Bible Women: Rebekah, Tough Love and Family Lies

And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. Gen 27:13  

The Books Which Are Hard to Write

The Bible is an amazing book because it is written by God. In it, it lays everything bare, without any attempt to cover up, or to embellish.

And that is why the flavour of the Bible remains distinct. We cherish it, because in it, it says the things we ourselves would never say alive.

Have you ever read the last line of Psalm 137? It is a terrible reading. Yet the Bible does not flinch to say it.

I’m sorry about last Sunday. Something flashed. The lights went off in my mind. And suddenly it was dark. I grimaced because I recognized that man in the first paragraph.

Why Do We Lie?

Basically we lie to hide pain. Yet the Bible, at its most basic form, is a book of pain.

Genesis can make a depressant read. It opens in splendor, but suddenly the curses pour in. And Cain doesn’t hesitate to maul his brother to death.

The next chapter resembles a graveyard. ‘And Adam lived… and he died’, ‘And Seth lived…and he died’, ‘And Enos lived…and he died’…

But the Bible does not lie.

All of us know Abraham as a good man. But his wife is barren for ninety years. In fact barrenness runs the gamut of the first book of the Bible. Rebekah is barren for twenty years. Next Rachel is barren…

The rest of the Bible books are a study in pain. Study, rather, of the nature of sin. In its wake, it leaves a molten sea of grief. It’s a geyser spewing its muck on the face of humanity - anger, hate, and bitterness.

But the Bible is also a book of the greatest love and the greatest comfort. It is the incomprehensible story of a Husband who loves his Bride to death – even when she’s barren.

The Lie which Earned Grace!

It is the sort of story which only the Bible can tell.

Rebekah’s beginning is very bright. But it is towards the end of it that the colours of her life grow very faint. Is this the same Rebekah who went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up, and she said to a stranger, ‘Drink, my lord’?

And that caravan of camels which accompanied her, and gifts, and veils…? What happened?

First it was the long period of barrenness. Next, and after a long wait, the troubled pregnancy.

Pain happened.

She went to God in prayer, but she never forgot what God told her about the fight which was taking place in her womb.

She brought forth pain.

Both Rebekah and her husband are old. But their days are short, and memory.

Isaac’s love for Esau overclouds his thoughts, and his judgment. But Rebekah loves Jacob. And isn’t that the same in families up to this day?

Providence steps in and she gets wind of what her blind husband was planning to do. And immediately, rather than go down on her knees, she sets plans for the salvation of her own beloved Jacob, by her own strength. She did right, but she did it very wrongly.

‘Yea, and he shall be blessed.’ Esau’s bitterness echoes that of his father. He blessed, but he was cheated into blessing the wrong person!

And how did Rebekah fare afterwards?

“Upon me be thy curse, my son,” she had uttered those terrible words in her haste.

“I am weary of my life”. These are part of the last words we hear from her in the Bible. Rebekah dies and she gets buried without our knowledge.

Barrenness in the New Testament

Barrenness, like leprosy, is a very prevalent condition in the Old Testament. But in the new it is not so much a physical condition as it is spiritual.

‘And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell’ (Mat 10:28).  

Probably the women in the New Testament who suffered the condition were too ashamed to face Jesus with their humiliation. At least the woman with the issue of blood for twelve years was. She chose rather to touch him. That way no one would know her state.

But that is exactly what Christ didn’t want to happen. Silence is a killer. And she had been silent for twelve years.

How long have you been silent yourself?

She had been silent. And now she wanted to disappear in the crowds without a single word! But Christ called her, and in Christ she found her voice (Luk 8:47).

Have you found yours yet? We suffer depression because we disappear in the crowd quietly.

‘When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.’ ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?’

So we are free, but on the other hand, we are not quite free. And there is no worse barrenness than that of the soul.

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Pro 28:13 

For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Luk 12:2 

For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. Isa 54:5  

And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. Rom 9:10-16