Rachel

About Rachel

Rachel was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah (Gen.29.16). She became the beloved wife of Israel (or 'Jacob'), who worked for Laban for fourteen years to marry her (Gen.29.18-30). Rachel was initially unable to conceive, while Leah bore several children (Gen.29.31-35). In her distress, Rachel gave her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob, and Bilhah bore Dan and Naphtali (Gen.30.1-8). Eventually, God remembered Rachel, and she gave birth to Joseph (Gen.30.22-24). When Jacob left Laban, Rachel stole her father's household idols (Gen.31.19). She later hid them and deceived her father when he came searching for them (Gen.31.34-35). As Jacob's family journeyed to Ephrath (Bethlehem), Rachel went into labor and gave birth to Benjamin, but she died during childbirth (Gen.35.16-20). Jacob buried her on the way to Ephrath and set up a pillar on her grave (Gen.35.20). Rachel's sons, Joseph and Benjamin, became two of the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen.46.19-22). Her tomb became a landmark (1Sa.10.2) and is mentioned in Jer.31.15, where her weeping is used as a symbol for Israel's mourning during the Babylonian exile. This passage is also quoted in Mat.2.18 in relation to Herod's massacre of the innocents.

Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.