Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

RACHEL

(Heb. rāḥēl)

The younger daughter of Laban, sister of Leah, and one of the wives of Jacob. Her name probably means “ewe” and she was said to be “fair of form and of fair appearance.”

Rachel was watching her father’s sheep when she was first greeted by Jacob, who had gone to Haran either to escape his brother Esau’s anger (Gen. 27:41-45) or to seek a wife from his mother’s kin (27:46–28:5). Jacob went to work for Laban, who was also his mother’s brother. When asked what his wages should be, Jacob asked for the hand of Rachel, whom he loved. In return for seven years of service, Rachel would become his wife (Gen. 29:15-20).

Although Laban seemed to agree to the terms (Gen. 29:19), when the time came to give Rachel to Jacob Laban substituted Leah. Laban’s reason for doing so is heavily ironic: it was not the custom to marry off the younger daughter first. Jacob, who had stolen the blessing from his other brother, himself had to accept as a wife the older daughter rather than the younger he had chosen. Jacob was forced to give another seven years of service for Rachel, although he was allowed to marry her within a week (Gen. 29:28).

Ironically Rachel, the wife Jacob chose and “loved,” remained for a long time barren, while her sister Leah, the “hated” one, bore children for Jacob. This led to tension and conflict between the two sisters as Leah bore four sons in succession and Rachel remained childless (Gen. 29:31-35). To overcome this state Rachel offered as wife to Jacob her maid Bilhah, who bore two sons (Gen. 30:1-8). Leah in her turn offered her maid Zilpah, who also bore two sons (Gen. 30:9-13). This practice seems to reflect a legal procedure by which childless women could acquire their handmaids’ children by adoption; by resorting to this practice Rachel probably hoped to remove the shame brought by barrenness.

As Rachel’s desperation increased, she even traded a night with Jacob for a mandrake, or “love-apple,” found by Leah’s son Reuben (Gen. 30:14-16). The fruit of the mandrake (or yellow flowering mandragora) was regarded as an aphrodisiac, promoting fertility.

After Leah gave birth to two more sons and a daughter, Rachel finally bore a son, Joseph, and the conflict, or contest, between the two women ended, although not without Rachel’s hope for another son (Gen. 30:24). Although the birth of Joseph occurred soon after Rachel gained possession of the mandrake, the narrator is careful to attribute the conception of Joseph to the fact that “God remembered Rachel, and God heeded her and opened her womb” (Gen. 30:22).

After Joseph’s birth Jacob made plans to leave the house of Laban secretly, with the consent of his wives. Rachel took with her the teraphim (small cultic objects, images of gods or possibly of the ancestors), hiding them in the camel’s saddle. Rachel’s reasons for doing so are unclear, but it is possible that the teraphim represent the blessing, or well-being, of the family, which she takes in compensation for the injustice perpetrated by her father (Gen. 31:14-16). In doing so she very nearly brought death upon herself. Jacob, innocent of either theft or knowledge of theft, promised Laban that whoever had taken the teraphim would die. Rachel used trickery to avoid discovery, claiming that it was the time of her menstrual period.

Rachel’s desire for another son was not fulfilled until after Jacob had returned to Bethel (Gen. 35). On the journey from Bethel to Ephrath (Bethlehem), Rachel gave birth to a second son, called Benjamin by his father, but died in childbirth (Gen. 35:16-18). Jacob buried her there on the way, with a pillar to mark the place (Gen. 35:19-20), which later became part of the “territory of Benjamin at Zelzah” (1 Sam. 10:2).

Rachel is remembered in Israel as the one who, together with Leah, built up the house of Israel (Ruth 4:11). The prophet Jeremiah speaks of Rachel weeping in Ramah for her lost children, the northern tribes descended from Joseph and Benjamin (Jer. 31:15).

Marilyn J. Lundberg

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

RACHEL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)