Isaac and Rebekah — Part 1 (Gen 24:1-27)
Genesis: The Book of Beginnings • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
If you have your Bible, please turn it to Genesis 24:1-27.
I do want to say before we dig into this text, that technically, the account in Genesis 24 covers the full chapter, but due to time, we’re only going to work through the first 27 verses today. What you’ll notice in this passage is a shift from focusing on Abraham to now focusing on his son Issac, which makes sense—because Abraham is much older now and Isaac is the promised child through which the covenant with God will continue.
in this passage, we see Abraham commission one of his servants to go and find a wife for his son—that might sound odd in today’s world, but in the Ancient Near Eastern culture, almost all marriages were arranged just like this. And in this commission from Abraham to his servant, it’s clear that Abraham believes that this is how God will bring Isaac’s soon-to-be wife to him; it’s also clear once the servant finds the woman, that he believes the same thing that Abraham believes, but before I get ahead of myself let’s read the text together.
1 Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. And the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. 2 And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh, 3 that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, 4 but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” 5 The servant said to him, “Perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I then take your son back to the land from which you came?” 6 Abraham said to him, “See to it that you do not take my son back there. 7 The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this land,’ he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there. 8 But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine; only you must not take my son back there.” 9 So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter.
10 Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor. 11 And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water. 12 And he said, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. 13 Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. 14 Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.”
15 Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder. 16 The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. 17 Then the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water to drink from your jar.” 18 She said, “Drink, my lord.” And she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink. 19 When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” 20 So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to the well to draw water, and she drew for all his camels. 21 The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not.
22 When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing a half shekel, and two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels, 23 and said, “Please tell me whose daughter you are. Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?” 24 She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” 25 She added, “We have plenty of both straw and fodder, and room to spend the night.” 26 The man bowed his head and worshiped the Lord 27 and said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the Lord has led me in the way to the house of my master’s kinsmen.”
As we study this passage together, we’re going to break it into two parts: (1) Abraham Commissions his Servant (1-9) and (2) The Servant Meets Rebekah (10-27). In the first section, we’re going to look at Abraham’s instructions to this servant—we’ll talk a bit about some of the elements at play in this conversation that makes it unique in contrast to our culture. In the second section, we’ll see the event as Abraham’s servant meets Rebekah and we’ll see how the servant responds to who Rebekah is.
Now, I do want to be abundantly clear that though this is how God chose to work in this particular situation—Abraham prayed for something to happen and God answered in this manner—that doesn’t mean that this is prescriptive. Meaning, don’t assume that God is always going to do this. Rather, the primary focus in this text isn’t that Abraham prayed and God provided; thus, we ought to pray and just assume that God will answer the same way, but rather, it’s for us to see that God works providentially in everything in life—including life’s biggest decisions.
Prayer for Illumination
Abraham Commissions his Servant (1-9)
Abraham Commissions his Servant (1-9)
God’s blessing on Abraham (1)--Our text starts by doing two things—the first is that it informs us of an approximate time for this event and the second is that it reminds us of all God’s blessings on Abraham.
Approximate Time — we’re told within the first verse that Abraham was old, well advanced in years—which, if you’re paying any attention, you’re probably thinking, well yeah; he’s been old for a long time.
But that phrase “well advanced in years” tells us that he is to the point in his life when he’s thinking in terms of his death—he won’t be around much longer, he’s well advanced in years.
And that idea actually gives us the motivation for what Abraham is about to do—because he’s well advanced in years, he’s now thinking of succession in his life. He’s thinking about his son and what all he’s about to leave for his son.
One aspect of this is making sure that Isaac has a wife that can then continue his genealogical lineage beyond not just his own life but Isaac’s as well.
We’re also told within the first verse that “the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things.”—we might read that and think it’s just a random detail, but there’s a purpose behind it:
It reminds us not just that God had given Abraham a lot when it comes to material possessions, but rather that his life in general had been blessed in a great way by God.
It wasn’t that he was materially wealthy that was in mind here, but rather that God had blessed him in all ways.
It really is a statement meaning that Abraham had lived a long and good life and now he’s thinking about what’s next for his son.
Abraham Speaks to his servant (2-9)—vv. 2-9 then tells us of this arrangement that Abraham makes with his servant.
Now, we’re not actually told much about his servant, other than the two statements in v. 2 and the implication at hand.
v. 2 tells us that the servant was the oldest of his household and that he had charge of all that Abraham had—this tells us (1) that this servant has probably been serving Abraham for a rather long time and (2) Abraham trusted him with a lot.
Abraham trusted his servant so much that he allowed his servant to really take care of everything—it actually sounds a lot like Joseph in Exodus who centuries later will be so trusted by the people over him, that he’ll have control over all things.
This idea that Abraham trusts his servant is made explicit by what he asks the servant to do—or, in other words, the only reason Abraham asks this servant to do what he’s about to ask for is because he trusts him so much.
Now, I mention that we’re not told in this passage much about this servant, but I do want you to know that many people believe that this same servant’s name is Eliezar. They base that on the fact that before Isaac was born, Genesis 15 tells us that the heir of Abraham was a man named Eliezar, who was his servant—the thinking is that Abraham would’ve left all that he had left to the person who took care of everything for him.
Regardless, Abraham trusts this servant and so, he commissions him to do something by asking him to make an oath.
The oath is in vv. 3-4, after having the servant “put [his] hand under [Abraham’s] thigh, he tells the servant to go and find a wife for his son, but the woman cannot be from the daughters of Canaan. So, the oath is that the servant will find a woman from Abraham’s own country, his kindred, which brings up two questions: (1) what’s the deal with having the servant put his hand under Abraham’s thigh and (2) why is Abraham searching for someone from his own land?
Let’s deal first with the idea of the servant’s hand under Abraham’s thigh—the general concensus amongst commentators based on Genesis 46 and Exodus 1, where the same euphemism is used is that this has to do with procreation. Meaning, he’s asking his servant to do this because it’s a promise concerning his grandchildren and his great grandchildren and future generations after that.
The issue with that idea is that it’s anachronistic—meaning, Genesis 46 and Exodus 1 occur after this point, so what’s to say that the euphemism took on the meaning of dealing with procreation after Abraham did this?
So, it very well could be that Abraham did this because of the procreation aspect of things or it could be that there’s a level of trust that need to be there if you’re going to tell someone to put his hand under your thigh—both parties have to trust each other well enough to be that close together.
Regardless, Abraham chooses to do this as part of this vow or oath to not allow Isaac to marry a daughter of the Canaanites.
Which brings us to the second question, why not? Why does Abraham insist on his son’s wife to be from his own people rather than the people of the Canaanites?
I do want to clarify that this is not a racism issue—Abraham prior to this point had no problem with co-mingling with Egyptians, with Canaanites, and various other ethnicities—Abraham’s other son was born to an Egyptian mother. Abraham had no issue with mingling with people from other nations.
And this isn’t a religious things—we know that because the prerequisite isn’t for the servant to go find a woman who also believes in Yahweh. In fact, we find out later that Rebekah, Isaac’s soon-to-be wife is a polytheistic idolator—meaning, he worshiped multiple gods in the form of carved images; and it can be assumed that Rebekah also probably was a polytheistic idolator for part of her life.
That leaves only one other option as to why Abraham would insist on the servant not choosing someone from amongst the people—and I’d argue this is the only logical answer.
Remember that God had promised the land that Abraham lives in to Abraham’s descendants—meaning, everyone who already lives in the land of Canaan will eventually be deported.
There’s a very real possibility that Abraham is looking at this situation and thinking—why would I want my son to marry someone whose family will be removed from the Promised Land in the near future?
It’s a logical question to ask and Abraham’s logical response is to make sure that Issac’s wife doesn’t come from the local area, but rather from his own homeland.
Of course, the servant isn’t dumb—he does, after all, handle all of Abraham’s stuff—his whole estate, and so the servant also has a rather logical question for Abraham. What if she refuses to come with him?
Again, a sensible question—after all, this man is going into a community that he isn’t from, he’s going to a place that he doesn’t live, and he’s trying to find someone for his master’s son—and then he’s going to take her from her home and bring her to his master’s son.
It would be understandable if the woman outrightly refused—it seems a bit sketchy—and if something like that were to happen today, most people would refuse (or, on the flip side, it would be on TV as a gameshow).
The servants question—what if she refuses to come with me? What if she simply says no?
Now, the servant offers a suggestion to offset this problem—the suggestion is for the servant to take Isaac with him to the land that Abraham came from, but Abraham refuses.
And his refusal is really just based on the fact that God, who took Abraham out of the land of his kindred trusts God to give the land that they currently reside in to his offspring—so, he doesn’t want his offspring to go back whatsoever.
Rather, he says that an angel will go before his servant—assumedly to prepare what is to happen and the servant will find a woman for Isaac there.
However, Abraham does give an out to the servant—if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free form this oath of mine, but promise not to take my son back there.
Just a note, notice how Abraham is so trusting of God in this passage—he believes that God will work in a providential way to provide a spouse for his son.
This idea of believing God to providentially work continues through the rest of the passage.
Abraham’s servant agrees to this to the extent that he’s willing to make this vow in a very personal way—with his hand under Abraham’s thigh—before going on his way in vv. 10-27. Let’s start with vv. 10-11.
The Servant Meets Rebekah (10-27)
The Servant Meets Rebekah (10-27)
10 Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed, taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master; and he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor. 11 And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water.
In vv. 10-11, the servant departs from Abraham and heads towards Mesopotamia (in particular, Nahor) in Mesopotamia.
Notice how much wealth the servant takes with him—he takes ten camels and “all sorts of choice gifts from his master,”
We’re not told exactly what all was taken nor are we told the actual cost of these items, but the implication is that Abraham is sending a vast amount of wealth to his family’s home country as a gift to the father of the bride-to-be—it’s essentially a dowry, which in that time period could really go either way—either the bride’s family pays a dowry or the groom’s family pays a dowry.
Regardless, Abraham essentially sends this vast amount of wealth to his brother’s family—not to brag about how much God had given him, but rather (I think) to show that if a woman chooses to take the servant up on this offer, she’ll actually be taken care of.
Now, you might wonder why exactly the servant chose the city of Nahor—especially when we know that Abraham was originally from Ur of the Chaldeans.
The reasoning has to do with the name Nahor itself. Nahor is Abraham’s brother. So, the idea is that the servant of Abraham went to the city of Abraham’s brother, which fits the vow that he made with Abraham.
The original name of the city was Aram-Naharaim, which was near the Habor and Euphrates rivers—the entire journey would’ve taken at least a month for him to travel from the southern portion of modern-day Israel to the region north of Israel.
It’s really no wonder then that there first stop at their destination would be for water—they stopped by the well in the evening, “the time when women go out to draw water.” That statement’s important for two reasons:
First, it shows us where exactly in the city that the servant ended up at—unlike what we would typically expect in a situation like this, he doesn’t go to the city gate to find someone important, he goes where the average woman would typically be in the middle of the day—getting water for their family. It actually shows us that his standard for who ought to be Isaac’s wife isn’t who the people think is important enough to be Isaac’s wife, but rather someone who is average, who is regular, who serves her family.
Second, it shows a certain level of desperation—because he not only needs water for himself, but all his camels would need water as well.
And as the servant stops at the well, he utters a prayer to God in vv. 12-14, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.”
Let me remind you prescriptive event—God does not want you to hear this or read this and leave today and utter a prayer like this.
Those of you who are single, don’t walk out saying “the next person who offers to wash my car must be who God had sent me” or “God, the next person I see, must be the one for me.”
To do so, I would argue is narcissistic—because it assumes that anything you read in Scripture is really about you rather than about the account itself.
And, I would argue that it’s a bit foolish to base your understanding of how prayer works on a passage that really isn’t about prayer and how we ought to pray.
Regardless, the servant prays this prayer and in the prayer, he asks for something particular—and let me clarify, even though he being particular, the sum of his prayer is essentially: “God, I trust you to bring the right person for Isaac to me, but can you make it abundantly clear when you do.”
He asks for God to bring this woman, who not only will offer him water, which isn’t that big of a deal ,but also offer water to all ten of his camels, which is pretty big deal because camels drink a ton of water and there is no mechanized way to draw water.
She will have to draw the water from the well by hand to water the camels—assuming that the camels hadn’t really drank much on the journey and they’re now parched and assuming they’re average camels, they can drink up to 30 gallons in one sitting—just do the mental math. 30 gallons per camel; ten camels, that’s 300 gallons of water at most.
If a young woman would do this for the servant, it would actually say a lot about her and her character—that she’s willing to serve someone like this, to get a pretty intense workout for a complete stranger, simply because he asked for some water.
The servants idea through his prayer is that if God answers this prayer in this way, then he’ll know that God has shown his steadfast love to Abraham—His covenant-keeping love, His loyalty towards Abraham.
Of course, in an act of providence a woman who is kin to Abraham comes and offers water to the servant and also the camels in vv. 15-21.
We’re told just a few details about her:
We’re told her name—Rebekah
We’re told that she was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, who is Abraham’s brother.
We’re told that she was very attractive, that she was a maiden, and that she had gone down that afternoon to get water when the servant stops her.
And the servant does exactly what he said he would do in his prayer, he asks her in v. 17 for a little water and her response is, “Drink” and then in v. 19, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.”
And in a manner of almost being stunned, v. 21 tells us that the servant watched her “in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not.”
Or, in other words, he said this prayer and before he even finished praying, Rebekah shows us and does exactly what he asks God to do providentially.
It’s really no wonder that the servant is a little dumbfounded.
In the last few verses for today, the servant responds to Rebekah in vv. 22-27.
When the camels had finished drinking, “the man took a gold ring weighing a half shekel, and two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels, and said, ‘Please tell me whose daughter you are.” And he asks about staying with them in her father’s house.
The jewelry reminds us that Abraham had sent these items as gifts to whomever the servant found—for her, but also for her family. She would’ve known by the fact that he had an entourage that he came from someone obscenely wealthy, but she probably didn’t expect receiving any sort of exorbitant gift.
Nevertheless, she opens up her father’s house in an act of great hospitality to essentially a stranger.
And our text ends exactly how it ought in vv. 26-27, “The man bowed his head and worshiped the Lord and said, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the Lord has led me in the way to the house of my master’s kinsmen.”
With the clear nature of God’s providence shining through in this situation, to respond in any other way would’ve simply been foolish.
To see God clearly work and not give Him praise is foolishness itself.
With that in mind, we move into our application:
Application
Application
Again, let me emphasize this one point. The application is not to assume that this is normal, that it’s a normal pattern—meaning don’t think you can say a prayer like the servant does and that God is going to respond just like this—that’s not the meaning of the text.
In fact, to assume that God would respond in that manner every single instance is at best, ignorance of how prayer actually and at worst a revelation of the individual’s own prideful foolishness.
No where in Scripture do we really see this idea that this is how prayer ought to always work nor is there anywhere in Scripture that tells us to pray like this—in fact, I would argue that the Bible repeatedly tells us not to pray like this, but to rather pray as Jesus has taught us to pray—with reverence towards Him not testing Him, but rather simply trusting Him to provide even if we don’t know exactly how He will.
It does leave us a question that colors our application though. If this is not how we ought to pray then this really isn’t how we ought to make decisions, is it? So, let’s talk about that because our application stems from this:
When making decisions—particularly decisions like this, life-changing decisions, ought we to pray that God will do something like this? I would argue no, but we should still pray.
And in our prayer, I would argue that instead of asking for a sign, which is essentially what the servant is doing, that we ought to ask God to do something else instead:
We ought to ask Him to grant us knowledge and wisdom—no single person has all knowledge and all wisdom, but God does.
And James 1 tells us that God grants wisdom to anyone who simply asks.
So, when you are in a point in your life where you have a life-changing decision to make, it seems logical that you would start by asking God for wisdom and knowledge.
We ought to ask Him to grant us grace in making our decisions—the reality is that without God’s grace, we won’t make good decisions and the reality is that if we don’t ask for grace upon grace, we tend to succumb to anxiety and discouragement when dealing with difficult.
And as God grants us wisdom, knowledge, and grace, we then work through a very simple decision-making process:
Does the decision happen to be a decision concerning sin? If it does concern sin, don’t sin.
If the decision doesn’t concern sin and you have one option that’s clearly better than another—wisdom from God would say to choose the clearly better option.
If the decision doesn’t concern sin and you have two or more options that are equally good—God’s grace allows you to choose whichever option you would prefer.
And once we work through the decision-making process biblically, then in our prayer, we ought to simply trust Him.
Meaning, once we work through whether the decision involves sin and when we work through which option we want to take—then we simply trust Him with the results.
I would say that in this situation with Abraham’s servant—that Abraham’s servant went about this a little differently. In his decision-making process, he specifically asks God to grant him a sign to know what to do:
I’d argue that looking for signs usually isn’t wise—here’s why. Often, in our flesh, we make things that clearly aren’t supposed to be signs into signs simply because we want something.
Or, in other words, we’ll convince ourselves that something is a sign from God when it isn’t.
The reality is that all the wisdom that God thinks we need is in His Word—we don’t need signs, we just need to find God’s truth in God’s Word and then obey it.
Our lives are filled with a plethora of life-changing decisions.
The biblical way of dealing with them is:
To consider whether or not it concerns sin—if it’s sinful don’t do it.
Ask God for knowledge and wisdom—to work through your decision making in the Spirit
Choose the better non-sinful option if there is one; and if there isn’t, choose whichever option you would prefer.
And then just trust God to providentially work in your life through your decisions.
Examples of biblical decision-making
Selection of churches
Selection of spouse
Choosing a school for you or your children
God works providentially, trust Him.
Pastoral Prayer
