Was Rachel a Godly Woman?
I've always been taught that Rebecca sent Jacob off to seek a wife among her people because the women of Canaan were pagans who didn't follow God. This makes for a nice moral story to teach our kids they should marry fellow Christians (a moral I fully agree with), but is it true?
In my opinion, the Genesis narrative challenges the validity of this interpretation. Jacob's wife Rachel went to great lengths to secure access to pagan deities. She stole her ancestor's household gods, hid them under her camel bag, and lied to her father about them as she smuggled them back to Canaan. It wasn't until much later in Genesis 35, as Jacob was preparing to return to Bethel, that he finally purged the idols from his home and buried them under a terebinth tree. In the same chapter, on the same journey, Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin. Given this timeline, we have to ask ourselves whether Rachel was ever a godly woman. She went from worshiping pagan god's with her father, to worshiping pagan gods while living with Jacob, to dying.
It might be argued that Rachel served God but was simultaneously caught up in her ancestral superstitions, and that God forgave her ignorance. I won't signal against this interpretation, the patriarchal period pre-dates the Mosaic command to "have no other gods before me." However, it's still worth questioning her spiritual state before we moralize about her life.
In my opinion, the Genesis narrative challenges the validity of this interpretation. Jacob's wife Rachel went to great lengths to secure access to pagan deities. She stole her ancestor's household gods, hid them under her camel bag, and lied to her father about them as she smuggled them back to Canaan. It wasn't until much later in Genesis 35, as Jacob was preparing to return to Bethel, that he finally purged the idols from his home and buried them under a terebinth tree. In the same chapter, on the same journey, Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin. Given this timeline, we have to ask ourselves whether Rachel was ever a godly woman. She went from worshiping pagan god's with her father, to worshiping pagan gods while living with Jacob, to dying.
It might be argued that Rachel served God but was simultaneously caught up in her ancestral superstitions, and that God forgave her ignorance. I won't signal against this interpretation, the patriarchal period pre-dates the Mosaic command to "have no other gods before me." However, it's still worth questioning her spiritual state before we moralize about her life.