Genesis 24

Okay,
thanks for joining me today.
Michael should be back with us tomorrow with the cancellation
tonight.
He had some youth group project stuff that he had to tend to this afternoon.
So
I am leading us today.
And as we move through the story,
we’re moving out of
really kind of shifting focus,
moving out of the Abraham Sarah story and,
and really pick up on the Isaac story.
You will see a little bit more of Abraham,
but really now the story shifts to his heirs,
particularly Isaac in the first case.
And so to begin with, we have this,
we have this
story and I’m not going to read all of it.
I’m going to tell you
kind of some of it, cause we’ll probably cover this,
most of this entire
chapter today.
But what we have is Abraham decides he wants a wife for Isaac and he wants a servant to go and find
one from their sort of their homeland.
So he says here,
I will not get a wife for my
son from the daughters of the Canaanites who I live,
but I will go to my country to
my kindred and get a wife for my son, Isaac.
And the servant said,
perhaps the woman may
not be willing to follow me to this land.
Must then I take your son back to the land,
which you came and Abraham said,
see to it that you do not take my son back there.
The Lord, the God of heaven who took me from my father’s house and the land of my birth,
who spoke to me and swore to me,
your offspring shall take a wife.
So verse eight here,
but if the woman is not willing to follow you,
then you will be free from this oath of mine.
Only you must not take my son back there.
So the servant goes back to kind of what will eventually become Israel.
Verse 10, the servant took the master’s camels, departed,
taking all kinds of choice gifts from the master.
And he set out and he went and he made the
camels kneel down outside of the city by the well of water.
It was toward the evening and
the time when the women go out to draw water.
And he said, Oh, Lord God of my master,
Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master.
I’m standing here by the
spring of water and the daughters of the townspeople are coming.
Let the girl to whom I shall say,
please offer your jar that I may drink and who shall say drink and I will water your camels.
Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac.
By this I shall know
that you have shown steadfast love to my master.
So a couple of things that work here culturally,
you know, this is a fishing expedition.
This man is off to seek a wife for Isaac.
Abraham is well off,
but he does not want his son to marry a foreign woman.
He wants a woman
of the area that he came from,
the area that will be Israel.
And so he sends the servant
and the servant comes up with this plan,
offers a prayer, one of those kind of help me prayers
and says,
look, when I find the woman and I ask her if I can have some water,
if I found the right one,
you have her tell me that she’ll also help water my livestock.
And so not surprisingly, this happens.
Now,
this isn’t a kind of romantic story.
Interestingly enough,
in the next series
of stories when we get to the Jacob narratives,
we get a kind of a
really,
probably as close to the Bible comes as a romantic story, a love story.
This is much more utilitarian.
This is
kind of
much more arranged.
In fact, there are some parts of this story later that
we wonder maybe how this
whole arrangement even played out,
what the relationship is
between Isaac and Rebecca.
But this woman comes and
she says exactly that.
She says, you know, I’ll water your camels.
And so he becomes interested in her.
And we pick up
the story.
Let me read here, verse 22.
When the camels had finished drinking,
the man took a gold nose ring weighing a half shekel and two bracelets for her arm weighing 10 shekels.
And he said,
whose daughter are you?
Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?
She said, I’m the daughter of Bethel,
son of Milka, the son who bore to Neor.
She added, we have plenty of straw and fodder and a place to spend the night.
The man bowed and worshiped the Lord and said,
bless be the Lord,
the God of my master Abraham,
who has not forsaken his steadfast love and faithfulness toward my master.
As for me,
the Lord has led me to the way of the house of my master’s kin.
Then the girl ran,
told her mother’s household about those things.
Rebecca had a brother whose name was Laban.
Laban ran out, told the man.
And so this whole arrangement comes to fruition.
And verse 34, he sort of makes the pitch.
I’m Abraham’s servant.
The Lord has greatly blessed my master and he’s
become wealthy.
He’s given him flocks and herds and silver and gold,
male and female servants, camels and noggy.
And Sarah, my master’s wife, bore a son to my master when
she was old and he has given him all that he has.
My master made me swear saying,
I won’t take a wife from there.
I came today.
He explains the whole thing.
And this ends up being a match.
Laban and Beth, you’ll answer, verse 50,
the thing comes from the Lord.
We cannot speak to you bad or good.
Look,
Rebecca is before you.
Take her and go.
Let her be the wife of your master’s son as the Lord has spoken.
Now from one perspective,
this is a very interesting faith story.
This is the story of God’s guidance in the covenant.
This is the story of God showing discernment,
showing guidance to those
who are seeking discernment,
leading this servant to the right woman, the right person
for Isaac.
On the other hand,
we also see here a very cultural story.
The woman doesn’t have a lot of say.
The bargaining is done between the men.
It’s kind of transactional.
We have a lot of stuff we can give you.
It’s not a purchase in the sense of slavery or something like that,
but the whole dowry system is in play here.
It is at work.
And so while we see on one hand God working in this
moment to continue this lineage and to provide a wife for Isaac,
we also see that that happens in a very specific culture,
in a very specific way.
And we see,
unfortunately,
again,
that women don’t have a lot of freedom.
They don’t have a lot of opportunity.
They don’t have a lot of possibilities.
They kind of are expected
to go along with the program.
And so in really every sense of the word,
this is a kind of
arranged marriage.
And Rebecca,
well, for that matter, Isaac,
doesn’t have a lot to
do.
Either one of them really have a lot to do with the arranging.
They’re part of the
arrangements, but they’re not really a part of the decision making about their own relationship
and about their own wedding.
We should mention here the name Laban.
That’s going to come
up again.
You’ll see that name in the Jacob stories,
but here is just sort of an introduction to the character.
Verse 58,
they called Rebecca and they said to her,
“Will you go with the
man?” And she said, “I will.”
So they sent away their sister, Rebecca,
and her nurse, along with Abraham’s servant and men.
And they blessed Rebecca
and said to her,
“May you, our sister,
become thousands of myriads.
May your offspring gain possession at
the gates of their foes.” Then Rebecca and her maids rose up, mounted the camels,
followed the man.
Thus the servant took Rebecca and went his way.
Now there is this moment where
Rebecca seems to make a choice,
but as you read the story,
that conclusion has largely
been drawn.
But there is a moment where she’s consulted.
And that is a moment where she’s
worth noting, certainly cuts against the grain of some of the story.
But she is not a victim
in this.
She is willing to honor the agreement.
She is willing to take this partnership.
She is willing to enter into this marriage.
And now she becomes part of that
covenant family.
Verse 64,
let me just read you the end of this story.
“Rebecca looked up and when she
saw Isaac, she slipped quickly from the camel,
said to the servant,
‘Who is the man over
there walking to the field to meet us?’
The servant said, ‘It’s my master.’
So she took her veil and covered herself.
And the servant told Isaac all the things he had done.
Then Isaac brought her into his mother,
Sarah’s tent.
He took Rebecca and she became his wife
and he loved her.”
So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
A kind of rare
emotional moment.
The Bible doesn’t always do a lot with unpacking grief,
but here Abraham is provided in the aftermath of Sarah’s death,
Abraham has provided a partner,
a wife for Isaac and we are told he loved her.
Now, that
is going to play out in some strange ways
as we continue this story.
The relationship between Rebecca and Isaac is interesting.
There are lots of
parts of the story that raise some questions about what it must have
been like in that house, particularly after
the sons are born and there’s clear favoritism on both sides.
But we have yet to get there.
At this point, we see the next step,
the next evolution of the patriarchal family.
And Isaac now has his partner,
his wife, Rebecca,
and she becomes an inheritor of this covenant promise that she will be involved in propagating
this line and moving forward with this promise.
So that really moves the story along.
I don’t
see some guidance.
God is not specifically mentioned,
but it is clear that these things
are playing out under the direction that everyone is hoping they will.
The man prays,
the circumstances happen.
There’s a blessing given here that calls specifically on the work of the Lord
and on the promise of the covenant.
And so Rebecca is now firmly entrenched in that promise as well.
We will move on probably to where that goes.
We’ll get fairly quickly.
We take another big jump in the story and we will get there tomorrow.
So hope you all farewell tonight.
Be careful.
Keep an eye on the weather.
Thanks for joining.
And it is good to be with
you and we’ll see you tomorrow.