Genesis 30:1

1 When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!"

Genesis 30:1 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 30:1

And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children
In the space of three or four years after marriage, and when her sister Leah had had four sons: Rachel envied her sister;
the honour she had of bearing children, and the pleasure in nursing and bringing them up, when she lay under the reproach of barrenness: or, "she emulated her sisters" F26; was desirous of having children even as she, which she might do, and yet not be guilty of sin, and much less of envy, which is a very heinous sin: and said unto Jacob, give me children, or else I die;
Rachel could never be so weak as to imagine that it was in the power of Jacob to give her children at his pleasure, or of a barren woman to make her a fruitful mother of children; though Jacob at sight seems so to have understood her: but either, as the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it, that he would pray the Lord to give her children, as Isaac prayed for Rebekah; so Aben Ezra and Jarchi: or that he would, think of some means or other whereby she might have children, at least that might be called hers; and one way she had in view, as appears from what follows: or otherwise she suggests she could not live comfortably; not that she should destroy herself, as some have imagined; but that she should be so uneasy in her mind, that her life would be a burden to her; that death would be preferred to it, and her fretting herself for want of children, in all probability, would issue in it.


FOOTNOTES:

F26 (anqt) "aemulata est", Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Schmidt.

Genesis 30:1 In-Context

1 When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!"
2 Jacob became very angry with Rachel and said, "Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?"
3 Then she said, "Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees and that I too may have children through her."
4 So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife; and Jacob went in to her.
5 And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.