Genesis 30:1
And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.
The verse belongs to the account of the sons born to Jacob during the fourteen years he served Laban for his two daughters after journeying from Bethel to the land of the children of the East, and to the account of how God prospered Jacob in flocks and herds despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right. Laban's deception of Jacob in the matter of his daughters was just retribution for Jacob's deception of Esau, though Jacob's sin did not justify Laban's. It belongs to Jacob's checkered and unsatisfactory experiences marked by selfish plotting and consequent suffering, in which he overreached others and later met overreaching himself.
The chapter is part of the record of Jacob's trials and victories culminating in a complete change of heart. It is to be read in light of the promised Seed and the channels through which that Seed would come. The verse is part of the account of Jacob's family cited as a patriarchal violation of the marriage institution, with Rachel's distress over bearing no children occurring in that setting. Such patriarchal violations did not destroy or lessen the sacred character of marriage. Marriage retains its sacredness because it was established before the fall.
The verse shows the very great unhappiness that polygamy brought into Jacob's family through envy and strife between Rachel and her sister over children. Polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong, though allowed among God's people through the whole Old Testament period. It received a terrible rebuke when it first found place in the church in Genesis 6:1-3 and was afterward tolerated by Moses because of hardness of heart, while the true standard is the original order in Eden as set forth by Christ in Matthew 19, from which there ought never to have been departure.
The verse shows desperate earnestness characteristic of piety. Rachel's demand for children as a matter of life or death is the pattern for importunate intercession for others, such as pleading for a whole nation, and such whole-hearted prayer is powerful, more to be feared by opposing powers than armies, and brings deliverance in crisis and persecution. The verse supplies the pattern for an urgent longing to win souls, echoing Rachel's desperate longing for children as a longing for souls unto death. It shows Rachel longing intensely for children and crying out to Jacob because she had borne him none. Her later sorrow over her child shows that receiving what was urgently desired did not bring the joy expected, illustrating that God may withhold a requested blessing or allow it to be given while knowing what is best.