Genesis 35:16
And going forth from thence, he came in the springtime to the land which leadeth to Ephrata: wherein when Rachel was in travail,
Open Genesis 35:16 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Egressus autem inde, venit verno tempore ad terram quæ ducit Ephratam : in qua cum parturiret Rachel,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ἀπάρας δὲ Ἰακὼβ ἐκ Βαιθὴλ ἔπηξεν τὴν σκηνὴν αὐτοῦ ἐπέκεινα τοῦ πύργου Γάδερ. ἐγένετο δὲ ἡνίκα ἤγγισεν χαβραθὰ εἰς γῆν ἐλθεῖν Ἐφράθα, ἔτεκεν Ῥαχήλ· καὶ ἐδυστόκησεν ἐν τῷ τοκετῷ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּסְעוּ֙ מִבֵּ֣ית אֵ֔ל וַֽיְהִי ע֥וֹד כִּבְרַת הָאָ֖רֶץ לָב֣וֹא אֶפְרָ֑תָה וַתֵּ֥לֶד רָחֵ֖ל וַתְּקַ֥שׁ בְּלִדְתָּֽהּ
Haydock's commentary
Spring. Hebrew, cibrath. Septuagint leave it untranslated, Chalratha, though they render it horse-race, (Ver. 19.) and join both together, chap. xlviii. 7. The word occurs again, 4 Kings v. 19; and St. Jerome translates it the spring, or the finest time of the earth. Others suppose it signifies the high road, (Ver. 19.) or horse-course, or a mile, &c. as if the place, where Rachel died, and not the season of the year, were designated. Calmet concludes, she died about the distance of an acre (sillon, furrow or ridge) from Ephrata. But there seems to be no reason why we should recede from the Vulgate. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Pammachius
would induce her husband to follow a like course. She would not forsake him but looked for the day when he would become a companion in salvation. Finding by several miscarriages that her womb was not barren, she could not give up all hope of having children and had to allow her own reluctance to give way to the eagerness of her mother-in-law and the chagrin of her husband. Thus she suffered much as Rachel suffered, although instead of bringing forth like her a son of pangs and of the right hand, the heir she had longed for was no other than her husband. I have learned on good authority that her wish in submitting herself to her husband was not to take advantage of God’s primitive command “Be faithful and multiply and replenish the earth” but that she only desired children that she might bring forth virgins to Christ.
St Jerome Against Jovinianus, Book I
19. What shall I say of Abraham who had three wives, as Jovinianus says, and received circumcision as a sign of his faith? If we follow him in the number of his wives, let us also follow him in circumcision. We must not partly follow, partly reject him. Isaac, moreover, the husband of one wife, Rebecca, prefigures the Church of Christ, and reproves the wantonness of second marriage. And if Jacob had two pairs of wives and concubines, and our opponent will not admit that blear-eyed Leah, ugly and prolific, was a type of the synagogue, but that Rachel, beautiful and long barren, indicated the mystery of the Church, let me remind him that when Jacob did this thing he was among the Assyrians, and in Mesopotamia in bondage to a hard master. …