Genesis 24.1-9-Abraham Commissions Servant to Secure a Bride for Isaac
Tuesday April 4, 2006
Genesis: Genesis 24:1-9-Abraham Commissions Servant to Secure a Bride for Isaac
Lesson # 126
Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis 24:1.
This evening we will begin to study the longest episode recorded in the book of Genesis, namely, Genesis 24, which contains the record of Abraham securing a bride for his son Isaac.
Having fulfilled his duty to the dead in Genesis 23, Abraham now turns his attention to the needs of the living.
Abraham is concerned about a wife for his son Isaac since without offspring none of the divine promises will be fulfilled.
Sarah’s death and Abraham’s old age suggests the importance of securing a bride for Isaac to guarantee to him the covenant blessings of land and descendants.
As we will see in Genesis 24, Abraham commissions a trusted servant to set out for far-off Paddan Aram, which is northwest Mesopotamia in order to find a wife for his son from among his relatives.
Abraham rejects the women of the corrupt Canaanites and relies confidently in the Lord to lead his servant in securing a bride in Mesopotamia among his relatives.
As we will see the Lord providentially ensured the fulfillment of His promise by guiding Abraham’s servant in acquiring a bride for Isaac.
Abraham prefigures God the Father who would secure a bride for His Son Jesus Christ (Mt. 22:2; Jn. 6:44; Acts 15:14; 2 Cor. 11:2).
Genesis 24 effects a transition in the book of Genesis from the cycle of Abrahamic stories to the Isaac narratives.
We have already seen Sarah depart from the pages of Scripture in the previous chapter and now in Genesis 24, we are prepared for the departure of Abraham.
There are five sections to Genesis 24:
(1) Genesis 24:1 presents an introductory statement regarding Abraham’s age to begin the chapter and demonstrates the urgent need to secure a bride for his son.
(2) Genesis 24:2-9 records Abraham commissioning his servant in his household to go back to Paddan Aram and secure a bride for Isaac among Abraham’s relatives.
(3) Genesis 24:10-27 presents Abraham’s servant providentially meeting Rebekah at a well in Nahor in Aram Naharaim.
(4) Genesis 24:28-61 records that in the home of Bethuel, Rebekah’s family consents to the marriage of Rebekah and Isaac.
(5) Genesis 24:62-67 presents Rebekah and Isaac meeting in the Negev and as a married couple enter into Sarah’s tent.
There are four characters who figure significantly in God’s providential designs: (1) Faithful Abraham (2) Abraham’s prayerful servant (3) Virtuous Rebekah (4) Rebekah’s unscrupulous family.
Although, He is not mentioned, the Lord is the chief actor in this chapter.
Genesis 24:1, “Now Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the LORD had blessed Abraham in every way.”
Genesis 25:20 records that Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah and that would make Abraham one hundred forty years old since Abraham was one hundred years old when Sarah gave birth to Isaac according to Genesis 21:5.
“Lord” is the proper noun Yahweh (hw *hy+), which is the personal covenant name of God emphasizing the “immanency” of God meaning that the Lord had involved Himself in and concerned Himself with and intervened in the life of Abraham so as to bless him and fulfill His covenant promises to Abraham.
“Blessed” is the piel perfect form of the verb barakh (Er^B*), which means, “to endue with power for success, prosperity, fecundity, longevity.”
The phrase “the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way” indicates that the Lord’s promises to bless Abraham recorded in Genesis 12:1-3, 7, 13:14-18, 15:1-6, 18-21, 17:1-8 and 18:1-8 are now proclaimed as being fulfilled even though some blessings remain to be fulfilled in the future.
The Lord blessed Abraham in a five-fold sense:
(1) The Lord blessed Abraham spiritually in that Abraham enjoyed intimate fellowship with the Lord so much so that the Scriptures call Abraham, the “friend of God” (James 2:23).
(2) The Lord blessed Abraham in the sense that the Lord gave him a beautiful wife, Sarah, who he was married to for over sixty years.
(3) The Lord blessed Abraham in the sense that the Lord fulfilled His promise to give Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age (Gen. 15:1-6; 18:1-8; 21:1-4).
(4) The Lord blessed Abraham in the sense that the Lord made Abraham’s reputation great in the world (see Genesis 12:2) through Abraham’s miraculous victory over the four Eastern Mesopotamian Kings recorded in Genesis 14, which delivered the Dead Sea kings and Lot.
(5) The Lord blessed Abraham in the sense that the Lord multiplied Abraham’s possessions and livestock and prospered him financially (see Genesis 12:16; 13; 20).
In the Bible, five is the number of grace and grace is all that God is free to do in imparting unmerited blessings to us based upon the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ’s finished work on the Cross and our union with Him.
The perfect tense of the verb barakh is significant in that it is a “constative” perfect indicating that the Lord blessed Abraham throughout or during the course of his entire lifetime.
The “piel” stem of the verb barakh is “real factitive,” which means that Abraham experienced these blessings, which were a fulfillment of the Lord’s promises to him.
Genesis 24:2-4, “Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, ‘Please place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but you will go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac.’”
In the Biblical world, parents usually arranged marriages.
Abraham sets an example for his descendants to secure wives from the Semites who were blessed by God and not the Canaanites who are cursed by God according to Noah’s prophecy recorded in Genesis 9:24-27 (see Genesis 15:16; 18:18-19; Deut. 7:1-4).
Abraham is too old to make the trip back to Mesopotamia since it was over five hundred miles.
Also, it was customary, especially among wealthy families to make marriage arrangements through an intermediary, and which capacity, Abraham’s servant served.
Furthermore, Abraham by then had learned that being the recipient of God’s promises demanded that he stay in the Promised Land, which is Canaan.
Therefore, Abraham sends his servant who is unnamed since the servant is going in the name of Isaac rather than for himself.
The unnamed servant is “Eliezer of Damascus” who is mentioned in Genesis 15 as being the heir of Abraham’s household.
The fact that Abraham had planned on Eliezer being his heir until God promised him a child from his own body indicates that Abraham trusted Eliezer.
The responsibility for securing a bride for Isaac demanded a loyal servant who knew Abraham and the Lord.
Genesis 24:2 records that this unnamed servant is Abraham’s “oldest” servant in his household, which Eliezer would have been at this point in the narrative.
This unnamed servant had “charge of all” that Abraham owned further indicating that this was Eliezer since Abraham had planned on Eliezer as being his heir until the Lord intervene.
Abraham’s command to his servant to “place your hand under my thigh” is a euphemism for genitalia (Compare Genesis 46:26; Exodus 1:5; Judges 8:30).
By putting his hands under Abraham’s thigh and touching his genitals, the servant was giving an oath that was special and solemn.
Abraham had been circumcised as the “sign” of God’s covenant with him, thus by the servant touching Abraham’s genitals called to mind God’s covenant promises of posterity.
An oath by seat of procreation is appropriate in this instance where Abraham seeks to secure a bride for Isaac to fulfill the divine promises.
The placing of the servant’s hands upon Abraham’s genitals was therefore symbolic for success of the mission, which would make possible propagation of posterity and fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant.
Swearing by the Lord as the God of heaven and earth acknowledged the Lord as the one true God, the omnipotent and sovereign Creator and covenant keeping God.
The reason why Abraham makes his servant swear “by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth” is to guarantee that the servant does not take a bride for Isaac from among the “godless” and “cursed” Canaanites but rather from Abraham’s own relatives.
The bride selected for Isaac had to be chosen with particular care since she would be the mother of the multitude of nations, which God promised would come through Abraham’s seed, through which the promised Savior would come and in which all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
“My country” does “not” refer to Ur of the Chaldeans, which was located on the Euphrates River in southern Iraq but rather it refers to the city of Nahor, which was near Haran in northern Mesopotamia.
“My relatives” refers to Abraham’s brother Nahor and his wife Milcah and their eight sons and their daughter Rebekah as well as Nahor’s four sons by his concubine Reumah as recorded in Genesis 22:20-24.
Genesis 24:5, “The servant said to him, ‘Suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land; should I take your son back to the land from where you came?’”
Abraham’s servant was not at all sure that he could accomplish even Abraham’s minimum requirement.
So the servant raises the obvious problem: what if the girl refuses to leave her family?
Genesis 24:6, “Then Abraham said to him, ‘Beware that you do not take my son back there!’”
Abraham is adamant in insisting that Isaac not go to Mesopotamia because the heir of God’s promises must stay in the Promised Land, which is Canaan.
In fact, Isaac never left the land of Canaan (see Genesis 26:2-3).
Also, Abraham knew that if Isaac had gone to Mesopotamia in search of a bride for himself, there would have been Satanic attacks in the form of temptations to stay among his relatives rather than return to Canaan.
The fact that Abraham stipulated to his servant to bring the bride to Isaac rather than Isaac to the bride echoes the first marriage where the Woman was brought to Adam and not vice versa.
Genesis 2:21, “Then, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, thus he slept and He surgically removed a portion of his side and then He closed up the place with flesh.”
Genesis 2:22, “Then, the Lord God built this portion of his side, which He had surgically removed from the man up into a woman. Then, He brought her to the man.”
The fact that Abraham stipulated to his servant to bring the bride to Isaac rather than Isaac to the bride typified or prefigures the bride of Christ being brought to Him at the rapture or resurrection of the church (cf. John 14:1-3; Acts 15:14-15; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Genesis 24:7, “The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land,’ He will send His angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there.”
The promise “the Lord, the God heaven…will send His angel before you” would reassure Abraham’s servant that he would have divine and angelic aid in accomplishing the task of finding a wife for Isaac.
Abraham is in other words, telling his servant that the pressure is not on him to provide Isaac a woman but rather the responsibility lies with the Lord alone!
Abraham’s promise “the Lord, the God heaven…will send His angel before you” instructs the servant that the Lord will “providentially” work out the circumstances to bring him success in securing a bride for Isaac.
The providence of God is the divine outworking of the divine decree, the object being the final manifestation of God’s glory.
The doctrine of providence expresses the fact that the world and our lives are not ruled by chance or fate but by God Who reveals the purpose of providence through the work of Christ on the Cross.
Providence is extended to God’s forethought, omniscience, and the functional care over His creatures, both good and evil, but especially those creatures who have exercised positive volition toward His Word and have believed in Christ.
Abraham’s description of God, “who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land’” recalls Abraham’s own experience with God and expresses his confidence that God would meet Isaac’s need as He did his.
The Lord’s promise to Abraham, “to your descendants I will give this land” expresses Abraham’s faithfulness to God’s call to leave his homeland and settle in the land of Canaan.
This promise of land by God to Abraham is recorded in Genesis 12:1-3, 13:14-17 and 15:1-7 and is called by theologians, the “Palestinian Covenant,” which is an extension of the “Abrahamic” covenant.
Genesis 24:8, “But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this my oath; only do not take my son back there.”
Abraham informs his servant that he would be absolved from responsibility bringing back a wife for Isaac if the chosen girl refuses to go.
Abraham knows he can count on God but not on people.
Therefore, he recognizes that the woman whom Isaac is to marry must make the choice to marry Isaac rather than against her will.
It would take faith on the part of the woman who marries Isaac since she would have to leave her homeland, family and friends as Abraham did.
Bruce K. Waltke, “While Abraham acts on the basis of God’s promises, he does not presume upon them, freeing the servant of his oath if the Lord does not prosper his mission” (Genesis, A Commentary, page 327, Zondervan).
Genesis 24:2-8 records the last words of Abraham and fittingly the promises of God are his last recorded words.
Genesis 24:9, “So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning this matter.”
The servant agrees to the oath once he has understood his mission and finds assurance that he would not be held responsible if the woman choose not to return with him.