Forefather
Foremother Foremother Rachel
ок. 1900–1800 до Р.Х.
Foremother Rachel — beloved wife of the patriarch Jacob, mother of Joseph and Benjamin, the third of the four foremothers of the Hebrew people.
Rachel was the younger daughter of Laban and beloved second wife of Jacob, mother of Joseph and Benjamin, the third of the four foremothers of the Hebrew people. Jacob fell in love with her at their first meeting by a well and served Laban seven years for her — years that "seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" — yet Laban deceitfully gave him the elder daughter Leah instead, so Jacob served another seven years for Rachel.
Long barren, and rivalrous with her sister, she eventually conceived when God "opened her womb" and bore Joseph. Fleeing her father's house with Jacob, she secretly took Laban's household idols.
She died in childbirth delivering her second son on the road from Bethel to Ephrath (Bethlehem), naming him with her dying breath Ben-oni ("son of my sorrow"), though his father called him Benjamin. Jacob set up a memorial pillar over her grave. Jeremiah depicts Rachel weeping for her children (Jer 31:15), an image Matthew applies to the massacre of the innocents at Bethlehem (Matt 2:18).