Genesis 35:8 Commentary and Bible Study

This has a kind of parallel to a verse in the Acts 17 where we read of Damaris. There is Paul at Mars Hill, and he preaches and a number of people, though not terribly many, are converted, and they are named. On the list is one woman named Damaris. That is all the information we have about her, and yet Spurgeon managed to preach a most marvellous full sermon about her just on that slender little bit of information: a woman named Damaris. This is rather an equivalent verse, but we know a little more about Deborah. Deborah Rebekah's nurse died while they were at Bethel, and this reads as if it happened at the same time as Jacob’s visit to Bethel. She was buried under an oak, and it was given the name Allonbachuth, which means oak of weeping. But who is this person, and how did she get to be here? A nurse of Rebekah is referred to in earlier chapters, at the time when Rebekah first leaves home with Abraham’s servant (Genesis 24:59). If this is the same person she would have been extremely ancient by this time. That is not impossible however, for we remember that Abraham died aged 175, and Isaac 180. Alternatively she may have become Rebekah’s nurse when Jacob and Esau were born, a wet nurse to help deal with the twins. If so, she was married at the time, as in those days to be a wet nurse you had to have a child of a your own so that you could look after yours and the other person's baby as well. Jacob is now about one hundred and seven. She must have been at least 20 if she was Jacob’s wet nurse so this too would make her an ancient lady at the time of her death. How did Deborah get to be with Jacob in Bethel? It seems that by now Rebekah was dead, having died either when Jacob was in Haran, or during the ten or so years since his return – Scripture does not record her death. Possibly Deborah joined Jacob after Rebekah’s death, either in Haran, or, more likely, following his return to Canaan.