Rebekah at the Well: A Prayer Answered Mid-Sentence (Genesis 24:10–27)

Ten camels knelt in the dust outside the town of Nahor as the light went. Abraham's servant had come hundreds of miles north to Aram-naharaim, and he stopped at the well "at the time when the women went out to draw water" (Genesis 24:11).

He carried gold, a sworn oath, and Abraham's account of a God who had promised to send His angel ahead. He had no plan beyond that. So he prayed.

What did Abraham's servant pray at the well?

"O LORD, God of my master Abraham" (Genesis 24:12), he began, and asked God to "please grant me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham" (Genesis 24:12).

Then he asked for something specific. A girl would come down to the spring and he would ask her for a drink. If she answered, "Drink, and I will water your camels as well" (Genesis 24:14), she would be the one. "By this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master" (Genesis 24:14).

That was a big ask. A camel at the end of a desert crossing can drink more than twenty gallons, and he had ten of them. He was asking for a stranger who would volunteer an evening of hauling water up from a spring, one jar at a time.

How did God answer the servant's prayer?

"Before the servant had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder" (Genesis 24:15). She gave him his drink, offered the camels water in nearly the words he had prayed, and "ran back to the well to draw water, until she had drawn water for all his camels" (Genesis 24:20).

Centuries later God said this about His people through Isaiah: "Even before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24).

The servant stood by the trough and said nothing. "Meanwhile, the man watched her silently to see whether or not the LORD had made his journey a success" (Genesis 24:21). He had asked God for a sign, and now he weighed what he saw against what he had asked, all the way to the question of whose daughter she was. When she said she was the granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham's brother, he had his answer.

What does the servant's worship teach about knowing God?

"Then the man bowed down and worshiped the LORD" (Genesis 24:26). His first words were about God: "Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld His kindness and faithfulness from my master" (Genesis 24:27). Then he added a sentence that was new for him: "As for me, the LORD has led me on the journey to the house of my master's relatives" (Genesis 24:27).

That morning he knew God as his master's God. By nightfall he could say what God had done for him on the road. He heard Abraham's account, tested it with one plain request, watched carefully, and named what God had done before a single camel was unloaded. This is how a borrowed knowledge of God becomes your own, and it is why we keep what He does: so that we know Him, and find that He has known us all along.

How does Rebekah at the well point to Jesus?

In Genesis and Exodus, wells are where brides are found: Rebekah here, Rachel for Jacob, Zipporah for Moses. In John's Gospel Jesus, "weary from His journey, sat down by the well" (John 4:6). A Samaritan woman came out for water at noon, and He asked her for a drink (John 4:7). Abraham's servant asked a woman for water and found a bride for his master's son. Jesus asked a woman for water and told her, "He would have given you living water" (John 4:10). The Son came to the well Himself.

What has God already answered for you?

We know this prayer and its answer because the servant told it. Later that night he repeats the whole account to Rebekah's family. When God answers you, record it the same day in the Doxa app: what you asked, what happened, and the date. Then read it back the next time you have to pray for something you cannot arrange yourself.

What did you ask God for that He answered before you had finished asking?

Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: the Hebrew word for chance hidden inside the servant's prayer, and the two words the servant blessed God for that Israel heard again at Sinai. Read it here.