That it oracle foreshadows the new tensions that may characterize the connection anywhere between her sons, Jacob and you will Esau, as the data throughout the Genesis narrative so that as eponymous ancestors away from Israel and Edom
The next (immediately after Sarah) of the matriarchs on the ancestor stories out-of Genesis, Rebekah is one of the most prominent lady-with respect to her effective part along with her control over occurrences-in the Hebrew Bible. New beautifully developed narratives for the Genesis 24–twenty seven determine just how she gets Isaac’s wife, provides beginning to help you twin sons shortly after initially barrenness, last but most certainly not least obtains the primary invest brand new descent for her younger son, Jacob, that is destined to be predecessor of all the Israel. Even if problematic to a few, their deception from inside the manipulating Isaac to own Jacob’s benefit causes the lady depiction once the an admirable and cocky 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 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 indian dating 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,” ).
Just after twenty years out-of relationships, whenever Rebekah fails to become pregnant, Isaac prays so you can Jesus, whom provides the brand new prayer one to she get conceive. Several other kind of-world, that of this new barren girlfriend, ergo comes into the fresh Rebekah story, calling focus on the newest special role of your students fundamentally produced in order to this lady. A great divine oracle is managed in order to her whenever she actually is expecting; Goodness proclaims you to “a couple of places” come into the lady womb and certainly will take on both ().
Here she actually is “loved” () because of the the woman partner, the initial lady about Hebrew Bible having who relationship love are proclaimed
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.