The New International Encyclopædia/Rachel

RA'CHEL (Heb. Rāḥēl, ewe). A daughter of Laban, the favorite wife of Jacob (Gen. xxxix. 6 sqq., 30), mother of Joseph (ib. xxx. 22 sqq.) and Benjamin (ib. xxxv. 16 sqq.). Jacob served Laban seven years for her, and then, receiving Leah in her stead, was obliged to serve seven years more for Rachel. As Rachel was barren, she gave her husband Bilhah, a servant, for concubine, and thus became the putative mother of Dan and Naphtali (ib. xxx. 1-8). Through ‘mandrakes’ obtained from Reuben her womb was finally opened (ib. xxx. 14 sqq.). She died in Canaan after giving birth to Benjamin (ib. xxxv. 18). Her tomb is said to have been at Zelzah in the border of Benjamin not far from the sacred tree of Tabor, in the neighborhood of Bethel (I. Sam. x. 2), between Bethel and Migdol Eder, which, according to Micah iv. 8, seems to have been Jerusalem (Gen. xxxv. 16), not far from Ramah (Jer. xxxi. 1.5), and ‘in the way to Ephrath which is Bethlehem’ (Gen. xlviii. 7). There must have been a tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem to account for the reference of this passage to the massacre of infants in Matthew ii. 18. Whether the other passages all refer to the same place or to different tombs cannot easily be determined. Originally the totem of an important clan (Rachel-ewe), the divine ancestress may have been worshiped at more than one tomb, both within the territory of the tribes Joseph and Benjamin and at Bethlehem, which once seems to have belonged to Benjamin (Bĕnē Yamin—'Sons of the South'). The Rachel clan itself was probably absorbed in Joseph and Benjamin, though families in Dan and Naphtali may have claimed the same descent. There is a Kubbet 'Abd el-'Aziz north of Jerusalem also called Kubbet Rachil (tomb of Rachel); the structure at Bethlehem called Ḳubbet Rachil dates from the twelfth century A.D., but may be on the site of an earlier tomb.