Genesis 30:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Give me children, &c.— It is very evident from the text, that the foundation of this impatient and unbecoming behaviour in Rachel, was envy and jealousy of her sister: and therefore, though sterility was counted a very great evil among the Hebrew women, and that principally from their hope of being respectively the mother of the blessed Seed; yet it is not evident, that Rachel was now actuated by this hope, but solely by envy of her sister, as appears further from the names which she gave her handmaid's children. That, in her cooler and more serious hours, she was affected by the reproach of barrenness, there is no doubt, see Genesis 30:23 as well as anxious to bear, that she might be the mother of that Seed of Abraham in whom all nations should be blessed.