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| Genesis 24: when family meets with family to form family. |
Abraham was now a widower in his
120s and very much feeling his age. He
was obviously pretty thin-skinned for feeling so old, since others like Noah
and Adam lived well past age 800.
Abraham was still pretty young, by Genesis standards. Still, it was time to start planning for
what came next. What came next, of
course, was his son Isaac’s future bride, whoever she might be. Since Abraham was so concerned, he took the
reasonable course of action and talked to his household’s chief servant about
this.
“Place your hand under my thigh,”
Abraham told the servant.
“Er… beg pardon, sir?”
“Place your hand under my thigh.”
“Sir, I don’t suppose I need to
tell you that this is not an orthodox demand to make of one’s own butler. I may be your servant, but I am still an
individual with rights and dignity, and…”
“Enough!” interrupted
Abraham. “This is so you can swear
something to God.”
“Oh,” said the servant, “that’s
different,” and he placed his hand where his boss told him to, no matter how
squeamish it made him feel.
“So now that your hand is
underneath my thigh, you have to swear to God, the God of heaven and earth,
that you will not choose a wife for my son from the daughters of these infernal
Canaanites around here. You have to go
to my native land and pick out a wife for Isaac there.”
Eager though he might have been
to get his hand out from under his master’s thigh, Abraham dragged this out
more. “But what if the girl doesn’t
want to follow me from your homeland to Canaan? I mean, if you can’t stand the Canaanites, I don’t see how you
could expect your son’s future wife to feel any differently. It might be simpler if I just took the boy
back to your homeland, if the purity of your line means so much to you. That way we could find lots of girls who…”
“No! No way are you to go back there.
God promised me I could have this land, that it would belong to my
descendents.”
“But it’s the Canaanites’ land,
isn’t it? Won’t they mind if you start
filling the place up with non-Canaanites?”
“I get the feeling that’s not
going to matter.”
“How do you mean?”
“Things… things happen. I don’t ask questions, and neither should you. Anyway, God’s sending an angel to the old
country ahead of you so that it’ll be easier to convince that lucky girl that
her future is here in Canaan (or whatever we’re going to wind up calling it
when the Canaanites are gone). If that
angel doesn’t convince the girl, I won’t hold you to this oath. Just don’t let Isaac go back there.”
The servant did as he was
told. He set out for the old country
with ten of Abraham’s camels, all laden with wedding gifts for the lucky
bride-to-be. He made those camels kneel
down near the town well one evening, when the women come to get water for the
household. “God,” implored the servant,
“here’s what I’m thinking. Could You
help me out by participating in this call-and-response thing I’ve come up
with? I’m going to say to one of these
girls, ‘Please lower your pitcher and give me a drink.’ Then, if she’s the one I’m looking for, have
her say, ‘Drink, and I shall water your camels, too.’ That way I’ll know which one it is. Of course, if that’s too complicated, you could just shine a beam
down from heaven or something. I know
You can do it. You’re omnipotent,
aren’t You?”
He was still setting up the
meet-cute with God when a gorgeous virgin named Rebekah came out with a
pitcher. The servant, cool as you please,
came running up to her and asked for a drink of water. “Drink, my lord,” she said, just like he’d
asked God to arrange. “I’ll take care
of your camels, too,” Rebekah told him.
As she did this, the servant just stood there, not daring to speak,
which wasn’t creepy at all. Could this
be God’s work, he wondered?
To make Rebekah even more
comfortable, the servant put a gold ring weighing half a shekel right through
her nose, and put two bracelets on her arms, each weighing ten shekels. “Who’s your dad?” he asked smoothly, adding,
“Can I sleep over?”
Unfazed by this perfectly normal,
not at all forward behavior, Rebekah told him.
“I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son whom Milcah bore to Nahor. There’s lots of straw, and we’ve got plenty
of space for you to stay. I don’t bring
strange men home all the time, but I’m sure my folks won’t mind.” The servant was very grateful. He didn’t thank her, but he promptly thanked
God. This was a score, after all. Rebekah, he realized, was Abraham’s
brother’s son’s daughter. What better
wife could a man hope for his own son than his own grand-niece?
Rebekah ran into the house,
presumably to ask permission for the strange man who’d just covered her in gold
to stay in the house. Her brother,
Laban, came out and welcomed the servant in, took care of the camels, and
washed the servant’s feet. They offered
the servant food, but he said he wouldn’t eat until he said his piece. They then asked him to spill it. “I work for your Uncle Abraham,” he told
him. “Your uncle headed out west and
has done pretty well for himself. His
wife died, but she bore him a son. A
real son, too, not like the one he had with the maid. We had to kick the maid and that boy out of the tent, once the
real heir was born. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” they said.
“I’m here to bring back a local
girl for Isaac to marry. Abraham says
there’s no way he can come back here. I
asked God for a sign showing me who the right girl is, and I’m pretty sure it’s
his cousin. That’s why I gave her all
that gold. You in?”
“Well, if God says so, I guess we
have no choice, right?” said Rebekah’s father and brother. “I mean, who would just make up something
like that?” The servant then gave them more
gold, and silver, and other nice things. Then they all went to bed.
The next morning, the servant
said to his hosts, “Okay, I’m ready.
Call Rebekah over and we’ll get going.”
Rebekah’s brother and mother
said, “Um… can we have, say, ten more days with her before she goes? We’ve known her all her life, and we’re kind
of attached to her, you see, and…”
“No,” the servant cut them
off. “We have to get going. Now.”
“All right. Let’s see what Rebekah says.” They called Rebekah over and asked her how
she felt about leaving right away.
“Okay,” she said.
There wasn’t much else to say, so
the family blessed her and said a little farewell poem:
“Sorry you’re leaving, but Yahweh
bids.
Hope your line spawns thousands
of kids.
May the kids of your kids grow so
grand
That they take possession of your
enemies’ land!”
And off they went, with Rebekah
and her own servants in tow. It was
clearer than ever why Abraham didn’t want Isaac marrying a Canaanite girl. Things were starting to look grim for
Canaan.
When the party reached Canaan,
they found Isaac living in the Negev, farming.
The servant told Rebekah that the strapping lad in the field was her new
husband, so she promptly covered herself with a veil while the servant related
the story to Isaac. Luckily Isaac and
Rebekah really hit it off. It was such
a match that Isaac found he felt better about having lost his mother, which
isn’t a creepy way to think about your new wife at all.
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