Women in white raiment

by John Lemley

“And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent.” Tent life in the days of Abraham, in our estimation, must have been not only desirable, but grand and glorious. Living, as they did, so closely in contact with nature, as God made it, fresh, pure air, babbling brooks, rippling streams, and blue skies, theirs was a happy life. They were not confined in crowded cities, surrounded by dismal walls, but on the hillsides, the open valleys and the unbounded plains. Their tent was pitched in a clump of oaks, near a living stream, and overlooked the plain of Mamre—a beautiful picture of freedom, ease and comfort. To such a place he took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. So ends this most charming story of domestic life in the patriarchal age. For beauty, simplicity and directness it has no equal. We also see, in the closing words, one of those delicate and tender natures that find repose first in the love of a mother, and when that stay is withdrawn, lean upon a beloved wife.

So ideally pure, and sweet, and tenderly religious has been the whole inception and carrying on and termination of this wedding, that Isaac and Rebekah have been remembered in the wedding ritual of Christian churches as models of a holy marriage according to the divine will.

Though for nineteen years Rebekah was childless, yet retained she her husband’s love. This may have been a trial to Isaac, since the line of the blessing was to pass through him. That he thought much about it is evident, for, at length, he “entreated the Lord for his wife,” and his intercession was based upon a divine foundation in Jehovah’s promise. And, possibly, even Isaac had to be educated up to this point, namely, that the seed of promise must be sought from God, so that it should be regarded, not as the fruit of nature, but as the gift of divine grace.

In due time Esau and Jacob were born, and they were twins, but with natures and characteristics marked more for their contrasts than similarity. Beyond the bare statement, “And the boys grew,” nothing is said of their childhood and youth—the formative periods of their lives.

When they had grown to manhood’s estate, we are informed that “Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.” The free and easy life in the chase developed in Esau a robust appearance, and for that reason, and also “because he did eat of his venison,” Isaac loved Esau. Jacob is represented to us as of a more delicate make-up and naturally appealed more to the mother heart. “Rebekah loved Jacob.” From merely a parental standpoint, both were wrong. Even though the characteristics of these boys were wide apart, the parents should have been united in their love, and impartially discharged their duties, and let God, in his own good time, make His selection. But here, as in the lives of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah delayed the blessing God designed they should have, and brought sorrow into their own lives. It is evident that the ardent Rebekah, by her animated, energetic declarations, formed a very significant complement to Isaac, confiding more in the divine declarations as to her boys than Isaac did, and therefore better able to appreciate the deeper nature of Jacob. But when Isaac shows his preference for Esau to be the heir, the courageous woman forgets her vocation, and with artifice counsels Jacob to steal the blessing from Isaac—a transgression for which she had to atone in not seeing her favorite son after she sent him away, out of reach of his brother’s anger. She had only Esau left, and he must have made her feel that it was her partiality that had robbed him of what he prized most highly. His heathen wives had been a “grief of mind” to her. She said, in her diplomatic effort to get Jacob off to a place of safety, “I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob take a wife from the daughters of Heth, such as these which are the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?” Probably Esau did not mend matters by adding to his family the Ishmaeltish woman.

Rebekah’s habit of managing affairs may be more common than we think. It is the fault of energetic souls. She loved Jacob with the passionate, tropical strength of her fervid heart. She would not trust God to give him what she believed he ought to receive. It is very hard for such as she to wait patiently for the Lord when His delays are developing faith.

However, viewed from a human standpoint, her faith in the divine purposes was much more clear-sighted than that of Isaac. Consenting to be laid on the altar as a sacrifice to God, Isaac had the stamp of submission early and deeply impressed on his soul. Hence, in the spiritual aspect of his character, he was the man of patience, of acquiescence, of susceptibility, of obedience. Rebekah, on the other hand, was energetic, intensely active, self-confident, a most excellent manager, even tricky, but nevertheless capable and efficient. She had the faults which usually go with such traits of character. Taking things into her own hands, she even meddled with Providence.

But was she not provoked to this act by Isaac himself? Isaac’s willful act does not consist alone in his arbitrary determination to present Esau with the blessing of the theocratic birthright, although Rebekah received that divine sentence respecting her children before their birth, and which, no doubt, she had mentioned to him, but the manner in which he intends to bless Esau. He arranges to bless him in unbecoming secrecy, without the knowledge of Rebekah and Jacob. The preparation of the venison, in its main point of view, is an excuse to gain time and place for the secret act. In this point of view, the act of Rebekah appears in a different light. His well-calculated prudence was skillfully caught in the net of Rebekah’s shrewdness.

A want of divine confidence may be recognized through all his actions. Rebekah, however, has so far the advantage of him that she in her deception has the divine assurance that Jacob was the heir, while Isaac has only his human reason without any inward spiritual certainty. Rebekah’s error consists in thinking that she must direct divine Providence by means of human deception. The divine promise would have been fulfilled without her assistance. Of course, when compared with Isaac’s fatal error, she was right. Though she deceived him greatly, misled her favorite son, and alienated Esau from her, there was yet something saving in her action according to her intentions. For to Esau the most comprehensive blessing might have become only a curse. He was not fitted for it.

Viewed from Rebekah’s point of view, the lesson for us is, we are not to do evil, that good may come. The sinful element in her act was the wrong application of her assurance of faith, for which she suffered, perhaps, many long years of melancholy solitude.