We’re in a long study of the book of Genesis and this passage brings us to the end of the second part of our study which has been centered on Abraham and the blessing of living by faith. Faith is often thought of as something that is looking forward in hope and anticipation of what is yet to come. But it can also be something that looks backward, finding hope and anticipation in light of what has already happened. Forgive the sports analogy here, but my faith in my favorite baseball team at the beginning of a new season is different now that I have seen them win the championship than it was a couple of years ago when they had never won before.

The Christian faith is something like that. It is not wishful thinking or an optimistic spirit or an inevitable sense of progress. It is a confidence that comes from looking back at the faithfulness of God who is bringing us closer to the heavenly home that he has promised to us. Although by “heavenly,” I don’t mean, and neither does the Bible, a home somewhere other than earth.

Abraham exemplified this kind of faith in the faithfulness of God, all the way to the end of his life. In this text, we see his dying wish, his specific directions, and his enduring legacy.

Abraham’s Dying Wish

First, Abraham’s dying wish. What Abraham says in verses 2-8 are his final recorded words, and in any narrative about a person’s life, this is often important to what the biographer wants us to learn about this person.

Last Will and Testament

Abraham commissions his senior household servant to go back to the land of his ancestors to find a wife for his son, Isaac. This long chapter mostly relates how that went for the servant, how his mission unfolded. But when the servant returns, Abraham is not mentioned, and many commentators believe that Abraham died while the events of chapter 24 were unfolding.

Now, a literal reading of Abraham’s lifespan would tell us that Abraham lived 35 years after the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah (see Gen 25:20), 15 years after the birth of his twin grandsons Esau and Jacob (see Gen 25:24). While that may certainly be true, it would still put Abraham’s death notice, which comes in the next chapter in verse 7, out of place. So the precise chronology is difficult in any case, and that’s true of all the lifespans noted in Genesis. While scholars continue to debate how to understand the chronological data in Genesis (there are good reasons for suspecting that the ages are symbolic rather than literal), what is clear is that the narrator wants us to read these first verses in chapter 25 as Abraham’s last will and testament.[1]

That would mean that the accounts given in chapter 25 precede the end of the story in chapter 24. Notice the lack of any time reference at the beginning of chapter 25. It doesn’t say something like “after these things,” so there is no reason to require strict chronology with these two chapters. We are told in chapter 25 that Abraham “took another wife, whose name was Keturah,” and that she gave birth to six more sons of Abraham. But we are not told when that all happened, and it is more likely that it happened sometime before Sarah’s death, maybe even before Isaac was born.

The Main Plot

The narrator has undoubtedly put this information in here at the end of Abraham’s life in order to keep attention on the main plotline, that of God’s promise and its fulfillment through Isaac, while at the same the showing that Abraham did in fact became the father of a multitude of nations.[2] The family tree given in verses 2-4 envisions not just individuals but entire nations or people groups.

Verses 5-6 indicate both Abraham’s love for his eight children (6 from Keturah, 1 each from Hagar and Sarah) as well as his faith in God’s promise. He gave gifts to the seven sons of his two concubines—and given his wealth, we would assume these are significant gifts—but “Abraham gave all he had to Isaac” and sent the other seven sons away from Isaac while he was still alive. If we’re going to interpret and apply such verses correctly, it is critical that we keep the central plot front and center, as the narrator himself appears to be doing. This is not a story that promises Christians today health and wealth, and it is not meant to tell us about how to set up your trust either. Going back to chapter 24, it is also not about how to find a wife. What drives Abraham’s final recorded words is his central concern, not just that Isaac will marry, but that the promise of God will continue to be realized in the next generation.

Seek First the Kingdom

Is this our central concern? We often hear people ask the probing question, “What kind of a world will we leave to our children?” and this then is supposed to frame our decisions about our estate plan and our politics. But Christians who share Abraham’s dying wish ought to be more concerned with the gospel, the gospel of the kingdom.

Our central concern is not so much about the afterlife—going to heaven when we die. Abraham says nothing about this, and neither does anyone else in the Old Testament. His central concern is not, “Where will I go when I die?” but “What will happen to my children and their role in the advance of the gospel promise that all the nations of the earth will be blessed?”

When Jesus tells us to “Seek first the kingdom of God” (Matt 6:33), he’s urging us to share with Abraham this primary concern, that our children will be equipped and prepared to advance God’s kingdom purposes on earth.

Abraham’s Specific Directions

Now, for Abraham that meant one very specific thing. His son, the chosen son through whom the kingdom of God would one day come, would need a wife. But not just any wife would do. Second, we notice Abraham’s specific directions, directions about the kind of woman Isaac needed to marry. Again, this chapter is not teaching us how to find a spouse, although of course we might recognize some valuable principles as we read it.

Finding a Worthy Woman

Abraham makes his servant swear that he “will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites . . . but will go to my country and to my kindred” and find a wife for his son there (v. 7).

Why is Abraham so picky? When the servant complains in verse 5 that he may not be able to convince a woman from Abraham’s relatives to come back to the Promised Land, Abraham says that if that were to happen, the servant would be free from his oath. Under no conditions is Isaac to return to live in Abraham’s homeland. That is even more important than finding a wife for Isaac among Abraham’s relatives.

So, the reason Abraham sends the servant back to Abraham’s extended family to find a wife for Isaac is not because he believes that the women from that place are more moral than the Canaanite women, though that may or may not be true. Rather, this is all set up by Abraham as a test, a test of the kind of woman to whom his son will be married and through whom the realization of the divine promise will come. The woman who will replace Sarah in the faith family has to join in on the promise by her own act of faith, evident in her moving to the Promised Land, even as Abraham had done many years earlier.

The servant sets out on the mission. Arriving at his destination, weary from the travel, he devises a plan and asks God to bless it. “Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master” (Gen 24:14). The servant has here devised his own “shrewd character test.”[3] It was customary for women to draw water for the flocks, but this weary traveler has come with ten—ten!—camels. It’s a nearly impossible feat, and one which would require “a nonstop blur of motion” to pull it off.[4]

But along comes Rebekah in verse 15, whom we have already been told in chapter 22 is from the family of Abraham. Plus, she is young, attractive, and available (v. 16). A home run!

The servant asks for some refreshment and gets it, and she then offers to get water for the camels—exactly as the servant had planned. “The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the LORD had prospered his journey or not” (v. 21).  Everything is going just right, but will Rebekah follow through? That is the test. She cannot just offer to water the camels, she has to persevere and complete the task. He is testing not just her willingness but also her perseverance.[5] Could this be the one?

Persuading the Family

The servant gives her a present and inquires if he can lodge with her family. He’s got to take this to the next step. He needs the blessing of the family and the consent of the bride.

Here we are introduced to Laban. He will become a central character in the next major part of Genesis, but the narrator is telling a great story and giving us clues—“as soon as he saw the ring and the bracelets”( v 30). If this were a movie, the camera would pause long enough on Laban’s eyes and the gold he sees to indicate that this man could be a problem down the road. Hebrew scholar Robert Alter says this is “a brilliant moment of exposition of character.”[6] So Laban runs out to meet this man who seems to have access to great wealth. Laban urges him to stay with them. Who wouldn’t want the rich and famous to pay them a visit for the night?

Now at the home of Rebekah’s family, the servant of Abraham wants to share his message. Starting in verse 34, that’s what he does. All the way to verse 48, he tells us a firsthand account of what the narrator had just told us in the first 27 verses. We find this repetition unnecessary, and, generally speaking, so do Hebrew narrators. They are very keen on leaving out details that do not contribute to the point they want to make, so all of this repetition must serve some purpose.

Gordon Wenham suggests that the servant’s re-telling of the story is a persuasive speech. The servant is persuaded by the events that had transpired that God had led him to Rebekah, but now he needs the family to come to the same conclusion, and to the decision that it is right for Rebekah to be married to Isaac. He calls for a decision in verse 49, and verses 50-51 show that he has indeed been persuasive. Wenham says that “in convincing Laban of the rightness of the marriage, the narrator at the same time confirms in our minds that God is indeed in control, answers prayer, and fulfills his promises.”[7]

After all, we are not always so convinced now, are we?

Let’s be honest. We do not so easily concern ourselves with God’s great promise to Abraham and to its fulfillment; we are so much more interested with asking God, “What have you done for me lately?” We look for evidence of God’s sovereignty in the things that concern us but do not strive to see God’s sovereignty over that which concerns him. I do not mean to say that God is unconcerned with the small details of our lives. Of course he is. If he sees when a sparrow falls, of course he sees us in our own struggles.

But how easy it is for us to conclude that God does not answer our prayers when we do not get all the things we tell him we want. We need to consider that God’s “no” to our requests may in fact be his “yes” to something far more significant if only we could see things from his perspective.

This story is not told to brace us for all our prayers that will go unanswered but to encourage us to see that all of them are—provided we keep the covenant promise before us as our guiding star.

The Blessing of Rebekah

The final scene at the house of Rebekah is in verses 52-61. The jewelry he gives to Rebekah, and the other gifts to her family, indicate an engagement or betrothal has been established, complete with a celebratory feast that evening.

The next day, the servant insists on leaving, so the family asks Rebekah for her consent to the arranged marriage. “I will go,” she says in verse 58, which is not just her “yes” to the marriage but, in the narrator’s messaging, her “yes” to the entire gospel plan.

The mission is accomplished and the promise of God to bless Abraham lives on. Even her name evokes the promise, formed by the same three letters as the Hebrew word for blessing.

The whole story is affirmation that God’s kingdom promise is meant to be advanced through people who will live by the same kind of character we see in the woman who replaces Sarah. Rebekah is also a woman of faith, one who we are confident will remain steadfast in her faith even as we suspect she will face challenges of her own.

All that is left is the marriage of Rebekah to Isaac, and that scene is told to us in verses 62-67. The arranged marriage is consummated in verse 67, and “Isaac loved her” sincerely. Reminds me of what a friend of mine from Pakistan once told me. He said, “Ben, in America you marry the woman you love. In Pakistan, we love the woman we marry.”

Abraham’s Enduring Legacy

What does the narrator want us to see here as he brings the biography of Abraham to a close? We are assured now that the divine promise lives on to the next generation, and so we are led to see in this story Abraham’s enduring legacy of faith.

Steadfast Love and Faithfulness

Abraham shows us the blessing of living by faith, faith in God and what he has promised for the world he made. What is faith in God, then? And what is the promise he made?

We see what faith in God is when we notice what is said at the climax of the story in verses 48-49. First, we see that faith in God is trusting that God is a good shepherd who leads his people “by the right way.” It certainly doesn’t always seem that way; I wish that “the right way” would be the way that I prefer to go. At least I wish “the right way” would be the way that would make sense to me. But it often doesn’t.

What the “right way” means is the faithful way, as the ESV notes in verse 48. The Hebrew word faithful appears six times in Genesis, but three of them are in this chapter (vv. 27, 48, 49). The burden of this story, coming at the end of Abraham’s life, is to demonstrate that God is faithful. Faithful to what? Faithful to his promise, the promise he made to Abraham.

That promise is what God is committed to, and that is what is highlighted in another critical word in these two verses: “steadfast love” (that’s one word in Hebrew). This very important biblical word has shown up three times in Genesis before this chapter; it shows up four times in this chapter. It refers to God’s loyalty to what he has promised in his covenant.

Christians need to learn this very important lesson. God is faithful to what he has promised. It is no slight on God’s character that he doesn’t live up to what we think he has promised or what we might wish he has promised.

The Covenant Prayer

Now if we’ve learned anything about the Abrahamic covenant it is that God’s blessing of salvation doesn’t just come to Abraham but is meant to run through Abraham. Consequently, Abraham’s obedient cooperation with God is part of the equation. God wants a human family to be his partners, his friends, the image of God in the world that God has created. God will save his world, but he seems determined to bring his salvation to the world through human agency. We are meant to be participants in his story of salvation. We have work to do. We are not robotic gears in some mechanistic scheme. We, like Abraham, have a responsibility in the whole picture.

Since God is faithful to his covenant, since he shows steadfast love and faithfulness, the question is whether we will do likewise. That’s what the servants asks Rebekah’s family in verse 49 and its challenge applies to the modern reader as well. God leads in the right direction; will we go along or will we resist his way?

It's not that the promise of God depends on us, as if we are on a teeter-totter with God. It’s more like we are water skiing: God’s grace—his steadfast love and faithfulness is the only power that pulls us along the path, but our cooperation determines how easily (or not) the job gets done.[8] As the servant says to Rebekah’s family in verse 49, if they don’t want to go along with God’s grace, he can just as well go some other direction.

In this story, Rebekah’s family conclude that “the thing has come from the Lord” (v. 50), and their parting words to Rebekah in verse 60 are not just general well-wishes. It is a virtual repeat of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 22:17, indicating that at this point the family is working in harmony with God’s plan.[9] When we recognize God’s plan and live in harmony with it, this is a prayer we can be certain will be answered with a definitive “yes!” from God.

Looking for a Homeland

And with that, we have come to the end of the Abrahamic story. The author of Hebrews, reflecting on his life and the lives of other Old Testament saints, says that he “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar” (Heb 11:13). Abraham did not live to see the day when the promise would come to its climactic moment. He died with a longing, a desire for “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb 11:16). Clearly, the homeland he sought was not heaven, otherwise his death would indicate his arrival at the destination he longed for.[10]

But what Abraham died waiting for, you and I are privileged to live in. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead means that the heavenly homeland, where death reigns no more, has broken out on earth.

We who are united to the resurrected Jesus by faith in him as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant—we are alive to see the day that Abraham could only “greet from afar.” Just think of it. We have seen God’s faithfulness and his steadfast love go as far as it is possible to go. What else could we trust more than this? What else might we commit ourselves to more than this: to “live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20)?

_____

[1] Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 2, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, and Glenn W. Baker (Dallas: Word Books, 1994), 151.

[2] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 158.

[3] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 143.

[4] Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), 116.

[5] Tremper Longman III, Genesis, The Story of God Bible Commentary, ed. Scot McKnight and Trember Longman III (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 316.

[6] Alter, Genesis, 117.

[7] Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 146.

[8] This is an illustration I heard on “Gratitude – How We Respond to Such Deliverance,” White Horse Inn podcast, episode 1754, November 17, 2024, www.whitehorseinn.org/resource-library/shows/gratitude-how-we-respond-to-such-deliverance.

[9] Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27–50:26, The New American Commentary, vol 1B, ed. E. Ray Clendenen (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005), 345.

[10] William L. Lane, Hebrews 9–13, vol. 47B, Word Biblical Commentary, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Books, 1991), 358.