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BIBLE
STUDY LESSON
For
the week beginning Sunday December 2, 2018
ISAAC
MARRIES REBEKAH
Genesis 24
Genesis 24 shows how the providence of GOD is worked out in the
lives of those who are faithful to him. Here we see chronicled, the special
case of a man named Eliezer, a faithful servant of Abraham, and how he successfully
answered the call of his superior when he was put to the task.
This lengthy passage can actually be
simplified if it is broken down into four special and distinct segments, and
we’ll entitle this first segment “the calling, “charge”, or “commission” of
Eliezer (Vs.1-9), and any of those terms are applicable here. In this section
Abraham charges Eliezer, the man in charge of all things concerning his
household, with the even more special task, of finding a wife for his son
Isaac, shortly after the death of Sarah. The aging patriarch wanted to ensure
that Isaac wouldn’t end up marrying one of the local Canaanite women, after he
had passed away.
And so he commissioned Eliezer to go to his
own (Abraham’s) homeland, to his brother Nahor’s house, back in Aram-naharaim,
in the northern section of Padan Aram (Mesopotamia), located between the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers, and choose a woman from among his relatives there.
Abraham also made Eliezer swear a solemn oath that he would never take Isaac to
Padan-aram, but instead, that he brings the young lady back there to Canaan, which
was Isaac’s promised inheritance from GOD. And if by chance the woman refuses
to come back to Canaan with him, then Eliezer would free from his oath.
The second section of this chapter
(Vs.10-27) reveals “the faith and trust” that Eliezer shows in the “GOD of
Abraham” to lead and guide him into a position to make the right choice for his
master’s son. After receiving his instructions from Abraham, Eliezer loaded ten
camels with gifts that consisted of the best of everything that Abraham owned,
and set out on this 450-mile journey.
When Eliezer arrived in Padan Aram where
Nahor had settled, he rested by a well just outside the village of
Aram-naharaim. There he prayed to the GOD of Abraham to help him accomplish his
mission. He asked GOD to show him a sign by which he would ask the women who
come to the well to draw water, to give him a drink. If the woman answers by
saying “Yes, I will give you a drink, and I will water your camels too” (it would
take considerable time and water to accommodate ten thirsty camels) let her be
the one YOU have appointed to be Isaac’s wife. And the LORD honored his
request, and that woman turned out to be a young virgin named Rebekah, the
daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor, Abraham’s brother.
In the third segment (Vs.28-60), we see the
success of Eliezer’s mission as he and his entourage, are invited into the home
of Laban and his father Bethuel, who quickly concluded that Eliezer’s mission
was truly a commission from GOD. In those days it was not unusual to see the
brother of a woman negotiating along with the living father concerning her
marriage, and that is why here we see, both, Laban and Bethuel actively
involved. And so they entrusted Rebekah into Eliezer’s hand, and she went
willingly with them back to Beersheba.
And finally, in section four (Vs.61-67) we
see the mission of Eliezer winding down to a conclusion, as they wrap up their
900-mile journey to Padan Aram and back. This final segment opens up as we find
a, now 40-year old Isaac, who had just returned home himself from Beer-lahairoi
in the Negev, strolling through a field meditating, when he looked up and saw
Eliezer’s caravan approaching from the east.
When Rebekah looked and saw Isaac, she
quickly dismounted and asked Eliezer who Isaac was. He replied, “He is my
master’s son”, and so Rebekah covered her face with her veil. Soon after they
met they were married and moved into the tent of his deceased mother Sarah, and
Isaac loved her very much, as she was a great comfort to him after the death of
his mother whom he had missed very much. Abraham was 140 years old at that time,
and he lived another 35 years, and he himself re-married before he died and
passed the torch to Isaac at the ripe old age of 175.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
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