women – Page 2 – Consider the Lilies

Rebekah is the first of a number of women in the bible whose story involves leaving their home in order to marry a suitor they’ve not yet met. It is a story that involves camels, nose rings, a family feud and troublesome twins. I’ll try and tell it briefly.

Rebekah, beautiful, wealthy and privileged, lived with her family in the City of Nahor. The daughter of Bethuel of Arameus (Abraham’s nephew), granddaughter of Milcah and Nahor, her brother was Laban. We are told she had a nurse (Deborah) and several lady’s maids.

Abraham was an elderly patriarch and wanted to find a wife for his son Isaac from his own home country, rather than from Canaan where they now lived. He sent his estate manager, (often known as Eliezer) to Nahor (now Syria) on a quest to find someone suitable, with numerous camels carrying bags of jewels as a dowry. Eliezer promises to bring back a wife for Isaac.

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Rebecca at the Well, c. 1896-1902 (image from Wikipedia Commons)

He spots Rebekah by a well at the city gates and she offers to fetch water for him and his camels. He takes this as a sign that she’s the one and gives her a nose ring and two gold arm bracelets. She invites him back to her father’s house.

After some negotiation over plentiful hospitality and more gifts (jewels, gold and cloth), the family concluded that the Lord indeed intended for Rebekah to marry Isaac. Rebekah was asked if she was willing to go (which was nice of them!), and she gave her consent with a simple:

I will go.
Genesis 24. 58

The very next day she leaves her home, her family and all that she knows to marry a man she’s never met before.

She marries Isaac and eventually, after a difficult pregnancy (I can relate to that!) she gives birth to twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Her boys were very different to one other, Esau being a rugged hunter, Jacob being a quieter home-based type.

Families are rarely simple and straightforward and often jealousies, feuds and rivalries are formed early on. This family was no exception and perhaps it began here:

Isaac loved Esau… But Rebekah loved Jacob
Genesis 25.28

The family rift grew when she disapproved of Esau’s choice of wives (he married two Hittite women, Judith and Basemouth). She plotted to make sure that Jacob would gain his father’s blessing over and above his slightly older twin.

This plot led to Jacob tricking Isaac, a fraternal feud which lasted many years, and Jacob having to flee into exile to Rebekah’s brother Laban. The blessing however, even though brought about by rather dubious moral means, is given to Jacob and he becomes the ‘father of many nations’.

We don’t know if Rebekah lived to see her beloved son Jacob again, or if she ever saw his eventual reconciliation with his brother. The last we hear of her is that she is buried alongside Isaac, Abraham and Sarah in the cave near the Oaks of Mamre.

Prayer

Rebekah was a courageous and bold woman of God, not afraid to take risks, to speak her mind, to use the power she had to secure what she wanted for those she loved.

Her actions caused conflict within her family though and her sons’ rivalry was perhaps partly due to their parents’ favouritism. Research in the UK came out this week which reveals that 30% of people thought their parents had a favourite child (but only 10% of parents admitted it), and believed this had had a lasting impact on family relations. (1)

Parenting isn’t easy, and so let’s pray for all those who navigate this tricky path, and who get it wrong at times. And for ourselves that we wouldn’t let old wounds fester.

A prayer of Evelyn Underhill

Lord, grant us to love You with all our heart, mind and soul and our neighbour for Your sake: that the grace of charity and kindly love may dwell in us, and all envy, harshness and ill will may die in us. Fill our hearts with patience, kindness and compassion; that, constantly rejoicing in the happiness and good success of others, and putting away the spirit of criticism and envious thoughts, we may follow You, who are Yourself the true and perfect love. Amen

(from Evelyn Underhill’s Prayer Book)

(1) research conducted by a YouGov Poll of 6,242 British adults for The Times, reported on Saturday 29th February 2020

Thank you for signing up to follow my Lent blog! Each day of Lent I’m going to post about a different woman from the Old Testament and on Saturdays we have some wonderful guest posts written by some fabulous women.

Firstly you might want to make sure the emails don’t go into your spam/junk folder by marking this email address as a ‘not junk’.

They should take about 5 mins to read, and each will end with a short prayer. I’ll send them at 6.30am each day. You might find it helpful to find a regular time of day that suits you to read them, perhaps in the mornings and some people like to have a particular place, such as a favourite chair.

We’ll begin tomorrow but I thought I’d start with a little introduction.

I began this blog last summer as a challenge for myself to a) form a writing habit, b) find out for myself more about the women of the bible, and c) learn how to use WordPress (which took a while!).

A bit about me. I’m ordained as a C of E Priest and currently work as College Chaplain and Welfare Coordinator at Christ Church, an Oxford College. I came to faith in my early 20’s having grown up in rural Bucks and my childhood was more ‘pony club’ than ‘church youth club’. I’ve often felt that my knowledge of the Old Testament was a bit scrappy, and so when I began this blog most of the women were a mystery to me.

There is an assumption that women are largely ignored in the biblical narrative, and that when they are written about they are marginal characters to the main story, or are only allowed to be either mother, whore or seductress. This is certainly the case for some of the women we’ll look at over Lent, and there are some tragic stories that we won’t gloss over and ignore. But there are also many, many women who are central to the narrative, complex in character, and who use the power they have for good, and sometimes for evil.

When I began the blog I intended to use New Testament women as well, but I found there were so many fantastic women in the Hebrew scriptures and so I decided to stay there, with two exceptions from the Apocrypha.

I hope you enjoy reading about these wonderful women as much as I have enjoyed writing these blogs. Also, if you enjoy them, please do pass the link on to your friends!

Every blessing,

Clare

A prayer for our journey

Let us make our way together, Lord; wherever you go I must go: and through whatever you pass, there too I will pass.
Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582

Tag: women

Rebekah: faith and favouritism

Prayer

Welcome