Question: What did the first recorded woman thief in the Bible (other than Eve) steal?
Answer: Household idols (Genesis 31:19).
Comments: Rachel, daughter of Laban and wife of Jacob, steals her father's household gods (teraphim) as she and her family are fleeing her father’s household.. When her father corrales the escapees searching for the goods, Rachel avoids interrogation as she shrewdly informs her father that "the manner of women is upon me." (Genesis 31:35)
On the surface it appears that Rachel is hedging her bets in regards to her devotion and she seems to suffer no consequences for her theft.
Rabbis offer two suggestions as to her motivation, both presenting the matriarch in a positive light. Some contend that she was attempting to conceal residue of her and her family's escape route. Others claim she was simply trying to end her father's pagan ways the best way she knew how and in her presumably last opportunity to do so.
She may have suffered some consequences for this indiscretion as her husband put a curse on the perpetrator not kniwng his beloved wife was the culprit. Rachel is the only one of four Jewish matriarchs not buried in the family's burial plot in the Cave of Machpelah. Further her descendant Saul has only a brief reign as ruler over Israel whereas her sister Leah's descendants, David, Solomon, etc. maintained the throne.
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