Genesis 35:16
And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.
They had journeyed from Bethel and were still but a little way, a short distance, from Ephrath when Rachel travailed and fell into hard labor. She died after giving birth to her second son, Benjamin. She was buried where she died, and a pillar was set to mark her grave. Jacob remembered her death as a deep and abiding grief.
Hers stands as the only death in childbirth, the only puerperal death, in the first twenty-four hundred years of sacred history. Her death came not from disease but from the fatigues of a patriarchal journey made on foot, without the ease of modern conveyances such as rail cars and steamboats. The singleness of such a death proves the abounding vigor and health of the early race, when childbirth did not kill and disease had not yet taken hold.