Rebekah: The Woman Who Said, "I Will Go"

A woman of the patriarchs

Rebekah belongs to the age of the patriarchs, an era placed at around 1996 BC to 1635 BC on Ussher's chronology (1650). Her name is carried across thirty verses of Scripture, twenty-nine of them in Genesis and one in Romans. She first appears in a genealogy (Genesis 22:23), and she appears last in the New Testament (Romans 9:10). Between those two points lies one of the longest sustained scenes given to any woman in Genesis, along with a string of brief mentions where she is named inside somebody else's story.

The daughter of Bethuel

Her introduction is a single line at the end of a family list: "Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. These eight Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother" (Genesis 22:23). That is all the reader is given before she walks into the story. Her father is Bethuel, and she has a brother, Laban (Genesis 24:29). The later summary calls her "the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian" (Genesis 25:20).

At the spring, and the answer she gave

Rebekah enters the account of Abraham's servant at the spring (Genesis 24:15; Genesis 24:45). Her brother is the first to move: "Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban. Laban ran out to the man, to the spring. When he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, 'This is what the man said to me,' he came to the man. Behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring" (Genesis 24:29-30). The household answers the servant (Genesis 24:51), and gifts are given (Genesis 24:53).

Then the family does something the passage does not require of them: they ask her. "They called Rebekah, and said to her, 'Will you go with this man?' She said, 'I will go.' They sent away Rebekah, their sister, with her nurse, Abraham's servant, and his men. They blessed Rebekah, and said to her, 'Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them.' Rebekah arose with her ladies. They rode on the camels, and followed the man. The servant took Rebekah, and went his way" (Genesis 24:58-61). Two words carry the whole decision. The journey ends in Genesis 24:64 and Genesis 24:67.

Wife of Isaac

"Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian, to be his wife. Isaac entreated Yahweh for his wife, because she was barren. Yahweh was entreated by him, and Rebekah his wife conceived" (Genesis 25:20-21). The barrenness is stated flatly, and so is the prayer that answered it.

Her beauty later put her husband's courage to the test, and he failed it: "The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, 'She is my sister,' for he was afraid to say, 'My wife', lest, he thought, 'the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she is beautiful to look at.' When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was caressing Rebekah, his wife" (Genesis 26:7-8). The lie was Isaac's; the exposure was hers.

The mother who listened at the tent

Genesis 25:28 and Genesis 26:35 name her in the life of her sons. Then comes the turn: "Rebekah heard when Isaac spoke to Esau his son. Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it. Rebekah spoke to Jacob her son, saying, 'Behold, I heard your father speak to Esau your brother, saying,'" (Genesis 27:5-6). She overheard what was said to one son and carried it at once to the other. What follows is recorded at Genesis 27:11 and Genesis 27:15, and the aftermath at Genesis 27:42 and Genesis 27:46. Scripture does not soften this. The woman who once answered "I will go" is here the one who listens where she was not invited and moves her favoured son into a moment meant for his brother. Genesis 28:5 and Genesis 29:12 name her afterward, and Genesis 35:8 and Genesis 49:31 mention her in passing.

What we are not told

Her mother is not named in the record before us; only Bethuel is given as her parent. Her age is never stated, and no words of hers are preserved after Genesis 27:46. What she thought of the outcome of that day is not written down.

Named again in the New Testament

Rebekah is not left behind in Genesis. Her name is taken up once more in the New Testament, in Romans 9:10, where the apostle sets her among the people through whom God's choosing is traced. That single line is the whole of the New Testament's witness to her, and it is enough to place the woman who said "I will go" inside the story that runs on to Christ.