No other event recorded in Genesis gets more attention than the one in chapter 24. I doubt that Moses was just an incurable romantic at heart, or that he wanted to draw in his female readers after all the talk about property negotions in the previous chapter. The story is lengthy because God’s providence is busy. “The LORD had blessed Abraham in all things” (verse 1) and now He provides a wife for Abraham’s only son. The Hebrew word for “blessing” is berekah. The woman we meet is Rebekah. She comes into the blessings of Abraham and through her the blessings grow on.

I’ve given the ending away, and we won’t even get halfway through the chapter this morning. It’s just your typical “Patriarch sends servant to find a cousin to marry the promised boy” story. Alright, it’s not that typical. What is typical is that the LORD accomplishes His purposes through all persons in all places at all times, even if we don’t realize it until later. It is a promising match not just from the servant’s perspective, but as the LORD continues His faithfulness to His chosen one.

We’ll look at the first two movements of the Isaac and Rebekah match this morning: The Mission (verses 1-9) and the Meeting (verses 10-28).

The Pressing Mission (verses 1-9)

Abraham’s wife, Sarah, died. In chapter 23 he buried her in a cave that he purchased from Ephron near the city of Hebron in Canaan. Now it’s just he and his son Isaac as family. Abraham knew he was old, well advanced in years , though he didn’t have complaints. The LORD had blessed Abraham in all things , some of which are rehearsed as the story unfolds. But as he nears the end of his life he has at least one unresolved burden: a wife for his son.

It couldn’t be just any woman either.

Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac.” (Genesis 24:2–4)

The woman must not be a Canaanite. A local woman would have been easier to find. The Canaanites esteemed Abraham as “a prince of God” among them. Though giving Abraham one of their daughters to marry his son would be more personal than giving him some of their land to bury his wife, intermarriage would obligate Abraham even more to defend them. It would be good for them, but awkward for Abraham. The LORD already told Abraham that He was going to destroy them, at least eventually.

Abraham heard a report that his brother Nahor had kids (Genesis 22:20-24). He’s too old to go himself, and he wouldn’t go even if he could, or send his son for a reason he’ll soon give to the servant. Abraham commissions his servant and wants his servant to promise, to swear by the LORD .

The servant could be Eliezer, mentioned by Abraham to the LORD in chapter 15 as a possible heir. But the servant’s name isn’t mentioned anywhere in the chapter, either when Abraham addresses him or when the servant identifies himself. We don’t know his name, but we know his character; Abraham trusts his future to him. The servant is already planning to go, but he does ask for clarification. ”Perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I then take your son back to the land from which you came?” He assumes he can find a woman, even one willing to marry Isaac, but what if she’s not willing to relocate?

This is unacceptable to Abraham; this is the deal-breaker. And it misses the point of why Abraham wasn’t in his country with his kindred. ”See to it that you do not take my son back there.” He could have sent Isaac, unless he didn’t trust his son. The biggest reason is because God moved Abraham to a new country on promises.

“The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this land,’ he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.” (Genesis 24:7)

God called him to this place. God provided for Abraham. He will provide and providentially bring about a match, someone willing to leave her homeland like Abraham himself did a long time ago.

If not, the servant will be free from his promise. ”But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine; only you must not take my son back there.” In case it wasn’t clear, Issac stays here.

These are Abraham’s last recorded words in Genesis. Even as he nears the end of his life he needs, and demonstrates, faith. He even quotes the LORD’s promise to him about the land from Genesis 12:7.

So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter . Thigh is probably a euphemism, like a doctor giving a hernia exam. This mission is pressing and personal, the future offspring depend on it.

The Providential Meeting (verses 10-28)

The servant is faithful and wise and believing. He packed an assortment of things that would represent his master’s blessing: ten…camels…taking all sorts of choice gifts . He also must have prepared supplies for the long trip, but the emphasis is on abundance, not need. In one phrase he traveled over 500 miles: he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor , a trip that certainly took him close to a month if not more.

On arrival the servant puts himself in position and prays for guidance. The camels were thirsty but the servant doesn’t water them. He had the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening when women go out to water . It’s good timing, and a good place to meet people. It’s not quite a “Single’s Well,” but the daughters of the men of the city did come out at night.

The servant doesn’t know anyone. He can’t ask anyone for counsel, so he prays.

“O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.” (Genesis 24:12–14)

He asks for a sign as success , “cause to occur for me” (see the note in the NASB), and he asks for it today . Such specificity could be taken as presumption, but the servant asks from a position of humility and in the name of his master whom he knew received promises from the LORD. There are two things the servant is looking for: 1) a sip of water for himself and 2) water service to his camels. The first may be no big deal, the second quite a task.

One camel could drink up to 25 gallons of water. The servant had ten. Such an offer from a woman with one jug could take an hour or two and much effort. (For example 250 gallons, served from a 2 gallon jug would take 125 trips from the well to the trough, at just one minute a piece that’s over two hours.) It would require a serious commitment to hospitality and energy to work this hard near the end of the day.

The next phrase is key to the whole meeting: Before he had finished speaking a woman appeared, which meant that before the servant started praying God set this woman in motion. She is not just any woman.

Behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder. This woman wasn’t just from Abraham’s country, she was from Abraham’s clan. “Nahon was Abraham’s brother, and Milcah was the daughter of his older brother, Haran…. [That means that] Her father is descended from both of Abraham’s brothers” (Wenham). In addition, she was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known . This is promising, though at this point the servant only knew she was pretty. Moses tells that she’s family and that she’s marriage-material to emphasize God’s providence.

The servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water to drink from your jar.” Here is the first test. She passes. ”Drink, my lord.” Then the second test. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” So she quickly got to work and ran around until she was done. She was:

“as a continuous whirl of purposeful activity. In four short verses (Gen. 24:16, 18–20) she is the subject of eleven verbs of action and one of speech.” (Alter quoted by Hamilton)

The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the LORD had prospered his journey or not. She’s running, he’s watching, waiting, wondering, maybe even stunned. Could it be this good?

He took some jewelry from his stash to give to the woman, then asked ”whose daughter are you?” He doesn’t even ask her name. He also asked ”Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?”

She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” She also added, even if it wasn’t her place to say, ”We have plenty of both straw and fodder, and room to spend the night.”

Now the servant is excited and his immediate response is worship!

The man bowed his head and worshiped the LORD and said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the LORD has led me in the way to the house of my master’s kinsmen.” (Genesis 24:26–27)

He still hasn’t told her the whole story, but he’s not really talking to her at the moment, he’s praising God in front of her. She’ll soon find out why all this is so significant and even the providential explanation for their meeting. But his excitement rubs off and she ran off to tell her family. She’s not nonchalant. The fact that she went to her mother’s household first may be significant, but we’ll meet her brother and dad anyway.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of the story left to go, more than half of the chapter. The servant will tell Rebekah’s family how he got there, but even more significantly, who got him there. For him, there is no way to explain what happened apart from the LORD working behind the scenes.

The Lord continues to coordinate all things today. We don’t always know, but we also know that God’s (decretive) will is being done.

This means that an unbeliever cannot study history as science. In an imaginary conversation in That Hideous Strength, the psychologist professor Frost speaks better than he knew about transcendent influences.

“The real causes of all the principal events are quite unknown to historians; that, indeed, is why history has not yet succeeded in becoming a science.”

A (consistent) unbeliever cannot account for the invisible forces. He must make guesses as to hidden reasons and causes. But believers see what’s happened and bow in worship to the Lord of heaven and earth.

It doesn’t always occur so obvious to us, and Genesis 24 isn’t about a method for courtship. It is about the principle of God’s faithfulness and orchestration of human meetings and more.