Genesis 30:15

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“And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son’s mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son’s mandrakes.”

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Fruit, Mandrakes, Childbearing ^{(227) (228) (229) (230) (231)}

The yellow apples of the alraun (Mandragora vernalis), a mandrake very common in Palestine. They are about the size of a nutmeg, with a strong and agreeable odor, and were used by the ancients, as they still are by the Arabs, as a means of promoting child-bearing. To Rachel’s request that she would give her some, Leah replied: “Is it too little, that thou hast taken (drawn away from me) my husband, to take also”, i.e., that thou wouldst also take, “my son’s mandrakes?” At length she parted with them, on condition that Rachel would let Jacob sleep with her the next night. After relating how Leah conceived again, and Rachel continued barren in spite of the mandrakes, the writer justly observes, in Genesis 30:17, “Elohim hearkened unto Leah,” to show that it was not from such natural means as love-apples, but from God the author of life, that she had received such fruitfulness.

MAN’DRAKE, n. [L. mandragoras.] A plant of the genus Atropa, growing naturally in Spain, Italy and the Levant. It is a narcotic, and its fresh roots are a violent cathartic. Its effect in rendering barren women prolific is imaginary.