Genesis 24:62-67 comments: Rebekah meets Isaac

24:62 ¶  And Isaac came from the way of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelt in the south country. 63  And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. 64  And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. 65  For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a vail, and covered herself. 66  And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done. 67  And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

According to Strong’s dictionary Lahairoi is the well of the “Living One seeing me.” Isaac spent time in the evening in meditation. Now, meditation is not that of emptying one’s mind in this sense but filling it. He is meditating on something. It is good for us to meditate on the Bible.

Joshua 1:8  This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Covering one’s face with a veil is mentioned outside of the Bible later than this incident, in around 1300BC, as scholars guess. It is found in an Assyrian legal text that restricts its use to noble women and forbids prostitutes and common women from using it, although noble women were not punished for not wearing a veil while prostitutes and common women were punished for wearing one. (44) This reference, of course, in the Bible, comes from a few hundred years before that, in the time of the patriarchs, before the Hebrews entry into Egypt.

There is no mention here made of the wedding feast that we see later with Jacob. One possible sermon that could be made out of the literal events is how the servant, representing the Holy Ghost, brings the bride to Christ, and I am sure there are many more possibilities from this.

Finally, becoming a wife or a husband is a matter of intent and commitment before God, not of ritual. The ritual wedding celebration of any country is meaningless if there is no intention to unite as one for life. It becomes simply another party to celebrate in one’s life and there may be several such celebrations without God having anything to do with them.

(44)David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (New York: Melville House Publishing, 2011), 184.