Family and Marriage to Jacob
Rachel was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah. She was the first cousin of Jacob, since her aunt Rebecca was Jacob's mother. The sources note that her name means 'ewe' in Hebrew.
According to Genesis, Jacob first met Rachel at a well where she was watering her father's flock, and he agreed to work seven years for Laban in order to marry her. On the wedding night Laban substituted the elder sister Leah; Jacob then served a further seven years to marry Rachel as well, so that he came to have both sisters as wives.
Motherhood and the Sons of Israel
Rachel remained childless for a long time while her sister Leah bore four sons. According to the tradition recorded in Genesis, Rachel gave her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob, and Bilhah bore two sons, Dan and Naphtali, whom Rachel named.
Rachel afterward conceived and bore Joseph, who became Jacob's favored son, and later a second son, Benjamin. Through Joseph and Benjamin she stands as a mother of two of the tribes of Israel.
Death and Burial near Bethlehem
Near Ephrath, Rachel went into a difficult labor with her second son. Before she died she named the child Ben Oni, meaning 'son of my mourning,' but Jacob called him Benjamin, 'son of the right.'
Rachel was buried on the road to Ephrath, just outside Bethlehem, rather than in the ancestral tomb at Machpelah where Jacob and Leah would be buried. According to Genesis 35:19-20, she 'died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.'
Rachel in Prophecy and the Gospel
The prophet Jeremiah (31:15) depicts Rachel weeping for her children, a passage understood as her mourning over her exiled descendants. The Gospel of Matthew applies this same verse to the massacre of the children at Bethlehem ordered by Herod, so that Rachel's lament near Bethlehem is read as foreshadowing the grief of that event.
Veneration as a Foremother of Christ
In the Orthodox Church Rachel is venerated among the Holy Forefathers, the Old Testament ancestors of Christ honored in the weeks before the Nativity. The Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, falling on the second Sunday before Christmas, commemorates the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the matriarchs, and the prophets and righteous of Israel; the Sunday before the Nativity likewise commemorates the ancestors of Christ according to the flesh. These commemorations emphasize the continuity between the Old Testament righteous and the Incarnation.
Relics & Shrines
Rachel's Tomb stands at the northern entrance to Bethlehem, on the road to Ephrath between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, at the site identified by Genesis as her burial place. It is held in esteem by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, with documented Christian pilgrimages from the fourth century. The present building dates from the Ottoman period and was built in the traditional shrine (maqam) style; it was significantly renovated by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1841.
