued to be the favorite of Jacob, as is clearly evidenced by Gen_33:2, where we are told that he assigned to her the place of greatest safety, and by his preference for Joseph, her son. After the arrival in Canaan, while they were on the way from Beth-el to Ephrath, i.e. Bethlehem, Rachel gave birth to her second son, Benjamin, and died (Gen_35:16 ff).
2. Character:
In a marked manner Rachel's character shows the traits of her family, cunning and covetousness, so evident in Laban, Rebekah and Jacob. Though a believer in the true God (Gen_30:6, Gen_30:8, Gen_30:22), she was yet given to the superstitions of her country, the worshipping of the teraphim, etc. (Gen_31:19). The futility of her efforts in resorting to self-help and superstitious expedients, the love and stronger faith of her husband (Gen_35:2-4), were the providential means of purifying her character. Her memory lived on in Israel long after she died. In Rth_4:11, the names of Rachel and Leah occur in the nuptial benediction as the foundresses of the house of Israel.
Rachel's Tomb
(רחל קברת מצּבת, maccebheth kebhurath rāḥēl): In Gen_35:20 we read: ?Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave: the same is the Pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day,? i.e. the time of the writer. Though the pillar, i.e sepulchral monument, has long disappeared, the spot is marked until this day, and Christians, Jews and Mohammedans unite in honoring it. The present tomb, which, apparently, is not older than the 15th century, is built in the style of the small-domed buildings raised by Moslems in honor of their saints. It is a rough structure of four square walls, each about 23 ft. long and 20 ft. high; the dome rising 10 ft. higher is used by Mohammedans for prayer, while on Fridays the Jews make supplication before the empty tomb within. It is doubtful, but probable, that it marks the exact spot where Rachel was buried. There are, apparently, two traditions as to the location of the place. The oldest tradition, based upon Gen_35:16-20; Gen_48:7, points to a place one mile North of Bethlehem and 4 miles from Jerusalem. Mat_2:18 speaks for this place, since the evangelist, reporting the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem, represents Rachel as weeping for her children from her neighboring grave. But according to 1Sa_10:2 ff, which apparently represents another tradition, the place of Rachel's grave was on the ?border of Benjamin,? near Beth-el, about 10 miles North of Jerusalem, at another unknown Ephrath. This location, some believe, is corroborated by Jer_31:15, where the prophet, in relating the leading away of the people of Ramah, which was in Benjamin, into captivity, introduces Rachel the mother of that tribe as bewailing the fate of her descendants. Those that believe this northern location to be the place of Rachel's grave take the words, ?the same is Beth-lehem,? in Gen_35:19; Gen_48:7, to be an incorrect gloss; but that is a mere assumption lacking sufficient proof.
Mr. Nathan Strauss, of New York City, has purchased the land surrounding Rachel's grave for the purpose of erecting a Jewish university in the Holy Land.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Ra?chel (an ewe), one and the most beloved of the two daughters of Laban, whom Jacob married (Gen_29:16, seq.), and who became the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, in giving birth to the latter of whom she died near Bethlehem, where her sepulcher is shown to this day (Gen_30:22; Gen_35:16). For more minute particulars see Jacob, with whose history Rachel's is closely involved.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Rachel
SEE SHEEP.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
RACHEL (Rahel in Jer_31:15 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] , ewe).The younger daughter of Laban, and favourite wife of Jacob (Gen_29:28-30), who married her after her sister Leah. In the quarrel between Jacob and Laban, she, as well as Leah, took the part of Jacob (Gen_31:14-16). When leaving her father, she stole his household divinities, the teraphim (Gen_31:19)an incident which suggests the laxity in worship and in ideas of property characteristic of the times. Her sons were Joseph and Benjamin: she died in giving birth to Benjamin.
Rachels grave.The location of this is disputed. It was near Ephrath. Gen_35:16; Gen_35:19-20, 1Sa_10:2, Jer_31:15 indicate that it was on the N. border of Benjamin towards Ephraim, about ten miles N. of Jerusalem. In other places, however (Rth_1:2; Rth_4:11, Mic_5:2), Ephrath is another name for Bethlehem, as it is also explained in Gen_35:19; Gen_48:7. In accordance with this latter group of passages, tradition from at least the 4th cent. has fixed the spot 4 miles S. of Jerusalem and 1 mile N. of Bethlehem. Either the northern location is correct, or there are here two variant accounts. The former view is probably to be preferred, since Rachel has no connexion with Judah. In that case that is Bethlehem is an incorrect gloss. Cf. also Ramah, 3.
George R. Berry.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
("an ewe.") (See JACOB; BENJAMIN.) (Genesis 29-33; Genesis 35). Jacob's first interview, courteous removal of the stone at the well's mouth, emotion, and kissing her in the usual mode of salutation in pastoral life in the East in those days, are simply and graphically narrated; his love to her making his seven years' service "seem but a few days"; the imposition of Leah upon him, his second term of service for her, and his receiving her in marriage. Even then disappointment followed in her childlessness at first; beauty and the grace of God do not always go together, "Rachel envied her sister" and said with unreasonable and impatient fretfulness, "Give me children, or else I die." Jacob with just anger replied, "am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?" God took her at her word; she had Joseph, and in giving birth to Benjamin "died."
At Joseph's birth she by his name ("adding") expressed her fond anticipation, "the Lord shall add to me another son" (Gen_30:24). In obtaining her wish, the greatest joy to her, she suffered her sharpest pang; Ben-oni's ("son of her sorrow") birth was her death. Her stealing her father's images or teraphim, household gods in human form, used for divination (Jdg_17:5; Jdg_18:14; Jdg_18:17-18; Jdg_18:20; 1Sa_15:23; 2Sa_23:24; Eze_21:21; Zec_10:2), and her dexterity and ready cunning in hiding them, mark a character that had learned much of her father's duplicity.(See TERAPHIM.) The old superstition from which Abraham had been called still lingered in the family (Jos_24:2; Jos_24:14). Not until Jacob reached Bethel did he bury the strange gods under the oak by Shechem. A little way from Ephrath, which is Bethlehem, Rachel died and was buried, and Jacob set a pillar on her grave.
The patriarch on his death bed vividly recalls that tender, deep, and lasting sorrow (Gen_48:7). Though fretful, cunning, and superstitions, Rachel still worshipped Jehovah; and after she had complained to her husband, and received his reproof, she turned in prayer to God, for we read "God remembered Rachel, and hearkened to her, and opened her womb" (compare 1Sa_1:19). She had given up all her idols before the death stroke fell on her (Genesis 35), and, we may well believe, was prepared for her great change by the hallowing influences of God's blessing on her husband and his seed immediately before, at Bethel. Moreover, Joseph, the only son over whom she exercised a mother's influence, was from early years the choice one of the family; such a son must have had a mother not altogether dissimilar. Hers is the first instance recorded of death in childbirth, and her sepulchral pillar is the first on record in the Bible.
Caves were the usual places of sepulcher (1Sa_10:2). Jeremiah (Jer_31:15) says as to Nebuzaradan's collecting the captive Jews at Ramah, previous to their removal to Babylon (Jer_40:1), "a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children ... refused to be comforted because they were not; thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, for ... there is hope in thine end, that thy children shall come again to their own border." Rachel, who pined so for children and died in bearing "the son of her sorrow," and was buried in the neighborhood of Ramah (of Benjamin) and Bethlehem, is poetically represented as "weeping" for her Ephraimite sons carried off by the Chaldees. Matthew (Mat_2:17-18) quotes this as fulfilled in Herod's massacre of the innocents.
"A lesser, and a greater, event of different times may answer to the single sense of one scripture, until the prophecy be exhausted" (Bengel). Besides the reference to the Babylonian exile of Rachel's sons, the Holy Spirit foreshadowed Messiah's exile to Egypt, and the accompanying desolation caused near Rachel's tomb by Herod's massacre, to the grief of Benjamite mothers who had "sons of sorrow," as Rachel's son proved to her. Israel's representative Messiah's return from Egypt, and Israel's (both the literal and the spiritual) future restoration (including the innocents) at His second advent, are antitypical to Israel's restoration from Babylon, the consolation held out by Jeremiah. "They were not," i.e. were dead (Gen_42:13), does not apply so strictly to the Babylonian exiles as it does to Messiah and His people, past, present, and future.
"There is hope in thine end," namely, when Rachel shall meet her murdered children at the resurrection of the saints bodily, and of Israel nationally (Ezekiel 37). Literally, "each was not," i.e. each Bethlehemite mother had but one child to lament, as Herod's limit, "two years old and under," implies; a coincidence the more remarkable as not obvious. The singular too suits Messiah going to exile in Egypt, Rachel's chief object of lamentation. Rachel's tomb (Arabic Kubbit Rahil) is two and a half miles S. of Jerusalem, one mile and a half N. of Bethlehem; Muslims, Jews, and Christians agree as to the site. The tomb is a small square building of stone, with a dome, and within it a tomb, a modern building; in the seventh century A.D. there was only a pyramid of stones.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
Ra'chel. (ewe or sheep). The younger of the daughters of Laban, the wife of Jacob, (B.C. 1753), and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. The incidents of her life may be found in Genesis 29-33; Genesis 35. The story of Jacob and Rachel has always had a peculiar interest. The beauty of Rachel, Jacob's deep love and long servitude for her, their marriage, and Rachel's death on giving birth to Benjamin, with Jacob's grief at her loss, Gen_48:7, makes a touching tale. Yet from what is related to us concerning her character, there does not seem much to claim any high degree of admiration and esteem.
She appears to have shared all the duplicity and falsehood of her family. See, for instance, Rachel's stealing her father's images, and the ready dexterity and presence of mind with which she concealed her theft. Gen_31:1. "Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem," (B.C. 1729), "and Jacob set a pillar upon her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." Gen_35:19-20. The site of Rachel's tomb, "on the way to Bethlehem," "a little way to come to Ephrath," "in the border of Benjamin," has never been questioned. It Is about two miles south of Jerusalem and one mile north of Bethlehem.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
the daughter of Laban, and sister of Leah. The Prophet Jer_31:15, and St. Mat_2:18, have put Rachel for the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the children of Joseph, the son of Rachel. This prophecy was completed when these two tribes were carried into captivity beyond the Euphrates; and St. Matthew made application of it to what happened at Bethlehem, when Herod put to death the children of two years old and under. Then Rachel, who was buried there, might be said to make her lamentations for the death of so many innocent children sacrificed to the jealousy of a wicked monarch.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
When Jacob went to Paddan-aram to find a wife, he met and fell in love with Rachel, the younger daughter of his uncle, Laban. Jacob worked seven years for Laban as payment for Rachel, but when the wedding day came, Laban deceived Jacob by giving him the older daughter, Leah, instead. After the wedding festivities he gave Rachel also to Jacob, but made Jacob work for him an extra seven years as payment for her. Laban also gave each of the two daughters a slave-girl as a wedding gift (Gen_29:1-30).
While Leah produced several sons for Jacob, Rachel remained childless. She then gave her maid to Jacob, so that the maid might bear sons whom Rachel could adopt as her own. Leah did likewise with her maid, after which she produced more sons of her own. Jacob already had ten sons and a daughter by the time Rachel gave birth to her first son, Joseph (Gen_29:31-35; Gen_30:1-24).
Although Laban had enriched himself through his daughters bride price (Jacobs years of hard work), he now planned to exclude them from the inheritance, in favour of his sons. This made Rachel so angry that when Jacob and his family left Paddan-aram for Canaan, she took her fathers idols with her. According to local custom, these gave her some claim to his inheritance (Gen_31:1-21). Laban never regained his idols, but Jacob made sure that Rachel did not keep them once the family entered Canaan (Gen_31:34-35; Gen_35:1-4).
Rachel died when giving birth to Benjamin, the only son of Jacob born in Canaan. She was buried near Ramah, on the road from Bethel to Bethlehem (Gen_35:16-20; 1Sa_10:2; Jer_31:15). Centuries later, Jeremiah imagined the dead Rachel mourning from her tomb as her descendants were led past on their way to captivity in a foreign land (Jer_31:15). She might likewise have mourned over the slaughter of the Jewish babies by Herod (Mat_2:16-18).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
rā?chel (רחל, rāḥēl, ?ewe?; Ῥαχήλ, Rhachḗl (Gen_29:6; Jer_31:15, the King James Version ?Rahel?)):
1. Biography:
An ancestress of Israel, wife of Jacob, mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel was the younger daughter of Laban, the Aramean, the brother of Jacob's mother; so Rachel and Jacob were cousins. They met for the first time upon the arrival of Jacob at Haran, when attracted by her beauty he immediately fell in love with her, winning her love by his chivalrous act related in Gen_29:10 ff. According to the custom of the times Jacob contracted with Laban for her possession, agreeing to serve him 7 years as the stipulated price (Gen_29:17-20). But when the time had passed, Laban deceived Jacob by giving him Leah instead of Rachel. When Jacob protested, Laban gave him Rachel also, on condition that Jacob serve 7 years more (Gen_29:21-29). To her great dismay ?Rachel was barren? (Gen_29:30, Gen_29:31), while Leah had children. Rachel, envious of her sister, complained to Jacob, who reminded her that children are the gift of God. Then Rachel resorted to the expedient once employed by Sarah under similar circumstances (Gen_16:2 ff); she bade Jacob take her handmaid Bilhah, as a concubine, to ?obtain children by her? (Gen_30:3). Dan and Naphtali were the offspring of this union. The evil of polygamy is apparent from the dismal rivalry arising between the two sisters, each seeking by means of children to win the heart of Jacob. In her eagerness to become a mother of children, Rachel bargained with Leah for the mandrakes, or love-apples of her son Reuben, but all to no avail (Gen_30:14). Finally God heard her prayer and granted her her heart's desire, and she gave birth to her firstborn whom she named Joseph (Gen_30:22-24).
Some years after this, when Jacob fled from Laban with his wives, the episode of theft of the teraphim of Laban by Rachel, related in Gen_31:19, Gen_31:34, Gen_31:35, occurred. She hoped by securing the household gods of her father to bring prosperity to her own new household. Though she succeeded by her cunning in concealing them from Laban, Jacob later, upon discovering them, had them put away (Gen_35:2-4). In spite of all, she continued to be the favorite of Jacob, as is clearly evidenced by Gen_33:2, where we are told that he assigned to her the place of greatest safety, and by his preference for Joseph, her son. After the arrival in Canaan, while they were on the way from Beth-el to Ephrath, i.e. Bethlehem, Rachel gave birth to her second son, Benjamin, and died (Gen_35:16 ff).
2. Character:
In a marked manner Rachel's character shows the traits of her family, cunning and covetousness, so evident in Laban, Rebekah and Jacob. Though a believer in the true God (Gen_30:6, Gen_30:8, Gen_30:22), she was yet given to the superstitions of her country, the worshipping of the teraphim, etc. (Gen_31:19). The futility of her efforts in resorting to self-help and superstitious expedients, the love and stronger faith of her husband (Gen_35:2-4), were the providential means of purifying her character. Her memory lived on in Israel long after she died. In Rth_4:11, the names of Rachel and Leah occur in the nuptial benediction as the foundresses of the house of Israel.
Rachel's Tomb
(רחל קברת מצּבת, maccebheth kebhurath rāḥēl): In Gen_35:20 we read: ?Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave: the same is the Pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day,? i.e. the time of the writer. Though the pillar, i.e sepulchral monument, has long disappeared, the spot is marked until this day, and Christians, Jews and Mohammedans unite in honoring it. The present tomb, which, apparently, is not older than the 15th century, is built in the style of the small-domed buildings raised by Moslems in honor of their saints. It is a rough structure of four square walls, each about 23 ft. long and 20 ft. high; the dome rising 10 ft. higher is used by Mohammedans for prayer, while on Fridays the Jews make supplication before the empty tomb within. It is doubtful, but probable, that it marks the exact spot where Rachel was buried. There are, apparently, two traditions as to the location of the place. The oldest tradition, based upon Gen_35:16-20; Gen_48:7, points to a place one mile North of Bethlehem and 4 miles from Jerusalem. Mat_2:18 speaks for this place, since the evangelist, reporting the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem, represents Rachel as weeping for her children from her neighboring grave. But according to 1Sa_10:2 ff, which apparently represents another tradition, the place of Rachel's grave was on the ?border of Benjamin,? near Beth-el, about 10 miles North of Jerusalem, at another unknown Ephrath. This location, some believe, is corroborated by Jer_31:15, where the prophet, in relating the leading away of the people of Ramah, which was in Benjamin, into captivity, introduces Rachel the mother of that tribe as bewailing the fate of her descendants. Those that believe this northern location to be the place of Rachel's grave take the words, ?the same is Beth-lehem,? in Gen_35:19; Gen_48:7, to be an incorrect gloss; but that is a mere assumption lacking sufficient proof.
Mr. Nathan Strauss, of New York City, has purchased the land surrounding Rachel's grave for the purpose of erecting a Jewish university in the Holy Land.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Ra?chel (an ewe), one and the most beloved of the two daughters of Laban, whom Jacob married (Gen_29:16, seq.), and who became the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, in giving birth to the latter of whom she died near Bethlehem, where her sepulcher is shown to this day (Gen_30:22; Gen_35:16). For more minute particulars see Jacob, with whose history Rachel's is closely involved.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Rachel
SEE SHEEP.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
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