Rebekah, the comfort of Isaac

Genesis 24. In which the aging Abraham sends his oldest servant to find a wife for Isaac. A wife, that is, who is not a Canaanite, and who is willing to leave her country and family to join another.

Abraham’s conversation with his servant includes a very odd detail – in an apparent ritualistic exchange he requests of the servant: “Put your hand under my thigh”. According to the Notes this “seems to signify Abraham’s reproductive organ [...], an appropriate source of authority for the patriarch”.

To ensure that the right woman is chosen the Lord’s angel goes before the servant. At the well outside the city of Nahor the servant asks God that the woman who offers him and the ten camels water be the one. The woman who does this is Rebekah; her hospitality, like Abraham’s to God and the angels in an earlier chapter, consists of doing things quickly, and running instead of walking. (Pointedly, her brother Laban only becomes hospitable when he sees the expensive gifts the servant has bestowed on his sister.) Also, she is Abraham’s kin – daughter of Bethuel and Nahor, Abraham’s second cousin on his father’s side. They give the servant and his animals shelter, and he relates to them the reason he is there.

Recognising that he is on a mission from God, Laban and Bethuel agree to let Rebekah and her maids return to Abraham and Isaac in Canaan. Rebekah is installed in Sarah’s tent and loved by Isaac and so, we are told, was Isaac comforted after his mother’s death.

Notes

• The Notes point out that in Middle Eastern tribal societies a well was one of the few places that a man could meet unmarried women.
• Genesis 24 is the longest chapter in this book.

Image: Rebecca at the Source, by Antonio Bellucci (1654 – 1726)

~ by tamfuwing on June 30, 2008.