Biblion Bible Commentary
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A servant's prayer at a well
Genesis 24:1-27
1 Abraham was old, and well advanced in age. Yahweh had blessed Abraham in all things. · WEB
An unnamed servant is sent eight hundred miles on an oath, prays a specific prayer, and is answered before he has finished praying.
The chapter is the longest in Genesis and its central figure is never named. He is the servant, the elder of his house, who ruled over all that he had — the man Abraham once expected to inherit everything Genesis 15:2 — and he is trusted with the future of the promise.
The oath is sworn in the old form, with a hand under the thigh, and its terms have two halves. No wife from the daughters of the Canaanites, and no return of Isaac to Mesopotamia under any circumstances. Abraham repeats the second twice, and the reason is not sentiment about the homeland: God had brought him out of it, and a son taken back would undo the leaving. The wife must come to the land; the heir must not leave it.
What Abraham rests the errand on is not the servant's skill. Yahweh, the God of heaven — who took me from my father's house... he will send his angel before you. And he builds in a release clause: if the woman will not come, the oath is discharged. He is not requiring a result, only that the man go and not bring Isaac back.
The servant's prayer at the well is worth reading closely, because it is a model of a particular kind. He begins by naming whose God he is addressing — the God of my master Abraham — and asks for two things, success today, and kindness shown to Abraham. His concern throughout the chapter is his master's interest and not his own.
Then the sign he proposes. It is often described as fleece-laying, and it is more careful than that. He does not ask for a portent; he devises a test of character. A girl who offers unasked to water ten camels after a day's work is offering something enormous — a thirsty camel drinks many gallons, and ten of them means dozens of trips down to the spring and up, by hand, for a stranger. What he is asking God for is not a random selection but a woman with a particular disposition, and the sign is designed so that only generosity of that scale can produce it.
Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah came out. The timing is stated, and the servant himself repeats it later — before I had finished speaking in my heart Genesis 24:45. She was already walking to the well while the prayer was being said.
And she does the whole thing. She gives him a drink, then volunteers: I will also draw for your camels, until they have finished drinking. She hurried, emptied her pitcher, ran again to the well, and drew for all of them.
The servant's reaction is the finest detail in the passage: The man looked steadfastly at her, remaining silent, to know whether Yahweh had made his journey prosperous or not. He watches, and says nothing, and does not help. He is letting the sign complete itself rather than hurrying it, and he does not speak until the camels are finished.
Only then does he give the gold and ask whose daughter she is — and she turns out to be Abraham's brother's granddaughter. He bowed his head, and worshiped Yahweh on the spot, in front of her, before anything has been agreed.
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