The Lord faithfully advances His covenant promise by providentially guiding Abraham’s servant to Rebekah, providing a wife for Isaac and securing the future of the promised line through obedient, prayerful, and worshipful dependence.
The Lord Guides Abraham’s Servant to Rebekah and Faithfully Advances the Covenant Line Through Providential Marriage
The Lord faithfully advances His covenant promise by providentially guiding Abraham’s servant to Rebekah, providing a wife for Isaac and securing the future of the promised line through obedient, prayerful, and worshipful dependence.
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The Lord faithfully advances His covenant promise by providentially guiding Abraham’s servant to Rebekah, providing a wife for Isaac and securing the future of the promised line through obedient, prayerful, and worshipful dependence.
Genesis 24 teaches that the covenant future advances through the sovereign providence of God working through human obedience, prayer, discernment, and faithful action. Abraham begins with covenant conviction. Isaac must not marry into the Canaanite world, yet neither may he leave the land of promise. That tension is crucial. The future must be secured without violating the land promise or diluting covenant distinctiveness.
Abraham therefore entrusts the matter to his servant under solemn oath, but his deeper confidence rests in the Lord, the God of heaven, who brought him from his father’s house and swore the land promise. The servant then models a life of dependent action. He travels wisely, prays specifically, watches carefully, tests providence humbly, and responds in worship when the Lord answers.
The repeated retelling of events in the chapter highlights that none of this is accidental. The servant interprets the encounter through the categories of divine faithfulness, steadfast love, and truth. Rebekah’s readiness, family connection, moral suitability, and willing response all reveal providence at work. The chapter culminates not merely in a successful marriage arrangement but in covenant continuity.
Rebekah enters Sarah’s tent, linking her symbolically to the covenant matriarchal role, and Isaac is comforted, showing that God’s providence answers not only covenant necessity but also personal grief. Thus Genesis 24 argues that the Lord governs ordinary and extraordinary circumstances alike in order to preserve His promise, and that covenant faith responds through oath-bound integrity, prayerful dependence, perceptive discernment, truthful speech, willing obedience, and worship.
Genesis 24 is the longest chapter in Genesis and serves as a major transition within the Abraham narrative. Sarah has died, Isaac remains unmarried, and Abraham is old, advanced in years, yet the covenant promise concerning seed, land, and future generations still stands. The chapter therefore addresses a critical covenant question: how will the promised line continue through Isaac?
Within the flow of Genesis, this chapter shows that the covenant future is not secured only through miraculous birth, but also through providentially ordered marriage. Abraham’s concern is not merely social or familial. It is covenantal. Isaac must not be joined to the Canaanites in a way that compromises the promise, yet he also must not return to Mesopotamian origins as though the land promise were reversible.
The chapter thus stands at the intersection of family formation, covenant purity, divine guidance, and providential fulfillment. In the wider canonical frame, Genesis 24 demonstrates that God’s redemptive purposes advance not only through great miracles and dramatic tests, but through careful obedience, prayer, discernment, providence, and the formation of the next covenant household.
Abraham charges his senior servant to swear an oath that he will not take a wife for Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites, but will go to Abraham’s kindred to obtain a wife, while making clear that Isaac must not be taken back there.
The servant travels to Aram Naharaim, arrives at the city of Nahor, prays at the well for specific providential guidance, and asks that the appointed young woman will not only offer him water but also water his camels.
Before he finishes speaking, Rebekah appears, fulfills the requested signs exactly, is identified as Abraham’s kin, and the servant worships the Lord for His steadfast guidance.
Laban welcomes the servant; the servant recounts Abraham’s charge, the oath, the prayer, the providential answer, and asks plainly whether the family will deal faithfully with his master.
Rebekah’s family recognizes the matter as having come from the Lord, consents to the marriage, Rebekah agrees to go, and she departs with the servant after receiving blessing.
Isaac comes from Beer-lahai-roi, goes out into the field at evening, sees the arriving caravan, meets Rebekah, takes her into Sarah’s tent, and is comforted after his mother’s death.
- 24:1-9: Abraham charges his senior servant to swear an oath that he will not take a wife for Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites, but will go to Abraham’s kindred to obtain a wife, while making clear that Isaac must not be taken back there.
- 24:10-14: The servant travels to Aram Naharaim, arrives at the city of Nahor, prays at the well for specific providential guidance, and asks that the appointed young woman will not only offer him water but also water his camels.
- 24:15-28: Before he finishes speaking, Rebekah appears, fulfills the requested signs exactly, is identified as Abraham’s kin, and the servant worships the Lord for His steadfast guidance.
- 24:29-49: Laban welcomes the servant · the servant recounts Abraham’s charge, the oath, the prayer, the providential answer, and asks plainly whether the family will deal faithfully with his master.
- 24:50-61: Rebekah’s family recognizes the matter as having come from the Lord, consents to the marriage, Rebekah agrees to go, and she departs with the servant after receiving blessing.
- 24:62-67: Isaac comes from Beer-lahai-roi, goes out into the field at evening, sees the arriving caravan, meets Rebekah, takes her into Sarah’s tent, and is comforted after his mother’s death.
Pastoral Entry
חֶסֶד is one of the richest and most theologically freighted words in the Hebrew Bible. English translations reach for it with words like lovingkindness, steadfast love, mercy, loyal love, or covenant faithfulness, and none of these alone carries the full weight. What the word names is a kind of committed, active, loyal goodness that holds fast to a relationship even when it is not obligated to do so. It is not merely warm feeling. It is love that acts, love that costs, love that stays.
In its human dimension, חֶסֶד describes the loyalty owed within covenant bonds, whether between king and servant, between friends, between allies, or within a family. When Jonathan asks David to show him חֶסֶד, he is not asking for sentiment. He is asking for the kind of active, faithful, protecting love that holds when everything else might give way. When David shows חֶסֶד to Mephibosheth for the sake of Jonathan, it is costly, deliberate, and unconditional. It moves before merit is established and remains after circumstances have changed.
In its divine dimension, חֶסֶד becomes the defining word for the character of the God of Israel. He is the God who keeps חֶסֶד to thousands of those who love Him, who does not remove His חֶסֶד from David, whose חֶסֶד endures forever. It is this word that lies behind the great covenant confessions of the Old Testament. When Lamentations says that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, the word under that translation is חֶסֶד. When Isaiah promises that God's covenant of peace will not be removed, the word behind that covenant loyalty is חֶסֶד. The word does not describe God's passing affection. It describes His covenantal commitment, active across time, faithful in the face of human failure, and anchored in His own character rather than in our performance.
For the preacher and teacher, חֶסֶד is irreplaceable. It resists every reduction of God's love to sentiment or permissiveness. It insists that God's love is relational, purposeful, and covenant-shaped. It pushes against every view that God's mercy is passive or impersonal. And it raises a direct challenge to every congregation: because you have been the recipients of God's חֶסֶד, what does faithful חֶסֶד look like in how you treat one another?
Sense steadfast love, covenant loyalty
Definition steadfast love, covenant loyalty
Why it matters The servant praises God for not forsaking His steadfast love toward Abraham, making covenant loyalty central to the interpretation of the whole journey.
Cross-language bridge 1 link · View in lexicon
Pastoral Entry
אֶמֶת is the Hebrew word that carries what we strain toward with a cluster of English words: truth, faithfulness, reliability, trustworthiness, certainty. No single English term carries its full weight, because אֶמֶת is not merely a claim about what is true or factually reliable. It names what can be depended upon — what will not bend, break, prove hollow, or disappoint. Its root, aman, gives us אָמֵן: the Amen spoken when something is acknowledged as firm, established, and sure. אֶמֶת is the quality of a word or promise or person that has that kind of solidity beneath it.
In its human dimension, אֶמֶת describes the quality of a messenger who actually delivers what was sent, a judge who rules without distortion, a witness whose account is not manufactured, a person whose Yes is genuinely Yes. To live in אֶמֶת is to be the kind of person others can actually stand on — whose words, deeds, and covenantal loyalties cohere. Israel's prophets and wisdom writers treat it as a social and covenantal good: communities built on אֶמֶת hold together; communities that abandon it collapse under the weight of their own distortions.
In its divine dimension, אֶמֶת is one of the defining qualities of YHWH. When Moses asks to see God's glory and is given instead the proclamation of God's name (Exod. 34:6), אֶמֶת appears in the list alongside חֶסֶד — covenant love. The two belong together throughout the Psalms and narrative texts because they name the double certainty at the heart of God's covenant: He is devoted and He is dependable. His chesed will not waver; His emet means that fact itself will not change. God is not unfaithful to His own declared character.
Pastorally, the danger is flattening אֶמֶת into a category of propositional correctness alone. It certainly includes factual truthfulness — lying and deception are its opposites. But the biblical word is richer: it is truth that is lived, embodied, covenant-shaped, and anchored in the character of the God who cannot lie. Teaching אֶמֶת well means showing a congregation that truth is not merely what is right to assert; it is also what is reliable to lean on.
Sense truth, faithfulness
Definition truth, faithfulness
Why it matters Paired with steadfast love, the term underscores that God’s guidance is not arbitrary but faithful to His promise and true to His covenant word.
Sense lead, guide
Definition lead, guide
Why it matters The servant explicitly confesses that the Lord led him on the right way, making divine guidance a central theme of the chapter.
Pastoral Entry
דֶּרֶךְ begins with ground underfoot — a road worn into the earth by repeated passage, a path shaped by the feet of those who have walked it before. But the Old Testament rarely lets the word stay merely physical. Almost from the beginning, דֶּרֶךְ describes something more searching: the course a human life is taking, the direction in which a person, a nation, or even God himself is moving. It is one of the most frequently used nouns in the Hebrew Bible for good reason — few categories cut closer to what Scripture wants to say about human existence before God.
As a word for human life and conduct, דֶּרֶךְ carries moral weight without being merely moralistic. When wisdom literature speaks of the way of the righteous or the way of the wicked, it is not simply cataloguing behaviors. It is describing the direction in which a life is oriented, the trajectory on which a person's habits, affections, choices, and loyalties have set them. A way, once established, goes somewhere. That is the pastoral gravity of the word: every human life is on a path headed toward a destination. The question Torah and Wisdom press is always which way.
DEREK also carries a divine dimension that must not be missed. Scripture speaks of the ways of God — not merely his commands but the character and pattern of his own action, the coherence and faithfulness with which he moves through history, the manner in which he redeems, disciplines, provides, and leads. God's ways are consistently declared to be higher, holier, and more reliable than human ways. To learn the ways of God is not to master a technique but to submit to a Lord whose paths are always just and always good.
Pastorally, דֶּרֶךְ holds together what we are prone to separate: outward conduct and inward direction, single decisions and life patterns, individual discipleship and communal formation. The person who walks in the way of wisdom is not merely doing correct things — their whole life is moving in a direction shaped by the fear of the Lord. And the Lord himself, as Hosea 14:9 declares, walks in ways that are right, along which the righteous walk but in which the rebellious stumble. The word therefore is not neutral. Every way reveals something about who is being trusted, what is being loved, and where life is ultimately being headed.
Sense way, path
Definition way, path
Why it matters The 'right way' language links the servant’s literal travel with God’s moral and providential direction toward covenant fulfillment.
Sense swear, take an oath
Definition swear, take an oath
Why it matters The oath between Abraham and the servant stresses the covenant seriousness of preserving Isaac’s future within God’s appointed boundaries.
Pastoral Entry
עֶבֶד (eved) means slave, servant, or worshiper — a range that moves from the legal institution of slavery to the most honorable title the OT can give to one who belongs to and serves God. The local Hebrew index counts about 803 occurrences, and the entry's theological center is the eved YHWH (servant of the Lord) — the title given to Moses, David, the prophets, and supremely to the Servant of Isaiah 40-53 whose suffering and vindication Isaiah describes in detail.
The eved YHWH title in Isaiah's servant songs (Isa 42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12) is the OT's most developed theology of servanthood. The servant is God's chosen one in whom God delights (42:1), the one who brings justice to the nations (42:1-4), the light of the world (42:6), and — in the most striking movement — the one who bears the iniquities of the many and is 'wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities' (53:5). The eved suffers not for his own sins but for the sins of others, and through his suffering the covenant purposes of God are advanced.
Moses is the paradigmatic eved YHWH in the Pentateuch: 'Moses the servant (eved) of the Lord died there in the land of Moab' (Deut 34:5). The title at Moses' death is the OT's highest recognition of a human life — he who served the Lord is memorialized as His eved. The Psalms use eved as a self-designation before God: 'Save your servant (eved) who trusts in you' (Ps 86:2), 'your servant meditates on your statutes' (Ps 119:23). This is the posture of the covenant person before God: not a contractor negotiating terms but a eved belonging entirely to the one who is Lord.
The word's dual use — both legal slavery and honored service — is itself theologically significant. To be an eved YHWH is to be completely dependent on and belonging to God: one's labor, one's direction, one's identity all flow from the Lord. What looks like limitation from outside is honor from within. The greatest human beings in the OT are called God's eved; the greatest NT servants take their vocabulary from this tradition (Paul: 'Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus').
For the preacher, עֶבֶד is the word that names the ultimate human vocation: belonging to and serving the God who made us and redeemed us, after the pattern of the One who came 'not to be served but to serve' (Mark 10:45).
Sense servant
Definition servant
Why it matters The servant becomes the key human instrument of providence, showing that God advances His covenant through faithful servants acting under delegated trust.
Sense young woman
Definition young woman
Why it matters The repeated description of Rebekah highlights her suitability, purity, and role in the covenant future.
Sense virgin
Definition virgin
Why it matters The description underscores Rebekah’s moral suitability and the purity of the covenant household’s next union.
Pastoral Entry
בָּרַךְ is the verb that moves broadly through the Old Testament when God speaks favor over creation, names a people for himself, or stoops to make something flourish. It carries the sense of endowing with life-giving power and divine favor — not as a vague spiritual feeling but as a concrete declaration that binds heaven and earth together. When God blesses, something is set on a trajectory of fruitfulness, abundance, and alignment with his purposes. When a human being blesses God, the direction reverses but the weight is equal: to bless God is to kneel before him in adoration, acknowledging that goodness descends from him.
The BDB root-gloss 'to kneel' is worth holding. Behind the word lies a posture of submission and reverence. Whether the movement is God bowing down toward creation in generative mercy, a patriarchal father pronouncing favor over sons, a priest raising his hands over an assembled people, or a psalmist summoning his soul to recall every benefit — the word carries weight. Blessing is not flattery. It is not a mere wish. It is a speech-act that invites the named person or thing into the sphere of God's favor and protection.
Pastorally, בָּרַךְ resists reduction. It covers the cosmic scope of creation being sent into fruitfulness (Gen 1:22), the covenant specificity of Abraham being chosen and made a channel of blessing to all nations (Gen 12:2), the priestly formality of the Aaronic blessing pronounced over assembled Israel (Num 6:24), the liturgical movement of the Psalms where the soul blesses God by rehearsing his acts, and the prophetic hope that the offspring of God's servant people will be known among the nations as those whom the Lord has blessed (Isa 61:9). The word binds creation, covenant, priesthood, worship, and eschatology into a single thread.
Sense bless
Definition bless
Why it matters Blessing language dominates the servant’s worship and Rebekah’s departure blessing, keeping the Abrahamic promise horizon in view.
Sense mother of thousands/myriads
Definition mother of thousands/myriads
Why it matters Rebekah’s family blesses her with language of multiplication and victory, showing how the seed promise is now being consciously attached to her role.
Sense God of heaven
Definition God of heaven
Why it matters Abraham invokes the God of heaven as the one who governs the covenant future, making clear that the marriage mission rests under cosmic divine rule.
Sense well of the Living One who sees me
Definition well of the Living One who sees me
Why it matters Isaac’s presence near Beer-lahai-roi ties this chapter back to God’s earlier mercy to Hagar and subtly links covenant continuity with divine seeing and care.
Lexicon data: MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML (CC0) · Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (CC BY 4.0) · Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon (CC BY 4.0) · STEPBible Data (CC BY 4.0) · Full details
| v.1 | H2204זָקֵןQal · Perfect · IndicativeH935בּוֹאQal · Perfect · IndicativeH1288בָּרַךְPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.11 | H3318יָצָאQal · Infinitive construct |
| v.12 | H7136קָרָהHiphil · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.13 | H5324נָצַבNiphal · ParticipleH3318יָצָאQal · Participle |
| v.14 | H559אָמַרQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH5186נָטָהHiphil · Imperative · ImperativeH8354שָׁתָהQal · Imperative · ImperativeH8248שָׁקָהHiphil · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH3198יָכַחHiphil · Perfect · IndicativeH3045יָדַעQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH6213עָשָׂהQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.15 | H3615כָּלָהPiel · Perfect · IndicativeH3318יָצָאQal · ParticipleH3205יָלַדPual · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.18 | H8354שָׁתָהQal · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.19 | H7579שָׁאַבQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH3615כָּלָהPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.2 | H7760שׂוּםQal · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.21 | H7583Hithpael · ParticipleH2790חָרַשׁHiphil · Participle |
| v.22 | H3615כָּלָהPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.23 | H5046נָגַדHiphil · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.24 | H3205יָלַדQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.27 | H1288בָּרַךְQal · Participle passiveH5800עָזַבQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.3 | H3947לָקַחQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH3427יָשַׁבQal · Participle |
| v.30 | H1696דָבַרPiel · Perfect · IndicativeH5975עָמַדQal · Participle |
| v.31 | H935בּוֹאQal · Imperative · ImperativeH1288בָּרַךְQal · Participle passiveH5975עָמַדQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH6437פָּנָהPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.33 | H398אָכַלQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH1696דָבַרPiel · Perfect · IndicativeH1696דָבַרPiel · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.35 | H1288בָּרַךְPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.37 | H3947לָקַחQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH3427יָשַׁבQal · Participle |
| v.38 | H3212יָלַךְQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.39 | H3212יָלַךְQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.4 | H3212יָלַךְQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.40 | H1980הָלַךְHithpael · Perfect · IndicativeH7971שָׁלַחQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.41 | H5352נָקָהNiphal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH935בּוֹאQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH5414נָתַןQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.42 | H6743צָלַחHiphil · ParticipleH1980הָלַךְQal · Participle |
| v.43 | H5324נָצַבNiphal · Participle |
| v.44 | H8354שָׁתָהQal · Imperative · ImperativeH7579שָׁאַבQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH3198יָכַחHiphil · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.45 | H3615כָּלָהPiel · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH3318יָצָאQal · Participle |
| v.46 | H8354שָׁתָהQal · Imperative · ImperativeH8248שָׁקָהHiphil · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH8248שָׁקָהHiphil · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.47 | H3205יָלַדQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.49 | H6213עָשָׂהQal · ParticipleH5046נָגַדHiphil · Imperative · ImperativeH5046נָגַדHiphil · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.5 | H14אָבָהQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH7725שׁוּבHiphil · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH3318יָצָאQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.50 | H3318יָצָאQal · Perfect · IndicativeH3201יָכֹלQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH1696דָבַרPiel · Infinitive construct |
| v.51 | H3947לָקַחQal · Imperative · ImperativeH1696דָבַרPiel · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.52 | H8085שָׁמַעQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.53 | H5414נָתַןQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.55 | H3427יָשַׁבQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH3212יָלַךְQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.56 | H309אָחַרPiel · Imperfect · JussiveH6743צָלַחHiphil · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.57 | H7121קָרָאQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortative |
| v.58 | H3212יָלַךְQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortative |
| v.6 | H8104שָׁמַרNiphal · Imperative · ImperativeH7725שׁוּבHiphil · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.60 | H1961הָיָהQal · Imperative · Imperative |
| v.62 | H935בּוֹאQal · Perfect · IndicativeH3427יָשַׁבQal · Participle |
| v.63 | H935בּוֹאQal · Participle |
| v.66 | H6213עָשָׂהQal · Perfect · Indicative |
| v.7 | H1696דָבַרPiel · Perfect · IndicativeH7650שָׁבַעNiphal · Perfect · IndicativeH5414נָתַןQal · Imperfect · Indicative/cohortativeH7971שָׁלַחQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
| v.8 | H14אָבָהQal · Imperfect · Indicative/jussiveH7725שׁוּבHiphil · Imperfect · Indicative/jussive |
Aspect in Hebrew is grammatical form, not tense. Perfect = completed action; Imperfect = incomplete/ongoing. Stem modifies action type (Qal=simple, Niphal=passive, Piel=intensive).
Morphology: OSHB WLC (Open Scriptures, CC BY 4.0) · STEPBible TEHMC (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0)
Theological Focus
- Providence
- Covenant Continuity
- Prayer
- Divine Guidance
- Marriage and Covenant
- Faithful Obedience
- Worship
- Steadfast Love
- Covenant Theology
- Faithful Guidance
- Marriage and Family Theology
- Biblical Theology
- Christology Preparation
Theme Weights
Covenant Significance
Genesis 24 is covenantally significant because it secures the marriage through which the promised line will continue from Abraham to Isaac and then onward. The chapter makes clear that covenant succession is not automatic or careless. It must proceed in a way consistent with God’s promise, land, and household identity. Abraham’s insistence that Isaac not marry a Canaanite and not return to Mesopotamia shows that the covenant line must remain distinct while also remaining tied to the promised land.
Rebekah’s arrival therefore becomes a covenantal answer to a major transitional need. The chapter also preserves the matriarchal continuity of the promise, as Rebekah comes into Sarah’s place in the covenant household. In this way Genesis 24 safeguards the next stage of the Abrahamic covenant.
Canonical Connections
Genesis 24 is covenantally significant because it secures the marriage through which the promised line will continue from Abraham to Isaac and then onward. The chapter makes clear that covenant succession is not automatic or careless. It must proceed in a way consistent with God’s promise, land, and household identity. Abraham’s insistence that Isaac not marry a Canaanite and not return to Mesopotamia shows that the covenant line must remain distinct while also remaining tied to the promised land.
Rebekah’s arrival therefore becomes a covenantal answer to a major transitional need. The chapter also preserves the matriarchal continuity of the promise, as Rebekah comes into Sarah’s place in the covenant household. In this way Genesis 24 safeguards the next stage of the Abrahamic covenant.
Genesis 12:1-3
Genesis 17:1-8
Genesis 23:1-20
Genesis 25:20
Psalm 25:10
Genesis 23:1-20
Genesis 25:19-34
Genesis 29:1-30
Ruth 4:13-17
Cross References
You shall not make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son. For that would turn away your sons from following me, that they may serve other gods. So Yahweh’s anger...
I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed...
I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your offspring after you.
Canon-Wide Connections
Cross-reference data: OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Genesis 24 strengthens the gospel framework by showing that God faithfully preserves and advances the promised line through ordinary yet deeply guided means. Isaac, the son of promise, receives the wife through whom the covenant family will continue. The chapter reminds us that redemption unfolds not only through dramatic acts but also through providentially ordered faithfulness across generations.
In the fullness of Scripture, the promised line secured through chapters like this leads to Jesus Christ, the true seed in whom all the covenant promises find their fulfillment.
Primary Emphasis
Genesis 24 contributes to Christology indirectly by preserving and advancing the line through which the promised seed will ultimately come. Isaac, the son of promise, receives the wife through whom the covenant family will continue, ensuring the movement toward Jacob, Judah, David, and finally Christ. The chapter also contributes to broader biblical theology through its pattern of covenantal union, divine initiative, and faithful bringing of the bride into the promise-bearing household.
While the chapter should not be flattened into direct allegory, later biblical readers can recognize patterns of divine initiative, provision, and covenantal belonging that anticipate fuller realities in Christ and His people.
Chapter Contribution
Genesis 24 teaches that the covenant future advances through the sovereign providence of God working through human obedience, prayer, discernment, and faithful action. Abraham begins with covenant conviction. Isaac must not marry into the Canaanite world, yet neither may he leave the land of promise. That tension is crucial. The future must be secured without violating the land promise or diluting covenant distinctiveness.
Abraham therefore entrusts the matter to his servant under solemn oath, but his deeper confidence rests in the Lord, the God of heaven, who brought him from his father’s house and swore the land promise. The servant then models a life of dependent action. He travels wisely, prays specifically, watches carefully, tests providence humbly, and responds in worship when the Lord answers.
The repeated retelling of events in the chapter highlights that none of this is accidental. The servant interprets the encounter through the categories of divine faithfulness, steadfast love, and truth. Rebekah’s readiness, family connection, moral suitability, and willing response all reveal providence at work. The chapter culminates not merely in a successful marriage arrangement but in covenant continuity.
Rebekah enters Sarah’s tent, linking her symbolically to the covenant matriarchal role, and Isaac is comforted, showing that God’s providence answers not only covenant necessity but also personal grief. Thus Genesis 24 argues that the Lord governs ordinary and extraordinary circumstances alike in order to preserve His promise, and that covenant faith responds through oath-bound integrity, prayerful dependence, perceptive discernment, truthful speech, willing obedience, and worship.
Follow faith, believing response, trust, and persevering allegiance across Scripture.
Trace servant identity, obedient mission, and suffering service across Scripture.
Follow shepherding as divine care, messianic leadership, and pastoral oversight across Scripture.
God preserves and advances His promises through generations.
God’s people are called to preserve covenant distinctiveness.
God’s guidance is confirmed through circumstances, testimony, and alignment with His word.
God’s purposes are fulfilled through willing obedience.
God’s people seek His guidance through intentional prayer.
God directs events to accomplish His covenant purposes.
8 Imperatives
- Swear the covenantal oath
- Do not take a wife from the Canaanites
- Do not take Isaac back there
- Come, let us go
- Respond willingly to the Lord’s guiding hand
- Genesis 24 warns that covenant futures are not to be treated casually, and that marriage, direction, and generational continuity must not be severed from God’s promises, God’s ways, and God’s appointed boundaries.
- Treating the chapter as merely a romantic or cultural marriage story rather than a major covenant-continuity narrative.
- Reading the servant’s prayer as superstition or manipulation instead of seeing it as dependent, covenant-aware petition shaped by Abraham’s God.
- Assuming the chapter teaches that every life decision should be made by demanding visible signs, while missing the servant’s broader pattern of wisdom, action, prayer, observation, and worship.
- Ignoring Abraham’s insistence that Isaac not return to Mesopotamia and thus missing the chapter’s strong land-promise logic.
- Reducing Rebekah to a passive figure when the chapter highlights her character, initiative, hospitality, and willing response.
- Missing the repeated emphasis on the Lord’s steadfast love and truth as the real engine of the narrative.
- How do your major decisions reflect dependence on God rather than mere instinct, convenience, or pressure?
- What does Abraham’s concern for Isaac’s marriage teach you about the spiritual and covenantal weight of relational choices?
- Do you pray specifically and expectantly, like the servant, while still acting wisely and attentively?
- How quick are you to worship when you recognize God’s providential guidance in your life?
- Where might God be calling you to a willing response like Rebekah’s, leaving what is familiar to walk into His purposes?
- Preach Genesis 24 as a chapter of divine providence, showing that God guides His people not only through miracles but through prayer, wisdom, action, and faithful process.
- Use the chapter to teach the spiritual seriousness of marriage and the importance of choosing relationships that align with God’s covenant purposes.
- Encourage believers who are waiting for direction that they should not choose between prayer and action, but combine both under God’s word.
- Help the church recognize that faithful storytelling and truthful recounting of God’s guidance, as the servant does, can become a form of witness and worship.
- Comfort those grieving loss by showing that God’s providence can bring consolation and continuation, as Isaac is comforted after Sarah’s death.
- Use Rebekah’s willingness to go as a model of responsive faith when God’s call leads away from the familiar.
- Teach households to think generationally, understanding that decisions about family, marriage, and place can shape the future of faithfulness.
Genesis 24 strengthens the gospel framework by showing that God faithfully preserves and advances the promised line through ordinary yet deeply guided means. Isaac, the son of promise, receives the wife through whom the covenant family will continue. The chapter reminds us that redemption unfolds not only through dramatic acts but also through providentially ordered faithfulness across generations.
In the fullness of Scripture, the promised line secured through chapters like this leads to Jesus Christ, the true seed in whom all the covenant promises find their fulfillment.
Genesis 24 strengthens the gospel framework by showing that God faithfully preserves and advances the promised line through ordinary yet deeply guided means. Isaac, the son of promise, receives the wife through whom the covenant family will continue. The chapter reminds us that redemption unfolds not only through dramatic acts but also through providentially ordered faithfulness across generations.
In the fullness of Scripture, the promised line secured through chapters like this leads to Jesus Christ, the true seed in whom all the covenant promises find their fulfillment.
Genesis 24 strengthens the gospel framework by showing that God faithfully preserves and advances the promised line through ordinary yet deeply guided means. Isaac, the son of promise, receives the wife through whom the covenant family will continue. The chapter reminds us that redemption unfolds not only through dramatic acts but also through providentially ordered faithfulness across generations.
In the fullness of Scripture, the promised line secured through chapters like this leads to Jesus Christ, the true seed in whom all the covenant promises find their fulfillment.
Genesis 24 strengthens the gospel framework by showing that God faithfully preserves and advances the promised line through ordinary yet deeply guided means. Isaac, the son of promise, receives the wife through whom the covenant family will continue. The chapter reminds us that redemption unfolds not only through dramatic acts but also through providentially ordered faithfulness across generations.
In the fullness of Scripture, the promised line secured through chapters like this leads to Jesus Christ, the true seed in whom all the covenant promises find their fulfillment.
Genesis 24 strengthens the gospel framework by showing that God faithfully preserves and advances the promised line through ordinary yet deeply guided means. Isaac, the son of promise, receives the wife through whom the covenant family will continue. The chapter reminds us that redemption unfolds not only through dramatic acts but also through providentially ordered faithfulness across generations.
In the fullness of Scripture, the promised line secured through chapters like this leads to Jesus Christ, the true seed in whom all the covenant promises find their fulfillment.
8
High
- Swear the covenantal oath
- Do not take a wife from the Canaanites
- Do not take Isaac back there
- Come, let us go
- Respond willingly to the Lord’s guiding hand
C.F. Keil & F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–91) — public domain
The Biblical World
Chapter At A Glance
Genesis 24 is covenantally significant because it secures the marriage through which the promised line will continue from Abraham to Isaac and then onward. The chapter makes clear that covenant succession is not automatic or careless. It must proceed in a way consistent with God’s promise, land, and household identity. Abraham’s insistence that Isaac not marry a Canaanite and not return to Mesopotamia shows that the covenant line must remain distinct while also remaining tied to the promised land.
Rebekah’s arrival therefore becomes a covenantal answer to a major transitional need. The chapter also preserves the matriarchal continuity of the promise, as Rebekah comes into Sarah’s place in the covenant household. In this way Genesis 24 safeguards the next stage of the Abrahamic covenant.
Genesis 24 strengthens the gospel framework by showing that God faithfully preserves and advances the promised line through ordinary yet deeply guided means. Isaac, the son of promise, receives the wife through whom the covenant family will continue. The chapter reminds us that redemption unfolds not only through dramatic acts but also through providentially ordered faithfulness across generations.
In the fullness of Scripture, the promised line secured through chapters like this leads to Jesus Christ, the true seed in whom all the covenant promises find their fulfillment.
Focus Points
- Providence
- Covenant Continuity
- Prayer
- Divine Guidance
- Marriage and Covenant
- Faithful Obedience
- Worship
- Steadfast Love
- Covenant Theology
- Faithful Guidance
- Marriage and Family Theology
- Biblical Theology
- Christology Preparation
Cross References
Passages
Chapter opening: Genesis 24:1-27
Gen 24:1-4 After the death of Sarah, Abraham had still to arrange for the marriage of Isaac. He was induced to provide for this in a mode in harmony with the promise of God, quite as much by his increasing age as by the blessing of God in everything, which necessarily instilled the wish to transmit that blessing to a distant posterity. He entrusted this commission to his servant, “the eldest of his house,” - i.
e. , his upper servant, who had the management of all his house (according to general opinion, to Eliezer, whom he had previously thought of as the heir of his property, but who would now, like Abraham, be extremely old, as more than sixty years had passed since the occurrence related in Gen 15:2), - and made him swear that he would not take a wife for his son from the daughters of the Canaanites, but would fetch one from his (Abraham’s) native country, and his kindred.
Abraham made the servant take an oath in order that his wishes might be inviolably fulfilled, even if he himself should die in the interim. In swearing, the servant put his hand under Abraham’s hip. This custom, which is only mentioned here and in Gen 47:29, the so-called bodily oath, was no doubt connected with the significance of the hip as the part from which the posterity issued (Gen 46:26), and the seat of vital power; but the early Jewish commentators supposed it to be especially connected with the rite of circumcision.
The oath was by “ Jehovah , God of heaven and earth,” as the God who rules in heaven and on earth, not by Elohim ; for it had respect not to an ordinary oath, but to a question of great importance in relation to the kingdom of God. “Isaac was not regarded as a merely pious candidate for matrimony, but as the heir of the promise, who must therefore be kept from any alliance with the race whose possessions were to come to his descendants, and which was ripening for the judgment to be executed by those descendants” (Hengstenberg, Dissertations i.
350). For this reason the rest of the negotiation was all conducted in the name of Jehovah .
Gen 24:1-4 After the death of Sarah, Abraham had still to arrange for the marriage of Isaac. He was induced to provide for this in a mode in harmony with the promise of God, quite as much by his increasing age as by the blessing of God in everything, which necessarily instilled the wish to transmit that blessing to a distant posterity. He entrusted this commission to his servant, “the eldest of his house,” - i.
e. , his upper servant, who had the management of all his house (according to general opinion, to Eliezer, whom he had previously thought of as the heir of his property, but who would now, like Abraham, be extremely old, as more than sixty years had passed since the occurrence related in Gen 15:2), - and made him swear that he would not take a wife for his son from the daughters of the Canaanites, but would fetch one from his (Abraham’s) native country, and his kindred.
Abraham made the servant take an oath in order that his wishes might be inviolably fulfilled, even if he himself should die in the interim. In swearing, the servant put his hand under Abraham’s hip. This custom, which is only mentioned here and in Gen 47:29, the so-called bodily oath, was no doubt connected with the significance of the hip as the part from which the posterity issued (Gen 46:26), and the seat of vital power; but the early Jewish commentators supposed it to be especially connected with the rite of circumcision.
The oath was by “ Jehovah , God of heaven and earth,” as the God who rules in heaven and on earth, not by Elohim ; for it had respect not to an ordinary oath, but to a question of great importance in relation to the kingdom of God. “Isaac was not regarded as a merely pious candidate for matrimony, but as the heir of the promise, who must therefore be kept from any alliance with the race whose possessions were to come to his descendants, and which was ripening for the judgment to be executed by those descendants” (Hengstenberg, Dissertations i.
350). For this reason the rest of the negotiation was all conducted in the name of Jehovah .
Gen 24:1-4 After the death of Sarah, Abraham had still to arrange for the marriage of Isaac. He was induced to provide for this in a mode in harmony with the promise of God, quite as much by his increasing age as by the blessing of God in everything, which necessarily instilled the wish to transmit that blessing to a distant posterity. He entrusted this commission to his servant, “the eldest of his house,” - i.
e. , his upper servant, who had the management of all his house (according to general opinion, to Eliezer, whom he had previously thought of as the heir of his property, but who would now, like Abraham, be extremely old, as more than sixty years had passed since the occurrence related in Gen 15:2), - and made him swear that he would not take a wife for his son from the daughters of the Canaanites, but would fetch one from his (Abraham’s) native country, and his kindred.
Abraham made the servant take an oath in order that his wishes might be inviolably fulfilled, even if he himself should die in the interim. In swearing, the servant put his hand under Abraham’s hip. This custom, which is only mentioned here and in Gen 47:29, the so-called bodily oath, was no doubt connected with the significance of the hip as the part from which the posterity issued (Gen 46:26), and the seat of vital power; but the early Jewish commentators supposed it to be especially connected with the rite of circumcision.
The oath was by “ Jehovah , God of heaven and earth,” as the God who rules in heaven and on earth, not by Elohim ; for it had respect not to an ordinary oath, but to a question of great importance in relation to the kingdom of God. “Isaac was not regarded as a merely pious candidate for matrimony, but as the heir of the promise, who must therefore be kept from any alliance with the race whose possessions were to come to his descendants, and which was ripening for the judgment to be executed by those descendants” (Hengstenberg, Dissertations i.
350). For this reason the rest of the negotiation was all conducted in the name of Jehovah .
Gen 24:1-4 After the death of Sarah, Abraham had still to arrange for the marriage of Isaac. He was induced to provide for this in a mode in harmony with the promise of God, quite as much by his increasing age as by the blessing of God in everything, which necessarily instilled the wish to transmit that blessing to a distant posterity. He entrusted this commission to his servant, “the eldest of his house,” - i.
e. , his upper servant, who had the management of all his house (according to general opinion, to Eliezer, whom he had previously thought of as the heir of his property, but who would now, like Abraham, be extremely old, as more than sixty years had passed since the occurrence related in Gen 15:2), - and made him swear that he would not take a wife for his son from the daughters of the Canaanites, but would fetch one from his (Abraham’s) native country, and his kindred.
Abraham made the servant take an oath in order that his wishes might be inviolably fulfilled, even if he himself should die in the interim. In swearing, the servant put his hand under Abraham’s hip. This custom, which is only mentioned here and in Gen 47:29, the so-called bodily oath, was no doubt connected with the significance of the hip as the part from which the posterity issued (Gen 46:26), and the seat of vital power; but the early Jewish commentators supposed it to be especially connected with the rite of circumcision.
The oath was by “ Jehovah , God of heaven and earth,” as the God who rules in heaven and on earth, not by Elohim ; for it had respect not to an ordinary oath, but to a question of great importance in relation to the kingdom of God. “Isaac was not regarded as a merely pious candidate for matrimony, but as the heir of the promise, who must therefore be kept from any alliance with the race whose possessions were to come to his descendants, and which was ripening for the judgment to be executed by those descendants” (Hengstenberg, Dissertations i.
350). For this reason the rest of the negotiation was all conducted in the name of Jehovah .
Gen 24:5-9 Before taking the oath, the servant asks whether, in case no woman of their kindred would follow him to Canaan, Isaac was to be conducted to the land of his fathers. But Abraham rejected the proposal, because Jehovah took him from his father’s house, and had promised him the land of Canaan for a possession. He also discharged the servant, if that should be the case, from the oath which he had taken, in the assurance that the Lord through His angel would bring a wife to his son from thence.
Gen 24:5-9 Before taking the oath, the servant asks whether, in case no woman of their kindred would follow him to Canaan, Isaac was to be conducted to the land of his fathers. But Abraham rejected the proposal, because Jehovah took him from his father’s house, and had promised him the land of Canaan for a possession. He also discharged the servant, if that should be the case, from the oath which he had taken, in the assurance that the Lord through His angel would bring a wife to his son from thence.
Gen 24:5-9 Before taking the oath, the servant asks whether, in case no woman of their kindred would follow him to Canaan, Isaac was to be conducted to the land of his fathers. But Abraham rejected the proposal, because Jehovah took him from his father’s house, and had promised him the land of Canaan for a possession. He also discharged the servant, if that should be the case, from the oath which he had taken, in the assurance that the Lord through His angel would bring a wife to his son from thence.
Gen 24:5-9 Before taking the oath, the servant asks whether, in case no woman of their kindred would follow him to Canaan, Isaac was to be conducted to the land of his fathers. But Abraham rejected the proposal, because Jehovah took him from his father’s house, and had promised him the land of Canaan for a possession. He also discharged the servant, if that should be the case, from the oath which he had taken, in the assurance that the Lord through His angel would bring a wife to his son from thence.
Gen 24:5-9 Before taking the oath, the servant asks whether, in case no woman of their kindred would follow him to Canaan, Isaac was to be conducted to the land of his fathers. But Abraham rejected the proposal, because Jehovah took him from his father’s house, and had promised him the land of Canaan for a possession. He also discharged the servant, if that should be the case, from the oath which he had taken, in the assurance that the Lord through His angel would bring a wife to his son from thence.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:10-20 The servant then went, with ten camels and things of every description belonging to his master, into Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor, i. e. , Haran, where Nahor dwelt (Gen 11:31, and Gen 12:4). On his arrival there, he made the camels kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, “ at the time of evening, the time at which the women come out to draw water, ” and at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetching the water required for the house (vid.
, Robinson’s Palestine ii. 368ff.) He then prayed to Jehovah , the God of Abraham, “ Let there come to meet me to-day, ” sc. , the person desired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign connected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which he might decide upon the maiden (הנּער puella , used in the Pentateuch for both sexes, except in Deu 22:19, where נערה occurs) whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His servant Isaac.
הוכיח (Gen 24:14) to set right, then to point out as right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what he had fixed upon as a token, not only giving him to drink, but offering to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying out her promise. Niebuhr met with similar kindness in those regions (see also Robinson, Pal.
ii. 351, etc.) The servant did not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but tested the circumstances.
Gen 24:21 “ The man, wondering at her, stood silent, to know whether Jehovah had made his journey prosperous or not .” משׁתּאה, from שׁאה to be desert, inwardly laid waste, i.e., confused. Others derive it from שׁאה = שׁעה to see; but in the Hithpael this verb signifies to look restlessly about, which is not applicable here.
Gen 24:22-28 After the watering of the camels was over, the man took a golden nose-ring of the weight of a beka, i. e. , half a shekel (Exo 38:26), and two golden armlets of 10 shekels weight, and (as we find from Gen 24:30 and Gen 24:47) placed these ornaments upon her, not as a bridal gift, but in return for her kindness. He then asked her about her family, and whether there was room in her father’s house for him and his attendants to pass the night there; and it was not trill after Rebekah had told him that she was the daughter of Bethuel, the nephew of Abraham, and had given a most cheerful assent to his second question, that he felt sure that this was the wife appointed by Jehovah for Isaac.
He then fell down and thanked Jehovah for His grace and truth, whilst Rebekah in the meantime had hastened home to relate all that had occurred to “ her mother’s house, ” i. e. , to the female portion of her family. חסד the condescending love, אמת the truth which God had displayed in the fulfilment of His promise, and here especially manifested to him in bringing him to the home of his master’s relations.
Gen 24:22-28 After the watering of the camels was over, the man took a golden nose-ring of the weight of a beka, i. e. , half a shekel (Exo 38:26), and two golden armlets of 10 shekels weight, and (as we find from Gen 24:30 and Gen 24:47) placed these ornaments upon her, not as a bridal gift, but in return for her kindness. He then asked her about her family, and whether there was room in her father’s house for him and his attendants to pass the night there; and it was not trill after Rebekah had told him that she was the daughter of Bethuel, the nephew of Abraham, and had given a most cheerful assent to his second question, that he felt sure that this was the wife appointed by Jehovah for Isaac.
He then fell down and thanked Jehovah for His grace and truth, whilst Rebekah in the meantime had hastened home to relate all that had occurred to “ her mother’s house, ” i. e. , to the female portion of her family. חסד the condescending love, אמת the truth which God had displayed in the fulfilment of His promise, and here especially manifested to him in bringing him to the home of his master’s relations.
Gen 24:22-28 After the watering of the camels was over, the man took a golden nose-ring of the weight of a beka, i. e. , half a shekel (Exo 38:26), and two golden armlets of 10 shekels weight, and (as we find from Gen 24:30 and Gen 24:47) placed these ornaments upon her, not as a bridal gift, but in return for her kindness. He then asked her about her family, and whether there was room in her father’s house for him and his attendants to pass the night there; and it was not trill after Rebekah had told him that she was the daughter of Bethuel, the nephew of Abraham, and had given a most cheerful assent to his second question, that he felt sure that this was the wife appointed by Jehovah for Isaac.
He then fell down and thanked Jehovah for His grace and truth, whilst Rebekah in the meantime had hastened home to relate all that had occurred to “ her mother’s house, ” i. e. , to the female portion of her family. חסד the condescending love, אמת the truth which God had displayed in the fulfilment of His promise, and here especially manifested to him in bringing him to the home of his master’s relations.
Gen 24:22-28 After the watering of the camels was over, the man took a golden nose-ring of the weight of a beka, i. e. , half a shekel (Exo 38:26), and two golden armlets of 10 shekels weight, and (as we find from Gen 24:30 and Gen 24:47) placed these ornaments upon her, not as a bridal gift, but in return for her kindness. He then asked her about her family, and whether there was room in her father’s house for him and his attendants to pass the night there; and it was not trill after Rebekah had told him that she was the daughter of Bethuel, the nephew of Abraham, and had given a most cheerful assent to his second question, that he felt sure that this was the wife appointed by Jehovah for Isaac.
He then fell down and thanked Jehovah for His grace and truth, whilst Rebekah in the meantime had hastened home to relate all that had occurred to “ her mother’s house, ” i. e. , to the female portion of her family. חסד the condescending love, אמת the truth which God had displayed in the fulfilment of His promise, and here especially manifested to him in bringing him to the home of his master’s relations.
Gen 24:22-28 After the watering of the camels was over, the man took a golden nose-ring of the weight of a beka, i. e. , half a shekel (Exo 38:26), and two golden armlets of 10 shekels weight, and (as we find from Gen 24:30 and Gen 24:47) placed these ornaments upon her, not as a bridal gift, but in return for her kindness. He then asked her about her family, and whether there was room in her father’s house for him and his attendants to pass the night there; and it was not trill after Rebekah had told him that she was the daughter of Bethuel, the nephew of Abraham, and had given a most cheerful assent to his second question, that he felt sure that this was the wife appointed by Jehovah for Isaac.
He then fell down and thanked Jehovah for His grace and truth, whilst Rebekah in the meantime had hastened home to relate all that had occurred to “ her mother’s house, ” i. e. , to the female portion of her family. חסד the condescending love, אמת the truth which God had displayed in the fulfilment of His promise, and here especially manifested to him in bringing him to the home of his master’s relations.
Gen 24:22-28 After the watering of the camels was over, the man took a golden nose-ring of the weight of a beka, i. e. , half a shekel (Exo 38:26), and two golden armlets of 10 shekels weight, and (as we find from Gen 24:30 and Gen 24:47) placed these ornaments upon her, not as a bridal gift, but in return for her kindness. He then asked her about her family, and whether there was room in her father’s house for him and his attendants to pass the night there; and it was not trill after Rebekah had told him that she was the daughter of Bethuel, the nephew of Abraham, and had given a most cheerful assent to his second question, that he felt sure that this was the wife appointed by Jehovah for Isaac.
He then fell down and thanked Jehovah for His grace and truth, whilst Rebekah in the meantime had hastened home to relate all that had occurred to “ her mother’s house, ” i. e. , to the female portion of her family. חסד the condescending love, אמת the truth which God had displayed in the fulfilment of His promise, and here especially manifested to him in bringing him to the home of his master’s relations.
Gen 24:22-28 After the watering of the camels was over, the man took a golden nose-ring of the weight of a beka, i. e. , half a shekel (Exo 38:26), and two golden armlets of 10 shekels weight, and (as we find from Gen 24:30 and Gen 24:47) placed these ornaments upon her, not as a bridal gift, but in return for her kindness. He then asked her about her family, and whether there was room in her father’s house for him and his attendants to pass the night there; and it was not trill after Rebekah had told him that she was the daughter of Bethuel, the nephew of Abraham, and had given a most cheerful assent to his second question, that he felt sure that this was the wife appointed by Jehovah for Isaac.
He then fell down and thanked Jehovah for His grace and truth, whilst Rebekah in the meantime had hastened home to relate all that had occurred to “ her mother’s house, ” i. e. , to the female portion of her family. חסד the condescending love, אמת the truth which God had displayed in the fulfilment of His promise, and here especially manifested to him in bringing him to the home of his master’s relations.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:29-49 As soon as Laban her brother had seen the splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attendants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the blessed of Jehovah (Gen 24:31), may be explained from the words of the servant, who had called his master’s God Jehovah .
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the food set before him (the Kethibh ויישׂם in Gen 24:33 is the imperf. Kal of ישׂם = שׂוּם); and commencing with his master’s possessions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minuteness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus far met with, and then (in Gen 24:49) pressed his suit thus: “ And now, if he will show kindness and truth to my lord, tell me; and if not, tell me; that I may turn to the right hand or to the left, ” sc.
, to seek in other families a wife for Isaac.
Gen 24:50-51 Laban and Bethuel recognised in this the guidance of God, and said, “ From Jehovah (the God of Abraham) the thing proceedeth; we cannot speak unto thee bad or good, ” i. e. , cannot add a word, cannot alter anything (Num 24:13; 2Sa 13:22). That Rebekah’s brother Laban should have taken part with her father in deciding, was in accordance with the usual custom (cf.
Gen 34:5, Gen 34:11, Gen 34:25; Jdg 21:22; 2Sa 13:22), which may have arisen from the prevalence of polygamy, and the readiness of the father to neglect the children (daughters) of the wife he cared for least.
Gen 24:50-51 Laban and Bethuel recognised in this the guidance of God, and said, “ From Jehovah (the God of Abraham) the thing proceedeth; we cannot speak unto thee bad or good, ” i. e. , cannot add a word, cannot alter anything (Num 24:13; 2Sa 13:22). That Rebekah’s brother Laban should have taken part with her father in deciding, was in accordance with the usual custom (cf.
Gen 34:5, Gen 34:11, Gen 34:25; Jdg 21:22; 2Sa 13:22), which may have arisen from the prevalence of polygamy, and the readiness of the father to neglect the children (daughters) of the wife he cared for least.
Gen 24:52-53 After receiving their assent, the servant first of all offered thanks to Jehovah with the deepest reverence; he then gave the remaining presents to the bride, and to her relations (brother and mother); and after everything was finished, partook of the food provided.
Gen 24:52-53 After receiving their assent, the servant first of all offered thanks to Jehovah with the deepest reverence; he then gave the remaining presents to the bride, and to her relations (brother and mother); and after everything was finished, partook of the food provided.
Gen 24:54-60 The next morning he desired at once to set off on the journey home; but her brother and mother wished to keep her with them עשׁור או ימים, “ some days, or rather ten; ” but when she was consulted, she decided to so, sc. , without delay. “ Then they sent away Rebekah their sister (Laban being chiefly considered, as the leading person in the affair) and her nurse ” (Deborah; Gen 35:8), with the parting wish that she might become the mother of an exceedingly numerous and victorious posterity.
“ Become thousands of myriads ” is a hyperbolical expression for an innumerable host of children. The second portion of the blessing ( Gen 24:60 ) is almost verbatim the same as Gen 22:17, but is hardly borrowed thence, as the thought does not contain anything specifically connected with the history of salvation.
Gen 24:54-60 The next morning he desired at once to set off on the journey home; but her brother and mother wished to keep her with them עשׁור או ימים, “ some days, or rather ten; ” but when she was consulted, she decided to so, sc. , without delay. “ Then they sent away Rebekah their sister (Laban being chiefly considered, as the leading person in the affair) and her nurse ” (Deborah; Gen 35:8), with the parting wish that she might become the mother of an exceedingly numerous and victorious posterity.
“ Become thousands of myriads ” is a hyperbolical expression for an innumerable host of children. The second portion of the blessing ( Gen 24:60 ) is almost verbatim the same as Gen 22:17, but is hardly borrowed thence, as the thought does not contain anything specifically connected with the history of salvation.
Gen 24:54-60 The next morning he desired at once to set off on the journey home; but her brother and mother wished to keep her with them עשׁור או ימים, “ some days, or rather ten; ” but when she was consulted, she decided to so, sc. , without delay. “ Then they sent away Rebekah their sister (Laban being chiefly considered, as the leading person in the affair) and her nurse ” (Deborah; Gen 35:8), with the parting wish that she might become the mother of an exceedingly numerous and victorious posterity.
“ Become thousands of myriads ” is a hyperbolical expression for an innumerable host of children. The second portion of the blessing ( Gen 24:60 ) is almost verbatim the same as Gen 22:17, but is hardly borrowed thence, as the thought does not contain anything specifically connected with the history of salvation.
Gen 24:54-60 The next morning he desired at once to set off on the journey home; but her brother and mother wished to keep her with them עשׁור או ימים, “ some days, or rather ten; ” but when she was consulted, she decided to so, sc. , without delay. “ Then they sent away Rebekah their sister (Laban being chiefly considered, as the leading person in the affair) and her nurse ” (Deborah; Gen 35:8), with the parting wish that she might become the mother of an exceedingly numerous and victorious posterity.
“ Become thousands of myriads ” is a hyperbolical expression for an innumerable host of children. The second portion of the blessing ( Gen 24:60 ) is almost verbatim the same as Gen 22:17, but is hardly borrowed thence, as the thought does not contain anything specifically connected with the history of salvation.
Gen 24:54-60 The next morning he desired at once to set off on the journey home; but her brother and mother wished to keep her with them עשׁור או ימים, “ some days, or rather ten; ” but when she was consulted, she decided to so, sc. , without delay. “ Then they sent away Rebekah their sister (Laban being chiefly considered, as the leading person in the affair) and her nurse ” (Deborah; Gen 35:8), with the parting wish that she might become the mother of an exceedingly numerous and victorious posterity.
“ Become thousands of myriads ” is a hyperbolical expression for an innumerable host of children. The second portion of the blessing ( Gen 24:60 ) is almost verbatim the same as Gen 22:17, but is hardly borrowed thence, as the thought does not contain anything specifically connected with the history of salvation.
Gen 24:54-60 The next morning he desired at once to set off on the journey home; but her brother and mother wished to keep her with them עשׁור או ימים, “ some days, or rather ten; ” but when she was consulted, she decided to so, sc. , without delay. “ Then they sent away Rebekah their sister (Laban being chiefly considered, as the leading person in the affair) and her nurse ” (Deborah; Gen 35:8), with the parting wish that she might become the mother of an exceedingly numerous and victorious posterity.
“ Become thousands of myriads ” is a hyperbolical expression for an innumerable host of children. The second portion of the blessing ( Gen 24:60 ) is almost verbatim the same as Gen 22:17, but is hardly borrowed thence, as the thought does not contain anything specifically connected with the history of salvation.
Gen 24:54-60 The next morning he desired at once to set off on the journey home; but her brother and mother wished to keep her with them עשׁור או ימים, “ some days, or rather ten; ” but when she was consulted, she decided to so, sc. , without delay. “ Then they sent away Rebekah their sister (Laban being chiefly considered, as the leading person in the affair) and her nurse ” (Deborah; Gen 35:8), with the parting wish that she might become the mother of an exceedingly numerous and victorious posterity.
“ Become thousands of myriads ” is a hyperbolical expression for an innumerable host of children. The second portion of the blessing ( Gen 24:60 ) is almost verbatim the same as Gen 22:17, but is hardly borrowed thence, as the thought does not contain anything specifically connected with the history of salvation.
Gen 24:61-67 When the caravan arrived in Canaan with Rebekah and her maidens, Isaac had just come from going to the well Lahai-Roi (Gen 16:14), as he was then living in the south country; and he went towards evening (ערב לפנות, at the turning, coming on, of the evening, Deu 23:12) to the field “to meditate. ” It is impossible to determine whether Isaac had been to the well of Hagar which called to mind the omnipresence of God, and there, in accordance with his contemplative character, had laid the question of his marriage before the Lord ( Delitzsch ), or whether he had merely travelled thither to look after his flocks and herds ( Knobel ).
But the object of his going to the field to meditate , was undoubtedly to lay the question of his marriage before God in solitude. שׂוּח, meditari , is rendered “ to pray ” in the Chaldee , and by Luther and others, with substantial correctness. The caravan arrived at the time; and Rebekah, as soon as she saw the man in the field coming to meet them, sprang (נפל signifying a hasty descent, 2Ki 5:21) from the camel to receive him, according to Oriental custom, in the most respectful manner.
She then inquired the name of the man; and as soon as she heard that it was Isaac, she enveloped herself in her veil, as became a bride when meeting the bridegroom. צעיף, θέπιστρον, the cloak-like veil of Arabia (see my Archäologie , §103, 5). The servant then related to Isaac the result of his journey; and Isaac conducted the maiden, who had been brought to him by God, into the tent of Sarah his mother, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and was consoled after his mother, i.
e. , for his mother’s death. האהלה, with ה local, in the construct state, as in Gen 20:1; Gen 28:2, etc. ; and in addition to that, with the article prefixed (cf. Ges. Gram . §110, 2 bc ).
Gen 24:61-67 When the caravan arrived in Canaan with Rebekah and her maidens, Isaac had just come from going to the well Lahai-Roi (Gen 16:14), as he was then living in the south country; and he went towards evening (ערב לפנות, at the turning, coming on, of the evening, Deu 23:12) to the field “to meditate. ” It is impossible to determine whether Isaac had been to the well of Hagar which called to mind the omnipresence of God, and there, in accordance with his contemplative character, had laid the question of his marriage before the Lord ( Delitzsch ), or whether he had merely travelled thither to look after his flocks and herds ( Knobel ).
But the object of his going to the field to meditate , was undoubtedly to lay the question of his marriage before God in solitude. שׂוּח, meditari , is rendered “ to pray ” in the Chaldee , and by Luther and others, with substantial correctness. The caravan arrived at the time; and Rebekah, as soon as she saw the man in the field coming to meet them, sprang (נפל signifying a hasty descent, 2Ki 5:21) from the camel to receive him, according to Oriental custom, in the most respectful manner.
She then inquired the name of the man; and as soon as she heard that it was Isaac, she enveloped herself in her veil, as became a bride when meeting the bridegroom. צעיף, θέπιστρον, the cloak-like veil of Arabia (see my Archäologie , §103, 5). The servant then related to Isaac the result of his journey; and Isaac conducted the maiden, who had been brought to him by God, into the tent of Sarah his mother, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and was consoled after his mother, i.
e. , for his mother’s death. האהלה, with ה local, in the construct state, as in Gen 20:1; Gen 28:2, etc. ; and in addition to that, with the article prefixed (cf. Ges. Gram . §110, 2 bc ).
Gen 24:61-67 When the caravan arrived in Canaan with Rebekah and her maidens, Isaac had just come from going to the well Lahai-Roi (Gen 16:14), as he was then living in the south country; and he went towards evening (ערב לפנות, at the turning, coming on, of the evening, Deu 23:12) to the field “to meditate. ” It is impossible to determine whether Isaac had been to the well of Hagar which called to mind the omnipresence of God, and there, in accordance with his contemplative character, had laid the question of his marriage before the Lord ( Delitzsch ), or whether he had merely travelled thither to look after his flocks and herds ( Knobel ).
But the object of his going to the field to meditate , was undoubtedly to lay the question of his marriage before God in solitude. שׂוּח, meditari , is rendered “ to pray ” in the Chaldee , and by Luther and others, with substantial correctness. The caravan arrived at the time; and Rebekah, as soon as she saw the man in the field coming to meet them, sprang (נפל signifying a hasty descent, 2Ki 5:21) from the camel to receive him, according to Oriental custom, in the most respectful manner.
She then inquired the name of the man; and as soon as she heard that it was Isaac, she enveloped herself in her veil, as became a bride when meeting the bridegroom. צעיף, θέπιστρον, the cloak-like veil of Arabia (see my Archäologie , §103, 5). The servant then related to Isaac the result of his journey; and Isaac conducted the maiden, who had been brought to him by God, into the tent of Sarah his mother, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and was consoled after his mother, i.
e. , for his mother’s death. האהלה, with ה local, in the construct state, as in Gen 20:1; Gen 28:2, etc. ; and in addition to that, with the article prefixed (cf. Ges. Gram . §110, 2 bc ).
Gen 24:61-67 When the caravan arrived in Canaan with Rebekah and her maidens, Isaac had just come from going to the well Lahai-Roi (Gen 16:14), as he was then living in the south country; and he went towards evening (ערב לפנות, at the turning, coming on, of the evening, Deu 23:12) to the field “to meditate. ” It is impossible to determine whether Isaac had been to the well of Hagar which called to mind the omnipresence of God, and there, in accordance with his contemplative character, had laid the question of his marriage before the Lord ( Delitzsch ), or whether he had merely travelled thither to look after his flocks and herds ( Knobel ).
But the object of his going to the field to meditate , was undoubtedly to lay the question of his marriage before God in solitude. שׂוּח, meditari , is rendered “ to pray ” in the Chaldee , and by Luther and others, with substantial correctness. The caravan arrived at the time; and Rebekah, as soon as she saw the man in the field coming to meet them, sprang (נפל signifying a hasty descent, 2Ki 5:21) from the camel to receive him, according to Oriental custom, in the most respectful manner.
She then inquired the name of the man; and as soon as she heard that it was Isaac, she enveloped herself in her veil, as became a bride when meeting the bridegroom. צעיף, θέπιστρον, the cloak-like veil of Arabia (see my Archäologie , §103, 5). The servant then related to Isaac the result of his journey; and Isaac conducted the maiden, who had been brought to him by God, into the tent of Sarah his mother, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and was consoled after his mother, i.
e. , for his mother’s death. האהלה, with ה local, in the construct state, as in Gen 20:1; Gen 28:2, etc. ; and in addition to that, with the article prefixed (cf. Ges. Gram . §110, 2 bc ).
Gen 24:61-67 When the caravan arrived in Canaan with Rebekah and her maidens, Isaac had just come from going to the well Lahai-Roi (Gen 16:14), as he was then living in the south country; and he went towards evening (ערב לפנות, at the turning, coming on, of the evening, Deu 23:12) to the field “to meditate. ” It is impossible to determine whether Isaac had been to the well of Hagar which called to mind the omnipresence of God, and there, in accordance with his contemplative character, had laid the question of his marriage before the Lord ( Delitzsch ), or whether he had merely travelled thither to look after his flocks and herds ( Knobel ).
But the object of his going to the field to meditate , was undoubtedly to lay the question of his marriage before God in solitude. שׂוּח, meditari , is rendered “ to pray ” in the Chaldee , and by Luther and others, with substantial correctness. The caravan arrived at the time; and Rebekah, as soon as she saw the man in the field coming to meet them, sprang (נפל signifying a hasty descent, 2Ki 5:21) from the camel to receive him, according to Oriental custom, in the most respectful manner.
She then inquired the name of the man; and as soon as she heard that it was Isaac, she enveloped herself in her veil, as became a bride when meeting the bridegroom. צעיף, θέπιστρον, the cloak-like veil of Arabia (see my Archäologie , §103, 5). The servant then related to Isaac the result of his journey; and Isaac conducted the maiden, who had been brought to him by God, into the tent of Sarah his mother, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and was consoled after his mother, i.
e. , for his mother’s death. האהלה, with ה local, in the construct state, as in Gen 20:1; Gen 28:2, etc. ; and in addition to that, with the article prefixed (cf. Ges. Gram . §110, 2 bc ).
Gen 24:61-67 When the caravan arrived in Canaan with Rebekah and her maidens, Isaac had just come from going to the well Lahai-Roi (Gen 16:14), as he was then living in the south country; and he went towards evening (ערב לפנות, at the turning, coming on, of the evening, Deu 23:12) to the field “to meditate. ” It is impossible to determine whether Isaac had been to the well of Hagar which called to mind the omnipresence of God, and there, in accordance with his contemplative character, had laid the question of his marriage before the Lord ( Delitzsch ), or whether he had merely travelled thither to look after his flocks and herds ( Knobel ).
But the object of his going to the field to meditate , was undoubtedly to lay the question of his marriage before God in solitude. שׂוּח, meditari , is rendered “ to pray ” in the Chaldee , and by Luther and others, with substantial correctness. The caravan arrived at the time; and Rebekah, as soon as she saw the man in the field coming to meet them, sprang (נפל signifying a hasty descent, 2Ki 5:21) from the camel to receive him, according to Oriental custom, in the most respectful manner.
She then inquired the name of the man; and as soon as she heard that it was Isaac, she enveloped herself in her veil, as became a bride when meeting the bridegroom. צעיף, θέπιστρον, the cloak-like veil of Arabia (see my Archäologie , §103, 5). The servant then related to Isaac the result of his journey; and Isaac conducted the maiden, who had been brought to him by God, into the tent of Sarah his mother, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and was consoled after his mother, i.
e. , for his mother’s death. האהלה, with ה local, in the construct state, as in Gen 20:1; Gen 28:2, etc. ; and in addition to that, with the article prefixed (cf. Ges. Gram . §110, 2 bc ).