Rachel, Bilhah, & Isaac - Genesis 35:16-29

35:16-21 – As Jacob and his considerable household were traveling to their new place to live, “Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour… as her soul was in departing )for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.” This is kind of a sad way to end Rachel’s spot in this story, considering how much Jacob loved her, and surely, even though there was competition, etc, Rachel must have been loved among the rest of the family. It’s ironic that she died giving birth is the ultimate irony after she lamented infertility for so long. The other interesting part of this is that instead of doing whatever he could to make sure Rachel was buried in her spot as the most important women in his life, like burying her in the cave where Abraham buried Sarah, ultimately she “was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Beth-lehem.” She didn’t get the most prestigious burial spot, but even her burial on the side of the road ended up significant, as the Savior was born where she was buried. Even though He wasn’t born of her direct line, Rachel was still kin to Jesus in an extended way.

35:22-26 – When the Family settles in Edar, whether permanently or temporarily, I’m not sure, “Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine.” Now, I had always assumed that at this point Reuben was young, in his early twenties, and Bilhah was probably later 30s or early 40s, and the whole thing was consentual. If this was the case, it is not unheard of, and in fact pretty common for a younger man to have a physical relationship with an old woman, and I get it. However, while doing a little bit more research about the incident between Reuben and Bilhah, I came across some interesting info.

If we remember that during this time, women were considered property and not really given any choice over what happens to them, the Bilhah would have been unable to consent to sex with Reuben, thus this not being a torrid love affair, but instead rape. This is also suggested by multiple articles that I read, where references are made to Jewish historical tradition and also the Apocrypha, specifically the book of Jubilee. Some of the accounts were graphic enough to tell the story like, Bilhah was bathing privately and Reuben saw her and lusted after her, so when she was sleeping he came into her tent and raped her.

Then when she woke up, she grabbed his arm and screamed, which is what the legal procedure was during that time to indicate that the woman did not consent to the sex, you know, scream about it afterward. This is a pretty widely accepted account of what happened, and then there are also suggestions that because of raping Bilhah, Reuben contracted a testicular ailment for 7 months until his father Jacob prayed for him to be healed and he was. According to the articles, this was told by Reuben to his children on his deathbed, warning them against doing the same thing. This makes me wonder though, if this is really what happened, did Reuben “learn his lesson” because he felt bad for hurting her, or was he upset that his penis was injured? My guess is the latter.

Another writer suggested that the term “couch” used to describe what of Jacob’s Reuben defiled, was literal, meaning that after Rachel’s death, Jacob was finding comfort with Bilhah and so Reuben literally moved his father’s couch from Bilhah’s tent to his mother Leah’s tent. This is suggested to be similar to when Reuben brought Leah the mandrakes, always trying to bring his father’s attention to his mother, which is an interesting idea.

Another suggestion was that sexual contact with a wife or concubine of the tribal leader was an act of aggression and seen as plotting to overthrow the guy leading the tribe, in this case, it could have been seen as Reuben taking Bilhah as a sign that he was taking over the family before he was legally entitled to do so. This is what happened later in the Old Testament when Absalom overthrows his father David and then rapes all his wives publicly in front of all the people, demonstrating that he was now in charge. Such an interesting way for a man to assert his dominance over a people, by raping the other man’s women. Regardless of Reuben’s motivations, Jacob finds out what happened, and apparently it was never meant to be a secret. Even though Jacob finds out what happened to Bilhah, there is no mention of his reaction at all, meaning he didn’t rebuke Reuben, or stand up for Bilhah or any reaction at all, at least not in regard to the scriptural account.

In an almost completely unrelated transition, it now says the “sons of Jacob were twelve” and lists them by their mothers. I could not understand why this list is given right here, but another account suggested that this list is given to demonstrate that even though Reuben committed great violence against the mother of Dan and Nephtali, his brothers, they were all equal. That doesn’t really make sense to me but whatever. I also just think that this whole incident is so ironic, especially if we consider what Reuben and Judah did to all the men of the city of the man who raped their sister. It would make sense that if the consequence for rape was death, as Reuben implied with the killing of Shechem of his town, then Reuben himself should have been put to death for this act. This implies to me that Reuben “avenged” his sister’s dishonor because of his own ego, not out of some misguided love and desire to protect her.

35:27-29 – I don’t know if Jacob settles in the land where he stops or if he continues the journey and ends up settling in Mamre, where his father lived. Anyway, at some point he ends up there for a time and at the age 180 years old, “Isaac gave up the ghost, and died… and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.” I can’t believe that Isaac was still alive after all this time, but it’s nice to see Jacob and Esau getting along for the burial.