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20 Then she quickly emptied her pitcher into the trough, ran back to the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. 21 And the man, wondering at her, remained silent so as to know whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. 22 So it was, when the camels had finished drinking, that the man took a golden nose ring weighing half a shekel, and two bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels of gold, 23 and said, “Whose daughter are you? Tell me, please, is there room in your father’s house for us to lodge?” 24 So she said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, Milcah’s son, whom she bore to Nahor.” 25 Moreover she said to him, “We have both straw and feed enough, and room to lodge.” 26 Then the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. 27 And he said, “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” 28 So the young woman ran and told her mother’s household these things. ~ Genesis 24:20-28
Today, we return to our study of Genesis 24 where we discover that Abraham has sent his main servant to his old hometown to find a wife for his son, Isaac. After arriving in Abraham's hometown, the servant prayed the Lord would send His choice of a wife for Isaac to him, a woman who would not only offer him a drink of the water at the well but also for his camels. And sure enough, that is what happened.
In v.20-21 of today's passage we read, "20 Then she quickly emptied her pitcher into the trough, ran back to the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. 21 And the man, wondering at her, remained silent so as to know whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not."
As hinted at in our last study, when Rebekah, the soon to be bride of Abraham's son, drew water from the well for the camels, she pictured the believer's willingness to serve God by offering the gospel to the lost. There is not one doubt in my mind that we are living in the last days. In light of that, we must be quick to share the gospel with anyone willing enough to listen. But, we must go even further, we must challenge them to believe in the Lord Jesus and to receive from Him the forgiveness of sin through His work on the cross. We must be ardent about this because for some of them it may be their only opportunity to do so.
As you may know, Camels drink a lot. Camels store water in their bloodstream. Their humps store fat for when there is a lack of food. One camel that has been on a journey like this one in today's passage would end up drink about 25 gallons of water. These camels then would have consumed 250 gallons of water. If Rebekah's pitcher held 5 gallons, it would have taken her about 50 trips between the well and the trough to water these camels. In carrying so much water, Abraham's servant saw that Rebekah was the kind of girl that Isaac needed.
The word translated here as "wondering at her" is only used this one time in the entire Bible. It literally means to gazed at, to watch closely, to look at steadfastly. This word means Abraham's servant was astonished at Rebekah. In today's vernacular we would say, "She blew his mind." Rebekah was not only gorgeous, she was most beautiful on the inside, and Abraham's servant could not believe what was happening before his very eyes.
In v.22-23 of today's passage we read, "22 So it was, when the camels had finished drinking, that the man took a golden nose ring weighing half a shekel, and two bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels of gold, 23 and said, 'Whose daughter are you? Tell me, please, is there room in your father’s house for us to lodge?'"
The servant then presented to Rebekah a golden nose ring and the two golden bracelets. When the believer in Christ first trusts the Lord Jesus as Savior, the Spirit is the one who gives us our salvation which is the very presence of God in our spirit. In addition to awakening our spirit to God, the Holy Spirit also provides us with spiritual gifts and they come as we grow in our walk with the Lord. This is pictured here in this interaction between Abraham's servant and Rebekah.
Since the Lord provided exactly what the servant asked for, he asked Rebekah if there was room at her father's house for he, his servants, and his camels to stay overnight.
In v.24-25 of today's passage we read, "24 So she said to him, 'I am the daughter of Bethuel, Milcah’s son, whom she bore to Nahor.' 25 Moreover she said to him, 'We have both straw and feed enough, and room to lodge.'"
Rebekah didn't know that this servant was the main servant of her relative Abraham who had left town so many years before. Her father was Abraham's relative and his name, Bethuel means "Dwelling of God." Rebekah the daughter of Bethuel pictures for us once again the believer in Jesus Christ for she was the daughter of the dwelling of God. This family, which was so heavily entrenched in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus, so easily welcomed the servant of Abraham to lodge in their home overnight.
In v.26-28 of today's passage we read, "26 Then the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. 27 And he said, 'Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master’s brethren.' 28 So the young woman ran and told her mother’s household these things."
Abraham's servant worshipped the God of the Bible on the heels of his answered prayer. He had gone out in faith like Abraham, and now he for himself saw God do something miraculous. Once God did the miraculous, Abraham's servant worshipped. Success inflates men of the world, but it humbles the man of God. The servant’s first thought was for God, then for his master, and only then for himself.
Note the intermingling of mercy and truth here. God must deal with us out of his mercy first since He is the God of truth. Our sinfulness does not mix well with the truth because the truth crushes us in our sinful state. His grace had to triumph over our sinfulness first before He could lead us in His truth.
When I graduated from high school in 1981, I was not a believer in Christ. It was through my dad's death in October of 1981 that I became a believer. The following September of 1983 I enrolled at Columbia Bible College in Columbia, South Carolina. During those first two years I struggled in a variety of ways. One of the ways that I struggled was in the arena of girls. I had the hardest time getting to know the girls at CBC. In fact, it was at the end of those first two years at CBC that I surrendered my date life to the Lord. It was that September of 1985 that this began to make sense to me. You see, it was in September of 1985 that the Lord brought the woman who would eventually be my wife of 36 years now. And, if I had entered CBC in the Fall of 1981, I would have never met my eventual wife. God leads us far more than we known. We must be careful to walk with Him daily, otherwise we may miss His leading in our lives for that day.
