Wednesday Bible Study: Ladies night part 8

 

So once again, I have to drag myself kicking and clawing from what Jewish legend says about our character- Rebekah, wife of Isaac- and back into what we truly know from the Bible.  And if you've read the story of Jacob and Esau, all you know about her is that she took advantage of Isaac when he was blind to get the blessing for Jacob, her preferred son.  But is that REALLY how it happened?

Mind you, I'm not trying to change the Scriptures, just understand them, and this is what we understand.

Isaac was about 40, and had just lost his Mom, Sarah, when Abraham sent the servant (possibly Eliezar, the one Abraham mentioned as his only heir when God gave him the Promise of descendants) to Haran to find a non- Canaanite wife for Isaac.  Genesis says he was Abraham's oldest servant, and he had seen his master's relationship with God.  So it was that when he came to Haran, the first thing he did was pray to find the right young lady.  So the first thing we learn about Rebekah- she was chosen by God. 

Next, we find out a few things based on her treatment of Eliezar.  

Gen 24:15  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.
Gen 24:16  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.
Gen 24:17  Then the servant ran to meet her and said, "Please give me a little water to drink from your jar."
Gen 24:18  She said, "Drink, my lord." And she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink.
Gen 24:19  When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, "I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking."
Gen 24:20  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.

Okay, so she is the next of a long line of women who were considered beautiful in the extreme- her name apparently means, "to fetter with beauty".  Next, she was hospitable, taking not only care of Eliezar's request, but his camels as well.  We soon later learn her genealogy:  Her father is the son of Abraham's brother Nahor; which means Sarah was an aunt by marriage, and Rachel and Leah would be nieces by blood.  Thus, it's not surprising that we have found beauty in the descriptions of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel.

Next, unlike her brother Laban (as we would learn in her nieces' story), she was faithful- she had not one doubt about Eliezar's story:

Gen 24:54  And he and the men who were with him ate and drank, and they spent the night there. When they arose in the morning, he said, "Send me away to my master."
Gen 24:55  Her brother and her mother said, "Let the young woman remain with us a while, at least ten days; after that she may go."
Gen 24:56  But he said to them, "Do not delay me, since the LORD has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master."
Gen 24:57  They said, "Let us call the young woman and ask her."
Gen 24:58  And they called Rebekah and said to her, "Will you go with this man?" She said, "I will go."
Gen 24:59  So they sent away Rebekah their sister and her nurse, and Abraham's servant and his men.
Gen 24:60  And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, "Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate him!"

Note that mention of the nurse going along- it becomes important later.

We are seeing nothing but respect and humility so far in her character- which makes our next scene understandable:

Gen 24:62  Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb.
Gen 24:63  And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming.
Gen 24:64  And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel
Gen 24:65  and said to the servant, "Who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?" The servant said, "It is my master." So she took her veil and covered herself.
Gen 24:66  And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.
Gen 24:67  Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death. 

 

 So I marked out three things in this passage.  First, Isaac was meditating- anticipating the return of the servant, no doubt.  Perhaps praying for a blessed conclusion.  Second, her use of the veil on sighting Jacob. John Gill tells us:

...therefore she took a veil, and covered herself; both out of modesty, and as a token of subjection to him: for the veil was put on when the bride was introduced to the bridegroom...

Third, this is the first time in Genesis that a match has the words, "he loved her", attached to it.  This was to be a happy marriage- except...

Gen 25:20  and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife.
Gen 25:21  And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 

Like Sarah, she was at first barren (not to mention Rachel was, too- a theme of beautiful women of those days?).  Unlike Sarah, this barrenness did NOT last past the "normal age of conception". We learn next chapter her barrenness lasted 20 years- and though we don't get the details on her age like we did Sarah, the best guestimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 when they married, and thus 35 when the twins were conceived.  Well within conceiving years, and so we don't find the protests that Abraham and Sarah made over the promise of Isaac.  Note also that Isaac prayed, and was heard.

Why do things like this repeat?  In this case, I believe it was like this:  While the son of Isaac didn't have to be the miracle that Isaac was, they still had to know the child would be of God- God was forging a line to create His people.  And for a similar reason, we see THIS story repeat:

Gen 26:6  So Isaac settled in Gerar.
Gen 26:7  When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, "She is my sister," for he feared to say, "My wife," thinking, "lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah," because she was attractive in appearance.
Gen 26:8  When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife.
Gen 26:9  So Abimelech called Isaac and said, "Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, 'She is my sister'?" Isaac said to him, "Because I thought, 'Lest I die because of her.'"
Gen 26:10  Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us."

Same story we saw with Abraham twice before.  With an important difference that goes to the character of Rebekah.  But first, consider this: millennia later, Satan would try to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Jesus by the rumors that Joseph (and God Himself) was not Jesus's father.  Satan doesn't have new tricks; by praying on Abraham's (and Isaac's) fears, he was trying to disrupt the line that God was building.  Yet again, it didn't work; but note the wording...

..One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us." 

Might. Despite being their a long time.  Where God had intervened his pestilence to prevent the attempts on Sarah, it was watching the love between the two that prevented it here.  Several places I visited have suggested that, whatever lengths Sarah had been forced to go to, Rebekah was NOTHING but faithful.  Like her grandson Joseph, she didn't even give the appearance of impropriety.

But that didn't mean things were going easily.  Getting back to these twins she was to have...

 Gen 25:22  The children struggled together within her, and she said, "If it is thus, why is this happening to me?" So she went to inquire of the LORD.
Gen 25:23  And the LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger."
Gen 25:24  When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb.
Gen 25:25  The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau.
Gen 25:26  Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

Once again, we see Rebekah's faith in action- and with the birth, we see God's hand in the line.  Consider:  Abraham's successor was born at an impossible age; Isaac's successor was to be the younger, not the older, as man would have it; and Jacob's successor was chosen after 3 older brothers (Reuben, Simeon, and Levi) all proved themselves unworthy- where Judah's somewhat belated humility let him keep his spot.  But, back to our girl.  Now, the Bible never says she came to Isaac with the revelation God gave her- but it doesn't say she didn't.  Did Isaac know?  Did he ignore it because he favored Esau?  We don't know.  We do know that Esau, while Daddy's favorite, didn't light Mom's eyes...

Gen 26:34  When Esau was forty years old, he took Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite,
Gen 26:35  and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah. 

 

And why was that?  Because they were Canaanites, with their abominable Canaanite religion.  That Isaac even allowed this shows, it would seem, that a) Esau could "do no wrong", and b) that Isaac could easily overlook a prophecy 'given to a woman' to favor him.  But God had ways to get around Isaac's stubborn blindness.  One was the trade- Jacob gets the birthright and Esau gets bean soup.  This was Esau's second disrespect of the father that loved him- how little he thought of all Isaac had spent a whole life working for.

The other was "Rebekah's scam." Knowing that Isaac would never listen if he hadn't for the last 50 years, she uses God's 'gift' to Isaac- the physical blindness to match his 'Esau blindness'- to get the traditional blessing for the right son.  Was it a sin?  Consider again:  Jacob would pay for his deceit by spending a few decades being treated likewise by Laban.  And consider this passage...

Gen 27:11  But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, "Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.
Gen 27:12  Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing."
Gen 27:13  His mother said to him, "Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, bring them to me." 

What curse was this?  We don't know; all we know is, other than Rebekah's demand of Isaac that Jacob be sent to Haran to find a wife (which conveniently gets him clear of the murderous intents of Esau), she isn't mentioned again until Jacob mentions his funeral plans to Joseph years later...

Gen 49:29  Then he commanded them and said to them, "I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
Gen 49:30  in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place.
Gen 49:31  There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah--
Gen 49:32  the field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites." 

Speculations are aplenty, but the Bible goes silent- and God always has a reason for that.  Whatever punishment she received by not letting God handle the succession is between Rebekah and God- and that is not an unusual thing.

 

 

The coda to our story is that, while Rebekah's death is not mentioned, that of her nurse IS...

Gen 35:6  And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him,
Gen 35:7  and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother.
Gen 35:8  And Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Allon-bacuth. 

It is unusual that a main character's death- around the same time, we assume- is ignored, and a woman not even named until her death, was mentioned.  CBN Isarel mentions:  There are four funerals where we are told that people wept. These are of Sarah, Moses, Aaron, and Deborah. So, Deborah is considered—at least by this rather significant indication—to be as valued as three of the people who would be in anyone’s top 10. 

One speculation is that Deborah had been like a grandmother when Jacob was little; after returning to Haran at his weaning, she had determined to see her charge Rebekah one last time before she died, at an age that had to be close to Isaac's own (he died at 180). Perhaps it was news that Rebekah was already gone, that killed her.  Another speculation is that Rebekah had sent Deborah to Haran to fetch Jacob once Esau finally cooled off; but that would mean that a 150-year-old lady was sent on a 500-nile journey, and that seems a bit off to me.  What we DO know, is that centuries later, a namesake would rise up to Deborah from that very spot; she would judge Israel and defeat its enemies.  And she, it would seem, took her inspiration from a woman who helped raise the man who would be named Israel.