Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67 Commentary

Commentator’s Note: The genius of the latter half of Genesis is the way it tells stories of fascinating characters — interesting to us not primarily because they are foreign or strange but precisely because we see our own families, stories, dramas, traumas and redemptions on display. 

 Over the next two weeks, I’ve written a narrative, created under the stern tutelage of commentaries and scholars. Though I have imagined into the silences a bit, the whole thing should read true to the text. For example, it *is* the case that Isaac is nearly a non-character in this great narrative of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is the case that Rebekah chooses for herself when to leave and marry Isaac sight-unseen. It is the case that Jacob is a grasping wrestler from day one and Esau is a bit of a hairy oaf. It is the case that God upturns the societal priority of the first born and chooses Jacob instead — though it’s hard to figure the sense in that move. It is the case, as one commentator put it: “There are no meetings with the Holy God apart from the realities of troubled human life.”

 The narrator of this family drama doesn’t take off the rough edges. And what we see is that covenant breeds conflict. That chosenness is no simple thing. And that it’s only ever in brokenness that God bestows blessing. 

Commentary:

ISAAC

Here’s something you should know: It has never been the same between my father and me. I have never been the same. The sound of a branch breaking underfoot puts me right back on that altar. The feel of rope in my hands alerts my senses to the burn of ropes pinning my arms to my body. I can see the glint off the knife raised in my father’s fist. See the beads of sweat rolling off his temples, lips clenched between his teeth and the trembling in his knees and shoulders.

Look, I know the substitute sacrifice arrived and I’m grateful. But it didn’t arrive soon enough. It didn’t arrive before panic and terror had their way with me. I know that God commanded my father to lay down his knife and I’m grateful. But God didn’t command it soon enough. Not before something between me and my father was sliced open, something rent that’s never been repaired.

ABRAHAM

My son – the son of the covenant – never looked at me the same after that.  He retreated to his mother’s tent. When she died, he was inconsolable. And, I’ll admit, when she died, I was wary to be left alone with him. The two of us, left to face each other, to face our demons. No one told me that the outworking of covenant would be so much conflict — or that my son would be so ill-equipped to shoulder the work.

It is time for my boy — my wounded boy — to grow up. I can’t understand a man who sidelines himself in his own game, who won’t try big and even fail big for the sake of the covenant. But, truth is, he’s written himself out of the narrative, only a minor character in his own story.

So I took matters into my own hands. I made the plan. I solicited an oath of loyalty from my servant. I sent him to my people. I made a way for that woman — the daughter of my kinsman — to come to us.

Bold, capable, faithful and — to hear my servant tell it — willing (a miracle!) to leave her family, to come to us and to marry my son, sight unseen. Rebekah had the strength I’d always hoped for in my own child.

REBEKAH

Life is small when you live at home, the maiden daughter in a family surrounded by foreigners. Or, rather, I suppose we were the foreigners surrounded by people of another god. Life gets even smaller when your fathers and uncles and brothers and everyone else thinks they can make your decisions for you. Endless days, book-ended by trips to the well, hardly constitute an adventure.

When I arrived that evening, I knew I’d never seen him at the well before. He was bold to ask a strange woman for a drink. But the water was there and it was free so, why not? I watered his camels too while I was at it. I guess he thought that was strange from the look on his face. He inquired about my family and I offered him lodging for the night.

All of a sudden he lavished me with jewelry and lavished his God with praise. I soon came to understand he was on an errand to find a suitable wife for his master’s son, my own relative by way of my father’s mother’s brother – never mind, it’s complicated. If I had any qualms about a man without the gumption to claim his own wife, it didn’t occur to me then. All I saw was escape and the chance to break the monotony of days punctuated by the excitement of yet another trip to the well. All that was left was for them to negotiate terms. Catching me off guard, they finally asked what *I* wanted and I said I was ready to go. Because, why not? Besides, I was curious.

ISAAC

She came to me and we married in my mother’s tent.  The weight of grief lifted and I loved her. By this time, my father had sent my half-siblings away so that — when the time came — I assumed his land and his leadership, though I know that the mantle never fit my shoulders in the same way.

When that time came, my older brother, Ishmael — not the heir, mind you — returned and we buried our father together. He had ever so many children while my beloved Rebekah had none.