Rachel

Rachel [Heb. rakhel, meaning "ewe"]. A personal name.

Rachel was the daughter of Laban, favorite wife of Jacob, younger sister of Leah, and birth mother of Joseph and Benjamin (Gen 29-35). Rachel was a shepherdess of her father's sheep (Gen 27:9) and lived in Paddan-Aran where she met and married her fugitive cousin Jacob. She had four children including two surrogates (Dan and Naphtali), and died relatively young during childbirth, on the way to Ephrath/Bethlehem (Gen 35:16-20).

Rachel's love story with Jacob is as beautiful as it is dramatic. Fleeing from the wrath of his brother Esau, Jacob happened upon her at a well where she usually watered the flock (Gen 29:1-12). He fell in love with her and worked seven years for Laban in exchange of her hand (Gen 29:15-20). On the wedding day, however, Laban substituted Rachel with her older sister, justifying his deception with a customary obligation (Gen 29:21-26). After the wedding week Laban also gave Rachel to Jacob as a wife in exchange for seven more years of service (Gen 29:27-28).

Rachel is one of the few Bible characters whose physical beauty is mentioned. Immediately after revealing that she "was beautiful of form and appearance" (Gen 29:17), the author discloses that Jacob loved her and requested her hand as wages for his work, his love being repeatedly stated (Gen 29:18, 20, 30). While Rachel possesses physical beauty, her character flaws are revealed indirectly through her speeches, actions, and relational dynamics with her husband, sister, and father. She quarreled with Jacob over her barrenness in intense language ("Give me children, or else I die!"), which stirred him to anger (Gen 30:1-2). She envied her sister and entered a child-bearing competition by giving her maid Bilhah to Jacob as a surrogate mother (Gen 30:1, 3-8). Rachel sold her sister a night with Jacob in exchange for mandrakes (Gen 30:14-15), a plant believed to possess aphrodisiac properties and also to promote fertility. She stole her father's household idols (Gen 31:19, 32), kept them secret from her husband (Gen 31:32), and cunningly concealed them from Laban when he searched for his missing teraphim (Gen 31:35), thus demonstrating her attachment to idolatry and implicit disloyalty to Yahweh. While complaining alongside Leah that their father "has sold us, and also completely consumed our money" (Gen 31:14-16), Rachel's portrayal indicates that she inherited Laban's tendency to manipulate and deceive. Her flaws, however, are cushioned by her beauty and other characters' faults, particularly Laban's and Leah's deceptions.

Rachel's relationship with God is sparsely evident in two mentions of God: first when her maid, Bilhah, whom she gave to Jacob to bear children for her, conceived: "God has judged my case; and He has also heard my voice and given me a son" (Gen 29:6), and then when she declares, "God has taken away my reproach" after giving birth to her first son, Joseph (Gen 30:23). Rachel's perception of divine intervention echoes the author's statement that "God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb" (Gen 30:22). The author makes a similar reference to God opening Leah's womb (Gen 29:31), and Leah likewise attributes her conception to God (Gen 29:32-35). While the text explicitly indicates that giving her maid to Jacob was her solution, it is silent concerning God's will about this. Her reference to God in this context may come in response to Jacob's defense before her desperate plea for children: "Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" (Gen 30:2).

Rachel died on the road to Ephrath/Bethlehem during childbirth (Gen 35:16-20), an outcome ironically linked to Jacob's curse upon the idols' thief (Gen 31:32) and her wish to die because of childlessness (Gen 30:1-2). Her grief is reflected in the naming of her son Benoni, meaning "son of my sorrow" or "son of my misfortune," which Jacob changed to Benjamin, meaning "son of the right hand." Rachel's birth sons, Joseph and Benjamin, became influential among the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph was Jacob's favorite child and was circumstantially led to Egypt where he eventually became governor and thus was able to preserve his family through famine (Gen 37, 39-50).

Years later, on his own deathbed, Jacob recalls Rachel's passing and his deep sorrow (Gen 48:7). Rachel was buried at Zelzah, a city located in what later became the land of the tribe of Benjamin (1 Sam 10:2). Her tragedy reverberated in Israel for centuries as prophets and disciples recall her in poems of lament over God's exiled people (Jer 31:15-17) and the slaughter of innocent infants (Matt 2:17-18).