“And they journeyed from Bethel, and there was still some way to come to Ephrath, and Rachel began to experience birth pains and she had hard labour. And it happened that when she was in hard labour the midwife said to her, “Don't be afraid, for now you will have another son. And it happened that, as her life was departing, for she died, she called his name Benoni (son of my sorrow), but his father called him Benjamin (son of the right hand). And Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath, the same is Bethlehem.'
The journey from Bethel to Mamre is interrupted by sad experiences of which the first is the death of Rachel in childbirth. But as she dies she is able to rejoice in the birth of a son, calling him Benoni - product of my sorrow. Understandably however Jacob does not want a continual reminder of the loss of his beloved wife, and changes the name to Benjamin. This name, ‘son of the right hand' is probably intended to indicate good fortune. Jacob wants him to be connected with good fortune rather than with mourning. Note that it is not said the she was buried in Bethlehem itself. She was buried in ‘the way to Ephrath', (‘there was still some way to come to Ephrath' - Genesis 48:7), the Bethlehem Road on the way from Bethel, which goes through Benjaminite territory (1 Samuel 10:2-3; Jeremiah 31:15).
“The same is Bethlehem.” A later note added by a scribe to identify Ephrath.
The name Benjamin is attested elsewhere in the Mari texts (eighteenth century BC) as binu yamina which probably means ‘sons of the South', but there is no good reason for identifying them with the later tribe of Benjamin. It is a name that could be given to many tribes for identification purposes, looking from a particular standpoint (compare ‘children of the East').