Rachel

Overview

• Rachel is the younger daughter of Laban and the beloved wife of Jacob, mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She died giving birth to Benjamin and was buried near Bethlehem.
• The prophet's image of "Rachel weeping for her children" is applied by St. Matthew to the mothers of the Holy Innocents.

Her Story

Jacob first met Rachel as she came to water her father's flock, and he rolled away the stone from the well's mouth for her and wept aloud for joy (Genesis 29.9-12). He loved her, and agreed to serve Laban seven years for her hand, and "they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (Genesis 29.18-20). But Laban gave him her elder sister Leah first by deceit, and Rachel only after — for another seven years' service (Genesis 29.25-30).

Rachel was loved but barren, and in her grief she envied Leah and cried to Jacob, "Give me children, or I die"; she gave her maid Bilhah to Jacob, who bore Dan and Naphtali on her behalf (Genesis 30.1-8), and she traded for Leah's mandrakes in hope of conceiving (Genesis 30.14-16). At last "God remembered Rachel… and opened her womb," and she bore Joseph, praying that God would add to her yet another son (Genesis 30.22-24).

When Jacob fled Haran, Rachel secretly took her father's household idols and hid them, sitting upon them so that Laban's search failed (Genesis 31.19; Genesis 31.34-35). On the journey home, near Ephrath, she went into hard labor and died giving birth to her second son — naming him with her last breath Ben-oni ("son of my sorrow"), whom Jacob renamed Benjamin; and Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb on the way to Bethlehem (Genesis 35.16-20).

Rachel Weeping

Centuries later the prophet Jeremiah hears "a voice… in Ramah… Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more" (Jeremiah 31.15) — yet with the promise that "they shall come back" (Jeremiah 31.16-17). St. Matthew takes up these words for the mothers of Bethlehem mourning the Holy Innocents slain by Herod (Matthew 2.16-18). So Rachel, buried by Bethlehem, becomes an image of the Church's grief and of the hope that answers it. See Typology in Scripture.

Sources

[^1]: Genesis 29–Genesis 31; Genesis 35.16-20 — Jacob's love and service for Rachel, the birth of Joseph, and her death and burial near Bethlehem; and the prophetic image of "Rachel weeping" in Jeremiah 31.15-17, applied to the Holy Innocents in Matthew 2.16-18.