Genesis says Rachel stole her father's household gods as Jacob fled, and Jacob unknowingly swore death on the thief

Genesis 31 says Rachel and Leah complained that their father Laban had left them no share in his house: "he hath sold us, and hath also quite devoured our price." When Jacob left with them in secret, Rachel stole Laban's teraphim, his household gods. Laban chased them for seven days. Jacob, who did not know, said that whoever had the gods "shall not live." Laban searched the tents. Rachel had hidden the gods in a camel saddle and sat on it, saying "the manner of women" was upon her. In the 1920s the excavation of Nuzi produced about 7,000 tablets from about 1440 to 1340 BC. One adoption tablet said the adopted heir would take the father's gods unless a natural son was born. Scholars including E.A. Speiser and Cyrus Gordon argued that holding the gods meant holding title to the estate. In 1962 Moshe Greenberg argued in the Journal of Biblical Literature that the gods marked headship of the family, that seizing them against a living father had no legal effect, and that Josephus describes people carrying their household gods when they went abroad. Genesis 35 says Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin and was buried on the road to Bethlehem, where Jacob set up a pillar. The midrash Genesis Rabbah records Rabbi Yosei's view that she died because of Jacob's curse. A building known as Rachel's Tomb stands at the northern edge of Bethlehem^†.