When Bible Scholars Get Careless...
OK. Here’s the link: https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Rachel
Now I don’t know what the writer(s) were smoking, but their assumption that Jacob cared for Rachel more than she did of him speaks poorly of her. The entire story has so many elements of pre-Israelite conquest that we may as well call it an ancient ancestral myth. The symbolism is not very subtle, and then to go and call the “Household Gods” “Household goods” EVERY TIME and there is an embarrassing lack of awareness and sensitivity on the polytheism of the era (Note: Back in 2013 a young pagan girl was raped and murdered for her pagan beliefs over there). The writers whine about Rachael stealing the family gods in a display of treachery to God, when Jacob has proven his own infidelity to God’s tenants (honesty being a big one), plus he uses witchcraft to increase his herds. Oh, by the way, his wives are named, “Ewe” and “Cow.”
When Rachel and Leah stand in unity to go with their husband to his land, this is the one time they are shown not fighting at each other’s throats. Their reasons are clear: Their father has spent all of the family money and they choose to go where there is hope. When Rachel was ‘stealing’ the household gods it is very likely that she did it in the hope that her ancestors would come with her, things would be better, and also, she was pregnant and desperate enough to keep family status with her soon-arriving child. Rachel may have died when Jacob cursed her by vowing to his father in law that no one who had outsiders’ ways in his tents shall live. Or she may have known something was wrong and was desperate to stay alive long enough to bear her child. But she pretended she was on her menses and hid the idols from her father--leaving one to question what was really going on or if her pregnancy was being kept secret from everyone.
The whole family is a MESS with children pitted against children and aunts; Leah selling her slave’s womb for another child to add to her list; relatives doing their best to cheat each other in one hand and be all nice and sweet with the other. They’re talking about Rachel being spiritually unfaithful when her husband Jacob is doing nothing to still the fights between his two sister-wives, and he’s also got two concubines who were fathered by his father-in-law??
In fact, it is such a mess that you have to wonder what the original story sounded like before all the soap opera came in--and no surprise at all that all this accumulates to the drama of Joseph and his brothers.
I mean...good Lord. What are the writers of Bible Gateway trying to do? Their analysis reads pretty badly and their circumstantial evidence comes to us in the form of preaching. I was using this site as a reference for a long time, but now I’m going to be realllly careful about using it.
