Parashat VaYetze records a particularly acrimonious exchange between Yaakov and his beloved wife Rachel. Leah has given birth to numerous children, increasing Rachel’s frustration and incurring her jealousy. She lashes out emotionally and even angrily at Yaakov, and her husband responds in kind:
Beraishit 30:1-2
1 And when Rachel saw that she bore Yaakov no children, Rachel envied her sister; and she said unto Yaakov: “Give me children, or else I die.” 2 And Yaakov’s anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said: “Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?”
During the course of a nuanced interpretation of this interchange, RaMBaN does note that based upon a phrase appearing in a subsequent verse, Rachel apparently concluded that rather than relying upon Yaakov’s supplications, she would assume the responsibility for reaching out to God herself (thereby anticipating the course taken by Chana when she also desperately wanted a child after many years of barrenness):
Ibid. 22
And God Remembered Rachel, and God Hearkened to her, and Opened her womb.
I Shmuel 1:10, 20
10 And she was in bitterness of soul–and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore…
20 And it came to pass, when the time was come about, that Chana conceived, and bore a son; and she called his name Shmuel (lit. “God Heard) “Because I have asked him of the LORD.”