They Meet - Genesis 24:50-67

24:50-67 - The whole purpose of Eliezer’s long journey has been laid out on the table and he’s patiently waiting for an answer. To be fair, it is a really big decision so I would expect the answer to be “let me think about it for a while,” or even “tell us more about this man you want to cart my daughter off to marry and never return?” Nope, Laban and Bethuel immediately answer “the thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go.” I was hoping they would have at least pretended to think about it for more than half a second, but they didn’t, and their answer seemed just so flippant, especially when we consider that Laban demonstrates repeatedly later in life that he doesn’t care about the One True God and in fact worships many gods and idols. So this guy who isn’t really religious anyway says, “sure sounds like this is the infinite plan of the One True God, take my sister,” it’s a little disheartening, but I guess this has been women’s place in this world from pretty much the beginning. I think it’s important to note here that just because a man shows up and says “God has commanded me to come take you for marriage,” doesn’t mean that it’s true, in fact it’s a common ploy in our community to guilt a woman in to engaging in a relationship against her will. We can only receive revelation for those whom we are stewards over, so I guess Laban and Bethuel were stewards over Rebekah so they could have received revelation that she was in fact supposed to go marry Isaac, but it would have been her right to either consent or decline, which it appears at this point was not granted to her. Eliezer is pleased to hear that she can go with him back to marry Isaac, praises God and brings out the goods, which is probably what Laban was waiting for, “jewels of silver, and jewels of old, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things.” The whole groups “did eat and drink… and tarried all night,” and when they got up the next morning, Eliezer said, “ok let’s go back,” and Rebekah’s “brother and her mother said, Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go.” The implication is that this brother is Laban, but it doesn’t specify so it’s possible that it was another brother. I think it’s a reasonable request considering that not even 24 hours before there were no plans like this even hinted at. Eliezer, obviously, wasn’t super happy about waiting for Rebekah and her family to be “emotionally” ready and says, “Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master.” This is the point where all of a sudden a woman’s opinion about her future matters and they say, “we will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth.” They ask Rebekah is she wants to leave right then or wait a while, and she answers, “I will go.” Now to be completely fair, I feel like if Rebekah really didn’t want to go be married to Isaac, Laban and Bethuel probably wouldn’t have forced her, and because she’s so vital to this narrative about the establishment of the Abrahamic covenant, she was prepared spiritually, emotionally, and physically to leave and be the mother of nations. Her preparations must have been extensive and prolonged for her to be willing and able to just say, “yeah let’s go,” she must have felt that something was coming for a while before Eliezer actually showed up so what he did, she must have thought, “yeah that makes sense.” Rebekah leaves along with “her nurse,” which we learn many chapters later is named Deborah, and apparently “her damsels,” which I assume means friends/servants and they all head out into the desert on camels with Eliezer. Interestingly, before they leave there is a blessing placed on Rebekah which says, “thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.” The lecturer from the Torah Class says, “a benediction is pronounced over Rivka (Rebekah). To my surprise, this was NOT a standard pronouncement given in that era over a young girl traveling to enter into marriage. Rather, this is a divine prophecy, that I’m sure her family had no idea they were speaking; and it concerns her producing a large number of descendants AND that these descendants would have victory over their enemies. This, of course, plays perfectly with the covenant Yahweh had made with Abraham; the covenant which now would be inherited by Rivka’s future husband, Isaac.” This all ties together the different parts that God played in meeting of Eliezer and Rebekah’s family to bring her to Isaac to be a wife and mother. As they are journeying back, Isaac “came from the way of the well Lahai-roi; for he swelt in the south country.” The Lecturer notes that Isaac was 40 years old when they were married, and I always just assumed that Isaac had his own little plot of land next to a palm tree and he just hung out there all the time, but it would make sense that he had his own land and servants and community that he was in charge of and everything, I can’t imagine that Abraham sent him out into the desert with a tent and a pat on the back for good luck, but then again that’s what he did to his other son Ishmael. As Isaac was out “meditating” one evening, he saw the camels returning and he must have noticed that there were more people returning than initially left, and Isaac and Rebekah saw each other for the first time. Now it’s not specified how far apart they were from each other or just how much they saw of each other, so I think they probably got the spark of excitement that their marriage was finally happening, but probably not able to completely appreciate who they each were individually. Rebekah asks Eliezer if the man they saw was her intended husband, he answered yes, so she gets off the camel, and “took a veil, and covered herself.” It’s been speculated that she covered herself with a veil because she was being modest, but the lecturer noted that this was not a use of the veil during this period of time in this culture. He did say that the only time in which veils were used at this point was during betrothals and marriages and used as decorations, so he speculated that Rebekah’s use of the veil here was her signaling to Isaac that she was consenting to be his wife, without coercion. Eliezer tells Isaac everything that had happened, and Isaac “brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her.” The lecturer again explained that during this time, especially within wealthy families, the men and women were separated, living and sleeping in different tents, so Sarah’s tent would have been maintained, not as a place for Isaac to live, but as a place waiting for the new matriarch. I always wondered why it was specified here that he took her to Sarah’s tent, thinking that he lived there as a mama’s boy, but it would make more sense that Isaac took Rebekah there and gave her that space as her own and she assumed Sarah’s role as the ranking female. They were married, though how or by whom it doesn’t say, and he loved her: “and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” It hadn’t occurred to me that Isaac would have been so distraught over his mother’s death, even after that length of time. Maybe because it seems like such a while ago in the space of the scriptures, and because it never really talks about the relationship that Isaac had with Sarah, but I hadn’t considered that they had been that close. But it gives us an unusually emotional glimpse into who Isaac was as a person, a man who loved his mother.