This story is a story, not about a faithful servant, a willing bride, or a happy marriage. It’s a story about God’s providence. Whether we admit it or not, God is in charge of all that happens in this universe.
While it’s true that we have free will and can make choices, God knows all the possibilities and will make his plan and promises come about regardless of what we do. This is pretty much what the whole Bible is about. Obviously, as in the case of Abraham’s servant he would like to work through our surrender, but he doesn’t need our obedience to fulfill his plan.
An author named Stanley Jones said, “Prayer is surrender – surrender to the will of God and cooperation with that will. If I throw out a boat hook from a boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God”.
Denise and I are convinced that God wanted us here, because He basically made two “sure things” (or so we and others thought), that in hindsight we didn’t really want, He made them fall through at the last minute. He also made it very clear to both of us when we arrived here, that this was the place, and the rest is history.
We see this providence played out in Jesus’ life, and in our story here in Genesis 24 we see another great example of how God fulfills his plans through people.
Let’s begin by looking at:
I. The Glorification of the Lord (24: 22-27) after Abraham’s servant finds Rebekah.
Imagine how the servant must have felt. Rebekah seems pretty excited too. What woman wouldn’t be excited when a stranger whips out a bunch of gold jewelry? After watering all these camels she should be exhausted but she runs back home to tell her household about the events that took place.
Then this faithful servant is only concerned about one thing - worshipping and praising the Lord, firstly for being faithful to his master Abraham, then as a sort of afterthought, for his own success.
I’d also like to point out the progressive praise that the servant gives the Lord. 1) When he first prays for his request he is standing by the well. 2) Then when he finds out who the girl is in verse 26, he bowed his head and worshipped the Lord. 3) Finally, when he gets permission to take her and the task is finished, he bowed himself to the earth.
He starts by making his request standing, then gives thanks for the first answering of prayer by bowing, and finally when the prayer is fully answered he gets down on the ground and praises the Lord. Progressive humility as he sees God working in front of his eyes.
Now contrast that with:
II. The Motivation of Laban (24:28-33a)
In contrast to Abraham’s servant, we read that immediately Rebekah’s brother Laban sees dollar signs and starts to butter up the servant. We get to see a little of Laban’s greed a few chapters later when he deceives and takes advantage of Jacob. He ends up getting 14 years of service from Jacob just so Jacob can have his daughter Rachel to marry.
I want to point out a couple things about God’s people that we see here in the past few chapters. First Abraham is willing to pay way too much for the land to bury Sarah, but he just pays it without haggling. Then we see Abraham and his servant willing to do anything to get a wife for Isaac. Then later we have Jacob getting taken advantage of and giving way too much to get Rachel as his wife.
The point here is that when God’s people are truly dedicated to doing His will, we are willing to give up more than seems reasonable. We put our own needs aside and sacrifice to get what God wants. I’m not saying we should all let ourselves be taken advantage of, but I do believe God will ask us to sacrifice and maybe be willing to put up with some unreasonable things in order to witness in a special way and receive his blessings.
Laban and the world are primarily motivated by personal desires and greed, while God’s people should be motivated by what is best for others and what God desires. Trusting that our rewards will come from Him.
Regardless of the motivation, God is sovereign and again we witness:
III. The Orchestration of the Events (24:33b-49) by God.
The servant again shows patience and commitment to his mission by getting straight to business even before he allows himself to eat what is likely his first home cooked meal in three weeks.
The servant emphasizes that Rebekah will be well taken care of, confirms in verse 36 that Isaac is not too old, and maybe most importantly, that the Lord is behind all of this. What a great example for us to acknowledge God and give Him the glory when good things happen in our lives.
The servant could have easily gone into a long song and dance about what he went through to get there, and how smart he was for coming up with the idea to wait for the girl who would water his camels. But he gives it all to God. The providence of God is the highlight here, not the servant’s actions.
Then there’s:
IV. The Ratification of the Marriage (24:50-54a)
Some have wondered if Laban and Bethuel are being authentic here as they say “hey you bet this must have been from God, who are we to say otherwise”, while they were drooling over all the gifts and jewelry that the servant was pulling out. It was the groom who was supposed to receive the dowry, not the bride’s family.
They say very quickly, “go ahead take her” and right away the servant pulls out the goods. I’m certain they were kind of like, “Yeah, yeah take her”, while their eyes were on the bags full of loot, and they wrung their hands. Laban and the mother got lots of expensive stuff and this was the culmination of the deal.
But then, Read again vv 55-57
The servant wants to get home quickly because he’s excited about the success of his mission and wants to report to his master immediately. But the family wants to delay, after all, this is all rather sudden. Maybe after all the glitter dies down a bit, they snap into reality and realize that Rebekah could be leaving probably for good.
Or maybe they wanted to see if they could stall the servant and maybe get a little more loot, just like Laban does later with Jacob when he tries to milk him for more and more before he lets his sister go. He gets to keep Rachel around for 14 years. He probably learned his lesson from this episode when they leave the decision to Rebekah and we see:
V. The Submission of the Bride (24:54b-61)
Rebekah didn’t hesitate and she said she would go right away. So the family had no choice but to give her a blessing that echoes the divine oath made to Abraham in Genesis 22:17 about the many descendants, and the one that would rule over his enemies, obviously being Christ.
Isn’t it interesting that Rebekah shows great faith by immediately saying “I will go”? Just like Abraham said many years ago when he left his family. Rebekah wasn’t consumed by greed or self-interest, she just followed what was clearly God’s doing.
So they get going on the camels and now we see:
VI. The Reception of the Husband (24:62-67)
When Rebekah arrives Isaac is out in the wilderness meditating. This allows him to be the first person to meet Rebekah when they arrive in his homeland. I have little doubt he was divinely directed to go out there and meditate at this particular time, whether he knew why or not.
Isaac saw the camels but Rebekah got off and covered her face because if this was Isaac he would not be permitted to see her unveiled face until the wedding, and this was a sign that a woman was unmarried.
After all do we really know each other until we live together, and of course this ideally means after we get married. The whole concept of living together and enjoying all the benefits of marriage before marriage has some flaws in it. It becomes like an evaluation period, rather than a commitment.
Then it says he listened to the servant’s story and immediately took her into his tent and she became his wife, and he loved her. Now it’s easy to read this as kind of seedy with this forty year old man who had never been with a woman, seeing this young beautiful virgin and wanting to get right to the wedding and all that goes with it.
But the word loved here means love, not sex. The Bible uses the term “knew” to portray that kind of physical love. What this statement really means is that he made the choice to love her right away, and it was not just a physical love but much deeper.
Then it mentions that he was finally comforted after his mother’s death. We see here how much he must have loved his mother Sarah as she had been dead for about three years, and only now he is comforted. Rebekah finally allows him to put his grief away and he transfers his love to her.
When it comes right down to it, love is a choice and it really shouldn’t matter who the person is, or how they look. In essence Isaac says, this is going to be my God given wife, and I’m going to start loving her right now. Of course like we said before, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that she was beautiful.
Clearly we see here that Rebekah represents the church of Jesus Christ, the chosen, submissive bride of Christ. And I think it’s also quite clear that the servant represents the Holy Spirit, the obedient servant of the Father who prepares and invites the bride for the Father’s son. And of course we’ve alluded to the parallels between Isaac and Jesus many times.
That brings to an end this story of Isaac receiving his bride, and the parallels to what will happen when Christ receives his bride. In a sense Jesus is sitting in the field, or in his case the throne, meditating as he waits.
I just want to finish up our travels through Genesis by looking at the beginning of chapter 25 and:
VII. The End of the Road for Abraham (25:1-11)
The first 11 verses of chapter 25 are basically Abraham’s last will and testament, and a little obituary. This is where we’re going to end this series in Genesis for now, and after all we’ve heard, we see that old Abraham isn’t quite done yet.
He marries another concubine named Keturah in his very old age and has several more children showing that he did indeed become the Father of many nations, but the text makes it very clear that he left everything to the promised one Isaac.
He gave all his other sons gifts when he was still alive, but sent them away from Isaac because Isaac was a quiet, meditative man who would probably not stand up for himself in the face of competition from these brothers. This land was to be Isaac’s inheritance and his alone.
Finally as the King James version says, “Abraham gave up the ghost”, and we see that Isaac and Ishmael buried their father in the cave where Sarah was laid. Abraham was full of years, meaning not only that he lived a long life, but also a fulfilling life. Then he was “gathered to his people”.
Gathered to his people doesn’t mean buried with his family. It means to go to the realm of the dead, referring to the destiny of the spirit, not the body. The Old Testament word for this is Sheol and the New Testament word is Hades. This referred to the temporary home of the spirit while awaiting the resurrection.
Luke showed us that this place has two sections separated by a great gulf. One place is a place of blessing and paradise, while the other is like a holding cell where there is great pain, much like awaiting the transfer to the final penitentiary of hell.
It appears most likely from Ephesians 4 and a couple other texts that Jesus emptied the paradise section of Hades when he returned to heaven, and now all people who are part of the family will go straight to heaven, but that the punishment section will remain there until the White Throne judgment when they will be permanently transported to hell with Satan, and Hades.
If you believe in the work of Jesus, and why he did what he did, you will also be gathered to your people, the people of God, when you die. But my friends, people need to know the alternative of hell if they refuse Jesus, so they at least have the opportunity to make an informed choice. They may not believe it, but we are obligated to tell them about it.
Charles Finney stated, “Ever more the Law and consequences of breaking it must prepare the way for the Gospel. To overlook this in instructing souls is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience, and to fill the church with false converts... Time will make this plain.”
So what we see in this story of Abraham finding a wife for his son before he passes away, is that God’s will always prevails. No matter what Satan or man does, God is sovereign and his end game is always in His sight. God makes the promises, God opened Sarah’s womb to bring forth Isaac, and God finds the bride for Isaac.
This is just a piece of the big plan that’s mentioned in the prayer of Rebekah’s family, that Abraham’s seed will ultimately produce the offspring that will bring forth the one who possesses the gate of those who hate him. Make no mistake, Jesus holds the keys to the gates of heaven, not Peter at the pearly gates.
Action Plan:
Steps to having God’s will in your life based on what we see in Genesis 24:
1) Pray specifically for something according to God’s revealed will, promises, and master plan.
2) Follow whatever instructions you hear God give you through prayer and His word.
3) Go “meditate in the field” to be alone with God and be watchful of how He is answering these prayers.
4) Each time you see even a piece of answered prayer and His will manifesting in your life, fall down and praise Him in prayer.
