Genesis 35:16-20 And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor.… I. IN ITS SOLEMN AND MELANCHOLY ASPECT. 1. It was death upon a journey. 2. It was death in the time of travail. 3. It was death just when his old fond desire was accomplished. II. IN ITS HOPEFUL AND PROPHETIC ASPECT. 1. It teaches the doctrine of victory through pain. 2. It teaches that death is not annihilation. "As her soul was in departing (for she died)" (ver. 18). Death is here represented, not as the complete extinction of all thought and feeling, but as the separation of soul and body. It is not a sinking into nought, but only a change of state and place. 3. It teaches us what is the characteristic mark of God's chosen people. Israel of old had the portion of affliction, and thus became the time of the Messiah, whose peculiar and distinctive mark was, that He was "a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3). Rachel was the ancestress of the suffering children of Israel. 4. It teaches a lesson of encouragement to all mothers dying in similar circumstances. (T. H. Leale.) Parallel Verses KJV: And they journeyed from Bethel; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. |
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