blogging Genesis 35
1 Then God said to Jacob, “Arise,
go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared
to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”
. . . 6 So
Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all
the people who were with him.
. . .
8 Now Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried below
Bethel under the terebinth tree. So the name of it was called Allon Bachuth.
. . .
16 Then they journeyed from Bethel.
And
when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in
childbirth, and she had hard labor. 17 Now it came to pass,
when she was in hard labor, that the midwife said to her, “Do not fear; you
will have this son also.” 18 And so it was, as her soul was
departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father
called him Benjamin. 19 So Rachel died and was buried on the
way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). 20 And Jacob set a pillar
on her grave, which is the pillar of Rachel’s grave to this day. (Genesis
35: 1-20)
Bethel was where Jacob first had a personal encounter with
God. Bethel was the twice anointed “house
of God,” the holy city of Jacob’s generation. The Lord told Jacob to stay, dwell, abide,
live (depending on the translation) there.
The covenant family was to root their community at the geographical
focal point of God’s revealed presence.
But Jacob didn’t want to do that.
Sometimes when I’m preaching I see a congregant weeping on a back
row, the look of conviction and God’s invading grace written all over their
face. Sometimes they get up and come to
the altar, but being confronted by God always forces you to confront yourself and
sometimes that’s too much so they get up and leave early.
Maybe living at Bethel was too much like living in a moment of
worship. Maybe the constant reminder of
God’s promises to him and his promises to God so convicted Jacob that he either
had to come to the altar or leave early.
Jacob chose to leave early. Early because Rachel, the love of his life,
was pregnant, but Jacob put her on the road anyway. Jacob
made his personal agenda more important than his wife’s health and that’s when
the story took a tragic turn.
Rachel had a long history of gynecological problems. Genesis 29:31 says she’d been diagnosed with infertility,
i.e. “Rachel was barren.” She’d
conceived only after lobbying her sister for access to a rare mandrake-based
treatment (Genesis 30:14-24). Years later
she’d finally conceived again. Remember Jacob
loved Rachel dearly. He wouldn’t have hurt
her intentionally. He’d figured that they would reach Ephrath before the baby
was due. But before they left Bethel, Deborah died (Genesis
35:8).
Deborah had been nurse to Rebekah, Jacob's mother. At some
point, probably at Rebekah's request, she came to serve Jacob, or more
specifically, Jacob's wives. Nurses were trained midwives and experts in
female health issues. With 3 generations of experience, Nurse Deborah was the
Old Testament equivalent of senior physician in the women's health
center.
So, Rachel was traveling in the advanced trimester of a
high-risk pregnancy and she’d just lost her primary women’s healthcare
provider.
And when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel
labored in childbirth, and she had hard labor (Genesis 35: 16).
Either the caravan was late, or, more likely, the baby was early. Rachel’s labor was distressed. The midwife filling in for Deborah no doubt
did her best. She managed to save the premature
baby, but “Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is,
Bethlehem)” (Genesis 35:19).
In the movies, when a woman dies in childbirth she says something
brave and inspiring before she passes away.
The Bible does not script inspiring scenes but it reports the often
unpleasant truth from the lives of our spiritual ancestors.
“And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she
called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin”(Genesis 35:18).
Rachel’s last words as she looked at the son she would not get to
raise were “He is Ben-Oni” which translates
into “He is the ‘son of my sorrow’ .” Jacob changed the motherless boy’s name to Benjamin meaning “son of my right hand.” It seems kind to save the child from such a sad name, but maybe it wasn't kindness but guilt.
Maybe Jacob didn't want the sound of his son's name to remind him that his decisions, his priorities, his POLICIES had killed the woman he loved.
Would Rachel have gone into premature labor if they’d stayed in
Bethel where she could’ve stayed on bed rest instead of bouncing on the back of
a donkey, or a camel, or the bed of an ancient cart? We can't know.
Would Rachel have survived the birth if she’d had access to the
senior midwife in Bethel instead of Deborah’s trainees traveling with them? We can't know.
We can’t know if the best Bronze Age medical care in Bethel was
good enough to save Rachel from being a mortality in childbirth statistic.
But, we do know that there were better healthcare options than going into labor on the side of the
road. We do know that the man Jacob made
decisions that separated the woman Rachel from her best healthcare options.
We know that God, in His infinite, precognitive wisdom wanted Rachel to have access to the better healthcare options. We know because God told Jacob
to STAY in Bethel which would have kept Rachel and her high-risk pregnancy off the road to Bethlehem.
Rachel died as too many women since have died when their best
healthcare options were rendered unattainable by the decisions of men whose
agendas weren’t really about keeping women healthy. Jacob meant no harm to Rachel. He loved her, but his plans in Ephrath were more important than her medical history and prenatal needs.
We live in a nation that has cured male pattern baldness and
erectile dysfunction. We’ve figured out how
to save and redeploy a soldier blown up on a battlefield two countries away
from a decent hospital. But 3,000-plus years after Rachel, women in the greatest nation in the world still die from
having a baby.
We don’t know a lot of things, but, if we believe the witness of
Genesis we do know that God wants better care for His daughters than His sons have
been providing the last few thousand years.
So, brothers, instead of running ahead and forcing women’s health
needs to submit to our priorities
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer,
community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME
Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at
www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
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