| FACTS...
Name: Rachel (meaning "ewe") |  |
Rachel was caring for her father's sheep when she first met her future husband, Jacob in the fields. Jacob worked for Rachel's father, Laban, for seven years in order to receive her as his wife. However, on the wedding night Laban switches Rachel for her sister Leah and Jacob must work for seven more years in order to earn Rachel. She was Jacob's favourite wife. Rachel was barren for many years and she gave her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob in order to build a family through her. Eventually she bore her first son, Joseph.
Jacob decided to leave the employment of Laban and set out in the middle of the night. Rachel stole her father's household gods and hides them so as to prevent Laban from finding them. Rachel conceived once again. She gave birth with much trouble and when her second son had been born, Rachel breathed her last. She was buried near Bethlehem.
IN RACHEL'S OWN WORDS...
I am the second daughter of Laban and wife of Jacob. We have been married for many years and have experienced many wonderful things together in my father's land. We have wealth beyond need and Jacob's other wife and concubines have born him many sons. At first, I may seem to live a blessed life, but there is one thorn in my existence. It is my barrenness. A women is not meant to be without children - why else does she have a womb but to carry a precious baby? Jehovah is the only one who can open my womb and I have beseeched him over and over to bless me with this gift. My tears fall every night as I go to sleep and every time Jacob and I are together I am fervently praying that I might bear a child.
Through Leah's first few pregnancies I consoled myself with the knowledge that I am our husband's favoured wife. However, after so many years of enduring the hurtful comments of the women in the market and knowing that people think of me as cursed because of my barrenness, it has become more than I can bear. I would give all I have to become a mother and be under the Almighty's blessing.
Blessed Lord, please listen to your servant's cry and prayer and allow me to conceive and thus, carry out your divine command to be fruitful and multiply. Only you can change my pathetic and sad state and give my life fulfillment of its true purpose.
written by: Rachel Visser