RACHEL
riage at last, after the cruel disappoint- ment through the fraud which substi- tuted the elder sister in the place of the younger; and the death of Rachel at the very time when, in giving birth to an- other 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. xlviii, 7) — these things make up a touching tale of personal and 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 hav- ing respected the traditions of the site, and erected over the spot a small, rude shrine, which conceals what- ever remains may have once been found 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 (xxx, 1, 2). She appears, moreover, to have shared all the duplicity and falsehood of her family, of which we have such painful instances in Rebekah, in Laban, and, not least, in her sister Leah, who consented to bear her part in the deception practiced upon Jacob. See, for in- stance, Rachel's stealing her father's images, and the ready dexterity and presence of mind with which she concealed her theft (ch. xxxi) : 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 and idolatry which prevailed in the land whence Abraham had been called (Josh, xxiv, 2, 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 tied from the face of Esau, and being bidden by him to erect an altar to the God who ap- peared 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 house- hold and all that were with him. Put away the strange gods from among you' (Gen. xxxv, 2). After thus cast- ing out the polluting thing from his house. Jacob jour- neyed to Bethel, where, amid the associations of a spot consecrated by the memories of the past, he received from God an emphatic promise and blessing, and, 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 ami 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 bearing upon the spiritual discipline of Jacob, but rather with reference to Rachel herself, as suggesting the hope that they may have had their ef- fect 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" (Smith). The character of Rachel cannot certainly be drawn from the few features given in the history; yet Niemeyer (Cha- rak. ii, 315) thinks that sufficient ground exists for pre- ferring the disposition of Leah to that of her sister.
RACHEL'S TOMB 8
Those who take an interest in such interpretations may find the whole Btory of Rachel and Leah allegorized by St Augustine (< tra Faustum Manichatum, xxii li h iii. vol. \ iii. 132, ' tc, • d. Migne) and Justin Martyr c 13 !. p. 360; see also Archer. Rachel a Church [Lond. 1843]). See Ja-
( OB.
In Ji r. \wi. 15, L6, the prophet refers to the histor- ical event of i lie i Kile of I be ten tribes t represented by "Ephraim") under Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and . occasioned by their dispersion i- Kings xvii, 20), under the symbol of Rahel (q. v. i, i. e. Rachi I, the maternal ancestor of the tribes of Ephraim and Manas- seh, bewailing the fate oilier children. This lamenta- tion was a /.v/» <ir 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 bar- i -I Herod (Matt, ii, 16 18). See Ramah.
RACHEL'S TOMB (btrrrTOj?, Kibrdth Racket; Sepi. in Gen. fur the former half of the title uvrifiiiov, but in Jer. xlviii. 7. and 2 Kings v. L9, Kafipahd. This seems to have been accepted as the name of the spot | Demetrius in Eus. I'r. Ev. ix. 21 |, and to have been actually encountered there by a traveller in the 12th century | Burchardde Strasburg, by Saint-Genois, p. 35 '. who gives the Arabic name of Rachel's tomhas Cabrata, or Carbata. The present name is Kubbet Rahil.Le. "Rachel's grave"). "Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Ra- chel's grave unto this day" Mien. xxxv. 19, 20). As Rachel is the first related instance of death in child- bearing, so this pillar over her grave is the first recorded