The story of the wooing off Rebekah spread into the Genesis 24
That it oracle foreshadows brand new stress that can characterize the partnership ranging from the lady sons, Jacob and you can Esau, since data throughout the Genesis narrative and also as eponymous ancestors off Israel and you can Edom
The following (after Sarah) of the matriarchs on predecessor stories away from Genesis, Rebekah the most prominent females-regarding the woman active role and her control over occurrences-from the Hebrew Bible. New fantastically developed narratives into the Genesis twenty four–twenty seven identify exactly how she becomes Isaac’s wife, gives delivery to twin sons once initial barrenness, lastly get the primary input the newest ancestry for her young son, Jacob, who’s destined to end up being predecessor of all the Israel. Regardless if problematic to some, the woman deceit from inside the manipulating Isaac to possess Jacob’s benefit causes this lady depiction since a keen admirable and you may assertive woman.
, the longest chapter in the Book of Genesis. A spouse for Isaac is to be obtained from his uncle Nahor’s family; the ensuing cousin marriage, with Rebekah and Isaac both members of the same kinship group, serves to emphasize the importance of their lineage. Abraham dispatches a trusted but unnamed servant to Mesopotamia, the land of his birth and where some of his family still resides, to find a wife for his son. Rebekah secures her role as wife-elect for Isaac by befriending the servant and his ten camels in the famous well scene, which has been called a type-scene-a narrative episode with certain expected motifs that appears at the critical juncture in the life of a hero. Indeed, the account of Rebekah at the well is the premier biblical example of such a scene. It ostensibly draws attention to Isaac, but, in http://www.datingmentor.org/is-tinder-worth-it/ his absence, reveals the beauty and especially the virtues of his wife-to-be.
After the well incident, Rebekah brings the servant home, enters into the marriage arrangement, and sets off to meet her future husband. She seems to have some input into the marriage negotiations, or at least into the decision about her departure from her homeland and birth family (–58). When she first sees Isaac in Gen –65, she dismounts from her camel and veils herself, a nonverbal act perhaps signaling her status as a soon-to-be betrothed woman as it does for elite women in ancient Assyria. That she dons the betrothal veil herself may also indicate her independence. Once she arrives in the promised land, she enters Isaac’s home (called “his mother Sarah’s tent,” ).
Immediately after 2 decades regarding relationships, when Rebekah fails to get pregnant, Isaac prays so you’re able to Jesus, just who offers the newest prayer one to she can get conceive. Various other type-world, regarding new bare girlfriend, for this reason enters the Rebekah tale, calling attention to the fresh special role of your people sooner or later produced to their. An excellent divine oracle is actually managed in order to the woman when she’s pregnant; God proclaims one to “two countries” have been in their uterus and certainly will compete with one another ().
Indeed there she’s “loved” () by the lady husband, the initial lady on Hebrew Bible to own just who marital like is declared
In the next episode in the Rebekah story, Isaac passes her off as his sister. This narrative, similar in many ways to two such accounts about Sarah, at first seems to contribute little to the role or character of Rebekah. However, it does differentiate her in a significant way from Sarah; in one of the two wife-sister episodes in which she figures (Gen –14, 19), Sarah seems to have had sexual relations with Pharaoh to ensure the safety of her husband and their household, although this is not the case in the second wife-sister story involving Sarah (Gen 20: 1–8). Rebekah’s marital fidelity, in contrast, is never compromised (Gen 26:7–11). Her relationship with her husband is consistently monogamous, unlike the other matriarchs of Genesis: Sarah, who provides her husband with the slave wife Hagar and perhaps has extramarital sex with the pharaoh; and Rachel and Leah, who are co-wives and also provide slave wives to Jacob.
