The Prosperous Journey: Rebekah's Blessing

Genesis 24: A divine moment, centuries in the making . . .

This thrilling narrative of romance and journey is not only the longest chapter in the book of Genesis (a total of sixty-seven verses) but is also one of the longest chapters in the entire Bible. We experience this journey as it unfolds, living with Eliezer (most likely) the thrill of his discovery and feeling with Rebekah the thrill of divine destiny. We even feel the thrill of Isaac when he first meets Rebekah while meditating in the field near the very well where the Angel of the Lord found Hagar so many years earlier in Genesis 16.

The story of Rebekah should not be overlooked just because her later behavior seems to taint our impression of her. She is a woman of purpose, as discussed in All of the Women of the Bible, and retains pure motives focused on God's blessing not only for herself but for others. Her story is well worth examining, not only for her own character traits that remain untarnished (her purity, her helpfulness, her kindness, her love of spiritual values, her insight, her ingenuity, her resourcefulness) but for the pattern of God's divine leadership that is herein revealed, a pattern that is just as relevant today as it was almost 4000 years ago. Rebekah forces us to remember that, while Scripture's great heroes of faith had feet of clay, they also had hearts of gold, and Rebekah's was just such a heart. Her very appearance on the landscape is immediately endearing, but Rebekah's story begins long before we ever see her lovely, solicitous face bending over Abraham's servant, whose most sacred journey has left him a bundle of faith and nerves.

From this most beloved of all Abraham's servants, we learn the first nonnegotiable principle of discerning God's will: purity of purpose. Without this, Rebekah's own purity is rendered irrelevant and incidental, and in this grave error has many a young suitor met his demise. Abraham has made his servant, whom we will assume from here forward is Eliezer, swear by sacred oath--an oath as binding as any marriage, perhaps--that he will not take a wife for his son Isaac from among the Canaanite women where he dwells. This mandate is to be followed even if it means that Isaac must forego a bride. Eliezer is to find a wife from among Abraham's own people or find none at all. Far more than a cultural preference to maintain a pure Jewish bloodline, this mandate underscores the severity of the entire upcoming Mosaic law in dealing with sexual immorality, and within this context, Moses, the author of Genesis, emphasizes that Rebekah is a very fair damsel, a virgin, whom no man has known. Principle Number One has been fulfilled.

Principle Number Two to a prosperous journey is, of course, prayer. What prayer, we might ask? Of course, prayer according to the promises of God and the prophecies that these promises contain. We know it must be God's will for Isaac to find a wife if he is ever to father offspring as numerous as the stars, and yet just here we learn something our prosperity-driven culture seems to have forgotten. God's promises are not entitlements. Each is contingent upon a condition. Isaac is not entitled to the bride of his choice any more than Eliezer is entitled to bring him just any bride. There will be only one right bride for Isaac--whose marriage to Rebekah serves as one of the few truly monogamous marriages in all of Genesis--and that will be one who is both from Abraham's own people and one who has kept herself pure.

But how will Eliezer know who she is? What will be the sign? Here we can be sure that the Lord directs the specificity of Eliezer's prayer just as surely as he directs Rebekah's footsteps to fulfill that prayer. The fervency of Eliezer's prayer creates its length and detail as he spells out to the Lord the manner in which he is to know--on the gravity of his oath to Abraham--that Isaac's bride even exists. While he believes that she must exist--based on the promises of God and Abraham's insistence upon this errand--he cannot afford to assume that he has found the right one based upon his own judgment. And just here we see deeply embedded in this story a significant correction to the brazenness found today among so many Name-It, Claim-It prayers. We see that the eagerness to claim any answer to prayer must first be disciplined by surrender to God's will, whatever that turns out to be.

And we must see within this text that even Abraham has voiced at least the possibility of doubt that Eliezer will find "the one"---or that, even if he does find "the one," she might not be willing to come. And it is this margin of caution that, in fact, anchors the first nonnegotiable principle of divine guidance: purity of purpose. Purity of purpose and surrender in prayer are inseparable. Put another way, we could say that purity of purpose is impossible when we pray with a boldness to claim what is not rightfully ours. Both Abraham and Eliezer would rather be accused of not having enough faith than to assume that their own wishes are the same as God's.

In the mystery of God, we cannot claim that the Lord answered Eliezer's prayer simply because he prayed such a prayer. The perfect prayer does not invent the will of God. But neither can we argue that God would have given Isaac his perfect bride without prayer. The popular fatalism that brings with it a flippancy in regard to earnest prayer, upon the assumption that God in His sovereignty is "going to do whatever He's going to do," does not honor the promises of God but instead fails to acknowledge the relationship between God's will and prayer. Rebekah's powerful story reveals that the Lord answered Eliezer's prayer down to the letter--not merely because it was Eliezer's prayer or even because it fulfilled Abraham's promise--but because it was the will of God--a will set in motion centuries before Eliezer, Abraham, Isaac, or Rebekah arrived on the scene of human history.

Principle Number Three for understanding the will of the Lord is patience. Even when Eliezer feels almost certain that Rebekah is "the one"--for electricity charges the air the moment she appears on the scene, even before he has ended praying--he assumes nothing but tells his errand patiently in front of not only Rebekah but also her brother Laban and her parents. His poverty of spirit is almost timid in claiming the prosperity of his journey, and it is almost as if, in the retelling, Eliezer is trying to wrap his own brain around the fact that it was his own prayer and not merely Abraham's that was answered. But this knowledge brings with it an endearing humility to wait even yet for the final answer.

How Eliezer narrates his errand without making Rebekah feel obligated or pressured is its own marvel, for in every detail, he shows respect for her wishes. We might say that in this way only does he actually seal the answer, for Rebekah's own willingness is as much the answer to his prayer as is her helpfulness. Her guileless hospitality is not diminished by any sense of disillusionment that she has met the terms of a "secret shopper," as it were. She does not appear to feel typecast or pawned, even though she now realizes that she has fulfilled to the letter Eliezer's prayer by patiently watering all ten of his camels and also offering his entire company lodging after their toilsome journey. The irony of her obedience as the exact answer to Eliezer's prayer is exquisitely refreshing to watch all these millennia later, as is Eliezer's courtly ability to hold his excitement in check amid his certainty that God has given him a divine moment centuries in the making.

Principle Number Four in following divine guidance is promptness. Eliezer's heart sinks, and quite understandably so, when Rebekah's family suggests waiting another ten days at least before letting her go. He knows that time breeds indecision, and, while not taking advantage of Rebekah's naive youth, he knows that God has prospered him, and he cannot wait to tell Abraham of the jewel he has found. But there is another principle at work here, and that is that God Himself expects prompt obedience to any of His commands. The promptness with which Abraham prepared early the very next morning to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah is the very same promptness Eliezer must now exercise to bring Isaac his bride.

And just here, Eliezer sees the final piece of his answer to prayer. The Rebekah who fulfills Abraham's and Eliezer's purity of purpose, who arrives on the scene exactly in answer to prayer, and who responds affirmatively to Eliezer's eager yet patient request, is the same Rebekah who is now just as prompt in embracing her destiny as Eliezer is to secure it. When Rebekah's family commendably asks her what she wants to do, she surrenders her entire life to immediate change. The divine will has been accomplished: the perfect bride for Isaac not only exists, she is breathless to meet him. Of Rebekah's heart for the Isaac she has never seen, we could almost say with Peter, "whom, not having seen," she loves (I Peter 1:8). It is, after all, the beautiful heart of Rebekah that has made Eliezer's journey prosperous.

And what does Eliezer's answer to prayer do for Rebekah? Just here we see her blessing unfold, a blessing that has not only been promised since Eden but that has endured down through the centuries to this day. This is no trite material blessing such as the Prosperity Gospel would abuse. Rebekah understands Isaac's blessing as the spiritual prosperity linked with the promise of the Messiah, and when she receives her own parting blessing from the family that is loath to see her go (Genesis 24:60), we instantly recognize this as the Abrahamic blessing of Genesis 22:17. Possessing the gates of one's enemies can mean only one thing spiritually: victory over sin, death, and hell--victory possible only through the Promised Seed, Christ Himself. That this blessing should cover Isaac from both his father and his soon-to-be wife underscores the testimony of two witnesses in fulfilling the Lord's promise of Genesis 3:15 when Adam and Eve lost all earthly prosperity to toil amid a fallen world, a world that would one day be redeemed.

Every answer to prayer, no matter how high it causes our spirits to soar among the desert eagles, must find its landing in daily reality. But Rebekah is not disappointed. After a long and prosperous journey, her journey has just begun. She finds a handsome young man in his prime, most likely an introvert, meditating in the fields. She immediately covers her face to preserve the full reverence and impact of Isaac's first glance upon her. He beholds her beauty of gaze and form and takes her into his late beloved mother's tent. And Scripture is eloquent in its sparseness, and he "took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death" (Genesis 24:67).

That Isaac loved Rebekah without abatement we can infer from later clues in the text, including his public display of affection for her when he dwelt among the Philistines. We also know that he listened to her even after she schemed Jacob into receiving his own rightful blessing, for he joined her concern that Jacob marry among their own people and not among the Canaanite women, as Esau had done. No doubt, Isaac remembered with vivid honor the moment he first laid eyes on Rebekah, and her inner beauty only became lovelier through the years as she became the helpmeet God had ordained her to be.

Thus do we read the prosperous journey of two people who met one prayer-filled evening so that Abraham's son could perpetuate the centuries-promised blessing while enjoying the perfect marriage. Even though there is no marriage in heaven, if ever a match was made in heaven, Isaac's and Rebekah's was.