The Passage
Genesis 24:12-21, 58-67, World English Bible (public domain)
12 He said, "Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, please give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 Behold, I am standing by the spring of water. The daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. 14 Let it happen, that the young lady to whom I will say, 'Please let down your pitcher, that I may drink,' and she will say, 'Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink,'—let her be the one you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master." 15 Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher on her shoulder. 16 The young lady was very beautiful to look at, a virgin. No man had known her. She went down to the spring, filled her pitcher, and came up. 17 The servant ran to meet her, and said, "Please give me a drink, a little water from your pitcher." 18 She said, "Drink, my lord." She hurried, and let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him a drink. 19 When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, "I will also draw for your camels, until they have finished drinking." 20 She hurried, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again to the well to draw, and drew for all his camels. 21 The man looked steadfastly at her, remaining silent, to know whether Yahweh had made his journey prosperous or not.
58 They called Rebekah, and said to her, "Will you go with this man?" She said, "I will go." 59 They sent away Rebekah, their sister, with her nurse, Abraham's servant, and his men. 60 They blessed Rebekah, and said to her, "Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them." 61 Rebekah arose with her ladies. They rode on the camels, and followed the man. The servant took Rebekah, and went his way. 62 Isaac came from the way of Beer Lahai Roi, for he lived in the land of the South. 63 Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the evening. He lifted up his eyes and looked. Behold, there were camels coming. 64 Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she got off the camel. 65 She said to the servant, "Who is the man who is walking in the field to meet us?" The servant said, "It is my master." She took her veil, and covered herself. 66 The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 67 Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife. He loved her. Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.
The Story
Isaac and Rebekah is the Bible's first arranged marriage, and the one it tells in the most detail. Genesis 24 is the longest chapter in the book, and almost none of it is about the couple. It is about a servant, a well, and a prayer.
Sarah has died. Abraham is old. Isaac, the son he waited twenty-five years for, is around forty and unmarried, and the promise God made, that Abraham's descendants would become a great nation, runs through him. Abraham will not let Isaac marry a Canaanite; he also refuses to let Isaac leave the land God promised. So he sends his most senior servant, unnamed in this chapter but traditionally identified as Eliezer, north to Abraham's relatives in Aram Naharaim, with ten camels, a load of gifts, and an oath.
The servant arrives at the town of Nahor at evening, when the women come to draw water, and does the only thing he can think of. He prays. His prayer is specific: let the woman who offers water not just to me but to my camels be the one. Ten camels that have crossed a desert can drink several hundred gallons between them. He is asking for a sign that would cost someone real effort.
Before he finishes the sentence, Rebekah walks up. He asks for a drink. She gives him one, and then, unprompted, says she will water the camels too, and does it, running back and forth to the well until they are done. The servant watches in silence, waiting to see whether this is coincidence. Then he asks whose daughter she is. She is Bethuel's, granddaughter of Abraham's brother Nahor. Family. He bows down on the spot and worships.
At her home, her brother Laban (the same Laban who will later out-scheme her son Jacob) welcomes the caravan. The servant refuses to eat until he has told the whole story, from Abraham's oath to the prayer at the well. The family's answer is, "This is from Yahweh; we can't speak to you bad or good." The match is made that night.
The next morning the family wants to keep Rebekah another ten days. The servant insists on leaving. So they do something unusual for the period: they ask her. "Will you go with this man?" Her answer is two words in Hebrew. "I will go." She leaves her home, her family, and her country for a man she has never met, on the strength of a story about a God who answers prayers at wells.
The chapter ends in the field at evening. Isaac is out walking, sees the camels, and Rebekah sees him. She gets down, covers herself with a veil, and the servant tells Isaac everything. Then the text gives Isaac a sentence the Bible almost never gives a husband: "He loved her." And one more: "Isaac was comforted after his mother's death."
What It Means
The chapter is about guidance, not romance. Isaac and Rebekah don't speak a word to each other in it. The story's real subject is how God directs the path of someone who asks him to: an ordinary servant, praying an ordinary prayer, and getting an answer before he finishes it. "As for me, Yahweh has led me on the way" is the servant's summary (24:27).
Rebekah is chosen for her character. The servant's test wasn't beauty or family connections, though she had both. It was whether she would do exhausting, unasked-for work for a stranger. Kindness to a foreigner and his animals is what marked her as the one, and the same trait shows up in every generation of the family God is building.
"I will go" is Abraham's faith in a woman's voice. Rebekah's answer echoes Abraham's own departure from this same region in Genesis 12. She leaves everything on the basis of a promise. The Bible treats her decision as an act of faith, not obedience to her family.
God's promise is carried by ordinary people. The whole future of Israel depends on this marriage, and the people who make it happen are a servant with a prayer, a girl with a water jar, and a family that recognizes God's hand when they see it. None of them are the famous names.
