176
Patriarchs and Prophets
God caused a fear to rest upon the inhabitants of the land, so
that they made no attempt to avenge the slaughter at Shechem. The
travelers reached Bethel unmolested. Here the Lord again appeared to
Jacob and renewed to him the covenant promise. “And Jacob set up a
pillar in the place where He talked with him, even a pillar of stone.”
At Bethel, Jacob was called to mourn the loss of one who had long
been an honored member of his father’s family—Rebekah’s nurse,
Deborah, who had accompanied her mistress from Mesopotamia to the
land of Canaan. The presence of this aged woman had been to Jacob
a precious tie that bound him to his early life, and especially to the
mother whose love for him had been so strong and tender. Deborah
was buried with expressions of so great sorrow that the oak under
which her grave was made, was called “the oak of weeping.” It should
not be passed unnoticed that the memory of her life of faithful service
and of the mourning over this household friend has been accounted
worthy to be preserved in the word of God.
From Bethel it was only a two days’ journey to Hebron, but it
brought to Jacob a heavy grief in the death of Rachel. Twice seven
years’ service he had rendered for her sake, and his love had made the
toil but light. How deep and abiding that love had been, was shown
when long afterward, as Jacob in Egypt lay near his death, Joseph
came to visit his father, and the aged patriarch, glancing back upon
his own life, said, “As for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died
by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but a
little way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way of
Ephrath.”
Genesis 48:7
. In the family history of his long and troubled
life the loss of Rachel was alone recalled.
Before her death Rachel gave birth to a second son. With her
parting breath she named the child Benoni, “son of my sorrow.” But his
father called him Benjamin, “son of my right hand,” or “my strength.”
Rachel was buried where she died, and a pillar was raised upon the
spot to perpetuate her memory.
On the way to Ephrath another dark crime stained the family of
Jacob, causing Reuben, the first-born son, to be denied the privileges
and honors of the birthright.
[207]
At last Jacob came to his journey’s end, “unto Isaac his father unto
Mamre, ... which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned.”
Here he remained during the closing years of his father’s life. To Isaac,