Genesis 24

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.” ²⁸ Then the young woman ran and told her mother’s household about these things.

Warren Wiersbe has observed that “it seems strange that the longest chapter in Genesis tells the story of how a man got his wife.” He pointed out that while “only thirty-one verses are devoted to the creation account in Genesis 1; sixty-seven verses are allowed to relate how Rebekah became Isaac’s wife.” “Why?” he asks.[1]

Well, that is strange on the face of it, is it not? The creation of the world would seem to warrant more attention than the marriage of Abraham’s son. However, we have learned by now that the issues at hand are never really the totality of the issues at heart in Genesis. Buying Sarah’s tomb in Genesis 23 was about much more than a lot of land and a grave. Finding Isaac a wife was about a lot more than getting Isaac married.

In fact, what we have in Genesis 24 is something unique: the intentional bringing in of an outsider into the covenant promise in a way that was part of God’s original plan. I qualify it thus because Rebekah needs to be distinguished from Hagar. Hagar had been brought into the trajectory of the covenant, it is true, but while, as we have seen, God blessed Ishmael, her child with Abraham, we have also seen that taking in Hagar was not God’s primary plan for covenant fulfillment. Isaac taking a wife was, however.

So this is important. Very important. Who will be brought into the unfolding of the covenant through Abraham’s family? What kind of bride will she be?

Yes, there is much in this chapter that should be considered when choosing a spouse. But there is also much more! There is much in this chapter that should be considered when we think about the kind of people God’s covenant people are to be.

Abraham wanted Isaac to marry a woman who would follow the one true God.

Abraham’s initial steps toward securing a wife for Isaac involve both a stricture and a positive command.

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.”

First, the stricture: Abraham’s servant was not to “take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites.” That is, Isaac was not to marry a local girl.

Why? Let us first rule out a reason that is sometimes thought to lurk behind this. Abraham’s prohibition against Isaac marrying a Canaanite girl was not racial. There has been and unfortunately remains a strain of thought even within the church of Jesus Christ that says people of different races are not to marry. I think we cannot put too fine a point on this: the scriptures never condemn marrying across the races. Ever. While this viewpoint seems to perhaps be abating somewhat in our day it is still alive and well in too many places.

Why, then, did Abraham forbid intermarriage with the Canaanites? The reason was not racial. It was religious. There are some Old Testament scholars who deny this, who argue that religion is not the stated reason, and who point out that it is not likely that Abraham’s family back home even knew the Lord God. In response to this I would point to (1) the way that every step in Genesis 24 is couched in language of praise and a general awareness of God’s presence and power, (2) the fact that Rebekah’s brother and father, later in the chapter, will use the covenant name of God, and (3) the unusual act of agreement that Abraham will ask of his servant before he departs.

To this last point, consider again how Abraham wanted his servant to express agreement:

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.”

This is most unusual and hits modern ears in an odd way. Many scholars note that the thigh is likely a euphemism in the Old Testament for the male sexual organ. If so, this is even stranger still! Regardless, let us consider two things. First, let us observe that while this sounds strange to us there is obviously nothing inappropriate or obscene happening in this text. No, Abraham is asking for a sign of agreement before a holy God in light of the seriousness of his request for his servant to find Isaac a wife. This is not creepy or inappropriate. It is simply unusual.

Second, notice that Abraham’s request is for his servant to put his hand in the general vicinity of the divinely instituted mark of covenant belonging: circumcision. In instructing him to place his hand in proximity to the mark of promise and belonging, Abraham was asking his servant to remember who they are, to remember what God had done, to remember the promise that God would make of Abraham a people and, in time, bring from Abraham a Savior of those people, and to remember, above all else, who God is! This is why Abraham makes his servant swear “by the Lord, the God of heaven and God of the earth.”

Placing the hand under the thigh was an act, then, of covenant remembrance. It was a solemn act meant to communicate the importance of what was happening. In truth, the unusual nature of this act was appropriate given how critically important the servant’s task was.

Yes, the stricture against Isaac marrying a Canaanite girl was religious in nature. It involved the covenant and the need for God’s people to walk in it. The New Testament expression of this can be found in 2 Corinthians 6:

⁴ Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

This stands today. We should love our lost friends. They should be our friends indeed! But we must not enter into otherwise divinely-consecrated life-long covenantal acts before God with them. We are not to marry unbelievers.

This is the stricture: no marrying those outside of the covenant. And then we see the positive commandment: “go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” We are to marry those of the promise. We are to marry within the covenant.

What does this say about the kind of people that God’s covenant people are to be? It says simply this: God’s children are to be exclusively devoted to Him and to His covenant plan and promise. They are not to be children of the promise in name only, nor are they to be a syncretistic part, that is, partially God’s children and partially pagan, having one foot in both worlds. God’s children are to be exclusively devoted to the Lord God. They are to be very very careful not to wed themselves to the philosophies and religions of the world. We may live in Canaan, but we must not become Canaanites. We must be wholly devoted to Yahweh God.

Abraham wanted Isaac to marry a woman who would walk with him in the adventure of the promise.

Abraham’s servant next asks an interesting question:

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.

The servant anticipates a problem. What if he spots the girl that he believes is the right girl but she will not follow him back to the land of promise. Can Isaac go to her? To this Abraham answers strongly and clearly: absolutely not! Why? Because God’s plan and God’s promise involves this land, the land that he will give to the descendants of Abraham, the land on which Sarah is buried. The land represents God’s unfolding plan, God’s promise, God’s adventure, we might say, for God’s own people.

The point is clear: Isaac’s wife, whoever she is, must be willing to join him in the adventure of the promise!

She must (a) be a woman of God and (b) be willing to place the same radical faith in God that they all have. If her view of God does not include her leaving home then she simply will not understand what God has called Abraham and his family to do and to be.

God’s children must be willing to follow God, to be on adventure, to leave hearth and home if He calls.

We must beware of wedding ourselves either literally or spiritually to those who are not God’s people.

We must also beware of wedding ourselves either literally or spiritually to those who have a form of faith and even a confession of faith but who lack the kind of faith that moves them out of their comfort and sense of safety into the life to which God has called us.

In the literal sense, we must say that marrying a man or woman who has an unhealthy preoccupation with or fixation on the home of his or her youth and his or her own parents means limiting your effectiveness for God. If your spouse-to-be, for instance, says to you that he or she simply must live next door to mom and dad and cannot function without them…then run! To be sure, there is absolutely nothing wrong with living next door to mom and dad if that is what God has called you to do and if you and your spouse make that decision together. That is fine and good. But I am speaking the kind of crippling tethering of a grown man or grown woman to his or her own mother and/or father in such a way that he or she can never truly become one flesh with his or her own spouse.

I think, for instance, of a time earlier in my ministry when a wife came to me and complained that her husband was too attached his mother. One of the many odd ways that this manifested itself was in the fact that this man had a joint banking account with his mother and made financial decisions with his mother, but had no financially partnership with his own wife. Furthermore, I recall when it was time for their child to be baptized. The wife came to me in tears and told me that her husband had taken their child against her wishes out of state and had the child baptized in his mother’s church instead of in their own! The father then expected me to do so again in our church. (I refused and explained to him that baptism is not a traveling water show so that various family members can be appeased.)

On and on we could go. You no doubt have heard similar such stories. Do not marry a person who is incapable of leaving home!

The people of God are to be a people on mission, resident aliens, sojourners, ambassadors of another Kingdom in the fallen world order. This involves a willingness to leave, to go, to move forward. This involves being the ecclesia militans, the church militant, the church marching forward carrying a cross and proclaiming the gospel of life. Rebekah will represent this church, the church that is willing to drop its nets and walk with Jesus, the church that is willing to abandon its safety, to lose its life so that its life might be found in Christ.

Abraham wanted Isaac to marry a woman of character.

We find, too, that Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, was a woman of great character. Listen:

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.” ²⁸ Then the young woman ran and told her mother’s household about these things.

Rebekah’s character is on full display at the well! It can be seen in:

• her industriousness in going to the well to get water;
• her respectful manner in addressing Abraham’s servant (i.e., “my lord”);
• the speed with which she showed him hospitality (i.e., “quickly she let down her jar”);
• her voluntary offer to water the camels (Warren Wiersbe writes, “Watering ten camels is no easy job! After a long trek, a thirsty camel might drink as much as forty gallons of water, and Rebekah had to draw all that water by hand.”[2] Furthermore, Robert Alter says of Rebekah’s watering the camels that “this is the closest anyone comes in Genesis to a feat of ‘Homeric’ heroism…Rebekah hurrying down the steps of the well would have had to be a nonstop blur of motion in order to carry up all this water in her single jar.”[3]);
• her hospitality in immediately agreeing to let the servant stay at her home with her family;
• the speed with which she ran to inform the household of what had happened.

Yes, Rebekah was a woman of amazing character! The servant was duly impressed and worshipped and thanked God. It must have been readily apparent to him that this was the woman.

What does this say to the church, to God’s covenant people today? It says that when God calls a people into the unfolding drama and trajectory of His own covenant love those people should reflect the goodness of God’s love in their own characters. In other words, we are changed into men and women whose lives reflect God’s goodness!

In Ephesians 5 Paul beautifully fleshes this out in his depiction of the church as the bride of Christ.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

When Christ takes the church as His bride and draws us into a covenant relationship with himself, he begins a work of sanctification, a work, that is, of preparing us for the great wedding feast to come. We are to be in the process of becoming people of “splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that [we] might be holy and without blemish”! Rebekah’s character in Genesis 24 is a type of the character that should be increasingly exhibited in the people of Christ.

John paints the same picture in Revelation 19:

⁶ Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. ⁷ Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; ⁸ it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”

Yes, we are being prepared for a great marriage and a great feast. Notice that John too says that “his Bride has made herself ready” and that the Bride, the church, has clothed herself “with fine linen, bright and pure.”

God reaches to us in our brokenness and fallenness. He redeems us by the blood of the Lamb. Then He begins a great work in us, a work that only He can do. He accomplishes this work through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit who is given to His children.

He changes us. He cleanses us. He prepares us.

Like Rebekah, we begin to become people of character, people whose very lives become a “Hallelujah!” We being to look and sound and act more and more like Jesus, and this not because of any mere effort at mimicry, but rather “naturally,” if you will, “organically” as our nature is changed day by day

We are declared righteous by grace through faith, then we grow into our righteousness.

May we thank God that Abraham did not want Isaac’s bride to be somebody who did not walk with the one true God, somebody who would pull him further and further from true worship and true faith. Rather, Abraham knew that the very survival of his family then and to come throughout the ages hinged on their loving and walking with Yahweh God!

So it was then.

So it is now.

May we show the presence of Jesus in our lives! May we be wholeheartedly committed to Him!

 

[1] Warren Wiersbe, . The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: Old Testament. (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2007), p.89.

[2] Warren Wiersbe, p.90.

[3] Robert Alter, Genesis. (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), p.116n.20.