Genesis Chapter 24 Part 1

Genesis 24:1-9 - The Lord Will Send His Angel Before You: Abraham's Commission and the Theology of the Oath

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Welcome back to our study as we navigate through the book of Genesis. We have come a really long way so far. If you've been keeping up with the studies, if not, I highly recommend you go back and start at chapter one and work your way through. Studying the book of Genesis really does open up the rest of the Bible and gives us so much understanding to the things that Jesus and the apostles talked about. Genesis chapter 23 ended with Abraham burying Sarah in a cave of MacPela. The first piece of promised land is legally secured. A stranger, the sojourner with a tomb, a land, a promise, and a God who keeps his word. And now we step into Genesis chapter 24. And this is the longest chapter in the book of Genesis, 67 verses, and it's really one of the most beautiful. It's a love story, it's a providence story. It's a picture embedded in real history of something far greater than the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. Before the servant departs, before the camels kneel at the well, before Rebecca lifts up her eyes and sees Isaac, there's a commission, there's an oath, and a theology of divine guidance that is worth understanding before the journey even begins. So let's read the text in Genesis chapter 24. We're going to be in verses 1 through 9 today. Abraham said to a servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, please place your hand under my thigh. This may seem weird, but we'll explain it later. Please place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live. Oh, you will go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife from my son Isaac. The servant said to him, Suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land, should I take your son back to the land from where you came? Then Abraham said to him, Beware that you do not take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me, and who swore to me, saying, To your descendants, I will give you this land, he will send his angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath. Only do not take my son back there. So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. In these nine verses we see an old man commissioning a faithful servant, and a theology of guidance so complete that the servant will stake a journey of hundreds of miles on the commands of his master. Let's start with verse one. It says, Now Abraham was very old, advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. Now, Genesis chapter 24 opens up with two statements about Abraham. First, about his condition, and then one about his God. Abraham was old. He is in the final season of his life. The text will tell us in Genesis chapter 25, verse 7, they lived to be 175 years old. At this time, Sarah has died. The summit of Moriah is behind him, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. This is Moses' verdict on the entire Abraham narrative. From Genesis chapter 12 through Genesis chapter 24, through the failures and the fears and the lies and the covenants and the tests, the Lord had blessed Abraham in everything. The blessing of Genesis chapter 12, verse 2, I will bless you, has been fulfilled. Not always in the way that Abraham had anticipated, not always on the timeline that he expected, but completely. And this is important for you to remember when reading this chapter, because this verse is the frame through which Genesis chapter 24 is meant to be read. So the servant is about to embark on a mission that has no natural guarantee of success. He is looking for a specific woman in a distant land to come back and marry a man that she has never met. But the God who blessed Abraham in every way is the God who will guide the servant through every step. Now, look at verse 2. It says Abraham said to a servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned. Now the servant is not named in Genesis chapter 24. He is identified only by his role, the oldest of the household, the one who had charge of all that Abraham owned. Now the majority of Jewish and Christian commentators across history have commonly identified the servant as Elizar of Damascus. In Genesis chapter 15, verse 2, when Abraham had no heir, he told God, the heir of my house, Elizar of Damascus, will be my heir. And so it's presumed that this was the heir. The man who was once positioned to receive everything Abraham had now serves the son who replaced him as the heir. He serves Isaac. If this identification is correct and it is the most natural reading, then Elizabeth has been in Abraham's household for decades. He watched the covenant unfold. He was there when Isaac was born. He is not a hired employee on a business trip. He is the most trusted person in Abraham's life outside of his own family, the man who has been at his side through the entire journey. And Moses identifies him not by name, but by his function, the oldest, the one in charge of all, the one that Abraham trusts. And the namelessness of the servant in Genesis chapter 24 is theologically significant. And we're going to return to that when we examine typology or the typology of the chapter later on. Now, verses two and three say, Please place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth. Place your hand under my thigh. This gesture appears twice in the entire Bible here, and then again in Genesis chapter 47, verse 29, when Jacob asks Joseph to make the same oath. The hand placed under the thigh might seem weird, but the hand placed under the thigh, more specifically under the reproductive area, is the most solemn oath gesture in the ancient Near Eastern world. And its meaning is deeply connected to the covenant context of the Abraham narrative. Several interpretations have been offered for what the gesture actually signifies. First, the oath was made on the source of covenant continuity. The descendants of Abraham promised from the beginning were represented by the body part associated with their origin, circumcision. To swear on the thigh of Abraham, or the private region, was to swear on the covenant itself, on the promise of descendants, on the future of everything that God has been building. Second, the oath carried a curse against the oath breaker. In the ancient Near Eastern custom, a oath made on this part of the body carried the implicit curse that the oath breaker's descendants will be cut off from the oath if the oath was violated. The servant was placing everything he was and everything he would produce under the authority of the covenant oath. And third, the gesture honored the covenant sign. Again, circumcision, the sign of the covenant given it back in Genesis chapter 17, was associated with the same area. The servant was swearing by the covenant sign of Abraham, placing his hand on the very mark of the relationship between Abraham and El Shaddai. Now, several scholars note that this oath gesture is the most binding possible in the ancient world, more solemn than any verbal formula, more permanent than any written contract. Abraham is not sending his servant on an errand. He is commissioning him with the most sacred act of covenant fidelity available in the ancient world. Now, look at verse 3 and 4. That you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live, but you will go to my country and to my relatives and take a wife for my son Isaac. Abraham's commission has two conditions, a negative and a positive. First, the negative. A good question to ask is why not the Canaanites? Then there are three reasons that intersect here. The covenant line must remain theologically distinct. Isaac's marriage would shape the faith of the next generation. The Canaanites worshiped other gods. A Canaanite wife would bring other worship into the covenant household. It would distort the beliefs and the following of the one God. Also, the Canaanites are under judgment all the way back to Genesis chapter 9, verse 25, in the curse of Canaan. So marriage into that line would entangle the covenant heir with a people whose judgment was approaching based on a promise found earlier in the book of Genesis. Last, remember the pattern of the seed established all the way back in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. It requires that the covenant line be preserved with deliberate intentionality. The seed of the woman that will crush the serpent must not be diluted or diverted by marriages that will compromise covenant faithfulness. Now, next there's the positive side of this. Go to my country and to my relatives, Mesopotamia, the family of Nahor, the branch of the family that did not receive the call, but they share the bloodline. Abraham knows that Nahor's family has prospered. Genesis chapter 22, verse 20 through 24 brought news, including the name of Rebekah. And so he knows his relatives. He knows the family line. He knows where to send the servant. Verses 5 through 7 say the servant said to him, Suppose the woman is not willing to follow me back to this land, should I take your son back to the land where you came from? The servant raises the one contingency that could derail the mission. What if the woman will not come back with me? And this is a practical and legitimate concern. The servant is about to travel hundreds of miles to find a woman he has never met, and he's going to ask her to leave her family and her country and come back with him to marry a man that she has never seen. So what if she says no? And the servant's proposed solution is to bring Isaac back to Mesopotamia, which seems very reasonable. If the woman will not come to Isaac, perhaps Isaac should go to the woman. But Abraham's response to this proposal is one of the most urgent in the entire narrative. He says, beware. Beware that you do not take my son back there. Not, hey, let us think about this backup plan. Let us, let us, let us come up with some other solutions. He said, beware. This is a strong warning. It's actually near a prohibition. So why was Abraham so insistent that Isaac must not return to Mesopotamia? And there are several reasons that converge here. Number one, the land of Canaan is the land of the promise. God called Abraham out of Mesopotamia toward Canaan. So to send Isaac back would be to reverse the direction of the covenant, to walk the promise backward toward the place God called Abraham away from. Second, Mesopotamia represents the old world that Abraham left. Ur, Haran, the family of Nahor, who do not did not receive the call. Returning there, even briefly for Isaac, risks that the covenant heir would become attached to what the covenant left behind. And third, Isaac's presence in the land is theologically necessary. The promise was given in the land. The covenant ceremonies were in the land. The altars were in the land. Moriah was in the land. Isaac belongs in Canaan. So the bride must come to him, not he to the bride, because the direction of the journey matters theologically. And this is a pastoral principle that I believe is worth pressing. Abraham understood that the direction of movement in covenant life is never backwards. You go forward to the promise. You are never to retreat to the place that the promise called you away from. We never retreat back to our old lives. Next we read this: said the Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying to your descendants, I will give this land, he will send his angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. And so Abraham grounds his confidence, not in himself, not in his servant, but in the character and the history of God, not in the servant's skill, not in the probability of success, but in the God who has been faithful from the very beginning. He rehearses the entire narrative where he goes, he says this, who took me from my father's house, from the land of my birth, who spoke to me in the divine speech found in Genesis chapter 12, 13, 15, 17, and 18. The God who swore to me the oath of Genesis chapter 22, when he says, By myself I have sworn, to your descendants I will give this land. This is the promise that God made, the covenant of the land. After this comprehensive rehearsal of divine faithfulness, Abraham makes his declaration with confidence. His angel, the same divine messenger who appeared to Hagar in Genesis chapter 6 and Genesis chapter 21, who called from heaven in Genesis chapter 22. This angel will go before the servant on this mission. So Abraham is not merely encouraging the servant. He is making a theological claim based on the track record of a specific God who acted in specific ways in specific history. This is the foundation of biblical confidence. This is not blind optimism, the general expectations that things will work out. This is faith, the specific confidence in the God who has already demonstrated his faithfulness at every stage of the journey. Abraham's statement, he will send his angel before you introduces the theological framework that governs the entire chapter. The servant is going on a mission that requires divine guidance at every step. He cannot know which woman, he cannot know which family, he cannot know which well and at which hour. But Abraham knows something that the servant needs to know before he departs. And that's that the God who called Abraham out of Ur, who took him, who spoke to him, who swore to him, that God goes before his servants. He sends his angel before you. The mission is not the service to accomplish by his own skill and his own intelligence. It is the Lord's to accomplish through a servant who trusts and obeys. This is the theology of divine guidance. The servant will stake his entire journey on. And when the sign is answered at the well before he finishes praying, which we'll see in the next study, the servant will have proof that the angel went before him. Psalm chapter 32, verse 8, we read this, and this is a beautiful verse. Psalm 32, 8 says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way in which you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. So the God who counseled Abraham across twenty-five years of counsel, uh here, counsels the servant across hundreds of miles of road. Look at verse 8 and 9. It says, But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath. Only do not take my son back there. So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. Abraham builds in a release clause. If the woman will not come, you are free from the oath. This release clause reveals something important about Abraham's theology. He believed God would send his angel before the servant, but he did not believe that divine guidance eliminates human freedom. The woman will be asked, she will be giving a choice, and if she chooses not to come, that choice will be respected, and the servant will be released from the obligation to bring her. Abraham's release clause is a statement about the nature of divine providence. God guides the mission, but he does not override human will. The angel goes before the servant, but it is the woman that will have to choose. And we'll see this play out explicitly in Genesis chapter 24, verses 57 through 58, when the family asked Rebecca directly, Will you go with this man? And Rebecca answers for herself, saying, I will go. And so divine guidance and human choice are seen there operating together. The angel went before the servant, and the woman chose freely. Both are true and both are necessary. And the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham as master. This means that the oath is sealed, the commission is accepted, and now the mission begins. Now, let's ask a question here that I find interesting. And that question is: why Moses does not name a servant? This is one of the most striking features to me in Genesis chapter 24 is that the servant is not named. The central human figure of the entire chapter is never named. He speaks more words than any other character that we find in Genesis outside of the patriarchs. He prays, he gives gifts, he negotiates, he recounts the entire story, but he is never named. As mentioned earlier, many commentators, ancient and modern, identify him as Elizer or Eli Hazer from Genesis chapter 15, verse 2. But Moses never confirms the identification of the servant in Genesis chapter 24. And most people reading into this see the omission as deliberate. And the most persuasive explanation is that the servant is typological. He is a figure who is pointing to another figure that will be introduced later in the scriptures. The servant in Genesis chapter 24 most believe is a type, a picture of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit, we see in the New Testament, does not speak on behalf of himself. If you have your Bibles, this is an important verse that you should highlight and understand. When people ask you, what is the role of the Holy Spirit? We don't need to guess. Jesus gave us the answer. In John chapter 16, verses 13 through 14, this is what Jesus says. He said, But when he, capital He, when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own initiative. But whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of mine and will disclose it to you. The Holy Spirit, he will not speak on his own initiative. The servant in Genesis chapter 24 speaks entirely about Abraham, about Isaac, about the Father, about the Son. He does not speak about himself. So later when we see Laban and Bethuel ask, who is he? He tells them about his master. When he meets Rebekah, he tells her about his master's son. He is entirely selfless. The mission is not about him. The mission is to bring the bride to the son. The namelessness of the servant is Moses' way of pointing beyond a human figure to the divine agent who goes before every servant, the one who does not speak of himself, but glorifies the son and draws in the bride. Now, when you look into modern apologetics, let's go back to this because this is a point worth pressing. Some people find this super weird. You have to understand the context in which we're reading, but the oath gesture of the hand under the thigh has attracted scholarly attention both for its unusual nature and for what it reveals about the historical setting of the Genesis narratives. Settings uh several ancient Near Eastern texts document oath rituals. That involve placing the hand on a specific part of the body as a solemn gesture. The specific form in Genesis chapter 24 and 47, the hand under the thigh, has parallels in the ancient world that confirm its antiqu antiquity. The Mari text, uh text from the 18th century BC, include references to ritual oath gestures in treaty context. The practice of swearing by reproductive areas are near it in connection with covenant descendants, is documented in Mesopotamian legal text. The gesture is not a primitive superstition. In that time, it is the most binding legal act available in the ancient world. And its presence in Genesis chapter 24 is just another marker of the authentic historical setting of the narrative. Also, think about the angel who goes before the Lord in relation to ancient Near Eastern context. Abraham's declaration that the Lord will send his angel before the servant reflects the concept of divine guidance that is very unique to the Israelite theology in the ancient world. In the ancient Near East, divine beings were generally associated with specific locations, a city god, a temple deity, a regional power. The concept of a god who goes before his servant on a specific mission, who guides across distance into a foreign territory is distinctive to Israelite theology. The Mesopotamian gods did not travel with their devotees. They stayed in their temples. Travelers in the ancient world expected to encounter different gods and in different territories. The God of Abraham goes before the servant into Mesopotamia, the territory of the other gods, and guides the mission from inside the foreign land. This is theologically unique in the ancient world. And it's theology, that it's the theology that will produce Exodus, the God who goes before his people through the wilderness and a pillar of cloud and fire into the land of promise. We also see in this text the New Testament connections. Now we've already mentioned this, but I think it's a topic that is worth pressing so that we understand it clearly. And there's gonna be a sermon coming up that I preach in just a couple of weeks. It's gonna tie chapter 22, 23, and 24 together. And I'll try to record that and get it out for everyone. But the the reading of Genesis chapter 24 and the typology here has been recognized by commentators from the very early church fathers through present-day scholars. The correspondences between the servant and the Holy Spirit are very unique. And so I want to just share some of these with you. Number one, the Father sends the servant in the Genesis account, as the Father sends the Spirit in John chapter 14. The servant goes out to find a bride for the Son, just as the Spirit draws the church as the bride of Christ. We see this throughout the New Testament. Revelation 22, 17 is a good verse for you to read. The servant does not speak on for himself, as the servant or the spirit in John chapter 16, verse 13, does not speak of himself. The servant presents gifts to the bride as the spirit brings gifts to the church in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. The servant's mission is to bring the bride to the Son, as the Spirit's mission is to present the church, the bride, to Christ. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 27. And the bride is asked, Will you go? As each person is asked to choose, as the spirit draws, but does not compel. The typology is not an imposition. It is deeply embedded in the structure of the story, the nameless servant, the father's commission, the distant journey to find the bride, bring the gifts, ask the question, and then bring the bride home to the son. And the antity, the spirit drawing the church as the bride of Christ, is what gives Genesis chapter 24 its ultimate significance. I also find it interesting that this happens after chapter 22, when the son carries the wood up the hill for a sacrifice and willingly submits, than in chapter 23, when a promised land has been established. This pictures the pattern of the New Testament so clearly when you put it all together. Next, Abraham grounds the servant's commission in the oath found back in Genesis chapter 22, when he says, Who swore to me saying to your descendants, I will give this land. The oath sworn to Mariah is what gives Abraham the confidence to send the servant on an apparently impossible mission. Just because God swore by himself that the descendants would be blessed and multiplied. Therefore, a wife for Isaac must be found. Therefore, the angel will go before the servant to find the wife for Isaac. Hebrews chapter 6, verse 17 and 18, on the two unchangeable things, the promise and the oath, present them as the anchor of hope. Abraham is the living, is living from that anchor, and the servant is being sent into the unknown on the strength of that anchor. The mission of Genesis chapter 24 is possible because the God who swore by himself, a Moriah, does not leave his oath unfinished. Now, our next lesson, we're going to jump into Genesis chapter 24, verses 10 through 61. It's a very long section, and so we're going to have to break that up just a little bit. And there in that passage, we're going to see 10 camels loaded with gifts. We're going to see a well at evening in Mesopotamia, a prayer that was answered before it was even finished being prayed. And a woman who drew water for 10 thirsty camels without being asked. Now, just a reminder: if you are enjoying these lessons, just a few things you could do to help out, consider subscribing to the YouTube channel. It doesn't cost anything. It's free for you to do. Follow the podcast on your favorite platform and share that with people. And last, if you would like to support the show, please consider uh doing that through our nonprofit. And you can send me a message and I'll I'll get you the information for that. Again, thank you in advance for your prayers and your encouragement, your questions, and everything that all the messages that I've been getting throughout this podcast. Until next time, I pray that you have a blessed day.