Rachel
RACHEL
Ewe or sheep, Rth 4:11, the younger sister of Leah, daughter of Laban, and the chosen wife of Jacob, though her sister was favored with more children. Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and died soon after the birth of the latter. See her history in Gen 29:1-35 :29. Her sepulchre, half an hour’s walk north of Bethlehem, is shown unto this day, the spot being marked by a Mohammedan wely or tomb, a stone enclosure and a dome. The prophecy, Jer 31:15, representing her as mourning over her posterity, the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin, is quoted in Mat 2:18, in reference to the massacre at Bethlehem, in which undoubtedly many of her descendants suffered. It is supposed that one of the many places called Ramah was adjacent to Bethlehem.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Rachel
(Hebrew: a ewe)
Laban’s younger daughter and favorite wife of Jacob (Genesis 29-31). Mother of Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis 30-35), she died giving birth to the latter and was buried near Bethlehem.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Rachel
Rachel (“a ewe”), daughter of Laban and younger sister of Lia. The journey of Jacob to the “east country” (Mesopotamia) in quest of a bride of his own kin, and his providential meeting with Rachel at the well in the open country followed by his introduction into the household of Laban are told with idyllic charm in the twenty-ninth chapter of Genesis. Jacob, being in love with Rachel, agreed to serve her father for her seven years. Laban accepted the proposal, and the seven years seemed to Jacob “but a few days, because of the greatness of his love”. He was deceived, however, by Laban, who at the end of the term of service gave him to wife, not Rachel, who “was well favoured, and of a beautiful countenance”, but her elder sister Lia, who was “blear-eyed”, and Jacob received the younger daughter to wife only on condition of serving seven years more. Rachel, being for a time without offspring and envious of her sister, to whom four children were born, gave to Jacob as a secondary wife her handmaid Bala, whose issue, according to a custom of the times, would be reckoned as her own. From this union were born Dan and Nephtali. In the quarrel which arose between Jacob and Laban, Rachel as well as Lia sided with the former, and when departing from her father’s home she carried away with her the teraphim or household gods, believing in their protecting influence over herself and her husband (Genesis 31:19). Among the sons of Rachel after the “Lord remembered” her were Joseph and Benjamin, in giving birth to the latter of whom Rachel died. At the point of death “she called the name of her son Benomi, that is, The son of my pain: but his father called him Benjamin, that is, the Son of the right hand”. Rachel was buried “in the highway that leadeth to Ephrata, this is Bethlehem. And Jacob erected a pillar over her sepulchre: this is the pillar of Rachel’s monument, to this day” (Genesis 35:18-20). The exact location of the grave of Rachel is a disputed point. A passage in Jeremias (xxxi, 15) would seem to indicate that it was on the northern border of Benjamin towards Ephraim, about ten miles north of Jerusalem. Tradition, however, has from at least the fourth century fixed the spot four miles south of Jerusalem and one mile north of Bethlehem.
VIGOUROUX, Dict. de la Bible, s. v. ; VON HUMMELAUER, Comment. in Gen., ch. xxix-xxxv.
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JAMES.F. DRISCOLL Transcribed by Sean Hyland
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Rachel
SEE SHEEP.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Rachel (2)
(Heb. Rachel’, , a ewe or sheep, as in Gen 31:38; Gen 32:14; Son 6:6; Isa 53:7; Sept. and New Test. , Josephus ), the younger daughter of the Aramean grazier Laban (Gen 29:16), whom Jacob, her near blood-relation, earned for his wife, as wages for a second seven-years’ service (Gen 29:18 sq.). B.C. 1920. SEE LEAH. After a long period of unfruitfulness, she bore him a son (Gen 29:31), Joseph (Gen 30:22 sq.). She went with him to Canaan, on which occasion she stole the household gods of her father and hid them artfully (Gen 31:19; Gen 31:34), and finally died on the journey, after the birth of Benljamin, not far from Ephrath (Gen 35:16 sq.). SEE RACHELS TOMB
The story of Jacob and Rachel has always had a peculiar interest: there is that in it which appeals to some of the deepest feelings of the human heart. The beauty of Rachel, the deep love with which she was loved by Jacob from their first meeting by the well of Haran, when he showed to her the simple courtesies of the desert life, and kissed her and told her he was Rebekah’s son; the long servitude with which he patiently served for her, in which the seven years seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had to her;’ their marriage at last, after the cruel disappointment through the fraud which substituted the elder sister in the place of the younger; and the death of Rachel at the very time when, in giving birth to another son, her own long-delayed hopes were accomplished, and she had become still more endeared to her husband; his deep grief and ever-living regrets for her loss (Gen 48:7) these things make up a touching tale of personal anid domestic history which has kept alive the memory of Rachel the beautiful, the beloved, the untimely-taken-away and has preserved to this day a reverence for her tomb; the very infidel invaders of the Holy Land having respected the traditions of the site, and erected over the spot a small, rude shrine, which conceals whatever remains may have once been foulnd of the pillar first set up by her mourning husband over her grave. Yet, from what is related to us concerning Rachel’s character, there does not seem much to claim any high degree of admiration and esteem. The discontent and fretful impatience shown in her grief at being for a time childless, moved even her fond husband to anger (Gen 30:1-2).
She appears, moreover, to have shared all the duplicity and falsehood of her family, of which we have such painfll instances in Rebekah, in Laban, and, not least, in her sister Leal, who consented to bear her part in the deception practiced upon Jacob. See, for instance, Rachel’s stealing her father’s images, and the ready dexterity and presence of mind with which she concealed her theft (ch. 31): we seem to detect here an apt scholar in her father’s school of untruth. From this incident we may also infer (though this is rather the misfortune of her position and circumstances) that she was not altogether free from the superstitions aind idolatry which prevailed in the land whence Abraham had been called (Jos 24:2; Jos 24:14), and which still to some degree infected even those families among whom the true God was known. The events which preceded the death of Rachel are of much interest and worthy of a brief consideration. The presence in his household of these idolatrous images, which Rachel, and probably others also, had brought from the East, seems to have been either unknown to or connived at by Jacob for some years after his return from Haran; till, on being reminded by the Lord of the vow which he had made at Bethel when he fled from the face of Esau, and being bidden by him to erect an altar to the God who appeared to him there, Jacob felt the glaring impiety of thus solemnly appearing before God with the taint of impiety cleaving to him or his, and said to his household and all that were with him, Put away the strange gods from among you’ (Gen 35:2). After thus casting out the polluting thing from his house.
Jacob journeyed to Bethel, where, amid the associations of a spot consecrated by the memories of the past, he received from God an emphatic promise anid blessing, alnd, the name of the Supplanter being laid aside, he had given to him instead the holy name of Israel. Then it was, after his spirit had been there purified and strengthened by communion with God, by the assurance of the divine love and favor, by the consciousness of evil put away and duties performed then it was, as he journeyed away from Bethel, that the chastening blow fell and Rachel died. These circumstances are alluded to here not so much for their bearinmg ulpon the spiritual discipline of Jacob, but rather with reference to Rachel herself, as suggesting the hope that they mav have had their effect in bringing her to a higher sense of her relations to that Great Jehovah in whom her husband, with all his faults of character, so firmly believed. The character of Rachel cannot certainily be drawn from the few features given in the history; yet Niemeyer (Charak. ii, 315) thinks tliat sufficient ground exists for preferring the disposition of Leah to that of her sister, Those who take an interest in such interpretations may find the whole story of Rachel and Leah allegorized by St. Augustine (Contra Faustum Manichoeum, 22:51-58, vol. 8, 432, etc., ed. Migne) and Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho, c. 134, p. 360; see also Archer, Rachel a Type of the Church [Lond. 1843]). SEE JACOB.
In Jer 31:15-16, the prophet refers to the historical event of the exile of the ten tribes (represented by Ephraim) under Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and the sorrow occasioned by their dispersion (2Ki 17:20), under the symbol of Rachel (q.v.), i.e. Rachel, the maternal ancestor of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, bewailing the fate of her children. This lamentation was a type or symbol of another connected with the early history of our Lord, which met with its fulfilment in the mournful scene at Bethlehem and its vicinity, when so many infants were slaughtered under the barbarous edict of Herod (Mat 2:16-18).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Rachel
ewe, “the daughter”, “the somewhat petulant, peevish, and self-willed though beautiful younger daughter” of Laban, and one of Jacob’s wives (Gen. 29:6, 28). He served Laban fourteen years for her, so deep was Jacob’s affection for her. She was the mother of Joseph (Gen. 30:22-24). Afterwards, on Jacob’s departure from Mesopotamia, she took with her her father’s teraphim (31:34, 35). As they journeyed on from Bethel, Rachel died in giving birth to Benjamin (35:18, 19), and was buried “in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave”. Her sepulchre is still regarded with great veneration by the Jews. Its traditional site is about half a mile from Jerusalem.
This name is used poetically by Jeremiah (31:15-17) to denote God’s people mourning under their calamities. This passage is also quoted by Matthew as fulfilled in the lamentation at Bethlehem on account of the slaughter of the infants there at the command of Herod (Matt. 2:17, 18).
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Rachel
(“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.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
RACHEL
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).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Rachel
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.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Rachel
A well-known and interesting name in the Bible, the beloved wife of the patriarch Jacob, and daughter of Laban. The name itself means sheep. And from being engaged in keeping flocks, in these early days of patriarchal simplicity, it is probable the name was taken on that account. Her history we have, Gen 29:30, etc. It may be observed, that we have a city in the tribe of Judah called Rachal, or Rachel; probably in honour of this mother in Israel. (1Sa 30:29)
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Rachel
rachel (, rahel, ewe; , Rhachel (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
( , maccebheth kebhurath rahel): 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.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Rachel
Rachel (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.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Rachel
[Ra’chel]
The beautiful daughter of Laban, for whom Jacob served seven years, which seemed to him but a few days, because of his great love for her. When the time was expired Jacob was cheated by Laban, and Leah was given him instead. He served another seven years for Rachel. She was at first childless, and foolishly said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die”; for which she was duly rebuked by her husband. Apparently she prayed to God, for we read that He ‘hearkened’ to her: she bore Joseph and then Benjamin, at whose birth she died. Jacob set up a pillar at her grave.
It was Rachel who stole the household gods of her father, and then with cunning concealed them. Otherwise we read nothing of her character: at home she had evidently been in a bad school. Her history is given in Gen 29 – Gen 35. In the N.T. she is represented as weeping for her children when Herod slew the young children, Mat 2:17-18, a fulfilment of that spoken in Jer 31:15 (where she is called RAHEL), though the circumstances in the two cases were different. A mother in Israel weeping for the loss of her children applies to both.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Rachel
H7354
Daughter of Laban and wife of Jacob.
Meets Jacob at the well
Gen 29:9-12
Jacob serves Laban fourteen years to secure her for his wife
Gen 29:15-30
Sterility of
Gen 29:31
Her grief in consequence of her sterility; gives her maid to Jacob in order to secure children in her own name
Gen 30:1-8; Gen 30:15; Gen 30:22-34
Later fecundity of:
– Becomes the mother of Joseph
Gen 30:22-25
– Becomes the mother of Benjamin
Gen 35:16-18; Gen 35:24
Steals the household images of her father
Gen 31:4; Gen 31:14-19; Gen 31:33-35
Her death and burial
Gen 35:18-20; Gen 48:7; 1Sa 10:2
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Rachel
Rachel (r’chel), an ewe. The daughter of Laban and wife of Jacob. Her history is given in Genesis, chaps. 29-35. She died after giving birth to Benjamin, and was buried near the road from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Gen 35:19.
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
Rachel
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.
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
RACHEL
daughter of Laban, married to Jacob
Gen 29:6; Gen 29:18; Gen 30:1; Gen 30:22; Gen 33:2; Gen 35:19; Rth 4:11; Jer 31:15; Mat 2:18
Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible
Rachel
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.