Rachel (Heb. Rāḥēl) (RACHELE (EBR. RĀHĒL)) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. X, p. 267

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

RACHELE (Hebr. Rāhēl). — Giacobbe (v.). At the suggestion of his mother Rebecca (Gen. 27:46), Giacobbe goes to Mesopotamia to choose a wife from his own family. Having reached “the land of the Easterners” (ibid. 29:1), near Haran (ibid. 29:4), Giacobbe meets R., Laban (v.), Rebecca’s brother, and therefore his cousin.

The meeting at the well, where the young woman had brought her flock to drink, is described in idyllic terms (ibid. 29:10–12). Having asked for R. in marriage, and being unable to offer a gift to his future father-in-law according to the marriage customs of the time, Giacobbe declares himself willing to serve him for seven years. But Laban, wishing first to settle his elder daughter Lia, substitutes her for R. during the night, and Giacobbe is compelled to remain for another seven years in order to have his beloved R. as well (ibid. 29:15–18). While Giacobbe spends his seven years in Laban’s house, Lia, who was given precedence

Article illustration — (by courtesy of the Superior of the House of the Sacred Heart Retreats, Rome) RACHELE — The tomb of R. — Palestine.

On the advice of her husband, she takes revenge by mocking her sister’s barrenness. The biblical account conveys the idea that R.’s sterility was willed by God to punish Jacob’s unjust preference. The young R. finds some consolation because her maid Bilhah bears her two sons, Dan (v.) and Naphtali (v.), whom she may regard as her own children according to a right also sanctioned by the Code of Hammurabi; she also resorts to aphrodisiac essences (ibid. 30:14–15). At last God takes pity and “opens the womb” of R., who becomes the mother of Joseph (ibid. 30:22–24).

When Jacob departs from Mesopotamia, R. cannot bring herself to part with the statuettes of the household gods (ibid. 31:34–35). Upon entering Palestine, R. and her son still appear as Jacob’s favorite, and he assigns them the safest place in the caravan (ibid. 33:2). R. dies giving birth to her second son, Benjamin (v.), along the road between Bethel and Ephrath, that is, in the vicinity of Ramah (cf. I Sam. 10:2; Jer. 31:15), and not at Bethlehem, as the current text has it as a result of a very ancient gloss (Gen. 35:19). This gloss, together with the tradition of a tomb near Bethlehem, led the Evangelist to apply Jeremiah’s moving verse to the massacre of the Innocents (Mt. 2:18).

Angelo Penna