Reading: Genesis 24:1-9 and 59-67.

At first reading this story seems like fairy tale with a happy ending. But it runs much deeper than that. The fundamental message is that the Lord provides a solid foundation for the church. It is time for Isaac to marry. Abraham does not want him to marry a Canaanite woman so he sends his servant to his relatives for a wife. God leads Abraham’s servant to Rebecca. She willingly leaves her family, goes to Canaan and is married to Isaac.

 

God promised that through Isaac, and his descendants, He will gather His church. Abraham understands this means Isaac’s children must be raised as covenant children. It is vitally important therefore that Isaac and his future wife are united in faith, and together raise their children in the fear of the Lord. This will not happen if Isaac marries an unbeliever. So Abraham sends his servant to find Isaac a wife from his relatives in Mesopotamia. We understand from vs 50 that they still feared God.

 

The New Testament teaches us the same in 2 Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?”

 

Key text: Ge 24:3-4 “I will make you swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell; but you shall go to my country and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”

 

Question: In Genesis 24:6 Abraham commands his servant not to take Isaac back to Abraham’s former home country. Why?