Genesis 35:16 Commentary and Bible Study

Then Rachel dies. Chapter 35 is the chapter of three funerals: those of Deborah, Rachel, and then Isaac, slightly prematurely reported at the very end of the chapter. Jacob does not stay at Bethel in spite of the two great appearances of God to him there, but travels on to Ephrath, another name for Bethlehem, known as Bethlehem-Ephratah (Micah 5:2). He is heading further south to where his father Isaac is in Hebron. When they are not far from the city Rachel goes into labour with her second child, Benjamin, sixteen years younger than Joseph. But the birth is hard and results in her death. She who had so longed for a child dies through childbirth when she is a relatively young woman, and Jacob is deprived of his favourite wife and the only one he ever really wanted. This loss lives with him for the rest of his life, for in Genesis 48:7 as he speaks with Joseph and remembers the great milestones of his life, this loss of Rachel is one of them. What was the meaning of this great loss? Calvin believes that it was to correct the exorbitance of Jacob’s affection for her. Leah also was his legitimate wife, and although she only became his wife through the deceit of Laban, Jacob had obligations to her as well as to Rachel, yet Leah had to buy his favours (Genesis 30:15). As she struggles in labour, the midwife tries to comfort her with the assurance that she is about to give birth to a son and that he will live, but the news fails to console Rachel. She realises she is dying and names the boy with a suitably gloomy name – Benoni, meaning ‘son of my sorrow’. Jacob however does not allow this name to stand, but shows that he disapproves of this name and corrects her by renaming the child – Benjamin, ‘son of the right hand’. The name suggests how useful this child will be to Jacob and how dear to him. In the following narrative, Benjamin became a son who Jacob was very reluctant to part with or put in any danger. It was as if the affection he had for Rachel was transferred to Benjamin. Rachel’s tomb was marked with a memorial, for the living remember the dead not as those who no longer exist but as those who are removed from this present scene of life. Moses records that it still existed in his day.