Rebekah Says 'I Will Go' to a Man She Has Never Seen (Genesis 24:50–67)

The servant was up early. The night before, he had finally eaten, the silver and gold and the clothing had been handed round, and the family had given its answer. In the morning he said one thing: "Send me on my way to my master" (Genesis 24:54).

Rebekah's brother and mother wanted more time. "Let the girl remain with us ten days or so. After that, she may go" (Genesis 24:55). It was a fair request from a mother whose daughter was about to ride hundreds of miles south with a stranger and might never come home.

The servant asked them not to wait. "Do not delay me, since the LORD has made my journey a success" (Genesis 24:56). He had watched God answer a prayer at the spring before he finished praying it, and for him that answer settled the matter.

What did Rebekah say when they asked her?

She said, "I will go" (Genesis 24:58). Her family had done something unusual for the time and asked her. "We will call the girl and ask her opinion" (Genesis 24:57). They put the question to her: "Will you go with this man?"

In Hebrew her answer is one word, elekh. It comes from the verb God used when He first spoke to Abraham and told him to "go to the land I will show you" (Genesis 12:1). Two generations on, a young woman in the same family hears an account of what the LORD has done and answers with the same verb.

She had never seen Isaac. All she knew of him came from one evening of the servant's story: a son born in his mother's old age, an oath, a silent prayer at a well, and the gold on her own wrists that matched it.

Her family sent her off with a blessing: "May your offspring possess the gates of their enemies" (Genesis 24:60). None of them had stood on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had sworn the same promise to Abraham: "Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies" (Genesis 22:17).

How does Rebekah's journey point to Jesus?

It points to Jesus because she set out toward a bridegroom she had never seen, trusting one faithful account of him, and that is how believers come to Christ. The camels reached the Negev at evening. Isaac had gone out to the field, and he looked up and saw them coming. Rebekah got down from her camel and covered herself with her veil. "Then the servant told Isaac all that he had done" (Genesis 24:66), and Isaac brought her into his mother's tent. "And Isaac loved her and was comforted after his mother's death" (Genesis 24:67).

Peter wrote this to believers who had never met Jesus in person: "Though you have not seen Him, you love Him" (1 Peter 1:8). That is Rebekah on the camel. Every believer has come to Christ the way she came to Isaac, through a faithful account of what God has done, and has set out toward Him before seeing His face.

What does this teach about knowing God?

It teaches that knowing God begins with trusting what we have heard of Him and grows as we go. Rebekah went on the strength of what she had heard, and she came to know Isaac at the end of the road. We hear what He has said and done, we hold onto it, and we go. Each stretch of the journey, we know Him a little better, and we find we have been known by Him all along.

Read it back before you decide

When God speaks to you, record it in the Doxa app with the date and the details, the way the servant could recite every step of his journey. Then, when a decision comes and the people you love ask for ten more days, you can read back what He has already said and answer from it.

What has God already said to you that you could read back this week?

Deeper study today in the Doxa Deeper Dive: the second time the Bible uses the word love, and what Isaac was doing in that field at dusk. Read it here.