At this period the fair Rebekah begins to get in her work as a disobedient wife, a deceitful, intriguing woman and an-all-round-have-her-own-way variety of her sex.
"Isaac loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob," and we conclude from that, as well as from the actual facts in the case, that there were domestic tornadoes, conjugal cyclones and general unpleasantness all round. About this time there was another famine in the land and Isaac and Rebekah (and others) went into the land of the Philistines to dwell, and of course Rebekah's beauty attracted universal attention, and the men of the place questioned Isaac about her and he replied that she was his sister, as he said, "lest the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah," because she was fair to look upon.
In that age it appears when a man fell in love with a woman he killed her husband, instead of hoodwinking and outwitting him as they do in this progressive era, but I suppose in spite of the awful chance of losing her husband by some sudden and tragic death, Rebekah slyly and seductively smiled upon "the men of the place" from the fact that a little farther on we read that the King issued a mandate, saying:
"He that toucheth this man or his wife shall surely be put to death."
The King knew that Isaac was favored of the Lord, and he was afraid of some swift and condign punishment if Isaac became offended by the amorous attentions of any of his subjects to Rebekah, so he gave the order to the men.
You will readily discern by that command that he was a keen and intelligent student of female character, and knew there was no use or reason in appealing to her sense of justice, her obedience to, or respect for law, or her regard for the "eternal fitness of things" in a case of the affections, and so he appealed to the fear and obedience of the men, for he realized that no man's pleading, no King's command, no threats from heaven or fears of hell can stop a woman's coquetry.
A little farther on Esau went the way of all young men and married, and worse than that he married Judith the daughter of a Hittite, "which was a grief of mind unto Rebekah and Isaac."
We know that one of Rebekah's strongest points was putting herself on record for doing something that no woman ever did before that we have any authorized statement of, and she did it in this case by being the first woman who hated her daughter-in-law.