Join us as we unravel the captivating narrative of Abraham’s servant who embarks on a critical task—finding a wife for Isaac, Abraham’s son. Witness the extraordinary journey through Mesopotamia, the culturally rich setting where providence guides the selection of Rebekah, a relative with qualities that make her the ideal match. Through this tale, we learn how faith, character, and divine signs converge to fulfill a promise and set the stage for the birth of a nation.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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How would you feel about having someone else arrange your marriage? Well, judging by the way people make decisions nowadays, it might not be a bad idea. Half of the marriages that people are arranging for themselves are going south on them, so maybe we could reconsider? Well, probably not. But in the ancient world of the Bible, marriage was a civil contract and was, in the main, arranged by the father of the bride and the father of the groom. I suppose the reasoning behind it is that young people are just too frivolous to be making such an important decision. They need sound heads, savvy minds, wise old heads to make the decision about who they’re going to spend the rest of their life with and who’s going to be the father or mother of their children. Of course, age is relative. Isaac, the son of Abraham, was 40 years old when his father arranged his marriage. But in spite of that, it is really a romantic story. Abraham was an old man when Isaac was born, and he was a lot older than that when he took it in hand to find a wife for his son. And the story of it is told in the 24th chapter of Genesis. Abraham was old, it tells us, and was well stricken in age. And the Lord had blessed Abraham in everything. And Abraham said to his eldest servant of his house, the one that ruled over everything Abraham had, he said, Put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell. Now, I think it’s interesting that Abraham entrusted this task to an older man. He didn’t send some young 40-year-old fellow from among his staff, and he had a big staff, to go off on this task. He picked the oldest servant of his house. He picked his chief of staff, the man that was in charge of everything Abraham had. He’s an interesting fellow in that he ran Abraham’s entire agribusiness from top to bottom. Abraham, you have to remember, was a wealthy and powerful man. He was able, at a much earlier time in his life, to put together a private army out of his manservants and defeat a combined force from several city-states in the region. And since that time, he’d grown even stronger. He was a power to be reckoned with in the ancient world. Now, you have to know that the eldest steward in this empire was a formidable man in his own right. This oath he was asked to take is curious. Abraham said, put your hand under my thigh. Now, I can only conclude that this is an idiom of the day. Can you imagine people studying our literature from another culture, say, some 3,000 years off in the future, and they come across an expression in the English language where he says that a man kicked the bucket. The meaning of the expression is entirely different from the expression itself. And that may be true of what Abraham is saying here. But what’s important is he is asking the man to take a solemn oath about what he’s going to do. Now, it’s a passing interest that Abraham absolutely did not want Isaac to take a wife of the Canaanites. Now, there might have been several reasons for this. One, Abraham didn’t like the culture of Canaan, and he didn’t want it in his household. Perhaps. Or Abraham didn’t like the religions of the Canaanites and didn’t want that in his household either. Perhaps. Or possibly there was the matter of inheritance. For the son of the most powerful man in the region, to marry a woman of the region might imply alliances and political complications that could corrupt the promise that God had given to Abraham, which was that he would inherit the whole thing. There’s a lot to this story as it develops, and it’s awfully easy to miss it if you’re just doing a quick read. Abraham told the servant, he says, You shall go into my country to my kindred, and you shall take a wife there to my son Isaac. Now, the servant was already thinking ahead while Abraham was saying this into the potential problem that might arise. And he said, well, what if the woman doesn’t want to come with me? What if she’s not willing to follow me into this land? Do I have to take your son over there to see her so she can make her decision? There are two important things here. First, the marriage was arranged, but not without the woman’s consent, because he immediately said, what if she doesn’t want to come? The second problem was the question of whether Isaac might go himself to select a bride. Abraham didn’t like that idea a little bit. And Abraham said to him, beware that you don’t take my son there again. The Lord God of heaven which took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spoke to me, and that swore to me, saying, Unto your seed will I give this land. That God will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife unto my son from there. But if this woman will not be willing to follow you, then you are clear from your oath. Only don’t take my son there again. There’s a real intensity in Abraham’s response to this question. He doesn’t just mention it once, he mentions it twice. Under no circumstances does he want Isaac going back home to find a wife. The reason seems to be attached to the promise of God concerning this land. It is almost as though Abraham feared that if Isaac returned to the home country, he might stay there and hence lose possession of what God had promised to Abraham. So there was a complicated set of economic, political, and inheritance factors at work in all this. But I really think Abraham was afraid that if his son left the land, he might never see him again. And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning the matter. And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master and departed, for all the goods of his master were in his hand. And he arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. Mesopotamia in the old languages meant the land between the rivers. It’s the land of modern Iraq, the two rivers being the Tigris and the Euphrates. Nahor was Abraham’s brother, and it was to his city that the servant had come. And he made his camels kneel down outside the city by a well of water at the time of evening, the time when the women go out to draw water. Now this servant was a religious man, and he worshipped the God of Abraham. And so he makes a prayer at this well of water before he ever makes his first step. He is a knowledgeable man, he’s an old and wise man, and he is a religious man. We’ll take a look at his prayer and the results of it when I come back after this message.
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So the old servant made his camels kneel down outside the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, about the time women go out to draw water. It’s a really evocative scene. You can imagine camels, after a long journey, getting close to where they could smell water, now being made to kneel down, the grumbling and the groaning that camels can do. It’s a pretty noisy bunch, I expect. And the old servant prayed, and he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray you, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Look, I am standing here by a well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are already on their way out here to draw water. Let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down your pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink. And she shall say, Drink, and I will give your camels to drink also. Let the same be she that you have appointed for your servant Isaac. And that way I will know that you have showed kindness to my master. Now this man was no fool. He was asking for divine guidance, but the conditions he laid out were sound. First, he got to do the asking, so he didn’t have to ask a woman when he didn’t like her looks. There was no way he was going to bring home to Isaac some ugly duckling, so he got to look around, see the women, and decide which one he asked. Second, looks can be deceiving, and this old fellow, crafty as he was, knew that. He chose a response to require of the woman that would reveal some things about her character and her upbringing. She had to be a hospitable woman who was not too shy to talk to strangers. She wouldn’t be the kind of woman that would tell him to get his own water or buzz off, however you say that in Mesopotamian. And she wasn’t afraid of work. It was no small matter to water ten camels. Now this is a wise old man, this serpent of Abraham, and cautious to boot. Well, it came to pass before he had done speaking, he wasn’t even finished, that Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, who turned out to be a nephew of Abraham, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. The damsel was very fair to look upon, a real looker. She was a virgin, no man had ever known her, and she went down to the well, filled up her pitcher, and came up. And the servant ran to meet her. I suppose he thought, I don’t want to miss this girl. And he said, let me, I pray thee, drink a little water out of your pitcher. Now, the interesting thing about this is, as the discussion continues, apparently the well was a little deeper than the surrounding land, and she had to go down into the well and come up out of the well, which to her then it might make a little sense for an older gentleman to walk up to her and say, Would you mind giving me a drink? It’s a long way down there and a long way back up. But it also underlines the amount of work this young lady was taking on herself when she decided to water those camels. Now, Rebecca might have been shyer than she was if it had been a younger man. So there was a wisdom in this older, gray-bearded man who asked her for a drink of water. And she said, Drink, my lord. And she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her head and gave him a drink. And when she had done giving him a drink, she said, I’ll draw water for your camels also until they have done drinking. And she hasted, emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. Oh, he knew this was his girl. But he was still a wise old man, and he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. And he wondered at her. I mean, he just stood there astonished and kept his mouth shut to see, he says, whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. A lot of people I know of, when they got some kind of a sign like that from God, would absolutely go head over heels. They would be gone, but not this old fellow. He realized that there are a lot of pitfalls in life, and he wanted to wait and see for sure whether God had made his journey prosperous or if he still hadn’t found the right person. When the Campbells had finished drinking, The man took a golden earring, half a shake of weight and weight, a good-sized one, and two bracelets, all solid gold, and he gave them to the girl. Now, this is a pretty nice tip for watering ten camels, even though it was a lot of work. And he said, Whose daughter are you, I pray? Is there room in your father’s house for us to lodge in? She said, I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor. Now, Nahor was a magic name to this man. He knew who Nahor was. He was Abraham’s brother. And she said to him, We have straw, we have provender, we have a room to lodge in. And the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not left destitute my master of his mercy and truth. I, being in the street, the Lord has led me to the house of my master’s brother. You know, I figure the old man must have had tears in his eyes about that time, for this was too great a coincidence for the first woman he met would be of the family of Abraham’s own brother. He knew now that God would be with him every step of the way. And there is something about this when you have prayed and you’ve asked for something, and you get the answer in a way that is so miraculous, so unusual, that there can be no doubt where it came from, that the prayer of thanksgiving is a hard prayer to pray without tears running down your cheek in the process. Well, the damsel ran and told them of her mother’s house, everything. Rebecca had a brother. His name was Laban. And Laban ran out to the man at the well. And it came to pass when he saw the earring and the bracelets on his sister’s hands. And when he heard the words of Rebecca, his sister, saying, this is what the man told me. He came to the man who was standing by the camels at the well, and he said, Come in, you blessed one of the Lord. Why are you standing out here? I’ve prepared the house. I have room for your camels. And the man came into the house, and he took off all the load of his camels, gave them straw, gave them provender, Water then was given to the man to wash his feet, and all the men’s feet were with him. He had a cadre of guys who were with him. And they set a meal before him to eat. And one thing, you know, you really have to admire this old gentleman. He is, of course, Abraham’s chief steward, which is admirable in itself. It is a record, I mean, a witness of what this man is and what he had accomplished in life up until this time. But if we didn’t have that, we still have all these powerful indicators of his character. Because after a long journey, when he was very tired, and he finally has found the place he needs to be to take a little rest and wash his feet, They put food in front of him, and he says, I won’t eat until I have told you my errand. And Laban said, speak on. There was a reason, like I say, why this man was Abraham’s chief steward. He was a good and loyal man. He said, I am Abraham’s steward. And the Lord has blessed my master greatly. He has become great. He has given him flocks and herds and silver and gold, men’s servants, maidservants, camels, asses. He has a major agribusiness. Sarah, my master’s wife, bore a son to my master when she was old, and unto him, to that son, he has given all that he has. Now, you know, in this modern day, looking back on this, it’s hard necessarily to put yourself in the mind of Laban hearing this. But all this would be a part of any marriage contract. No contract is mentioned, but you can be sure that there was one. It was the custom of the time. And the property of the woman and the property of the man entering into marriage in these days was all included in the contract. It had to be explained, had to be dealt with, how heirs were to be rewarded. All this was understood before a couple ever moved in together. This woman was destined to be the wife of a very wealthy man. Well, the servant continued after laying out the wealth that she would have as his wife. He says, The Lord before whom I walk will send his angel with you and prosper your way. And you shall take a wife for my son of my kindred of my father’s house. Then you shall be clear from this my oath. When you come to my kindred, if they give you not a wife, you shall be clear from my oath. Then he told Laban the story of his prayer. He told him how at the well he had said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, if you’re with me, Look, I stand by the well of water. It shall come to pass that when the virgin comes forth to draw water, and I say to her, Give me a little water for your pitcher to drink. And she says to me, Drink, you, and also I will draw water for your camels. Let the same be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master’s son. And wouldn’t you believe it? Before I had even finished speaking in my heart, Rebekah came out with her pitcher on her shoulder, and she went down into the well and drew water and came up. And I said to her, Let me drink, I pray you. And Laban, your daughter, hurried, led down her pitcher and gave me a drink and said, I’ll get water for your camels also. So I drank, and she made the camels drink also. And I asked her and said, Whose daughter are you? She said, The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son. He says, I put the earring on her face, the bracelets on her hands, and I bowed down and worshiped the Lord and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, which led me in the right way to take my master’s brother’s daughter to his son. What a story. Then he said, if you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me. And if not, tell me so I can turn to the right hand or I can turn to the left. He hadn’t really concluded, finally in his mind, he had to have the consent not only of the girl, but also her family. And if that didn’t forthcome, then he was going to have to go further looking for a wife for Isaac. But Laban and Bethuel both answered and said, It is obvious that this thing proceeds from the Lord. We cannot speak to you bad or good. We can’t argue with this. Look, Rebecca is in front of you. Take her and go and let her be your master’s son’s wife as the Lord has spoken. Now, it may be worth noting here that the writer of this text has both Abraham and Laban referring to God by his Hebrew name, Yehovah. As you may know, in your King James Version, in fact, most versions of the Bible, whenever you see the Lord, and Lord is in small caps, that’s what they use for the Hebrew word Yahweh, or YHVH, otherwise pronounced Yehovah. Now, what’s interesting about this is this particular name was not known to these men. Exodus 6, verse 2, tells us this, God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am Jehovah. I appeared unto Abraham and Isaac and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah I was not known to them. Now the reason for this is simple. Jehovah is Hebrew, and the Hebrew language did not exist in Abraham’s day. It is a much later development. Whatever name Abraham and Laban used, it’s clear that they knew the same God. And this would have been a problem in any dealings with the Canaanites in a marriage contract. This is the fundamental reason, I think, why Abraham didn’t want Isaac to have a wife from the daughters of Canaan. The continuation of this story and what happened, I’ll tell you after this important message.
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So when the old servant had finished his story, Rebecca’s brother was kind of speechless. He said, I can’t say anything bad or good about that. I mean, when God says that’s what’s to be done, which apparently he has done, He said, look, Rebekah is there. Take her. Go and let her be your master’s son’s wife, as the Lord has spoken. Because he believed in God. Well, it came to pass when Abraham’s servant heard that, he did obeisance to the Lord. He bowed himself to the ground and prayed, and he brought forth jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and clothes, and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave to her brother and to her mother precious things. Now, there’s no specific mention here of a marriage contract or a dowry, but that’s what’s going on. This is the ancient custom that there had to be an exchange of goods. There had to be an understanding about property. It was all a part of the deal when a couple got married. And so then they ate and drank. He had done his business, he and the men who were with him. They spent that night. They got up in the morning, and they said, Please send me away to my master. And her brother and her mother, her mother enters the picture and says, oh, let the damsel abide with us a few days, at least 10. After that, she can go. And he said, please don’t hinder me. Seeing the Lord has prospered my way, send me away that I may go to my master. And I think somewhat reluctantly, they said, well, let’s call the girl and we’ll inquire of her. And they called Rebecca and they said, would you go with this man? And she said, I will go. This is an important part of the story, because the woman was not sold off without her consent. She was willing to go, and she herself was a party to the marriage contract. So they sent away Rebekah, their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant, and his men, and they blessed Rebekah, and they said, You’re our sister. Be thou the mother of thousands of millions of and let your seed possess the gate of those who hate them. And Rebekah arose, and her girls, she had some girl servants, I suppose, so she was pretty well off herself. She was not exactly poor. She didn’t travel alone. They rode upon the camels and followed the men, and the servant took Rebekah and went his way. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Isaac was going about his business. And he had just come from the way of the well, Lahairoi, because he had been in the south country. And he went out to meditate in the field in the eventide. And as he sat there, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, he could see the camels coming back, and he had to recognize immediately. This was his father’s steward. These were his father’s camels that were coming in. At the same time, Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she got off the camel, because she had said to the servant, Who is this man that walks in the field toward us to meet us? And his servant said, It’s my master. So she quickly took a veil and covered herself. You know, I can only imagine how fast her heart must have been beating at this time. Because this was the man. She had never seen this man before. He would be her husband. He would become the father of her children. And the servant, when they got there, told Isaac all the things that he had done. He got the whole story, the story about the well, the prayer of God, about how this very good-looking woman, he couldn’t tell a lot, I doubt it, but he could see her eyes and her forehead behind the veil. I think as he heard this story and realized that this is the girl that God himself picked out for him, that he must have been almost overwhelmed by the story. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her. And Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. You know, this is an abrupt ending, in a way, to the story. But I have very little doubt that there was a passage of time before this wedding actually took place. He didn’t take her immediately into his own tent. He took her into his mother’s tent. And my favorite part of the story is in three little words. He loved her. There’s a lot of story behind that short sentence. Now, why have I told you this story? Well, because these two wonderful people will be the parents of a man named Israel. And he will dominate the history of the Bible to come. Until next time, I’m Ronald Dart.
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