Genesis
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.[1] 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.
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