And they journeyed from Bethel. And there was yet a certain distance to come to Ephrath, when Rachel travailed in childbirth; and it went hard with her in her childbearing.
Jacob has just met God at Bethel, and now he is on the road again. Rachel's labour turns dangerous while Ephrath is still some distance ahead — so why does the deepest sorrow so often follow the highest moment?
One writer traces what follows each stage of Jacob's moving on.
It was good for Jacob to be at Bethel: that seemed to be his right place. But "they journeyed from Bethel." At once the heaviest sorrow of his life fell on him: his dearly loved Rachel died. He journeys again (v. 21), and then comes the terrible wickedness of Reuben. He journeys again, and then comes his father's death. Then he lived in the land where his father was a stranger, and we read of the long series of troubles connected with Joseph.
Commentators differ on how to read that departure. Another writer reads Bethel as the point where a new kind of journey begins.
Since Jacob had reached Bethel, this becomes the starting point of a journey of a different kind. It is the same with a believer today: his path becomes different when he comes to value the truth of the house of God as he should. There are still trials. But he now looks at them with calm submission, instead of scheming in the flesh about how to meet them. Jacob journeys (v. 16), and near Ephrath (which means "fruitfulness"), Rachel goes into labour.
The hard birth was not just bad luck. One writer links it back to Rachel's own history. She had stolen her father's household idols and hidden it from Jacob.
The moral government of God, now along the way, fails no more than His grace from beginning to end. Rachel had greatly sinned and kept her husband in the dark, when he unknowingly said that the guilty one should not live. Her theft was not only a sin against her father, but in what she stole, a serious insult to God. And we have no evidence that she judged herself properly, either soon or ever. It is plain that Jacob in time became aware of idols in his household, and God's call to Bethel laid the sin of it on his conscience. To take his beloved away was a chastening, not to her only but to him also.
The account records no word of complaint from Jacob. One writer sees that silence as the mark of a changed man.
Rachel's death was certainly one of the most painful lessons that Jacob had to learn. It went deep into his soul, and yet in his history nothing is said about how Jacob felt about it. He mentioned it a long time later to Joseph... He felt it. Yet I think we now see in Jacob a submitted heart. He recognised that it had come from the hand of God, and he bowed to it. He had learnt his lesson, learnt to submit to God.
The verse names the spot with unusual care, and the name matters. Reference works note that Ephrath was the old name of the town: "Apparently it was originally called EPHRATH, Gen. 35:16, 19... It is once called BETH-LEHEM EPHRATAH, that is, the fruitful, for the ruler of Israel was to come from there. Micah 5:2." Jacob had no way of knowing what he was standing on.
Jacob set up a pillar of thanksgiving at Bethel, in the place where God talked with him. He never thought that so soon afterwards he would set up another pillar, this one of sorrow, on Rachel's grave. But he bows to the hand of chastening: the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives. Jacob could not know, since God had not yet revealed it, that the King of Israel would be born near this very Ephrath. That King is the pledge and picture of great David's greater Son, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.
Rachel's roadside grave became a fixed landmark of grief. Long afterwards, when Jacob rehearsed this loss to Joseph, he still could not see the whole of what that ground would carry.
His faith could not grasp the distinction that was still to come to the place, for centuries had to pass before prophecy pointed to that spot as the birthplace of the great Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from the days of eternity. It was to be the place where there was not only a mourning for Rachel, but also where there should be a great mourning, "Rachel weeping for her children," according to Matthew 2:18.
- Road — the sorrow begins with a move: "they journeyed from Bethel." Writers differ over what it means. Was Jacob drifting from the place God gave him, or starting a new stage of the walk?
- Labour — the hard birth falls under God's moral government, which "fails no more than His grace." It chastened Jacob as much as Rachel.
- Silence — Scripture records no complaint from Jacob. He felt the blow, yet took it from God's hand.
- Pillar — the man who raised a pillar of thanksgiving at Bethel soon raised a pillar of sorrow on a grave. He did not know what that ground would mean.
- Ephrath — the road where his hopes seemed to close ran on to the birthplace of Israel's King.
And it came to pass when it went hard with her in her childbearing, that the midwife said to her, Fear not; for this also is a son for thee.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And it came to pass as her soul was departing -- for she died -- that she called his name Benoni; but his father called him Benjamin.
Rachel dies on the road just short of Bethlehem, and with her last breath she names the child who cost her life. Her husband at once gives him another name. Why the change, and what do the two names mean?
The verse describes death as the soul leaving the body. Scripture uses that same language elsewhere.
The general language of Scripture is that death means the departure of the soul and spirit from the body. Rachel, as her soul was departing, named her son Ben-oni (Gen. 35:18). As they stoned Stephen, he said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts 7:59).
Both names have a meaning, and one writer sets them side by side.
How deep, how absorbing her grief must have been! She tried to make her innocent baby carry the memory of it all his life. As she died she called her child Ben-oni — the son of my sorrow. But the child never bore that name. His father covered it at once and forever with Benjamin — the son of my right hand.
Jacob had just lost the wife he worked years for. His new name for the boy came out of faith.
He was the son of his mother's sorrow, and so she would have called him Benoni. But she died at his birth. Jacob lost a treasure he had worked long for, and a wife and friend he loved deeply. Yet in a faith that rose above his loss he named him Benjamin, son of his right hand. Jacob's weeping lasted for a night, and his joy came in the morning. He wept as though he did not weep, and the son of sorrow became the son of power and of victory.
Rachel died just outside Bethlehem. One writer draws out what that place meant for Jacob's hope.
There, near Bethlehem, where the true Son of the Right Hand would come into the world, Jacob shows his faith in God by the name he gives his son. In that place the door seemed to close on Jacob's deepest joys. Yet that same place held his brightest hopes safe, in the Baby to be born at Bethlehem.
Commentators read the double name as a picture of Christ — both what men did to Him and what God has done with Him.
She named him in keeping with her own condition, calling him Benoni, the son of my sorrow... She said Benoni as though she looked with the eye of faith down the passage of history. She saw that blessed Person of whom Isaiah wrote, "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." When Jacob renames his son, he too looks down the page of history with the eye of faith. He takes account of the Christ of God — not in relation to all that failing, sinful man could heap on Him, but in the light of the purpose and calling of God... So very early on the page of divine history God stamps two things: the path of the suffering of the Christ of God, and the path of triumph and glory that was bound to follow.
The same order — sorrow before power — shapes Israel's future. Writers note that the nation wants a reigning Messiah while passing over the rejected One.
Benjamin, the son of the mother's sorrow, became the son of the father's right hand. Jacob's prophecy of the last days foretold that his tribe would be the warrior-tribe of the nation. He is clearly the type of Christ exalted and in power on the earth. The nation clings to a reigning Messiah, but they do not see that only through the Sufferer can they find the Conqueror. When the hearts of the remnant in the last days turn to the suffering Christ they have rejected, then their restoration begins.
The change of name also carries a lesson about what our hearts are set on.
So Rachel dies. In the picture, Jacob gives up his strong desires. But Benjamin takes Rachel's place, a type of Christ as "the Man of God's right hand." The Lord Jesus is now exalted at the right hand of God. Only when He becomes the true Object of our hearts do we give up the useless ambition to improve ourselves morally and spiritually.
- Sorrow names him. A dying mother reads only the grief of the moment, and calls the child son of my sorrow.
- Faith renames him. The father, grieving too, looks past the grave. He calls him son of the right hand — the name the boy kept.
- Bethlehem holds both. The spot where Jacob's joy closed is the spot where the true Son of the right hand would be born.
- Christ is both names. Man of sorrows first, then the path of triumph and glory — stamped on Scripture this early.
- The order never changes. Israel reaches the Conqueror only through the Sufferer. So does every heart — finding its object no longer in itself but in the Man at God's right hand.
And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which [is] Bethlehem.
Rachel dies giving birth to a son. Jacob buries her where she falls, beside a road, at a place the verse pauses to rename. That small note — "that is, Bethlehem" — turns a private grief into something far larger. It is the first appearance of a town Scripture would never let go of.
The verse gives the town both its old name and the name readers would know. One survey traces what grew from this grave:
A city of Judah, also called Bethlehem-Judah (Judges 17:7-9). It is first mentioned in connection with the death and burial of Rachel, Genesis 35:19. The history of Ruth is also connected with Bethlehem... David was anointed in the house of Jesse the Bethlehemite, so it seems this was the place of David's birth (1 Samuel 16:4; 17:12, 15). That is why Luke 2:11 calls it the "city of David." It was also the birthplace of Jesus: though it was "too little to be among the clans of Judah," it better suited His humiliation. Bethlehem means "house of bread." That is a very fitting name for the place the Saviour would come from as a man — He who was the living bread that came down from heaven. It seems the town was first called Ephrath (Genesis 35:16, 19; 48:7), and later Ephratah (Ruth 4:11; Psalm 132:6). Once it is called Bethlehem Ephratah, that is, the fruitful, because the ruler of Israel was to come from there (Micah 5:2). This led to the massacre of the infants by Herod (Matthew 2:16-18).
One writer puts the death and the birth side by side:
It was the spot where Rachel died. Where Rachel died, Jesus was born.
Commentators do not read Rachel's death as random. One links it to her theft and to God's way of dealing with those who belong to Him:
The moral government of God, as we go along, no more fails than His grace from beginning to end. Rachel's sin was great, and she kept her husband in the dark. Without knowing it, he had said that anyone guilty should not live. Her theft was not only a sin against her father, but in what she stole, a serious insult to God. We have no evidence of proper self-judgment, soon or ever. It is plain that Jacob did at last become aware of idols in his household. To take his beloved away was a chastening, not to her only but to him also.
Jacob names the newborn against the grain of the moment, and the place where he does it matters:
Jacob's love for Rachel was very great (Genesis 29:20). His grief must have been very great when he lost her. Yet in the faith of his soul he rose above that deep, deep sorrow. You can see it in the name he gave his son. The dying Rachel called the child Benoni (Son of my sorrow), but Jacob called him Benjamin (Son of the right hand). There, near Bethlehem, the true Son of the Right Hand would come into the world. In the name he gave his son, Jacob shows his faith in God. The door seemed to close on Jacob's deepest joys in that place. Yet that same place would hold his brightest hopes safe, in the Babe to be born at Bethlehem.
The roadside grave did not fade from Israel's memory. The pillar over it still speaks at the hour the King is born:
Rachel dies, but the pillar that records it stands in Israel's land and history until the kingdom. The weeping prophet wrote of her weeping for her children. Those words fit with truth and deep feeling when the King was born and kept safe from the murderous plan of the usurping Edomite — the enemy inside the land, favoured by Rome.
One writer reads the burial as a stage in Jacob's own walk. It comes after God's house has taken first place with him:
Rachel died and was buried "on the way to Ephrath" (v. 19). Her burial was a necessary step on Jacob's way to fruitfulness, which is what Ephrath speaks of. This place is also called Bethlehem, "the house of bread." Now Jacob sets up his fourth pillar on Rachel's grave. His third pillar was simple confidence in God alone. The fourth fittingly follows: the pillar that buries earthly ambition or desire. God's house and God's interests now take first place in his life. So he is content to bury all that he was or sought "in the flesh."
- Grave. Bethlehem enters the Bible as a grave. Rachel's roadside death is the town's first appearance in Scripture.
- Chastening. One writer reads the loss as God's discipline on a household that kept idols. It fell on Jacob as much as on Rachel.
- Naming. Rachel's dying word was sorrow; Jacob's answering word was the right hand — grief renamed as hope on the very spot.
- Fruitfulness. Ephrath means fruitful; Bethlehem means "house of bread." The burial is the step where all Jacob sought "in the flesh" goes into the ground.
- King. The grave marker stands in Israel's history until the kingdom. Rachel's weeping sounds again when the King is born in the town where she died.
And Jacob erected a pillar upon her grave that is the pillar of Rachel's grave to [this] day.
Rachel dies giving birth on the road south from Bethel, and Jacob buries her where she falls. The stone he sets over her is the last of several pillars in his life. Genesis adds that it was still standing long afterwards. So what did Jacob want remembered, and what was God teaching him through this loss?
Jacob raised stones at places he never wanted forgotten. Centuries later this grave was still a landmark. When Samuel sent Saul out on his first errand as king, the route ran past it.
Saul came from Jacob's line and from the tribe of Benjamin. Few places would interest him more than Bethel and Rachel's tomb. Jacob clearly wanted both kept in memory, since he set up a pillar at each. It is now said that Saul must have gone out of his way to reach Rachel's tomb. Suppose he did. It was the way Samuel directed him, and we must think it was on purpose, however far out of his way it took him. He was to learn his first lesson at the grave of a woman who, like him, was beautiful and impressive to look at, yet who gave way to a rebellious will just as he did.
In the same chapter Jacob had already set up a stone where God spoke with him. The next stone went up soon after, over a grave.
Jacob little thought, when he put up a pillar of thanksgiving at Bethel in the place where God talked with him, that he would so soon afterwards put up another pillar, and this one of sorrow, on Rachel's grave. But he bows to the hand of chastening: whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He chastises every son whom He receives.
William Kelly does not read Rachel's death as only an accident of childbirth. He traces it back to something she had hidden from her husband.
Rachel had sinned greatly and kept her husband in the dark, when he unknowingly said that the guilty one should not live. Her theft was not only a sin against her father; in what she stole it was a serious insult to God. We have no evidence of proper self-judgment soon after — if ever. It is plain that Jacob eventually became aware of idols in his household... To take his beloved away was a chastening, not only for her but for him too.
The grave and the newborn belong to the same moment, and the child left that moment with two names.
This has brought us back to Rachel, Israel's history in fact. She dies. She had had Joseph; now she has Benjamin. She calls him Ben-oni, the son of my sorrow; Jacob calls him Benjamin, the son of my right hand. This points to Christ at God's right hand, who was also the son of affliction.
Years later, on his own deathbed, Jacob told Joseph again where he had buried Rachel — and added the place's other name.
Rachel was the loved object of his life... At Rachel's death love marked her burial place with a pillar to keep her name in lasting remembrance. For Rachel he had suffered, toiled and lived, and with her all earthly joys closed for Jacob... But the faith of the dying patriarch looks beyond the end of all earthly joys. The man who was forever talking of going down to the grave now has his feet at the edge of it — and he looks beyond death and decay. When he speaks of Rachel's tomb "on the way to Ephrath," he is careful to add, "that is, Bethlehem." That very spot closed up the earthly joys and natural affections of Jacob's life. It is also the place from which would come the One who would bring everlasting blessing to Jacob's descendants.
One writer counts four pillars across Jacob's life and puts this grave stone last.
In this case Jacob set up a pillar on her grave, and "it is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day" — this pillar of giving up every earthly hope. These last two pillars belong together. If my confidence is in a living God (the third pillar), then giving up the sweetest earthly hopes (the fourth pillar) is not hard. However, we are not told to give them up without having something better.
- Pillar of praise. At Bethel Jacob set up a stone where God had spoken with him; the same chapter has him setting up a second.
- Pillar of sorrow. The grave stone marks a chastening Jacob bows to, linked to the idols hidden in his household.
- Name — turned. Jacob overruled Rachel's "son of my sorrow" with "son of the right hand" — a name pointing to Christ at God's right hand, who was also the son of affliction.
- Place — Bethlehem. Jacob buried his earthly joy at the very town from which everlasting blessing would come.
- Lesson — surrender. The last pillar means giving up every earthly hope. That is bearable only because a living God gives something better.