“1 Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. 2 He said to the chief servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh. 3 I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, 4 but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.”
5 The servant asked him, “What if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the country you came from?”
6 “Make sure that you do not take my son back there,” Abraham said. 7 “The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’—He will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. 8 If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there.” 9 So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter.
10 Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and left, taking with him all kinds of good things from his master. He set out for Aram Naharaim and made his way to the town of Nahor. 11 He had the camels kneel down near the well outside the town; it was toward evening, the time the women go out to draw water.
12 Then he prayed, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. 14 May it be that when I say to a girl, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”
15 Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. 16 The girl was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever lain with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again.
17 The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.”
18 “Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink.
19 After she had given him a drink, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have finished drinking.” 20 So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, ran back to the well to draw more water, and drew enough for all his camels. 21 Without saying a word, the man watched her closely to learn whether or not the Lord had made his journey successful.
22 When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a beka and two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels. 23Then he asked, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me, is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”
24 She answered him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son that Milcah bore to Nahor.” 25 And she added, “We have plenty of straw and fodder, as well as room for you to spend the night.”
26 Then the man bowed down and worshiped the Lord, 27 saying, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master. As for me, the Lord has led me on the journey to the house of my master’s relatives.”
28 The girl ran and told her mother’s household about these things. 29 Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, and he hurried out to the man at the spring. 30 As soon as he had seen the nose ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s arms, and had heard Rebekah tell what the man said to her, he went out to the man and found him standing by the camels near the spring. 31“Come, you who are blessed by the Lord,” he said. “Why are you standing out here? I have prepared the house and a place for the camels.”
32 So the man went to the house, and the camels were unloaded. Straw and fodder were brought for the camels, and water for him and his men to wash their feet. 33 Then food was set before him, but he said, “I will not eat until I have told you what I have to say.” “Then tell us,” Laban said. 34 So he said, “I am Abraham’s servant. 35 The Lord has blessed my master abundantly, and he has become wealthy. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, and camels and donkeys. 36 My master’s wife Sarah has borne him a son in her old age, and he has given him everything he owns. 37 And my master made me swear an oath, and said, ‘You must not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live, 38 but go to my father’s family and to my own clan, and get a wife for my son.’
39 “Then I asked my master, ‘What if the woman will not come back with me?’ 40 “He replied, ‘The Lord, before whom I have walked, will send his angel with you and make your journey a success, so that you can get a wife for my son from my own clan and from my father’s family. 41 Then, when you go to my clan, you will be released from my oath even if they refuse to give her to you—you will be released from my oath.’
42 “When I came to the spring today, I said, ‘O Lord, God of my master Abraham, if you will, please grant success to the journey on which I have come. 43 See, I am standing beside this spring; if a maiden comes out to draw water and I say to her, “Please let me drink a little
water from your jar and I’ll draw water for your camels too,” let her be the one the Lord has chosen for my master’s son.’
45 “Before I finished praying in my heart, Rebekah came out, with her jar on her shoulder. She went down to the spring and drew water, and I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’ 46 “She quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too.’ So I drank, and she watered the camels also. 47 “I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ “She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to him.’ “Then I put the ring in her nose and the bracelets on her arms, I praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me on the right road to get the granddaughter of my master’s brother for his son.
49 Now if you will show kindness and faithfulness to my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, so I may know which way to turn.” 50 Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other. 51 Here is Rebekah; take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has directed.”
52 When Abraham’s servant heard what they said, he bowed down to the ground before the Lord. 53 Then the servant brought out gold and silver jewelry and articles of clothing and gave them to Rebekah; he also gave costly gifts to her brother and to her mother. 54 Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank and spent the night there. When they got up the next morning, he said, “Send me on my way to my master.”
55 But her brother and her mother replied, “Let the girl remain with us ten days or so; then you may go.” 56 But he said to them, “Do not detain me, now that the Lord has granted success to my journey. Send me on my way so I may go to my master.” 57 Then they said, “Let’s call the girl and ask her about it.” 58 So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?” “I will go,” she said. 59 So they sent their sister Rebekah on her way, along with her nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men. 60 And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, “Our sister, may you increase to thousands upon thousands; may your offspring possess the gates of their enemies.”
61 Then Rebekah and her maids got ready and mounted their camels and went back with the man. So the servant took Rebekah and left. 62 Now Isaac had come from Beer Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev. 63 He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. 64 Rebekah also looked up and saw Isaac. She got down from her camel 65 and asked the servant, “Who is that man in the field coming to meet us?” “He is my master,” the servant answered. So she took her veil and covered herself. 66 Then the servant told Isaac all he had done. 67 Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”
We like to think that we’re more important than we are. This shows up in all sorts of areas. It shows up in criticism. We criticize people in other lines of work even though we really have no idea what they do. It shows up in voting. How many people thought that their one vote or a loved one’s lack of voting might possibly be the deciding factor of the election? It shows up in faith. We think far too highly of ourselves when it comes to what God is doing. We think that we are indispensable. We assume that no one would or could pull the weight we pull. We actually think we are indispensable to God’s plan.
This morning we see how very dispensable we are. We’ve been studying the faith of Abraham for twenty-one weeks and now we see that even Abraham was dispensable when it came to the promises given to Abraham. It wasn’t the faith of Abraham that kept the promises going. It was God. It was always God. It will always be God. God keeps the promise going. That is the claim of this sermon.
We will study this in four points; these are the four acts of this story. First: Abraham and the servant. Second: the servant and Rebekah. Third: the servant and the kinsmen of Rebekah. Fourth: Rebekah and Isaac. You see the breakdown of verses on your outline.
First: Abraham and the servant. Abraham was turning his attention to the next generation. That’s natural. As Calvin put it, “old age… ought to induce us so to order the affairs of our family that when we die peace may be preserved among our posterity, the fear of the Lord may flourish, and rightly-constituted order may prevail.”
Abraham wasn’t just thinking about the affairs of his family however; he was thinking about the promises; verse 1, “Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed him in every way.” In other words, God had kept His promises from Genesis 12, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”
God promised to bless Abraham. God had blessed Abraham. God had said that these promises and blessings would continue through Isaac. He told Abraham, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” For God to keep that promise, Isaac would need to have children. To have children, Isaac would need a wife; that’s what’s behind Abraham’s words to his servant in verse 3, “I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.”
Isaac would need a wife who wouldn’t hinder the promises. Marrying a Canaanite would risk assimilation into these people whom God was planning to expel from the promised land. You don’t intermarry the people of the promises with those who will not inherit the promise. The law of Moses codified this saying, “when you choose some of [the Canaanites] daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.” That’s also why God commands Christians not to marry outside of the people of promise.
Abraham was deadly serious about this. You see that in this rather intimate oath of verse 2, “put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear…” That has to do with the genitals. Apparently we people of faith need to be serious about our children and children’s children inheriting the promises.
Now the only eligible women near Isaac were Canaanites. That was quite an obstacle. Abraham took the promises more seriously than he took the obstacles. You need to ask yourself if you, like Abraham, want to take God’s word—His promises and commands—more seriously than the obstacles to them.
Abraham took the promises more seriously than the obstacles and so he sent his servant to his own kinship group to find a wife to bring back to the Promised Land. The servant understood the improbability of any young woman accepting such a proposal. What would you think if a man knocked on your door and told you that he had a great husband for your daughter on a sheep farm in New Zealand? That’s why Abraham’s servant asked, “What if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the country you came from?”
Here we see the faith of Abraham; verse 7, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, “To your offspring I will give this land”—He will send His angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there.’ Abraham remembered God’s faithfulness to His promises in the past, and so expected God’s continued commitment to His promises for the future. That’s a peaceful way to live.
Abraham saw the promises of God as big and the obstacles of his circumstances as small. He maximized the promise that Isaac would have offspring and thereby minimized the circumstances that stood in the way of that. As Calvin put it, “we see that in perplexed and confused affairs the mind of the holy man was not drawn aside from the command of God by any agitating cares, and we are taught by his example to follow God through every obstacle.” That’s faith like Abraham and that is what God is cultivating in you if you have faith like Abraham.
That’s our first point: Abraham and the servant. Now we turn our attention to our second point: the servant and Rebekah. The servant’s journey to Abraham’s kinship group would have taken at least a month. He took ten camels as a great demonstration of wealth to show that Isaac would be able to provide for his bride.
When the servant arrived at Nahor, he prayed; verse 12, ‘O Lord, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a girl, “Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,” and she says, “Drink, and I’ll water your camels too”—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.’
The servant asked God to respond to a yes/no oracle. The servant laid out a scenario so unlikely that, were it to happen, he would know this was of God. Gideon did the same with the fleece. Now it was customary for townspeople to offer to get water for thirsty visitors. It was also customary for women, particularly unmarried girls, to draw water for flocks and herds. It was not customary for a townsperson to water ten camels for a stranger. That was highly unlikely. Think of it this way: imagine that you are on a walk and you see a little old lady struggling to carry a bag of groceries. You would probably help her. Now imagine that you are on a walk and you see a man with a handcart getting ready to lug ten refrigerators one by one up the stairs of a new apartment complex. Would you feel the same need to help? The servant is looking for the girl who will haul the ten refrigerators up the stairs. If she offers to water these ten thirsty camels, she will only be doing so because it is the will of God.
Now we can talk about this use of yes/no oracles as a means for discerning God’s will another time; for now we need to put our focus on the fact that God blessed this particular yes/no oracle; verse 12, “Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. The girl was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever lain with her.”
It is obvious that this woman will be Isaac’s wife. That’s what the comments about her beauty and virginity are about. That’s what her family background is about. She was the daughter of Abraham’s nephew. Rather than building this story on suspense, the author introduces Rebekah to you in this way to make clear that God was at work in real time so you will remember that God is at work in the lives of those with faith like Abraham.
You can see that God was at work in the fact that Rebekah came out with her water jar before Abraham’s servant finished praying. To paraphrase Jesus’ words on the Lord’s Prayer, God knew what that servant needed before the servant asked.
God made His will clear by way of this yes/no oracle; verse 21, “Without saying a word, the man watched her closely to learn whether or not the Lord had made his journey successful. When the camels had finished drinking, the man took out a gold nose ring weighing a beka and two gold bracelets weighing ten shekels.” Those gifts were not only an act of appreciation for her generosity in watering those ten camels, they were also a way of telling her that Isaac could care for her.
This all unfolds with remarkable speed. Before he had left Abraham, this servant had his doubts about this plan. He travelled for a month wondering how it would all turn out. Now first shot out of the box, he had seen what could only be the hand of God at work. This servant had seen God in action because he had, by Abraham’s command, put weight on God’s promises. That’s what leads to verse 27, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned His kindness and faithfulness to my master.” It’s possible that some of us aren’t seeing God at work because we aren’t putting weight on His promises. You see God at work when you join the work that God has promised to do.
That’s our second point: the servant and Rebekah. Now we turn our attention to our third point: the servant and Rebekah’s kinsmen. The servant wanted to meet Rebekah’s father. Rebekah returned home, told her family about what had happened, and her brother Laban went back to invite the stranger over while the family prepared a meal. When Laban and the servant arrived, they offered the meal, but the servant said, “I will not eat until I have told you what I have to say.” Considering the importance of hospitality in that culture, that was quite an unusual request. The servant told Rebekah’s family that he was sent by Abraham, Bethuel’s uncle, the great-uncle of Laban and Rebekah. As the servant put it, “the Lord has blessed my master abundantly, and he has become wealthy. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, and camels and donkeys.” He told them at length about Isaac, the yes/no oracle, and what he saw as the hand of God in all of this.
Rebekah’s father and brother agreed; verse 50, “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other. Here is Rebekah; take her and go and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has directed.” Now don’t take the fact that Bethuel and Laban, rather than Rebekah, answered as a sign that Rebekah was being sent away against her will. If we had more time, we could talk about the ways in which both Bethuel and Laban were caring for Rebekah’s honor and wellbeing in this passage. Rebekah wanted to marry Isaac. You see that in her willingness to leave the next morning; verse 58, ‘“Will you go with this man?” “I will go,” she said.’
Although those are the only words we hear from Rebekah in this discussion of marriage—“I will go”—I hope they sound somewhat familiar. Have we ever heard of anyone willing to leave country, people, and their father’s household before? Genesis 12:1, ‘The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you… So Abram went.” Abram went. Rebekah would go. She had faith like Abraham. She was willing to leave her country, her people, and her father’s household. She would be blessed like Abraham. When we studied the call of Abraham, we saw the similarities between his name and verbal forms of the verb “to bless”; now we see the similarities by name Rebekah and the noun for blessing, which is “barakah.” Rebekah… barakah.
The blessing will continue. The line of promise will continue. The God who started it will keep it going. People continued to be blessed like Abraham after Abraham. They are blessed by way of faith like Abraham’s. They still are today, and it’s God’s doing as it is in this passage.
Rebekah was right at home in the line of promise. We see that in our final point: Rebekah and Isaac. The Bible includes many lovely stories about romance, and this is one of them. Isaac looked up and saw the caravan in the distance. Rebekah looked up, same words in the Hebrew, and saw a man. She asked the servant—who remember is the only person that Rebekah now knows—who this man was. The servant told her that this was Isaac. She veiled her face; brides wore veils during the wedding ceremony and removed them afterwards.
This was an arranged marriage, but doesn’t mean there was no love; verse 67, “So she became his wife, and he loved her.” Gordon Wenham tells us that, “in arranged marriages, love follows the union rather than prompts it.”
Now that is rather different from our culture, but since our culture is so profoundly confused on marriage in almost every way—and we will study that in the new year—let’s see what we can learn from these words, “So she became his wife, and he loved her.” What if we started to see love as primarily following rather than preceding the wedding?
You see this in The Fiddler on the Roof. Marriage is central to that story. Tevye and Golde were married by arrangement but their oldest daughter didn’t want that. She wanted love. Tevye thinks about this and asks his wife of 25 years, “Golde, do you love me?” She laughs off his question; he’s a bit hurt so he explains, “the first time I met you on was on our wedding day,” and then they go back and forth, “I was scared.” “I was shy.” “I was nervous.” “So was I.” Then he tells her, ‘but my father and mother said we’d learn to love each other, and now I’m asking, “Golde, do you love me?”’ Learning to love each other is apparently what marriage is about. “So she became his wife, and he loved her.” Golde thought about Tevye’s question, “do you love me?” She thought about their shared life and said with surprise, “I suppose I do.” He smiles like a fifty-year old school-boy and responds, “and I suppose I love you too.” That’s what marriage is about—learning to love and learning to be loved. Moses got the order right; our culture gets it very wrong, “So she became his wife, and he loved her.”
That’s the human element in the midst of the promises. That’s why this is a story about the promises of God and a story about love. The promises meet us in real life. That’s why this is a story about the promises of God and a secret pain; that’s verse 67, “So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”
That’s a left hook. We’ve been focusing on promises and oracles and decisions and never gave a thought to the fact that this follows on the heels of Sarah’s death. God knew. This is a story about what God did for a young man whose mother had died. It’s more than that, but it’s not less. We’ve seen the promises, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, “To your offspring I will give this land”—He will send his angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there.’ We’ve seen our humanity, “So she became his wife, and he loved her and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” God knows how to bring them together.
That’s what the incarnation is about. Jesus is the rest of this story. He is the promised offspring. He is the reason for the story of Abraham and of Isaac.
He is also very much like the story. He is what it looks like when the promises of God and the texture of life come together. As the Christmas carol says about the town of his birth, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” The hopes and fears of all Abraham’s years, of all Isaac’s years, of all Rebekah’s years, of all your years.
Jesus is the promises and texture of life come together. He is also the ultimate argument that God keeps the promises going—not us, not Abraham, not Rebekah—God. God takes on flesh to keep God’s promises. We are not indispensable, and that’s good news for all who wonder about God’s promises to the next generation. What we must have is faith, not in what we want for the next generation, but in what God promised. That’s faith like Abraham’s. Amen.