Глава 24

Abraham sends his servant servant to fetch a wife for Isaac Gen.24:1. Abraham was already old and advanced in years. According to Gen. 25:20 Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah; and since he was born in the 100th year of Abraham’s life, the latter, therefore, was about 140 years old at that time. Gen.24:2. And Abraham said to his servant, the eldest in his house, who was in charge of all that he had: Based on the previous context, we can see Eliezer here (Gen. 15:2). put your hand under my thigh This is a rather unusual form of oath, which appears again in the same book of Genesis (Gen. 47:29). Of the various explanations of its meaning, the most successful must be the one that sees in it a symbol of an oath on a sword, which, as is known, is worn at the hip. He who swore in this way seemed to be saying: if I break my oath, then let the sword strike me (Ex. 32:27; Ps. 45:4, etc.). Gen.24:3. and swear to me by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son [Isaac] from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, This is the first, negative side of Eliezer’s mission: he was forbidden to take Isaac as a wife from among the wicked and corrupt Canaanites, who should not have mixed with the pure offspring of the God-created people. Gen.24:4. but you will go to my land, to my homeland [and to my tribe], and you will take [from there] a wife for my son Isaac. Not to Ur of the Chaldeans, but to Harran, which lay in Padan-Aram or northern Mesopotamia, where Abraham left his brother Nahor (Gen. 11:31, 22:23). What does not allow us to see here an indication of Ur of the Chaldeans is, mainly, the fact that if God once brought Abraham out of there and thereby forced him to break all ties and relations with his homeland infected with idolatry, then He could not now restore these relations, for the same reasons. Gen.24:5. The servant said to him: Perhaps the woman will not want to go with me to this land, should I return your son to the land from which you came? This expression characterizes the foresight of a slave who foresees a strong and completely natural difficulty regarding which he wants to receive guidance in advance. Gen.24:6, 8. Abraham said to him: Beware, do not return my son there; if the woman does not want to go with you [to this land], you will be free from my oath; Just don’t return my son there. Answering Eliezer's question, Abraham twice and with particular force forbids him to leave his son Isaac there, even in that extreme case, if the chosen bride did not agree to leave her homeland. It is not the husband who should follow his wife, but the wife who follows her husband. Gen.24:7. The Lord God of heaven [and God of the earth], who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying: [to you and] to your descendants I will give this land; he will send his angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son [Isaac] from there; By this mysterious guide and leader one can understand either a special suggestion of divine Providence, or the actual appearance of an Angel. Gen.24:10. And the servant took ten camels from his master's camels and went away. He also had in his hands all the treasures of his master. Such a setting for this marriage journey, on the one hand, presupposes its significant remoteness, on the other hand, gives it special solemnity and importance; finally, both the camels themselves and the treasures mentioned here could have been intended as a gift to the bride. He got up and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor, In Hebrew – “Nagaraim”, i.e. to a country lying between two rivers: the Euphrates and the Tigris. Gen.24:11. and he stopped the camels outside the city, at a well of water, in the evening, at the time when the women come out to draw [water], All these details are deeply historical and vitally real. Gen. 24:12–14. and said: Lord God of my master Abraham! send her today to meet me and show mercy to my master Abraham; Behold, I stand at the source of water, and the daughters of the inhabitants of the city come out to draw water; and the girl to whom I will say, “Tilt down your pitcher, I will drink,” and who will say [to me], “Drink, I will give your camels drink too [until they drink,”]—this is the one whom You appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I know that You show kindness to my lord [Abraham]. Eliezer's appeal to God is imbued with a feeling of deep humility and living faith, in which, obviously, he tried to imitate his master. His very appeal to God is very characteristic, in which Eliezer simultaneously calls Him both Elohim and Jehovah, giving this, on the one hand, proof of the identity of these divine names, and on the other, testifying that, living in the house of Abraham, he received the correct knowledge of God. Against the fact that rationalistic criticism relates this prayer of Eliezer to a later era, the word hanahar (maiden) found here in the original, used without a special feminine suffix, which serves as a sign of its extreme antiquity, speaks especially strongly. Rebekah meets this slave Gen. 24:15–19. He had not yet ceased speaking [in his mind], and behold, Rebekah came out, who was born of Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, and her pitcher was on her shoulder; the maiden was beautiful in appearance, a maiden whom her husband had not known. She went down to the source, filled her jug ​​and went up. And the servant ran to meet her and said: Let me drink a little water from your jug. She said: Drink, my lord. And immediately she lowered her pitcher onto her hand and gave him drink. And when she had given him something to drink, she said, “I will also draw for your camels until [they all] have drunk.” The writer depicts this entire episode of Eliezer’s meeting with Rebekah very vividly and completely in the same lines that were prophetically foreseen and revealed to him by God in advance. Gen.24:21. The man looked at her with amazement in silence, This amazement was a completely natural and understandable psychological state of Eliezer, who was positively amazed at such an amazing coincidence of the fact with his prayer for it. wanting to understand whether the Lord blessed his path or not. “He delved into what was happening in order to better be sure that Providence was definitely responding to his request” (Filaret). Gen.24:22. When the camels stopped drinking, then the man took the gold earring, In Hebrew nezem, which means a gold ring, which was threaded either into the ears as an earring (Gen. 35:4), or into the nose (Isa. 3:20; Prov. 11:22; Hos. 2:13). From what follows it is clear that it was most likely a nose ring (Gen. 24:47). weighing half a shekel, and two bracelets for her hands, weighing ten shekels of gold; Banknotes, regardless of their value, also had a value of units of weight. Reveals his high kindness Gen. 24:23–25. [and asked her] and said: whose daughter are you? She said to him: I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor. And she also told him: We have a lot of straw and feed, and there is a place to stay for the night. Whose daughter are you?.. With his question, Eliezer obviously wanted to finally make sure whether this girl really was his master’s chosen one. Gen. 24:26–27. And the man bowed down and worshiped the Lord. and said: Blessed is the Lord God of my master Abraham, who did not forsake my master in His mercy and in His truth! The Lord led me straight to the house of my master's brother. Having received this last certificate, Eliezer was convinced that his mission was over and, in a fit of ardent gratitude, he prayerfully bowed before the almighty Provider. Gen. 24:28–29. The girl ran and told about this in her mother’s house. Rebekah had a brother named Laban. Laban ran out to the man, to the source. “There are many reasons to think that Rebekah’s father, Bethuel, has already died, and that is why the name here is not of the father’s house, but of the mother’s. The whole course of the story agrees with this, in which Laban played a leading role, replacing, in all likelihood, his father” (see art. 53, Vlastov). Gen. 24:30–31. And when he saw the earring and the wrists on his sister’s hands, and heard the words of Rebekah his sister, who said: Thus spoke this man to me, he came to the man, and behold, he stood by the camels, by the spring; and said [to him], Come in, blessed of the Lord; why are you standing outside? I have prepared a house and a place for the camels. Although Laban was an idolater (Gen. 31:30), however, being related to the house from which Abraham once came, he had not yet lost some traces of true knowledge of God. It is also possible that Laban calls his guest this way from the words of his sister Rebekah, who heard the name of the Lord from the lips of Eliezer himself (Gen. 24:27). Gen. 24:32–33. And a man came in. Laban unsaddled the camels and gave straw and feed to the camels, and water to wash the feet of him and the people who were with him; and food was offered to him; but he said: I will not eat until I have spoken my deed. All the details of this picture are quite life-like and truthful. The servant reveals to him the purpose of his embassy Gen.24:35. The Lord greatly blessed my master, and he became great: He gave him sheep and oxen, silver and gold, male and female servants, camels and donkeys; Seeing how the Lord miraculously gave Abraham a son in his old age, how He prospered him in multiplying his flocks and increasing his influence among the surrounding tribes, Eliezer could rightfully say these words. Gen.24:40. He said to me: The Lord [God] before whom I walk, This is a characteristic biblical expression: to walk with God means to please Him or to live in complete agreement with His holy will (Gen. 5:24; Ps. 50:13, etc.). This entire, rather significant, biblical section contains a repetition of the previous one, through which Eliezer thoroughly introduces the entire history of the affairs of his new hospitable hosts, thereby wanting to find out for them that the providential hand of God is obvious here. And I bowed down and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who brought me by the straight way to take my master’s brother’s daughter for his son. Rebekah is here called the niece of Abraham, the daughter of his brother Nahor; and meanwhile, earlier, she was repeatedly called the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor. It is obvious that in this case the term “daughter” should be understood not in a narrow, but in a broader sense: a blood relative in a descending line. Gen.24:49. And now tell me: do you intend to show mercy and truth to my master or not? tell me and I will turn to the right or to the left. This is a kind of Hebraism, the meaning of which can be paraphrased as follows: please me and preserve your interests. Laban and Bethuel approve of her Gen.24:50. And Laban and Bethuel answered and said, This work has come from the Lord; We cannot tell you in spite of either good or bad; The LXX translation, instead of the word “brother,” has “brothers,” from which some exegetes derive the assumption that Bethuel, who is spoken of here, was not Rebekah’s father, but her brother, who bore this name in honor of his father. Gen.24:57. They said: Let's call the girl and ask what she will say. This is a very characteristic biblical feature, clearly indicating that among the ancient Semites, women were far from being in the enslavement in which later history finds her among other eastern peoples. Gen.24:59. And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men. We are probably talking about Deborah (Gen. 35:8); although the LXX and the Slavic translation replace this indication with another - “and her possessions” (LXX: ὑπάρχοντα αὐτῆς). Gen.24:60. And they blessed Rebekah and said to her: Our sister! May thousands of thousands be born of you, and may your descendants possess the dwellings of your enemies! This prayer blessing had a prophetic character, since Rebekah, as the wife of Isaac, appeared as one of the ancestors of the numerous Jewish people and an even larger number of all believers. Gen.24:62. And Isaac came from Beer-lahai-poi, for he lived in the land of noon. Those. to the source of “the Living One who sees me,” as Hagar called it, in memory of the epiphany that happened to her here (Gen. 16:14). Gen.24:63. When evening came, Isaac went out into the field to meditate, and lifted up his eyes, and saw: behold, camels coming. In some translations, the last verb is replaced by a synonym from the Hebrew language - “to pray” (in Slavic - “to mock”, i.e. to think) which even better characterizes Isaac’s pious, religious and meek nature. Gen. 24:64–65. Rebekah looked and saw Isaac, and she got off the camel. And she said to the servant: Who is this man who is walking across the field towards us? The slave said: This is my master. And she took the veil and covered herself. Upon meeting Isaac, Rebekah descended from her camel and covered herself with a veil; the first was probably her respect for her future husband, and the second symbolized his right to possess her (1 Cor. 11:10). Gen.24:67. And Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her; Here is a brief but at the same time powerful description of family relations of the patriarchal period. You might be interested in: