Victory Over Death

I was reading in the Old Testament the other day and came to the story of Jacob's wife, Rachel, dying in childbirth, one of the tougher parts of Jacob's life. Jacob's name had already been changed to Israel. And the Lord had told him it was time to return to the Land of Promise, the Land of Canaan. On the journey, they stopped at Bethel, the place where Abraham had built an altar when he first arrived in the Land of Canaan about 190 years earlier. Jacob had gone to Haran, to stay with Laban, his uncle, after his father, Isaac, had given him the birth right instead of giving it to his older brother, Easu. On his way there he had stopped at the same place and seen the vision in which the promises made to Abraham were also given to Jacob. At that time Jacob had built a memorial and said, "This is the Gate of Heaven." But that's a different story. 

On the trip back, Jacob's wife, Rachel, who was expecting a child, gave birth a little after the family had left Bethel, at a place called Ephrath. It was a hard delivery and Rachel did not survive, though the baby did. Rachel named the baby, a boy, "Ben-oni", which is given as "Son of my Sorrow" but the scriptures say his father called him "Benjamin", which is given as "Son of the Right Hand." Jacob had lost the wife of his youth, his first choice, the girl he had worked 14 years for. His heart was broken, he'd lost his wife to death. Jacob buried his wife and built a pillar of rocks to mark her grave and then moved on. 

As I read the story of Jacob's loss and sorrow at the death of his wife, and saw that the place of her burial was at Ephrath, which is also called Bethlehem, I thought it ironic that the place where Jacob was so heart broke by the death of his beloved wife, Rachel, was also the place where, 1,900 years later, the Prince of Peace was born, the Bread of Life, the Fountain of Living Waters. The Savior who would deliver mankind from death. The one who would give Rachel back to Jacob for eternity. 

The prophets tell us that the Lord gave us numerous signs and likenesses throughout the Old Testament to point us to Christ. It made me wonder if this was one of them.