Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 35:16

"And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was still some distance to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor." — Genesis 35:16 (ASV)

But a little way. —Hebrew, and there was still a “chibrath” of land to come to Ephrath. This word occurs four times in the Old Testament: here, in Genesis 48:7, in 2 Kings 5:19, and in Amos 9:9, where it is used in the sense of a sieve. Many of the Rabbis, therefore, translate it as “in the spring-time,” because the earth is then riddled by the plough like a sieve; and the Targum and Vulgate adopt this rendering. The real meaning of the word is lost, but it was probably a measure of distance; and Jewish interpreters generally think that it meant a mile, because Rachel’s traditional tomb was about that distance from Bethlehem.

Ephrath (the fruitful) and Beth-lehem (the house of bread) have virtually the same meaning, but the latter name would be given to the town only when its pastures had yielded to arable lands, where corn was sown for bread.