Rachel
Page 28
He studied her, wondering what she saw now on the other side in Sheol. His eyes closed, seeing again the ziggurat with the angels and the visitors at Mahanaim, and the man he had wrestled with across the Jabbok River. Rachel, of all others in his life, had witnessed his last encounter with God, had heard His blessing, had seen His look of love. She had spoken of it in awe several times since, and he could not help wondering if she was with Him now.
Would to God that he could join her!
He buried his face against her stiff side and wept, wishing dawn would never come. Let them find him dead at her side, two lovers joined forever in death as their love had joined them in life.
How could he bear to go on without her?
He raised his head, brushed a strand of her hair, no longer soft as it had been, and tucked it along her shoulder. He left his hand resting against her cheek, not caring that she could no longer feel. A sob rose within him, choking him.
Rachel! Rachel, come back to me.
He lifted his head, gazing heavenward, seeing only the wooden tent posts and cords, a shroud about him.
Why did You take her from me?
The questions swirled inside of him, complements of the same thoughts he had struggled with when he had wrestled with God, and he knew he could not utter them aloud. Could only keep them close to his heart. There was no reasoning with good and evil in this life. Memories of his father and Uncle Ishmael discussing God’s goodness when he was but a lad surfaced. And with the memory he caught a glimpse of his father’s sufferings on God’s altar.
He drew in a breath, unsettled. He could not live without Rachel. And yet he had no choice but to do so. Joseph and Benjamin needed him. Leah needed him. That thought surprised him, but he could not explore it now.
He laid his head beside Rachel’s, his tears wetting the floor at her side. Dawn would come, and he would bury his most beloved wife beside the road to Bethlehem at Ephrath.
And he would raise a pillar in her honor.
Leah stood surrounded by her sons, watching as the servants lowered Rachel’s body to the earth beside the road and covered her with dirt. Jacob and Joseph kept their distance from the rest of Jacob’s sons, the rift as wide as it had ever been. She had spoken to her sons as they walked along the way, begged them to be a comfort to their father and brother, but only Judah had given the slightest hint of agreement. She looked to him now, but he glanced away as though she asked too much of him.
Jacob moved to the side of the road where a pile of stones lined the path. Joseph hefted the largest in his arms, carried it to his mother’s grave, and set it upright. Jacob looked up and addressed them.
“In memory of Rachel,” he said, his voice hoarse from his night of weeping. He looked from one son to the next, his gaze resting on each of his wives and his daughter as well. “She loved you all.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving in his throat. “May Adonai accept her.”
Leah brushed a stray tear from her cheek, glancing once more at Judah. But it was Dinah who moved away from her brothers, first to Jacob to kiss his cheek, then to Joseph, who held her close. Judah’s feet seemed loosed by her actions, and he came close to embrace his father and brother. Leah breathed a sigh. Perhaps one son would pave the way for goodwill between them all.
They stood for a time talking softly in small circles until at last Jacob left them to walk alone in the fields. Leah longed to follow. They were camped near the road due to Rachel’s travail that had come upon her sooner than they had expected. They could not stay there for long, and soon Jacob would want to continue the journey to see his father in Hebron.
Rachel’s eyes would never rest on Jacob’s family. Only Leah would meet the famous patriarch. Sadness followed the thought. Isaac would have loved Rachel, as everyone did.
Leah moved to her tent, letting Jacob go off to grieve alone. There was time enough to sort through the problems Rachel’s death left them. Time enough to comfort him as only she knew best.
The seven days of grieving passed, and Jacob continued the journey south toward Hebron. Dusk fell as he walked, his limp more pronounced than it had been in years, and he looked out over the land that stretched before him, land that he had known all of his life. How many lessons he had learned at the hands of his father and mother in this place with these people. How Rachel would have loved to have known them both!
Benjamin’s cries drifted over the camp as he neared his tents. Leah had found a wet nurse among the Shechemite widows and had brought the woman as a servant into her tent to care for him. Jacob spotted Judah and Joseph in conversation near the fire, and his heart warmed to see their attempt at getting along. If only Rachel had lived to see it.
His steps slowed as he neared Leah’s tent. Benjamin’s cries abated, and Leah sat under the awning, spinning wool, as he had seen her do a thousand times in the years of their marriage. The sight was somehow comforting, beckoning him.
He turned aside and walked closer. “May I join you?”
She looked startled for a moment, then quickly stood, motioning for him to take her seat among the cushions. “I will get another,” she said, hurrying inside for another large pillow. “Some wine, my lord?”
He nodded, waiting as she retrieved the flask and silver cups he had given her. He breathed deeply of the sweet aroma, then sipped long from his cup. Grief rose and fell as he sat beside her in companionable silence. He looked into her pale eyes, not remarkable like Rachel’s but familiar.
She offered him a quiet nod, then picked up her spindle and worked the distaff, sitting beside him as the servants worked in the camp around them. Children’s voices mingled with the evening song of birds in the trees above them.
He met Leah’s gaze, wondering if they would grow old together.
The thought did not displease him.
Note from the Author
When I began researching Rachel’s story, I had a good idea of what was coming. What I didn’t realize was just how much Jacob (and Rachel by her connection to him) would struggle throughout their lives. Jacob’s very name means “heel grabber,” or “deceiver”—as if he was born with a bent toward seeking his own way, always grappling for what he desired.
When Jacob was old, and many years after he had laid both Rachel and Leah to rest, he was quoted as saying to Pharaoh, “My years have been few and difficult” (Gen. 47:9). I would say that is a bit of an understatement! Earlier in Genesis, God said to Jacob, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome” (32:28). Jacob knew struggle even in the womb.
And Rachel knew struggle from the moment her wedding night was stolen from her and given to her sister. I cannot even begin to imagine the heartache that must have held for her. I do believe that Jacob and Rachel wanted and intended to marry only each other. Here was a man who wanted a monogamous marriage and ended up with forced polygamy. Sometimes life dishes out things we would not choose.
In this version of Rachel’s story, I gave Rachel and Leah different mothers in order to set up the earlier conflict and to give Laban an even deeper reason for possibly wanting to deceive Jacob. Perhaps Laban was jealous of the love Jacob had for his daughter. Perhaps he was just consumed by his own greed. In any case, the Bible is silent on the mothers of Rachel and Leah; their creation is my own.
The struggles Rachel and Leah carried in sharing a husband, however, were theirs. The Bible gives us a good glimpse of just how personal things got in the names Leah chose for her sons and in Rachel’s bitter cry that she would die if she could not bear children! I wonder if Jacob didn’t feel rather like a pawn in some childbearing chess game.
My favorite part of this story, though, is not in the struggles of the women over their want of children or over Jacob’s love, but of the struggle Jacob faced when he wrestled with God. Have you ever carried fear as long as he did? While he surely stuffed the fears and guilt aside to live his life, Jacob never quite forgot what he had done to his brother
, and he did not know peace at a heart level until he settled the matter (and many more matters, I’m sure) with God alone.
And isn’t that the way it is for each of us? Life is filled with struggles, some nearly impossible to bear. We grapple and fight and flee and live with guilt, and yet what our hearts are longing for is restoration and reconciliation. For Jacob, that meant facing his brother. For Rachel, it meant realizing that God was more important to her than raising children, and it meant coming to some sense of peace with her sister. I’d like to think Rachel and Leah were friends in the end.
That’s not to say that all relationships can be restored. We can live at peace with men only as far as it concerns us. And Esau was not a man Jacob could trust. He was a man Jacob could forgive and seek forgiveness from. Still, in the end, they went their separate ways.
Someday, when Jesus (Yeshua) reigns on earth, all things will be fully restored. But until then, we, like Jacob and Rachel, will struggle. And sometimes we will wrestle with God’s best for us.
Like Jacob, I hope we can come away from such encounters changed and yet blessed.
In His Grace,
Jill Eileen Smith
Acknowledgments
Authors work and research alone, but we also work in a community. Through the years of email support loops, I have met some wonderful friends. Together we encourage each other and pray for one another. To thank them as a whole seems like such a small gesture, but I would need to fill a book to mention all of those who have touched my life and blessed my career.
As for the writing of this book, my biggest thanks goes to my first reader and critique partner, Jill Stengl. Thank you, dear friend, for helping me through another story!
Other mega thanks go to my editor, Lonnie Hull DuPont, whom God first put in my life in 1991 as a sneak peek of the fact that He wanted us to work together. It took until 2007 for that to be realized in His perfect timing. Thank you, Lonnie! You’re the best!
And to my line editor, Jessica English. I’m so glad we got to meet and have lunch in person this year! Your style of editing is so uplifting and encouraging! Thank you for making my work look good!
To all of the great people I get to work with at Revell—Twila, Michele, Claudia, Deonne, Robin, Janelle, Jennifer, Lindsay, Cheryl, Donna, Mary—thank you for believing in me and for all you do to support this work. I love you guys!
To Wendy Lawton—I loved getting to know you better at the Books & Such retreat this year. You are a rare gem, and I’m so glad God made us a team.
To Randy, my heart’s true love. I’m so glad I never had to share you like Rachel did her Jacob!
To my California guys, Jeff and Chris, who make me so proud to be your mom! (And jealous of your sunshine!)
To Ryan and Carissa, who will be married by the time this book sees print! I can’t tell you how happy I am to get to love the two of you! I’m pretty happy about having a girl in the family too!
To my mom, whose love of reading got me started in the first place. I’m so glad we still have you here on earth to celebrate the joy of living!
And above all, to the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob—the God who is true and living through all of the struggles of all generations.
Selah.
Jill Eileen Smith is the author of the bestselling Michal, Abigail, and Bathsheba, all part of the Wives of King David series, and of Sarai and Rebekah, books 1 and 2 in the Wives of the Patriarchs series. Her writing has garnered acclaim in several contests. Her research into the lives of biblical women has taken her from the Bible to Israel, and she particularly enjoys learning how women lived in Old Testament times. Jill lives with her family in southeast Michigan.
Contact Jill through email (jill@jilleileensmith.com), her website (www.jilleileensmith.com), Facebook (www.facebook.com/jilleileensmith), or Twitter (twitter.com/JillEileenSmith). She loves to hear from her readers.
Books by Jill Eileen Smith
* * *
THE WIVES OF KING DAVID
Michal
Abigail
Bathsheba
WIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS
Sarai
Rebekah
Rachel
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