RACHEL (ra'clAl), (Heb. raw-khale', a ewe; Sept. 'Pax4X, Rachel), one and the most beloved of the two daughters of Laban, whom Jacob married (Gen. xxix:16,sq.), and who became the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, in giving birth to the latter of whom she died near Bethlehem, where her sepulcher is shown to this day (Gen. xxx :22 ; XXXV :16), B. C. 02o. For more minute particulars see JAcon, with whose history Rachel's is closely involved.
Character. "From what is related to us con cerning her character there does not seem much to claim any high degree of admiration and es teem. The discontent and fretful impatience shown in her grief at being for a time childless moved even her fond husband to anger (Gen. xxx 2). She appears, moreover, to have shared all the duplicity and falsehood of her family. See, for instance, the account of Rachel's stealing her it yet is protected in Egypt both by law and pub lic opinion, for the services it renders in clearing the soil of dead carcasses putrefying in the sun, and the cultivated fields of innumerable rats, mice, and other vermin. Pious Moslems at Cairo and other places bestow a daily portion of food upon them, and upon their associates the kites, who are seen hovering conjointly in great num bers about the city. The Racham extends to Palestine in the summer season, but becomes scarce towards the north, where it is not specially protected ; and it accompanies caravans, feasting on their leavings and on dead camels, etc. The Percnopterus is somewhat singularly classed both in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, along with aquatic birds; and it may be questioned whether any ani mal will eat it, since in the parallel case of liultur aura, the turkey buzzard or carrion crow of America. we have found even the ants abstaining from its carcass, and leaving it to dry up in the father's images, and the ready dexterity and presence of mind with which she concealed her theft" (ch. xxxi :34). And yet there must have
been extremely fascinating qualities of person. mind and heart to bind Jacob so closely and lov ingly to her.
Figurative. "A voice was heard in Ramah Rachel weeping" (Jer. xxxi :15). "It appears from ch. x1:1 that Nehuzar-adan had the cap tives collected at Ramah. in chains. before he marched them off for Babylon. There must needs have been a great lamentation among them; and as this occurred at a place in the tribe of Benjamin, the prophet by a fine and bold figure introduces Rachel as weeping for her children slain and captives. Rachel, being both the mother of Benjamin, in one of the two kingdoms. and (through Joseph) of Ephraim, the leading tribe in the other, is with great propriety made to repre sent the general mother of the nation; and the weeping for her children is assigned with strik ing fitness to one by whom children were so pas sionately desired. Rachel's sepulcher was not, as some commentators explain, near Ramah, so as to be an object before the eyes of the miserable people there assembled; but it was near Bethle hem—at least twelve miles from this Raniah, and in the tribe of Judah ; and as this was nearly at the same distance to the south of Jerusalem as Ramah was to the north, perhaps the text, inci dentally, by this figure, indicates the extent of the lamentation and sorrow around Jerusalem, by ex pressing that the voice of Rachel weeping near Bethlehem 'was heard in Ramah' by the captives." Ditto, Pictorial Bible.
This quotation seems to explain the text Mat thew ii:18. So great was the grief in Bethlehem, when Herod murdered the infants, that it was heard in Ramah. This is indeed an hyperbole, but very apt to intimate excessive grief.