There’s a treasure of a story beneath the surface narrative of Genesis 31-35. It’s quiet though, buried between and underneath details, so we’ll have to look carefully to uncover its existence.
The characters in focus are Jacob, Rachel, and Laban. We join the plot as Jacob prepares to flee his father-in-law (Laban) in secret. Jacob will take with him a caravan of family members, servants, animals and possessions. Little does he realize, his beloved wife Rachel is about to steal her father’s idols and bring them along with the caravan.
Alone in Laban’s dwelling, a question must cross Rachel’s mind as she pockets her father’s idols. “How am I going to get away with this?” she thinks, as do all thieves. Rachel realizes that Laban will soon discover his idols are missing, and he will link their disappearance to Jacob. But Rachel reasons with herself: no, Laban won’t go so far as to pursue us into the hills. Laban is more likely to replace the idols and leave the matter alone.
Why does Rachel take her father’s idols? Of the six potential motives I have come across, this is the one I find most convincing.
Dennis Prager puts it well: “Rachel surely believed in the God of Jacob, but she might well have still believed in the power of idols with which she grew up. When people believe in many visible gods, it takes a very long time to get them to believe in one invisible God. Rachel’s behavior may have been similar to that of Neils Bohr, the Nobel-prize winning physicist who was said to keep a rabbit’s foot in his laboratory. When an astonished visitor asked, ‘But surely, professor, you don’t believe in a rabbit’s foot?’ Bohr responded, ‘Of course not. But they say a rabbit’s foot brings you luck whether you believe in it or not.’”
Rachel is desperate to have a child (Gen. 30:1), and later desperate to have a second child. Prager points out that Rachel may have taken the idols because she was open to utilizing all means necessary to procure her goal, including mandrakes, Jacob’s God, and perhaps also the gods from her father’s household. This point, I believe, explains Rachel’s motivation in the most satisfying way. 1) She’s an anxious person by nature, 2) She is desperate to have children, and 3) She’s hedging her bets.
Ten days after leaving, the unexpected happens. Laban catches up to Jacob’s caravan and confronts Jacob about the disappearance of his idols. Jacob is disgusted by the accusation. In response, Jacob wishes death upon the thief. He tells Laban, “Anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live!” (31:32).
Now Jacob occupies a unique position to bless and curse others because he has inherited God’s promise to Abraham. God promised, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (12:3). This thief has brought dishonor to Jacob’s name, so Jacob returns curse for curse, and his terms are harsh. His words wash over Rachel like ice water.
Dennis Prager comments, “We are all occasionally tempted to make these types of grandiose avowals, but they are risky and rarely necessary. Jacob’s statement turns out to be highly risky—and unnecessary, as it does not deter Laban from searching the tents in Jacob’s camp.” Even more than risky and unnecessary, it is harmful because, in this moment, Rachel cements the secrecy of her sin. Suddenly it threatens her very life. “Her husband’s condemnation is so strong that the possibility of her ever admitting the truth to him is here and now smothered.”
The search begins. Laban starts with his top suspects: Jacob, then Leah, then the two maidservants. His youngest daughter, Rachel, is the least suspected of all, so he searches her tent last.
As he closes in on her, I am reminded of Achan in Joshua 7.
· Just as Achan took from Jericho “some of the devoted things,” Rachel had taken from Laban some of his devoted things.
· Just as Achan endured an agonizing countdown before being singled out in front of his family, so too Rachel endures an agonizing countdown as Laban closes in on her and her secret.
· Just as Achan hid the stolen gold and silver in the ground beneath his tent, now Rachel hides the stolen idols in a saddle beneath her in a tent.
Of course, death was Achan’s sentence. If discovered, what will come of Rachel?
As Laban enters her tent, Rachel tells him, “Let not my lord take it amiss that I cannot rise before you, for the period of women is upon me.” Laban takes Rachel at her word. It would be, as Prager says, “inconceivable to him that Rachel would risk menstruating on his gods,” so he does not look under her cushion. Instead, he exits the tent empty-handed, and Rachel, believing she is off the hook, breathes a sigh of relief.
But is she really off the hook?
We read that after Jacob and Laban part ways, Jacob arrives safely at the city of Shechem and buys some adjacent land (33:18-19). Not long after, a crazy series of events transpires (Genesis 34). As a result, the women and children of Shechem fall under Jacob’s authority (34:27-29). Jacob wants to vacate the area because he is concerned the neighboring Canaanites will seek vengeance and attack his family (34:30). God gives him directions to go to Bethel. Jacob obeys. But before he leaves, Jacob commands all who are with him to give up their idols. He does not want any foreign god to join them on their journey to Bethel.
The widows of Shechem approach Jacob as commanded and, one by one, discard their idol. The question is – is Rachel still harboring Laban’s idols? And if so, does she bring them forward? Because this is her opportunity to do so! In fact, it may well be her last call for confession, because the Bible tells us her death is just around the corner.
The Bible doesn’t specify what Rachel does with the idols. We as readers are given no closure in this regard. Laban’s idols are last seen with Rachel sitting on them in her tent, as she guards her sin from everyone around her. What happens to the idols after that moment remains a mystery to this day.
Nevertheless, here’s a way to demystify the story with a measure of plausibility. We teleport ourselves to that afternoon. There, with Jacob and pregnant Rachel standing next to us, we watch the Shechemite women – widow after widow after widow – step forward to hand over their household idol. What is not so obvious is that Rachel envies their ability to surrender such things. She thinks about the idols that remain in her secret possession. They are stowed away among her belongings. She has come to resent them in a way, yet she remains extremely protective of the saddle that they stay inside. She is pregnant, after all, and miscarriages are common.
Believing all idols to have been handed over, Jacob buries them under a terebinth tree near Shechem. His caravan then sets out, traveling southward. The caravan makes a stop in Bethel before it travels onward to Bethlehem. Along the way Rachel gives birth to a son. She names the baby Benoni, “son of my sorrow.” She then dies unexpectedly during childbirth.
Okay – here is the question, a question that can’t be answered with certainty but a question that still merits some consideration. Is Rachel’s premature passing a result of the declaration Jacob pronounced over her life without realizing it? Recall, Jacob said the thief who stole Laban’s idols would not live. At the time, he did not know upon whom the curse would fall. Even still, his words carry the weight of God’s promise to Abraham, that “whoever dishonors you I will curse” (Gen. 12:3). And then, given Rachel’s failure to confess and seek correction, had Rachel unknowingly sealed its lethal effect?
Her departing words express sadness as she names her son Benoni. We would assume this is because she knows she is dying, but we might also wonder: what if her sorrow is made worse by unresolved guilt? She knows that Laban’s idols still hide in a pouch inside her tent. She knows that Jacob will discover them over the course of time, but perhaps she takes this knowledge to the grave.
Jacob buries Rachel’s body along the road to Bethlehem, places a rock over her grave, then journeys onward with their newborn child (now motherless). Genesis 35:21-22 describes that dark period. Rabbi Samson Hirsch, a giant in Jewish circles writing 150 years ago, translates the Hebrew of verse 21 in a way that renders a unique insight. “[Jacob] journeyed on and pitched his tent at some distance from the herd tower.”
What is the meaning of this detail: at some distance from the herd tower? Hirsch writes, “It is possible the tent pitched by Jacob is the tent that Jacob formerly shared with Rachel. Thus, the meaning would be Jacob pitched the tent he once shared with Rachel at some distance from the herd tower, the tower around which the rest of his family camped.”
So to say, Jacob withdraws from the rest of his family due to his grieving Rachel. Whereas Jacob resided among them while Rachel was alive, he now withdraws from them in the days or weeks after her death. And it is during his absence that Jacob’s oldest son Rueben makes a move on Jacob’s concubine.
We can imagine a moment during this timeframe. It might have gone like this: A servant breaks off from the camp and travels over to Jacob’s tent, a tent distant and isolated. The servant goes in to tell Jacob about the outrageous act committed by his oldest son Rueben. Jacob is angry, but too detached and exhausted to seek immediate action. At first the servant cannot understand why. But then Jacob gestures toward a pouch folded in the dark corner of the tent. He goes to it. From the bag, the servant pulls a number of carved objects into the firelight. The objects are unmistakable. The objects are Laban’s idols.
This is the story that’s buried beneath the surface narrative of Genesis 31-35, at least the way I read it. Now I can’t tell you with certainty it happened just the way I’ve described it. Nevertheless, I can’t help but enjoy how this telling adds color to the story in a way that feels real without contradicting the concrete details.
