Genesis 24:5 Commentary and Bible Study

The servant raises the one point that needs clarifying in his mind before he is prepared to take an oath. His master has entrusted him with the great responsibility of finding a wife for his son. He is to return to the land from which his master came. Perhaps this servant was with Abraham from the very beginning and himself came from Chaldea. His master Abraham cannot return without disobeying the Lord, not even to find a wife for Isaac; besides Abraham is now old and the journey is long, but the servant can go back. The servant however anticipates a problem. Yes, he may find a wife for Abraham’s son, though he does not know yet how he is going to do this, but persuading her to come with him will be another matter. She must trust that he is who he says he is. She must set out on a journey to be the wife of a man she has never seen. She must leave her family and make the same enormous step into the unknown that Abraham himself had made. Suppose she is not be willing to come with him back to Canaan. It will be a very unusual woman who is prepared to do all this. Is it of such paramount importance to find a wife for Isaac that in the event that she will not come to Canaan, Isaac should be taken back to Chaldea instead?Abraham’s answer is an emphatic ‘no’. On no account is the servant to take Isaac back. In fact Abraham begins very forcefully by saying, ‘Beware’, a passive imperative, ‘Watch’, ‘Be on you guard’, as if he had said these words without the servant’s question coming first. The idea is as far from Abraham’s thinking as it could possibly be. Nothing is more important than the command of God to leave his native land and this command applies to the next generation also. ‘Do not take my son back there’. He repeats this twice, once at the start and again at the end. Abraham does not for a moment believe that the servant will fail, for this is not just a human endeavour; the hand of the Lord God of heaven is in it. God knows that there is an absolute necessity for Isaac to obtain a wife. Abraham does not have the slightest doubt about that. He is also quite clear that God does not want him to return to the land. If God is able to give him the land of Canaan, all that he can see northward, southward, eastward and westward (Genesis 13:14), then he is certainly also able to provide a wife for his son. This is a matter of divine guidance. Abraham sees this as implied in God’s promise to give the land to him and his descendants. He now knows that Isaac is the promised child and that the descendants spoken of must come through him. God will send his angel ahead of the servant to make the journey successful. Abraham has no doubt, it is a hypothetical question to him. However, to make the matter crystal clear to his servant, he gives instruction that in the event of the woman being unwilling to return, the servant will be released from any obligation to his oath. So precise is the guidance that it almost has a fairy-tale ring.Interestingly, there is here, as Calvin points out, an assumption that Isaac will cooperate in what is being done here. The servant will, if the plan is successful, return with a wife for Isaac, whom he has never seen before. He will be expected to take her and love her as the provision of God. Again we see in Isaac that submissiveness which was apparent in Genesis 22, when he fully complied with his father’s instruction and allowed himself to be bound and laid on the altar. Isaac also recognised the hand of God in this and trusted that God would supply the right wife for him. It is certainly not every wife that is found in this way. Jacob chose his own wives (although he was tricked at first into taking Rachel’s sister), and Esau chose his own wives. This arrangement by which Rebekah came to Isaac, was unique.