34 So he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. 35 The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become wealthy; he has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and donkeys. 36And Sarah my master’s wife bore a son to my master when she was old; and he has given him all that he has. 37 My master made me swear, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live; 38 but you shall go to my father’s house, to my kindred, and get a wife for my son.’
42 “I came today to the spring, and said, ‘O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now you will only make successful the way I am going! 43 I am standing here by the spring of water; let the young woman who comes out to draw, to whom I shall say, “Please give me a little water from your jar to drink,” 44 and who will say to me, “Drink, and I will draw for your camels also”—let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master’s son.’
45 “Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her water jar on her shoulder; and she went down to the spring, and drew. I said to her, ‘Please let me drink.’ 46 She quickly let down her jar from her shoulder, and said, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels.’ So I drank, and she also watered the camels. 47 Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose, and the bracelets on her arms. 48 Then I bowed my head and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to obtain the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son. 49 Now then, if you will deal loyally and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, so that I may turn either to the right hand or to the left.”
58 And they called Rebekah, and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will.” 59 So they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his men. 60 And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,
“May you, our sister, become
thousands of myriads;
may your offspring gain possession
of the gates of their foes.”
61 Then Rebekah and her maids rose up, mounted the camels, and followed the man; thus the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.
62 Now Isaac had come from Beer-lahai-roi, and was settled in the Negeb. 63 Isaac went out in the evening to walk in the field; and looking up, he saw camels coming. 64 And Rebekah looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she slipped quickly from the camel, 65 and said to the servant, “Who is the man over there, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. 66 And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 67 Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent. He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
Genesis 24: 34-38, 42-49, 58-67, part of the larger story in 24:1-67 ,is the story of the marriage of Isaac. Part of his getting his affairs in order is a proper wife for his son. The story of this family continues with the common, mundane problem of a wife for the child of Abraham (Genesis 24). The story continues the J narrative of the Patriarchs.
Some parts of our political conversation ridicule the family. The notion is bourgeois. We need the reminder this story provides of the importance of simple values like family. Any hope we have for the future may well be in recovering a sense of personal responsibility that this story suggests. Our narcissism does not combine well with a healthy family. We find meaning in part by connecting with the sacred character of a human community rather than simply doing our own thing. While money can certainly contribute to our sense of meaning and wellbeing, we will need meaningful relationships to complete the picture. Such little, insignificant matters do not play well on the big screen of world history. Yet, this simple story shows that the Lord has an abiding interest in our personal lives. The things that concern us most are those closest to us.
For most Christians, marriage and family are in the picture they have of their future. What do you look for in a mate? I assume you want someone who shares your core values, with whom you are compatible, who has integrity, and who has physical appeal. In our modern and post-modern setting, we value making that choice for ourselves. Oh, we might have a blind date, but many of the stories arising out of such encounters are not so good. I am also confident that some parents think they could do a far better job than their children could do. This area of our lives is more important than many of us realize. Too many of us have come to think that we can buy happiness. Yet, true happiness, I suspect, is far more about the relationships in our lives than the things we possess.
No matter how old our children are, we care about them. In this case, Isaac needed some TLC. Abraham cared, and we see in the story that the Lord cared as well. the Lord knows our needs before we are even able to articulate them ourselves. The Lord was also faithful to Rebekah, one of the great women of the Bible. How innocent that trip to the well must have appeared that morning. What would have happened if she had not been faithful in her daily responsibilities? God saw in her someone to whom God could entrust the fate of what would be an entire nation.
In this passage, we see a rich description of one of the most ordinary occurrences in family life, namely, the arranging of a marriage. The rich detail of the story of the marriage of Rebekah and Isaac shows the immense importance that the biblical writers placed on marriage customs. The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah is really the first official story of a marriage taking place after the Lord’s covenant with Abraham. In this regard we may also see an additional reason for this marriage to be described in detail
The writer of the story uses a high ancient Near Eastern style, from its beginning with Abraham's commissioning of his servant intermediary, until its ending with Rebekah moving into Sarah's tent with Isaac, every step in the journey leading up to their union.
The story uses repetition, including a retelling of the story.[1]
Another feature of this story is the fact that we are not told the identity of the messenger. One might assume him to be Abraham's former heir, Eliezer of Damascus (Genesis 15:2), though this is not stated. Rather, it is as if he is meant to fade into the background so that we focus on the characters who are named: Abraham, Sarah, Rebekah, Laban, Bethuel and Milcah. Interestingly, Isaac is not called by name until the end of the story, so that Rebekah and her family connections take center stage. In addition, by describing the messenger's request for a sign by which he might recognize Rebekah, a sign that YHWH fulfills, the story communicates that there was divine sanction for the messenger's choice of Rebekah to be Isaac's wife.
This is an unhurried story of how Jacob finds and wins Rebekah. Abraham did not want his son married to a local inhabitant. Much later, we would find the story of Ruth as an example of an Israelite not marrying a local resident and her becoming heir to King David. He wanted to maintain the purity of the line for legal rather than ethnic reasons. Although this was a customary practice for much of Israel's history, and sometimes worked out marvelously well, as in the case of Ruth, it was, by and large, considered a risky move. If one married a foreigner, there was always the possibility that that person might not truly accept the customs of Israelite religion. Also, if the foreign marriage partner was the wife of the couple there was the extra added danger that she might teach any children of the union to worship the gods of her homeland and not YHWH (Deuteronomy 7:1-7) and might even teach them to speak her language and not Hebrew (Nehemiah 13:23-27). For this reason, marriage outside the larger kin group was discouraged and later banned altogether. Therefore, this story establishes the favored marriage pattern for Israel, namely, that one marry a cousin, however near or distant, rather than a complete foreigner. Abraham's preference is borne out by the fact that the woman YHWH leads to the messenger is one of Abraham's great-nieces, the granddaughter of his brother Nahor. Rebekah's arrival in the story is also foreshadowed by a mention of her in Nahor's genealogy found in Genesis 22:20-23.
In addition to the request by Abraham to maintain the legal purity of his descendant, we also see his request that Isaac marry in the Promised Land.
The individuals in the story reveal their character in their actions.
Isaac comes across as colorless. He receives little personality from the author.
The journey would have taken about a month, but we do not get a sense of this length of time in the story. In this story, the field of divine activity is the internal of the human heart, as God works, guides, and removes resistance. To provide an analogy, people who love theater do not necessarily love being on stage. Yet, what happens on stage in view of the audience could not happen without backstage help. There are many theater students today who aspire not to the stage but to the backstage work on sound, lights, props, backdrops, sets, designs and so on. In this story, God, who has been on stage in so many of the stories in Genesis, suddenly goes backstage, and a humble and obedient servant takes over the stage.
In Genesis 24:28-60, the servant is at the house of Laban, the brother of Rebekah, where he relates the story of Abraham and wins approval for Rebekah to come with him. Laban notes the jewelry, hinting at his materialism and stinginess. The brothers can act in the place of the father in Hurrian marriage practice. Milcah and Laban play an unusually significant role in the story. Rebekah goes to tell her "mother's" household about the strange visitor (24:28), at which point her brother Laban goes to meet the man and bring him in (24:29-33). In the retelling of the story, the servant emphasizes her pedigree rather than her generous and kind character. The purpose is to impress the relatives of God's guidance. 34 So he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. 35 The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become wealthy; he has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and donkeys. 36 And Sarah my master’s wife bore a son to my master when she was old; and he has given him all that he has. 37 My master made me swear, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live; 38 but you shall go to my father’s house, to my kindred, and get a wife for my son.’ 42 “I came today to the spring, and said, ‘O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now you will only make successful the way I am going! 43 I am standing here by the spring of water; let the young woman who comes out to draw, to whom I shall say, “Please give me a little water from your jar to drink,” 44 and who will say to me, “Drink, and I will draw for your camels also”—let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master’s son.’ 45 “Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her water jar on her shoulder; and she went down to the spring, and drew. I said to her, ‘Please let me drink.’ 46 She quickly let down her jar from her shoulder, and said, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels.’ So I drank, and she also watered the camels. 47 Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose, and the bracelets on her arms. 48 Then I bowed my head and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to obtain the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son. 49 Now then, if you will deal loyally and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, so that I may turn either to the right hand or to the left. Laban and Bethuel, the only time the story notes the presence of Bethuel, admit, “The thing comes from the Lord.” They invite the servant to take Rebekah and go. They provide and meal and want him to stay ten days, but the servant wants to return home. They want to ask Rebekah if she is willing to go immediately. The story portrays Rebekah as friendly, helpful, generous. The story pictures Laban as greedy and insincere. Her father Bethuel listens to the messenger's story along with Laban (24:50), but when they agree upon the marriage, it is Laban and Milcah, not Bethuel, who receive the gifts by the messenger (24:53). This significant role played by the mother and brother of Rebekah reflects the vital importance of the grouping of a mother and her children in the context of a culture where a man may have had more than one wife. It is as if they are a subset of Bethuel's family with whom the messenger needed to negotiate with separately. 58 And they called Rebekah, and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will.” Rebekah gives her consent, in a form like the willingness of Abraham to go from his family and land to a new place God was calling him toward. Thus, Abraham will find a suitable mate among his people from a distant land. God is present in the story of the courtship of Isaac and Rebekah, but in subtle ways. Such is often the case today with the ways of love and romance. We may see divine guidance, or the failure to properly listen to such guidance, only in hindsight. 59 So they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his men. 60 And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, in words used in Genesis 22:17 by an angel to Abraham “May you, our sister, become thousands of myriads; may your offspring gain possession of the gates of their foes.” In addition, this story serves to foreshadow Laban's key role in the upcoming story in which his nephew by this union, Jacob, comes to work for him and eventually marries his two daughters Rachel and Leah (Genesis 29-31). By doing this, Jacob seeks the right marriage (among near kin), while Esau makes the mistake of marrying foreign women (28:6-9).
Finally, Rebekah and Isaac meet, the story reaches a tender climax. 61 Then Rebekah and her maids rose up, mounted the camels, and followed the man; thus the servant took Rebekah, and went his way. 62 Now Isaac had come from Beer-lahai-roi, and was settled in the Negeb. 63 Isaac went out in the evening to walk in the field; and looking up, he saw camels coming. 64 And Rebekah looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she slipped quickly from the camel, 65 and said to the servant, “Who is the man over there, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. 66 And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 67 Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent. He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
Although readers often overlook Rebekah as a character and judge her harshly because of her deception of Isaac on Jacob's behalf, Rebekah is really an important figure in the history of Israel. She is the literal mother of Jacob/Israel. She is the only woman described in the Bible as "inquiring of the Lord," an oracular function usually reserved for prophets (25:22), and she is the first to hear from God that her younger son was the chosen patriarch of the future nation. One might wonder why the mundane subject of a marriage between the relatively obscure character of Isaac and his cousin Rebekah merits such an elaborate story. Yet, given the pivotal role that Rebekah plays, offering Jacob crucial assistance that leads to his gaining blessing and pre-eminence, it is little wonder that the story of her formal entry into Abraham's family has such beauty and formality.
The field of activity for the Lord is the internal realm of the human heart in which God works, visioning, guiding, and removing resistance. This conception of faith is that of guiding and removing resistance. It represents a contrast with Yahweh acting in miracles or the leaders with charisma, or the cult with ritual practices. No one stands beyond the sweep of the Lord’s providence: man, woman, child, master, servant, husband, wife, son or daughter. The Lord takes care of the people of the Lord. In this case, the Lord brought to Isaac the object of his love's affection. Love is one of the Lord’s sweet gifts, and by grace, it reveals itself in many ways. In marriage, we discover the Lord’s design for two people to share their lives, to support each other through whatever great plan God has created for them. When Isaac looked up and saw camels coming, he could not know that what was also coming was his future, his destiny, his great love. When Rebekah looked up and caught a glimpse of the one she had heard about, she prepared to meet him face to face. In Sarah's tent, Rebekah received love. Isaac received comfort. The Lord had given them new reasons to live.
The image I have in my mind is a tree. You know, like a “family tree.” Most family trees are far from perfect. We can look back to some heroes, but most such family trees have “skeletons” on them as well, to use another metaphor. If we stick with that image for a bit, I think that for many families, the tree is showing some hurt, some dry times.
In 1992, Forbes magazine asked people, “Why, when we have it so good, do we feel so bad?” Every year the country, communities, and families have their struggles, of course. Yet, on this weekend when we celebrate the winning of our independence, we remember the blessings we have simply by being born in this country. Gertrude Himmelfarb, a historian, said:
There is a great separation between the "new class" and the common people. Our hope lies in a reclaiming of moral values, family values, social values, which the new class treats with contempt.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor at Harvard, suggested
We have a culture of victimization. Hope lies in recovering a sense of personal responsibility.
Alfred Kazin offered the following observation:
We are narcissistic. We need to recover a sense of the sacred community where people find meaning rather than just doing their own thing.
Harvard historian Simon Schama observed the following:
We have come to believe we can buy happiness. Instead, we need to put relationships above things.
America has its struggles, of course. What I found interesting in this Forbes magazine article is that the problems we face are not fundamentally material, but spiritual. We differ on our view of politics and economics, but we can agree, I trust, that the confusion we see regarding the American dream and values, the confusion regarding the use of freedom and the pursuit of happiness, would find resolution.
Garrison Keillor has a wonderful essay in which he says that "To know and to serve God, of course, is why we're here." Yet, it is so obvious, that, like the nose on your face, it is near at hand and easily discernible, but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it too hard. Faith is what gets you through life, he says. When it looks like the country is going to the dogs, it is important for us cats to walk carefully, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have a little faith that all that barking is not the last word. He concludes:
Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music and books, raising kids--all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through.
It is true. Faith is part of our everyday life, the ordinary events and relationships of life. This is where the grace of God shines through.[2]
[1] In the Canaanite story in which Baal fights Yamm, the god of the Sea (see Simon Parker, et al., Ugaritic Narrative Poetry [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997], 98-102), Yamm commissions messengers to carry his challenge to the other gods, then the story describes the messengers traveling to carry out their mission, and then portrays them repeating their message. In this way, critical parts of the story get repeated two or three times. Genesis 24 has a similar use of repetition.
[2] (Garrison Keillor, We Are Still Married)
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