רָחֵל
Rachel
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Rachel’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H7354 appears in the Book of Genesis — 41 distinct verses. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Genesis
- Genesis 29:6 רָחֵ֣ל n Proper He said to them, "Is it well with him?" They said, "It is well. See, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep."
- Genesis 29:9 וְ/רָחֵ֣ל conj + n Proper While he was yet speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she kept them.
- Genesis 29:10 רָחֵ֗ל n Proper It happened, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother.
- Genesis 29:11 לְ/רָחֵ֑ל prep + n Proper Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.
- Genesis 29:12 לְ/רָחֵ֗ל prep + n Proper Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother, and that he was Rebekah's son. She ran and told her father.
- Genesis 29:16 רָחֵֽל n Proper Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
- Genesis 29:17 וְ/רָחֵל֙ conj + n Proper Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful and well favored.
- Genesis 29:18 רָחֵ֑ל בְּ/רָחֵ֥ל n Proper prep + n Proper Jacob loved Rachel. He said, "I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter."
- Genesis 29:20 בְּ/רָחֵ֖ל prep + n Proper Jacob served seven years for Rachel. They seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had for her.
- Genesis 29:25 בְ/רָחֵל֙ prep + n Proper It happened in the morning that, behold, it was Leah. He said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? Didn't I serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?"
- Genesis 29:28 רָחֵ֥ל n Proper Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week. He gave him Rachel his daughter as wife.
- Genesis 29:29 לְ/רָחֵ֣ל prep + n Proper Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah, his handmaid, to be her handmaid.
- Genesis 29:30 רָחֵ֔ל רָחֵ֖ל n Proper n Proper He went in also to Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.
- Genesis 29:31 וְ/רָחֵ֖ל conj + n Proper Yahweh saw that Leah was hated, and he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.
- Genesis 30:1 רָחֵ֗ל רָחֵ֖ל n Proper n Proper When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I will die."
- Genesis 30:2 בְּ/רָחֵ֑ל prep + n Proper Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, "Am I in God's place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?"
- Genesis 30:6 רָחֵל֙ n Proper Rachel said, "God has judged me, and has also heard my voice, and has given me a son." Therefore called she his name Dan.
- Genesis 30:7 רָחֵ֑ל n Proper Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid, conceived again, and bore Jacob a second son.
- Genesis 30:8 רָחֵ֗ל n Proper Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed." She named him Naphtali.
- Genesis 30:14 רָחֵל֙ n Proper Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes."
- Genesis 30:15 רָחֵ֗ל n Proper She said to her, "Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes, also?" Rachel said, "Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes."
- Genesis 30:22 רָחֵ֑ל n Proper God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her, and opened her womb.
- Genesis 30:25 רָחֵ֖ל n Proper It happened, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, "Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country.
- Genesis 31:4 לְ/רָחֵ֣ל prep + n Proper Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field to his flock,
- Genesis 31:14 רָחֵל֙ n Proper Rachel and Leah answered him, "Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house?
- Genesis 31:19 רָחֵ֔ל n Proper Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father's.
- Genesis 31:32 רָחֵ֖ל n Proper With whoever you find your gods, he shall not live. Before our relatives, discern what is yours with me, and take it." For Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen them.
- Genesis 31:33 רָחֵֽל n Proper Laban went into Jacob's tent, into Leah's tent, and into the tent of the two maid-servants; but he didn't find them. He went out of Leah's tent, and entered into Rachel's tent.
- Genesis 31:34 וְ/רָחֵ֞ל conj + n Proper Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, put them in the camel's saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt about all the tent, but didn't find them.
- Genesis 33:1 רָחֵ֔ל n Proper Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. He divided the children between Leah, Rachel, and to the two handmaids.
- Genesis 33:2 רָחֵ֥ל n Proper He put the handmaids and their children in front, Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear.
- Genesis 33:7 וְ/רָחֵ֖ל conj + n Proper Leah also and her children came near, and bowed themselves. After them, Joseph came near with Rachel, and they bowed themselves.
- Genesis 35:16 רָחֵ֖ל n Proper They traveled from Bethel. There was still some distance to come to Ephrath, and Rachel travailed. She had hard labor.
- Genesis 35:19 רָחֵ֑ל n Proper Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath (the same is Bethlehem).
- Genesis 35:20 רָחֵ֖ל n Proper Jacob set up a pillar on her grave. The same is the Pillar of Rachel's grave to this day.
- Genesis 35:24 רָחֵ֔ל n Proper The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.
- Genesis 35:25 רָחֵ֔ל n Proper The sons of Bilhah (Rachel's handmaid): Dan and Naphtali.
- Genesis 46:19 רָחֵל֙ n Proper The sons of Rachel, Jacob's wife: Joseph and Benjamin.
- Genesis 46:22 רָחֵ֔ל n Proper These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen.
- Genesis 46:25 לְ/רָחֵ֣ל prep + n Proper These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel, his daughter, and these she bore to Jacob: all the souls were seven.
- Genesis 48:7 רָחֵ֜ל n Proper As for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when there was still some distance to come to Ephrath, and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath (the same is Bethlehem)."
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
The Hebrew name רחל centers on the idea of “Rachel.” Genesis dominates its distribution — 41 of 44 verses. Spanning 44 verses in 4 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 29:6. Dig into 44-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7354 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 44
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 44 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #783
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 783 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 44 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 44 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 41 verses · 93%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 5%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 2%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Rachel 33×, Rachel's 5×
- American Standard Version†: Rachel 37×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Rachel 39×, Rachel’s 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Rachel 42×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7354 across 47† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7354 across 47† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7354 across 47† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7354 across 46† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- Rachel = "ewe"
- daughter of Laban, wife of Jacob, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin
Word origin
I. n.f. Is 53:7 ewe;—abs. ר׳ Is 53:7; (in sim., ‖ שֶׂה); pl. רְחֵלִים Gn 32:15 (E; + עִזִּים, אֵילִים), Ct 6:6 (in sim.); sf. רְחֵלֶיךָ וְעִזֶּיךָ Gn 31:38 (E).
II. n. pr. f. (ewe, RSK 219);—Rachel, Ραχηλ, daughter of Laban and wife of Jacob: Gn 29:6, 9, 10, 11, 28, 29, 30 + 36 times Gn (JE 37 times, P 6 times), + קְבֻרַת(־)ר׳ 35:20 (JE), 1 S 10:2 (cf. אֶפְרָתָה 1, p. 68; on site vid. DrHast.DB. Rachel); ר׳ (in fig.) Je 31:15; ר׳ Ru 4:11 (in sim.).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from רחל (râchêl) (H7353) — ewe.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
רָחֵל I
- f. (b. h.) pr. n. f. Rachel,
- 1. wife of Jacob. Gen. R. s. 71 (play on עקרה, Gen. XXIX, 31) ר׳ תהיה עיקרו וכ׳ Rachel shall be the chief person of the household; ib. לפי שכל הדברים תלויין בר׳ וכ׳ because all depends on R., therefore is Israel called by her name; Ruth R. to IV, 11, v. עִיקָּר; a. v. fr. e.g. Genesis 29:31
- 2. R. Akiba’s wife. Ab. d’R. N. ch. VI.—3) R., mother of Rab Mari. Sabb. 154ᵃ; a. fr.
רָחֵל II
- (b. h.) ewe, sheep. Bekh. III, 1 ר׳ בת שתים וכ׳ if an ewe gives birth in her second year of age, the issue belongs to the priest with certainty. Ib. 20ᵃ. Tosef. Ḥull. X, 1 כלאיים מן הר׳ וכ׳ a hybrid of an ewe and a kid is subject to the law concerning the first of the fleece (Deut. XVIII, 4); a. fr.—Pl. רְחֵלוֹת, רְחֵלִים, רְחֵלִין, רְחֵי׳. Ib. 4 השוטף רְחֵלָיו if one washes his lambs (and wool comes out). Ib.; Ḥull. XI, 2 חמש ר׳ גוזזות וכ׳ five lambs yielding wool of the weight of &c. Ib. 137ᵇ דקא מתני ליה לבריה רחלים taught his son (the Mishnah l. c.) using r’ḥelim (according to Biblical usage); א"ל אתנייה רחלות said he to him, teach him r’ḥeloth (in accordance with later usage). Bekh. V, 3 זכר של ר׳, v. זָכָר. Sabb. V, 2; 4; a. fr. e.g. Deuteronomy 18:4
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 22 distinct written forms H7354 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| רָחֵ֖ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:30 | 7 |
| רָחֵ֔ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:30 | 6 |
| רָחֵ֑ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:18 | 4 |
| רָחֵ֗ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:10 | 4 |
| רָחֵל֙ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 30:6 | 4 |
| לְ/רָחֵ֣ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:29 | 3 |
| וְ/רָחֵ֖ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:31 | 2 |
| רָחֵ֥ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:28 | 2 |
| רָחֵֽל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:16 | 2 |
| בְ/רָחֵל֙ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:25 | 1 |
| בְּ/רָחֵ֑ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 30:2 | 1 |
| בְּ/רָחֵ֖ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:20 | 1 |
| בְּ/רָחֵ֥ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:18 | 1 |
| וְ/רָחֵ֞ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 31:34 | 1 |
| וְ/רָחֵ֣ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:9 | 1 |
| וְ/רָחֵל֙ | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:17 | 1 |
| כְּ/רָחֵ֤ל | Noun, Proper | Ruth 4:11 | 1 |
| לְ/רָחֵ֑ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:11 | 1 |
| לְ/רָחֵ֗ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:12 | 1 |
| רָחֵ֛ל | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 10:2 | 1 |
| רָחֵ֜ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 48:7 | 1 |
| רָחֵ֣ל | Noun, Proper | Genesis 29:6 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7354, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Rachel). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Ewe, "the daughter", "the somewhat petulant, peevish, and self-willed though beautiful younger daughter" of Laban, and one of Jacob's wives (Gen. 29:6, 28). He served Laban fourteen years for her, so deep was Jacob's affection for her. She was the mother of Joseph (Gen. 30:22-24). Afterwards, on Jacob's departure from Mesopotamia, she took with her her father's teraphim (31:34, 35). As they journeyed on from Bethel, Rachel died in giving birth to Benjamin (35:18, 19), and was buried "in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave". Her sepulchre is still regarded with great veneration by the Jews. Its traditional site is about half a mile from Jerusalem.
This name is used poetically by Jeremiah (31:15-17) to denote God's people mourning under their calamities. This passage is also quoted by Matthew as fulfilled in the lamentation at Bethlehem on account of the slaughter of the infants there at the command of Herod (Matt. 2:17, 18).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(ewe, or sheep), the younger of the daughters of Laban, the wife of Jacob (B.C. 1753) and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. The incidents of her life may be found in Genesis29-33, 35. The story of Jacob and Rachel has always had a peculiar interest. The beauty of Rachel, Jacob's deep love and long servitude for her, their marriage, and Rachel's death on giving birth to Benjamin, with Jacob's grief at her loss, (Genesis 48:7) makes a touching tale. Yet from what is related to us concerning her character there does not seem much to claim any high degree of admiration and esteem. She appears to have shared all the duplicity and falsehood of her family. See, for instance, Rachel's stealing her father's images, and the ready dexterity and presence of mind with which she concealed her theft. (Genesis 31:1) ... "Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. (B.C. 1729.) And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." (Genesis 35:19,20) The site of Rachel's tomb, "on the way to Bethlehem," "a little way to come to Ephrath," "in the border of Benjamin," never been questioned. It Is about two miles south of Jerusalem and one mile north of Bethlehem.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
sheep
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 44 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 44 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
