Hezekiah to Jehovah in prayer and a delegation was sent to the prophet Isaiah to receive Jehovah’s reply. (2 Ki. 18:37; 19:1-7) In the meantime Rabshakeh was quickly called away when he heard that the king of Assyria had pulled away from Lachish and was fighting against Libnah. Keeping up his propaganda campaign against Hezekiah from a distance, Sennacherib sent messengers to Jerusalem with letters of continued taunt and strong threat to bring Hezekiah to surrender. (2 Ki. 19:8-13) King Hezekiah took the letters to the temple of Jerusalem and spread them before Jehovah along with his urgent prayer for help. (2 Ki. 19:14-19) Jehovah gave his answer through the prophet Isaiah that the king of Assyria “will not come into this city nor will he shoot an arrow there nor confront it with a shield nor cast up a siege rampart against it. By the way by which he proceeded to come, he will return, and into this city he will not come, is the utterance of Jehovah.” (2 Ki. 19:32, 33) That night the angel of Jehovah struck down in death 185,000 soldiers of the Assyrians. This unexpected mighty blow caused Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, to withdraw immediately and return to Nineveh, Assyria’s capital, where Sennacherib was assassinated. (2 Ki. 19:35-37) As a blasphemous taunter of the living God Jehovah, Rabshakeh’s efforts came to nothing.

RACAL

(Raʹcal) [trade or commerce].

One of the places to which David sent spoils from his war with the Amalekites. (1 Sam. 30:18, 26, 29) One edition of the Greek Septuagint has “Carmel” instead of Racal, and some scholars believe this represents the original reading.

RACE

See GAMES.

RACHEL

(Raʹchel) [ewe].

Daughter of Laban, younger sister of Leah, and Jacob’s first cousin and preferred wife. (Gen. 29:10, 16, 30) Jacob fled from his murderous brother Esau in 1781 B.C.E., traveling to Haran in Paddan-aram, in the “land of the Orientals.” (Gen. 28:5; 29:1) Rachel, a girl “beautiful in form and beautiful of countenance,” served as a shepherdess for her father and she met Jacob at a well near Haran. Jacob was received into his uncle’s household and one month later agreed to serve Laban seven years in order to marry Rachel, with whom he was now in love. His love did not weaken during the seven years and so these “proved to be like some few days” to him. On the wedding night, however, his uncle substituted the older daughter Leah, who evidently cooperated in carrying out the deceit. Accused of trickery by Jacob on the following morning, Laban appealed to local custom as an excuse for his conduct. Jacob agreed to carry out a full marriage week with Leah before receiving Rachel and thereafter to work another seven years for Laban.—Gen. 29:4-28.

Rachel did not disappoint Jacob as his wife, and Jacob showed her more love than Leah. Jehovah now favored Leah in her disadvantaged position, blessing her with four sons, while Rachel remained barren. (Gen. 29:29-35) Rachel displayed jealousy of her sister as well as despair over her own infertility, a condition then viewed as a great reproach among women. Her fretful impatience angered even her loving husband. To compensate for her own barrenness she gave Jacob her maidservant for procreation purposes (as Sarah had done earlier with her slave Hagar) and the two children born as a result were considered Rachel’s. Leah’s maid and Leah herself produced a total of four more sons before Rachel’s hope was finally realized and she brought forth her own first son, Joseph.—Gen. 30:1-24.

Jacob was now ready to depart from Haran, but his father-in-law prevailed upon him to remain longer, and it was six years later that, at God’s direction, Jacob pulled away. Due to Laban’s double-dealing methods, Jacob did not advise him of his departure, and both Leah and Rachel were in agreement with their husband in this. Before leaving, Rachel stole her father’s “teraphim,” evidently some type of idol images. When Laban later caught up with the group and made known the theft (apparently his major concern), Jacob, unaware of Rachel’s guilt, showed his disapproval of the act itself, decreeing death for the offender if found among his entourage. Laban’s search led into Rachel’s tent, but she avoided exposure, claiming to be indisposed due to her menstrual period, while remaining seated on the saddlebags containing the teraphim.—Gen. 30:25-30; 31:4-35, 38.

At his meeting with his brother Esau, Jacob showed his continued preference for Rachel by putting her and her only son last in the order of travel, doubtless viewing this as the safest position in the event of attack by Esau. (Gen. 33:1-3, 7) After dwelling for a time in Succoth, then in Shechem and finally in Bethel, Jacob headed farther S. Somewhere between Bethel and Bethlehem, Rachel gave birth to her second child, Benjamin, but died in childbearing and was buried there, Jacob erecting a pillar to mark the grave.—Gen. 33:17, 18; 35:1, 16-20.

The few details recorded can give only an incomplete picture of Rachel’s personality. She was a worshiper of Jehovah (Gen. 30:22-24), but showed human failings, her theft of the teraphim and her shrewdness in avoiding detection perhaps being at least partly attributable to her family background. Whatever her weaknesses, she was dearly loved by Jacob, who, even in old age, viewed her as having been his true wife and prized her children over all his others. (Gen. 44:20, 27-29) His words to Joseph shortly before dying, though simple, nevertheless convey the depth of Jacob’s affection for her. (Gen. 48:1-7) She and Leah are spoken of as having “built the house of Israel [Jacob].”—Ruth 4:11.

Archaeological discoveries may shed some light on Rachel’s appropriation of her father’s “teraphim.” Cuneiform tablets found at Nuzi in N Mesopotamia, and believed to date from about the middle of the second millennium B.C.E., reveal that some ancient peoples viewed the possession of household gods as representing legal title to inheritance of family property. Some suggest that Rachel may have felt that Jacob had the right to a share in the inheritance in Laban’s property as an adopted son and that she may have taken the teraphim to ensure this or even to gain advantage over Laban’s sons. Or she may have viewed the possession of these as a means of blocking any legal attempt by her father to claim some of the wealth Jacob had gained while in his service. (Compare Genesis 30:43; 31:1, 2, 14-16.) These possibilities, of course, depend upon such custom being true of Laban’s people and upon the “teraphim” actually being such household gods.

Rachel’s grave site “in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah” was still known in Samuel’s time, some six centuries later. (1 Sam. 10:2) The traditional location of the grave lies about a mile (1.6 kilometers) N of Bethlehem. This, however, would place it in the territory of Judah, not Benjamin. Therefore others suggest a location farther N, but any attempt at precision is useless today.

“WEEPING OVER HER SONS”

At Jeremiah 31:15 Rachel is depicted as weeping over her sons who have been carried into the land of the enemy, her lamentation being heard in Ramah (N of Jerusalem in the territory of Benjamin). Since Ephraim, whose tribal descendants are often used collectively to stand for the northern kingdom of Israel, is mentioned several times in the context (vss. 6, 9, 18, 20), some scholars believe this prophecy relates to the exiling of the people of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians. (2 Ki. 17:1-6; 18:9-11) On the other hand, it might relate to the eventual exiling of both those of Israel and of Judah (the latter by Babylon). In the first case, the figure of Rachel would be very appropriate since she was the maternal ancestor of Ephraim (through Joseph), the most