< Previous | Contents | Next >
from Bethel, Rachel died in giving birth to Benjamin (35:18, 19), and was buried “in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave”. Her sepulchre is still regarded with great veneration by the Jews. Its traditional site is about half a mile from Jerusalem.
This name is used poetically by Jeremiah (31:15-17) to denote God’s people mourning under their calamities. This passage is also quoted by Matthew as fulfilled in the lamentation at Bethlehem on account of the slaughter of the infants there at the command of Herod (Matthew 2:17, 18).
•RAGUEL friend of God, (Numbers 10:29)=Reuel (q.v.), Exodus 2:18, the father-in-law of Moses, and probably identical with Jethro (q.v.).
•RAHAB insolence; pride, a poetical name applied to Egypt in Psalm 87:4; 89:10; Isaiah 51:9, as “the proud one.”
Rahab, (Hebrews Rahab; i.e., “broad,” “large”). When the Hebrews were encamped at Shittim, in the “Arabah” or Jordan valley opposite Jericho, ready to cross the river, Joshua, as a final preparation, sent out two spies to “spy the land.” After five days they returned, having swum across the river, which at this season, the month Abib, overflowed its banks from the melting of the snow on Lebanon. The spies reported how it had fared with them (Joshua 2:1-7). They had been exposed to danger in Jericho, and had been saved by the fidelity of Rahab the harlot, to whose house they had gone for protection. When the city of Jericho fell (6:17-25), Rahab and her whole family were preserved according to the promise of the spies, and were incorporated among the Jewish people. She afterwards became the wife of Salmon, a prince of the tribe of Judah (Ruth 4:21; 1 Chronicles 2:11; Matthew 1:5). “Rahab’s being asked to bring out the spies to the soldiers (Joshua 2:3) sent for them, is in strict keeping with Eastern manners, which would not permit any man to enter a woman’s house without her permission. The fact of her covering the spies with bundles of flax which lay on her house-roof (2:6) is an ‘undesigned coincidence’ which strictly corroborates the narrative. It was the time of the barley harvest, and flax and barley are ripe at the same time in the Jordan valley, so that the bundles of flax stalks might have been expected to be drying just then” (Geikie’s Hours, etc., ii., 390).