Genesis/Bereshith 24: " . . . go to my land and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son, for Yitzhak."

[Unbracketed commentary is from Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; the translation/commentary is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, with additional commentary from RA/Robert Alter.—Admin1.]

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Genesis/Bereshith 24

1 Now Avraham was old, advanced in days, and YHVH had blessed Avraham in everything

well stricken in age. See XVIII,11.

2 Avraham said to his servant, the elder of his household, who ruled over all that was his: Pray
put your hand under my thigh!

the elder of his house.  The one who possessed the greatest authority.  Although the servant is not named here, it is clear from what was stated in XV,2 that Eliezer is intended.

put thy hand under my thigh. According to the Biblical idiom, children are said to issue from the ‘thigh’ or ‘loins’ of their father (XLVI, 26).  Therefore the formality of placing the hand upon the thigh was taken to signify that if the oath were violated, the children who have issued, or might issue, from the ‘thigh’ would avenge the act of disloyalty.

[EF] put your hand under my thigh: A symbol used in taking of an oath (see also 47:29).  The use of “thigh” might allude to a curse of childlessness as the punishment for not keeping the oath.

[RA] Put your hand . . . under my thigh.  Holding the genitals, or placing a hand next to the genitals, during the act of solemn oath-taking is attested in several ancient societies (a fact already noted by Abraham ibn Ezra in the 12th century), though here it may have the special purpose of invoking the place of procreation as the servant is to seek a bride for the only son Isaac.

3 I want you to swear by YHVH, the God of Heaven and the God of Earth, that you will not
take a wife for my son from the women of the Canaanites, among whom I am settled;

God of heaven.  Abraham makes his servant swear in the name of the God he himself worshipped; he had converted his servant tot he true Faith (see on XII,5), evidenced by Eliezer’s devout conduct throughout the narrative which follows.

daughters of the Canaanites.  Who might divert Isaac from the path which his father had mapped out for him; XXVIII,1.  This fear of the evil consequences which would result from intermarriage with heathens is frequently expressed in the Bible; e.g. Deut. VII,3.

4 rather, you are to go to my land and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son, for Yitzhak.

my country. . . kindred. Here the reference is to Haran and to the family of his brother Nahor.

[RA] to my land and to my birthplace you shall go.  These words are still another echo of the first words God speaks to Abraham at the beginning of chapter 12 sending him forth from his native land.

5 The servant said to him: Perhaps the woman will not be willing to go after me to this land;
may I then bring your son back there, back to the land from which you once went out?

The meaning is, If I find a suitable wife for Isaac in Haran but the woman is not willing to leave her home, am I to take Isaac to Haran?

[EF]  back there:  The Hebrew text has “there” in the next line:  it has been moved up in the English text for reasons of style.  The word occurs four times in vv. 5-8, as a signal of what is most important to Avraham that his son must stay in the land of Canaan.

6 Avraham said to him: Watch out that you do not ever bring my son back there.

On no account is Isaac to return to Haran, lest he abandon the Land of Promise.

7 YHVH, the God of Heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from my kindred, who
spoke to me, who swore to me, saying: I give this land to your seed—he himself will send his messenger
on before you, so that you take a wife for my son from there

Abraham felt strongly that Isaac’s marriage would be an important factor in the fulfillment of the Divine promise.  Hence God would help Eliezer in his mission to find a worthy wife for Isaac.

He will send His angel before thee.  An expression denoting that God’s protection and aid would be given him; Exod. XXIII,20.

[EF]  I give this land to your seed:  Quoting 12:7.

[RA]  Abraham’s language explicitly echoes the reiterated covenantal promises he has received.  Later in the story, when the servant gives the family a seemingly verbatim report of this initial dialogue with his master, he discreetly edits out this covenantal language.

8 Now if the woman is not willing to go after you, you will be clear from this sworn-oath of mine, only: You are not to bring my son back there! 

9 The servant put his hand under the thigh of Avraham his lord, and swore to him (an oath)
about this matter.

concerning this matter.  lit. ‘in accordance with this word,’ i.e. on the terms just laid down; namely, if the woman declines to follow him, Eliezer should be free from his obligation.

10 The servant took ten camels from his lord’s camels and went, all kinds of good-things from
his lord in his hand. He arose and went to Aram Of-Two-Rivers, to Nahor’s town

and the servant took.  Gifts for the bride and her family.

Aram-naharaim. i.e. Aram of the two rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, Mesopotamia.

the city of Nahor.  i.e. the city in which Nahor and his family dwelt, Haran.

[EF]  Aram Of-Two-Rivers: Others leave untranslated, “Aram-Naharahim.”

[RA] camels. The camels here and elsewhere in Genesis is a problem.  Archeological and extra-biblical literary evidence indicates that camels were not adopted as beasts of burden until several centuries after the Patriarchal period, and so their introduction in the story would have to be anachronistic.  What is puzzling is that the narrative reflects careful attention to other details of historical authenticity:  horses, which also were domesticated centuries later, are scrupulously excluded from the Patriarchal tales, and when Abraham buys a gravesite, he deals in weights of silver, not in coins, as in the later Israelite period.  The details of betrothal negotiation with the brother acting as principal agent for the family, the bestowal of a dowry on the bride and betrothal gifts on the family, are equally accurate for the middle of the second millennium B.C.E.  Perhaps the camels are an inadvertent anachronism because they had become so deeply associated in the minds of later writers and audiences with desert travel.  There remains a possibility that camels may have already had some restricted use in the earlier period for long desert journeys, even though they were not yet generally employed.  In any case the camels here are more than a prop, for their needs and treatment are turned into a pivot of the plot.

11 He had the camels kneel outside the town at the water well at setting time, at the time when
the water-drawers go out,

by the well of water. The place where a stranger would naturally wait who required information concerning an inhabitant of the city.

[EF] setting time: Sunset.  water-drawers: Female.

[RA] by the well of water at eventide, the hour when the water-drawing women came out. This is the first occurrence of the betrothal type-scene.  The conventionally fixed sequence of motifs of this type-scene is:  travel to a foreign land, encounter there with the future bride (almost always referred to as na’arah, “young woman”) at a well, drawing of water, “hurrying” or “running” to bring the news of the stranger’s arrival, a feast at which a betrothal agreement is concluded.  As a social institution, the well was probably a plausible place to encounter nubile maidens, though the well in a foreign land also has an archetypal look, suggesting fertility and the nuptial encounter with the otherness of the female. This version is the most elaborate and leisurely of the betrothal type-scenes, rich in detail, full of stately repetition.  It is also the only version in which the bridegroom himself is not present but rather a surrogate, and in which the young woman, not the man, draws the water, with the verb of hurrying that is linked with the bringing of the news amply describing her actions at the well.  There is surely some intimation in all this of the subsequent course of the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah—he in most respects the most passive of all the patriarchs, she forceful and enterprising.

12 and said: YHVH, God of my lord Avraham, pray let it happen today for me, and deal
faithfully with my lord Avraham!

send me good speed.  lit. ‘make it happen before me’ (as I desire).

[EF] let it happen: Or “let it go well.”

13 Here, I have stationed myself by the water spring as the women of the town go out to draw
water

14 May it be that the maiden to whom I say: Pray lower your pitcher that I may drink, and she
says: Drink, and I will also give your camels to drink— let her be the one that you have decided on for
your servant, for Yitzhak, by means of her may I know that you have dealt faithfully with my lord.

camels drink also. Eliezer would only ask a drink of water for himself.  The maiden on her own initiative was to suggest water for the camels. Her doing so would be evidence of a tender heart.  Kindness to animals is a virtue upon which Judaism lays stress.  The Talmud declares that a man must not sit down to his meal before giving food to his animals.  It is noteworthy that Eliezer decided to make beauty of character the criterion in his selection of a wife for Isaac.  He anticipated the writer of Prov. XXXI,30, who declared, ‘Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.’

15 And it was: Not yet had he finished speaking, when here, Rivka came out, -she had been born
to Betuel, son of Milca, wife of Nahor, brother of Avraham- her pitcher on her shoulder.

Bethuel.  See XXII,20.

16 The maiden was exceedingly beautiful to look at, a virgin-no man had known her. Going
down to the spring, she filled her pitcher and came up again.

very fair to look upon.  Rebekah possessed physical beauty as well as goodness of heart.

17 The servant ran to meet her and said: Pray let me sip a little water from your pitcher!

[RA] Pray, let me sip a bit of water.  With perfect politeness, the parched desert traveler speaks as though he wanted no more than to wet his lips.  In the event, prodigious quantities of water will have to be drawn.

18 She said: Drink, my lord! And in haste she let down her pitcher on her arm and gave him to
drink.
19 When she had finished giving him to drink, she said: I will also draw for your camels, until
they have finished drinking.

[RA] 18-19.  Drink, my lord . . . and let him drink.  And she let him drink his fill.  As Meir Sternberg (1985) acutely observes, this long delay before she finally produces the requisite offer to water the camels is a heart-stopper, enough to leave the servant in grave momentary doubt as to whether God has answered his prayer.

onto her hand. The motion, as Rashi notes, is lowering the jug from her shoulder to her hand, so that she can pour water out.

20 In haste she emptied her pitcher into the drinking-trough, then she ran to the well again to
draw, and drew for all his camels.

[RA]  and drew water for all his camels.  This is the closest anyone comes in Genesis to a feat of “Homeric” heroism (though the success of Rebekah’s son Jacob in his betrothal scene in rolling off the huge stone from the well invites comparison).  A camel after a long desert journey drinks many gallons of water, and there are ten camels here to water, so Rebekah hurrying down the steps of the well would have had to be a nonstop blur of motion in order to carry up all this water in her single jug.

21 The man kept staring at her, (waiting) silently to find out whether YHVH had granted success
to his journey or not.

holding his peace.  i.e. wondering in silence.

22 It was, when the camels had finished drinking, that the man took a gold nose-ring, a half-coin
in weight, and two bracelets for her wrists, ten gold-pieces in weight,

ring. i.e. nose-ring.

half a shekel weight.  The shekel weighed about half an ounce.  These gifts were both a token of gratitude and a means of obtaining the maiden’s favourable opinion.

[RA] beqa. The term beka’ is derived from a verb that means “to split” and so may refer to half a shekel, the standard weight, though that is not certain.  Following the convention of earlier English translations, I have not used the mark for ‘ayin in the text. [S6K note:  The last sentence refers to Robert Alter’s own translation of the Torah, with exact title as Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.]

23 and said: Whose daughter are you? Pray tell me! And is there perhaps in your father’s house a
place for us to spend the night?
24 She said to him: I am the daughter of Betuel, son of Milca, whom she bore to Nahor.
25 And she said to him: Yes, there is straw, yes, plenty of fodder with us, (and) yes, a place to
spend the night.

[EF]  Yes, there is straw: Not until Rivka has extended the offer of hospitality (and enthusiastically, with the triple “yes”) is the servant sure that “YHWH has granted success to my journey.”  Hospitality, once again, is the determinant, over and above beauty or virginity.

[RA] bran. The Hebrew teven appears to have two different meanings in the Bible.  In the brickmaking process mentioned in Exodus, and in several other occurrences, it means “straw,” and this becomes its only meaning in later Hebrew.  But there are several texts in which teven is clearly edible (Isaiah 11;7), 65;25; 1 Kings 5:8), and despite the preponderance of English versions, both Renaissance and modern, that opt for “straw” here, edible grain makes more sense.

26 In homage the man bowed low before YHVH
27 and said: Blessed be YHVH, God of my lord Avraham, who has not relinquished his
faithfulness and his trustworthiness from my lord! While as for me, YHVH has led me on the journey
to the house of my lord’s brothers!

mercy. Better, ‘kindness.’  The phrase ‘kindness and truth’ is the Heb. idiom for ‘true kindness’.

brethren. i.e. kinsfolk.

[EF] his faithfulness and his trustworthiness;  Others combine and translate as “steadfast kindness.”  The phrase is often found in the Psalms, describing God.  brothers: Relatives.

28 The maiden ran and told her mother’s household according to these words.

her mother’s house. i.e. the part of Bethuel’s house reserved for the women.

29 Now Rivka had a brother, his name was Lavan. Lavan ran to the man, outside, to the spring:

30 and it was, as soon as he saw the nose-ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and as soon as he heard Rivka his sister’s words, saying: Thus the man spoke to me, that he came out to the 

man-there, he was still standing by the camels, by the spring-

he saw the ring.  Laban lacked the true spirit of hospitality, and was actuated solely by sordid motives.

[EF] Lavan:  Trad: English “Laban.”  He will be a key figure in the story of Rivka’s son Yaakov.

[RA] when he saw the nose ring, and the bracelets.  A brilliant moment of exposition of character.  The narrator makes no comment about what kind of person Laban may be.  His sharp eye on the precious gifts surely invites us to wonder about him—though for the moment, we might conclude he simply sees here evidence that Isaac comes of good family.  Hovering suspicions about Laban’s rapacity will be confirmed many decades later in narrated time in the course of his slippery dealings with Jacob.  In contrast to the marriage so easily arranged for Isaac, Jacob will face immense difficulties, created by Laban, in working out the terms of his betrothal.

31 and said: Come, you who are blessed by YHVH, why are you standing outside? I myself have 
cleared out the house and a place for the camels!

blessed of the LORD.  an expression denoting profound respect.  So again, XXVI,29. Rebekah had heard Eliezer use the Divine Name (see v. 27) and had probably repeated it in her narrative (v. 28).

[RA] Come in, blessed of the LORD. Laban’s gesture of hospitality stands in a direct sequence with Abraham’s and Lot’s.  The language is courtly, the hospitality “Oriental,” but we are not meant to forget his just noted observation of the nose ring and bracelets.

32 The man came into the house and unbridled the camels, they gave straw and fodder to the
camels and water for washing his feet and the feet of the men that were with him.

33 (Food) was put before him to eat, but he said: I will not eat until I have spoken my words. He said: Speak!
34 He said: I am Avraham’s servant

 

I am Abraham’s servant.  The Arab host does not ask his guest’s name, at any rate till the latter has eaten of his food, lest there should prove to be a blood-feud between them or their tribes.  After the guest has eaten with his host, he is safe (Bennett).

[EF]  He said . . . :  The servant’s speech diplomatically omits certain emotional details of Avraham’s speech, most notably his warning against Yitzhak himself’s going back “there.”

35 YHVH has blessed my lord exceedingly, so that he has become great, he has given him sheep
and oxen, silver and gold, servants and maids, camels and donkeys.

[RA] The servant’s speech in keeping with the biblical technique of near verbatim repetition, echoes in detail the language first of the narrator and then of his own dialogue with Abraham at the beginning of the chapter.  But as several modern commentators have noted, he makes numerous adjustments of the language he is quoting because of the practical and diplomatic requirements of addressing this particular audience.  Thus, the narrator simply said that “The LORD had blessed Abraham in all things.”  The servant, cognizant that this is a preamble to a proposal of marriage, fleshes out that flat statement by speaking of how his master has “grown great” in sheep and cattle and other livestock, in slaves and silver and gold.

36 Sara, my lord’s wife, bore my lord a son after she had grown old, and he has given him all
that is his.
37 Now my lord had me swear, saying: You are not to take a wife for my son from the women
of the Canaanites, in whose land I am settled!
38 No! To my father’s house you are to go, to my clan, and take a  wife for my son. 

39 I said to my lord: Perhaps the woman will not go after me!

peradventure the woman will not follow me.  From this and v. 57 below, it is evident that whatever the preliminary negotiations in the ‘arrangement’ of the marriage, the whole matter was contingent on the consent of the maiden.

40 He said to me: YHVH, in whose presence I have walked, will send his messenger with you,
he will grant success to your journey, so that you take a wife for my son from my clan and from my
father’s house.

my kindred. lit. ‘my family’.

[EF] will send his messenger: Speaking figuratively.

[RA]  The LORD, in whose presence I have walked.  To “walk before,” or live in devoted service to, a particular deity is an idea that would have been perfectly familiar to Abraham’s polytheistic kinfolk back in Mesopotamia.  What the servant is careful to delete in his repetition of the dialogue with his master are all the monotheistic references to the God of heaven and earth and the covenantal promises to give the land to the seed of Abraham.  Similarly excluded is Abraham’s allusion to having been taken by God from his father’s house and the land of his birth—a notion the family, to whom this God has deigned to speak, might construe as downright offensive.

from my clan and my father’s house. Abraham had actually said, quite simply, “from there,” but at this point the servant chooses to elaborate his master’s meaning in terms that emphasize to the kinfolk Abraham’s admirable sense of family loyalty.

41 Only then will you be clear from my oath-curse: When you come to my clan, if they do not
give her to you, you will be clear from my oath-curse.

[EF] oath-curse: Changed from Avraham’s simple “sworn-oath,” perhaps because it is reported from the servant’s point of view.

42 Now I came to the well today and said: YHVH, God of my lord Avraham, pray, if you wish
to grant success to the journey on which I am going,
43 here: I have stationed myself by the water spring; may it be that the girl who comes out to
draw, to whom I say: Pray give me a little water from your pitcher to drink,

maiden. A different Hebrew word from that rendered ‘damsel’ in v. 14.  It denotes a girl of marriageable age, and is the word which occurs in Isaiah VII,14.

44 and she says to me: You drink, and I will also draw for your camels— let her be the woman
whom YHVH has decided on for the son of my lord.
45 (And) I, even before I had finished speaking in my heart, here, Rivka came out, her pitcher on
her shoulder, she went down to the spring and drew. I said to her: Pray give me to drink!
46 In haste she let down her pitcher from herself and said: Drink, and I will also give your
camels to drink. I drank, and she also gave the camels to drink.
47 Then I asked her, I said: Whose daughter are you? She said: The daughter of Betuel, son of
Nahor, whom Milca bore to him. I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her wrists,

In point of fact, he had given her the presents before asking who she was; see v. 22.

[RA]  And I asked her . . . And I put the ring in her nose.  The one significant divergence in the servant’s report of the encounter at the well is that he claims to have asked Rebekah about her lineage before placing the golden ornaments on her, whereas he actually did this as soon as she had drawn water for all the camels, and only afterward did he inquire about her family.  This alteration of the order of actions is again dictated by considerations of audience.  The servant, having seen the stipulation of his prayer completely fulfilled by the beautiful girl at the well, is entirely certain that she is the wife God has intended for Isaac.  But tot he family, he does not want to seem to have done anything so presumptuous as bestowing gifts—implicitly betrothal gifts—on a young woman without first ascertaining her pedigree.  This is a small but strategic indication of the precision with which social institutions and values are adumbrated in the dialogue.

48 and in homage I bowed low before YHVH, and blessed YHVH, God of my lord Avraham,
who led me on the true journey to take the daughter of my lord’s brother for his son. 

brother’s daughter. i.e. kinsman’s daughter. ‘Brother’ is used here, as in XIV,14; XXIX,12, to denote ‘nephew’.

49 So now, if you wish to deal faithfully and truly with my lord, tell me, and if not, tell me, that I 
may (know to) turn right or left.

that I may turn. i.e. that he may consider what course he is next to pursue.

[RA] turn elsewhere.  The Hebrew says literally, “turn to the right or the left,” a biblical idiom for seeking alternatives to the course on which one is set.

50 Lavan and Betuel answered, they said: The matter has come from YHVH; we cannot speak
anything to you evil or good.

Laban and Bethuel answered.  It is to be noted that Laban is mentioned first.  He disrespectfully answered before his father.

bad or good.  An idiomatic expression meaning ‘anything at all’; III,22.  They cannot act against the manifest decree of God.

[EF]  YHWH:  The family apparently worships the God of Avraham, in addition to others (see 31:19,30).

[RA] and Bethuel.  The convincing conclusion of many textual critics is that the appearance of Bethuel is a later scribal or redactorial insertion.  The surrounding narrative clearly suggests that Bethuel is deceased when these events occur.  Otherwise, it is hard to explain why the home to which Rebekah goes running to is referred to as “her mother’s household.”  It is her brother who is the male who speaks exclusively on behalf of the family; only her mother and brother are mentioned, never her father, elsewhere in the report of the betrothal transaction, and even in this verse, “answered” is in the singular, with an odd switch to the plural occurring only for “said.”

neither good nor evil.  The sense of this idiom is “nothing whatsoever.”

51 Here is Rivka before you, take her and go, that she may be a wife for the son of your lord, as
YHVH has spoken.

take her, and go. As is usual in the Orient, the preliminary negotiations in regard to the marriage take place without consultation with the maiden; but see v. 39,57.

52 It was when Avraham’s servant heard their words, that he bowed to the ground before
YHVH.
53 And the servant brought out objects of silver and objects of gold and garments, and gave
them to Rivka, and he gave presents to her brother and to her mother.

Eliezer hands her mother and brother the mohar, or compensation for her loss to the family.

[EF] objects of silver and . . . gold and garments:  A stock biblical phrase (see, similarly, Ex. 3;22) for wealth or presents.

54 They ate and drank, he and the men that were with him, and spent the night. When they arose
at daybreak, he said: Send me off to my lord

Only after he has discharged his duty to his master does Eliezer think of himself and partake of the food offered to him.

55 But her brother and her mother said: Let the maiden stay with us a few days, perhaps ten-after
that she may go.

her brother and her mother.  Again Laban interposes before his parent; see v. 50.  We might have expected mention of the father instead of the mother.  He was in all probability quite satisfied to let Rebekah go immediately.

a few days, at the least ten. Or, ‘a full year or ten months.’  This is the rendering of Onkelos and other ancient Jewish versions and is quite justified by Heb. idiom.  Rebekah’s mother and relatives were both suddenly to part from her, as they might never see her again.

[EF] a few days, perhaps ten: Some interpret as “a year or ten months.”

[RA] ten days or so.  The time indication in the Hebrew is not entirely clear, as the phrase—literally “days or ten”—has no parallels.  The present translation reflects a modern consensus, but some medieval commentators note, correctly, that “days” (precisely in this plural form) sometimes means “a year,” in which case the ten would refer to ten months.  the request for such an extended prenuptial period at home might be more plausible than a mere week and a half.

56 He said to them: Do not delay me, for YHVH has granted success to my journey; send me
off, that I may go back to my lord.
57 They said: Let us call the maiden and ask (for an answer from) her own mouth.

inquire at her mouth. i.e. consult her, as to the time of her going.  The Rabbis take it to mean, as to whether she wishes to follow Eliezer, and deduce from this text the rule that a woman cannot legally be given away in marriage without her consent.

58 They called Rivka and said to her: Will you go with this man? She said: I will go.
59 They sent off Rivka their sister with her nurse, and Avraham’s servant with his men,

their sister.  Laban had throughout been most prominent in the negotiations.

her nurse.  Her name was Deborah; see XXXV, 8.

[EF] with her nurse: Yitzhak’s life as the father of his people begins with the marriage arranged in this chapter; curiously, when he dies in Chap. 35, the nurse dies as well, perhaps to hint that Rivka dies too.

[RA]  her nurse.  As in other societies, for a young woman to retain her old wet-nurse as permanent companion is a sign of social status. The nurse’s name will be given when she is accorded an obituary notice in chapter 35.

60 and they gave Rivka farewell-blessing and said to her: Our sister, may you become thousandfold myriads! May your seed inherit the gate of those who hate him!

be thou the mother of. The Heb. is simply ‘become’, as in XVII,16.

let thy seed possess.  See on XXII,17.

[EF] May your seed inherit the gate:  See Avraham’s blessing in 22:17.  Again, the matriarch shares in the blessing.

[RA]  Our sister.  Rebekah’s family sends her off to her destiny in the west with a poem that incorporates the twofold blessing of being progenitrix to a nation multifarious in number and mighty in arms.  The poem itself may in fact be authentically archaic: the prosodic form is irregular—the two “lines,” approximately parallel in meaning, are too long to scan conventionally and each invites division into two very short versets–and the diction is elevated and ceremonial.  “Myriads teeming” is literally “thousands of myriads,” and the term for enemy at the end of the poem—literally, “haters”—is one that is generally reserved for poetry, hence the faintly archaic “foes” of this translation.  The virtually identical phrase in the prose blessing bestowed on Abraham in 22:17, uses the ordinary word for “enemy.”

61 Rivka and her maids arose, they mounted the camels and went after the man. The servant
took Rivka and went away.

and followed the man.  In the East it is still the custom for the woman to walk or ride in the rear.

62  Now Yitzhak had come from where you come to the Well-of-the-Living-One Who-sees-me—for he had settled in the Negev.

Beer-lahai-roi. The well associated with the story of Hagar.

the South. i.e. the Negeb; see XII,9.

[EF]  Well of the Living-One. Already a site of God’s activity (16:14).

63 And Yitzhak went out to stroll in the field around the turning of sunset. He lifted up his eyes
and saw: here, camels coming!

to meditate.  The Targums and the Rabbis understood the word to mean ‘pray’, and declared that Isaac instituted the Afternoon Service as Abraham had instituted the Morning Service (derived from XIX,27), and Jacob later on instituted the Evening Service (deduced from XXVIII,11).

[EF] stroll:  Hebrew obscure; some use “ponder.”

[RA] to stroll. The translation reproduces one current guess, but the verb occurs only here, and no one is sure what it really means.

and he raised his eyes and saw, and, look, camels were coming.  The formulaic chain, he raised his eyes and saw, followed by the “presentative” look (rather like voici in French), occurs frequently in these stories as a means of indicating a shift from the narrator’s overview to the character’s visual perspective.  The visual discrimination here is a nice one:  in the distance, Isaac is able to make out only a line of camels approaching; then we switch to Rebekah’s point of view, with presumably a few minutes of story time elapsed, and she is able to detect the figure of a man moving across the open country.

64 Rivka lifted up her eyes and saw Yitzhak;

alighted from. A mark of respect; Joshua XV,18; I Sam. XXV,23. In the East men and women dismount on the approach of a person of importance.

65 she got down from the camel and said to the servant: Who is the man over there that is
walking in the field to meet us? The servant said: That is my lord. She took a veil and covered herself.

took her veil. Rebekah again acted in accordance with Eastern etiquette.  It was not necessary for her to have her face veiled in the presence of Eliezer, since he was only a servant.

[RA] covered her face.  This is an indication of social practice, not of individual psychology: unmarried women did not wear a veil, but there is evidence that it was customary to keep the bride veiled in the presence of her bridegroom until the wedding.

66 Now the servant recounted to Yitzhak all the things that he had done.
67 Yitzhak brought her into the tent of Sara his mother, he took Rivka and she became his wife,
and he loved her. Thus was Yitzhak comforted after his mother.

 

into his mother Sarah’s tent.  He installed her as mistress of the household.

The order of the words, He took Rebekah, she became his wife, and he loved her, calls for comment.  In modern life we would place ‘he loved her’ first and write: ‘He loved Rebekah, he took her, and she became his wife.’  But, however important it is that love shall precede marriage, it is far more important that it shall continue after marriage.  the modern attitude lays all the stress on the romance before marriage; the olden Jewish view emphasizes the life-long devotion and affection after marriage (S.R. Hirsch).

comforted.  Rebekah filled the gap caused in Isaac’s life be the death of his mother.  The Rabbis explain that on the death of Sarah the blessings which had attended the household of the Patriarch, and the pious customs which distinguished it, came to an end; but when Rebekah was brought to the tent, they were restored.  ‘The Sabbath lamp once more illumined the home of the Patriarch,’ and Rebekah continued as well all the other religious rites which Sarah had initiated.

[EF] Sara:  As the story opened with Yitzhak’s father in his last active moments, it closes with the memory of his mother:  Yitzhak is on his own.

[RA] in the tent of Sarah his mother.  The proposal of some textual critics to delete “Sarah his mother” as a scribal error should be resisted.  Rebekah fills the emotional gap left by Sarah’s death, as the end of the verse indicates, and with the first matriarch deceased, Rebekah also takes up the role of matriarch in the family.  It is thus exactly right that Isaac should bring her into his mother’s tent.  Interestingly, no mention whatever is made of Abraham at the end of the story.  Many have construed his charging of the servant at the beginning of the story as a deathbed action:  it would not be unreasonable to surmise that he is already deceased when the servant returns (the genealogical notation concerning Abraham in the next chapter would be out of chronological order—a kind of pluperfect that ends by placing Isaac around Beer-Lahai-Roi, where in fact we find him upon Rebekah’s arrival).  The conclusion of the betrothal tale in this way creates a curious symmetry between the household of the bride and the household of the groom.  She, evidently, is fatherless, living in “her mother’s household.”  It is quite likely that he, too, is fatherless; and though he was bereaved of his mother still earlier, it is to “his mother’s tent” that he brings his bride.