And Isaac had just returned from Beer-lahai-roi; for he was dwelling in the south country.
Genesis 24:62 is a quiet hinge in a long chapter. Rebekah is still crossing the desert with Abraham's servant, and the story turns back to the bridegroom. It tells us where he has been and where he lives. Both details matter to commentators: the well he came from, and the southern country where he lived.
The name of the place Isaac came from tells its own story. It goes back to an earlier scene in this same family.
This means "well of the living and seeing one." A well situated between Kadesh and Bered, "in the way to Shur," so in the south. Here the angel of the LORD met Hagar when she fled from Sarai. Her cry on that occasion — "You are a God of seeing" — gave the well its name (Genesis 16:14). Isaac lived near this same well, Lahai-roi.
For Isaac this well was more than a landmark on the map.
Isaac's well, the place he loved most of all, was this Lahai-roi. The well told him, as it once told Hagar, of the gracious watching care of an ever-living, ever-present God. What a world this is, where sin has made Him a stranger, and where it has become necessary to seek God at all!
The name of the well also carries a promise for anyone still on the road.
He comes from the well Lahairoi — a word of deep meaning, for it means "the well of Him that lives and sees" (Genesis 16:14). As we travel on our way, how good to know that at the end of the journey we shall find One who has not forgotten His people. He sees and He lives — yes, the word is "He always lives" (Hebrews 7:25).
One writer takes the thought further. Hagar spoke of a God who saw her; the believer now sees too.
The older Authorised Version reads, "You, God, see me." That carries a most solemn truth. But surely it is a much greater thought for me to see God in Christ. It is not only that He sees me, but that I see Him revealed in perfect grace. "Isaac had just returned from Beer-lahai-roi" when he met Rebekah. This is the true and proper setting for the saint of God: standing in the full daylight of God revealed in Christ, and feeding where the new nature grows and becomes very fruitful.
The second half of the verse gives his address. That region has another name, and its borders matter.
The "south country" is the Negev. It was part of Canaan — the southern district that borders on the nearby wilderness. There he went out to meditate in the field at evening.
Isaac does nothing active in the whole chapter. That is not the same as not caring.
The servant's mission in Mesopotamia always looked ahead to the great day when he would guide the bride across the desert and present her to Isaac. In all these scenes Isaac had taken no active part, nor had he left the land of Canaan. All was left in the hands of the servant. Still, Isaac was far from indifferent to the servant's mission and the coming of the bride.
Many writers read Isaac's movement out from Lahai-roi as a foreshadowing.
From the well of Lahai-roi (the living and the seeing one) Isaac came. Isaac and Rebekah met. The servant presented her to Isaac and gave his report. As Isaac came out from Lahai-roi, so our Lord will come out from the place where He now is. He will come into the air to meet His own (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18). No doubt Isaac waited for Rebekah. As she expected to meet him, so we are to wait for God's Son from heaven. Before night came, Isaac took her into his tent, and then came the marriage (Revelation 19).
Isaac walking out to meet Rebekah also shows his own state of heart.
The picture presents Isaac as one who is waiting for, and wanting, his bride. Our desire for Christ may often be weak, but He always longs for the moment when His bride is presented to Him.
- Named — Beer-lahai-roi means "the well of Him that lives and sees." Hagar gave it that name when she met God there while running away.
- Lived at — Isaac did not just pass the well. He loved to be there, near a daily reminder of an ever-living, ever-present God.
- Located — The "south country" is the Negeb. It is still inside Canaan, on the edge of the wilderness. Isaac never left the land while the servant sought his bride.
- Watched — The name assures the traveller that the One waiting at journey's end has not forgotten His people. And more than being seen, the believer now sees God revealed in Christ.
- Coming — Isaac came out from that well to meet Rebekah. Commentators see in this a picture of Christ coming out to meet His own — a bridegroom who wants His bride more than she wants Him.
And Isaac had gone out to meditate in the fields toward the beginning of evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, camels were coming.
The servant's long journey ends here, and the story turns to the man waiting at home. Isaac meets his bride on a quiet evening walk — a scene that pictures both the shape of his life and Christ waiting for His own.
Isaac's story has little drama in it. Two things define him, and this evening walk is one of them.
The leading characteristics, then, are submission (Genesis 22) and meditation (Genesis 24:63) — a calm life given to quiet thought... the main course of his life is bound to be unheroic and unnoticed.
That obscurity is part of the lesson. The good things of his life came to him while he was alone with God.
He was meditating in the field when he got his Rebekah, and he had prayed for the mercy when God gave him Esau and Jacob... we see in him a man who fell short of being a witness for God in public, though he was kind and devout at home.
The word is plainer than it sounds. But where you do it decides whether it does you any good.
In the passages quoted, the word means "to talk to one's self" about whatever is filling the mind. As those passages show, this would be done, as in David's case, in the presence of the Lord... If meditation is to be of value and for blessing, we must do it in the presence of God.
Isaac went out to a field, alone. The place he chose matters as much as the habit itself.
A Christian, when he goes to meditate, must lock himself away from the world. The world spoils meditation... "Isaac went out to meditate in the field" (Genesis 24:63). He went off on his own so that he could take a walk with God in meditation. The world's music will either play us to sleep or distract us in our meditations.
The verse just before says where Isaac had come from. The name of that place carries weight.
He comes from the well Lahai-roi — a word of deep significance, for it means "the well of Him that lives and sees" (Genesis 16:14). As we travel on our way, how good to know that at journey's end we will find One who has not forgotten His people. He sees and He lives.
The trip across the desert took time, yet the chapter compresses it into morning and evening. When evening comes, Isaac is not indoors.
Verse 54 speaks of "the morning," when the journey started. Verse 63 mentions "the evening," when the journey finished and Isaac met his bride. Note that he did not receive her sitting in state in his father's tent. He had gone out to meet her.
Commentators see Christ in this scene. He waits through the present age while the Spirit draws His bride to Him.
The servant was sent to find a bride for Isaac, and we read that at eventide Isaac was meditating in the field. The blessed Lord is waiting; He is waiting patiently in the evening of this present age... The test for this woman is whether she is ready to follow the servant's leading. The test for us is whether we are ready for the Holy Spirit to take up our affections with Christ alone.
L. M. Grant is careful here. He will not say for certain what filled Isaac's mind, yet he still draws out the larger picture.
Perhaps thoughts of getting a wife were the main subject of his meditation. Even so, it is a faint picture of something greater: the Lord Jesus Himself will come to meet His bride, the church, as she nears the end of her journey on earth... We too will be glad to be veiled, as it were, when we meet our Lord. We will want Him to be the real Object of attraction.
- Morning. The chapter tells a long desert journey as one day. It starts in the morning (v. 54) and ends at evening (v. 63), when the bride arrives.
- Meditation. The word means talking a matter over with yourself, in God's presence. Isaac's field shows the cost: you shut the world out first.
- Character. Meditation and submission define Isaac: a quiet life, unnoticed in public, devout at home.
- Memory. He comes from Beer-lahai-roi, "the well of Him that lives and sees." The One waiting at journey's end has watched every step of it.
- Meeting. He does not wait indoors in state; he walks out. Commentators read that evening as this present age: Christ waits, and comes out to meet His own. Like Rebekah under her veil, we will want Him, not ourselves, to be the Object of attraction.
And Rebecca lifted up her eyes and saw Isaac, and she sprang off the camel.
A long journey ends in a single glance. Rebekah crossed the desert on a servant's word, and one sight of Isaac in a field brings her down off the camel.
Isaac lifted up his eyes in the verse before. Rebekah lifts up hers here. One writer reads that mutual look as the church's meeting with Christ, and what she sees repays the whole journey.
Not only did Isaac 'lift up his eyes' (v.63), but so did Rebecca (v.64). And when she did, 'she saw Isaac' — the one she had longed to meet, the one for whom she answered the call and made the journey. This is the hope of the church, to see the Lord Jesus face to face: 'For we shall see him as he is' (1 John 3:2)... Rebecca sees Isaac and knows that the journey is over. She gets down from the camel and covers herself with her veil, showing that she keeps her beauty for him alone.
The camel had carried her across the desert. She leaves it the moment she sees him. The reason is that the road has ended.
When at last Rebekah lifted up her eyes and saw Isaac, she got down from the camel, for the journey was over. And when at last we see Him face to face, our journey will be over. It will not be long. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. When the moment comes, our being taken up will not take long — only the twinkling of an eye, and we shall be there.
Rebekah did not arrive to find Isaac sitting in his father's tent. She saw him because he had walked out into the open country toward her. One writer follows the day from its start to that evening meeting.
Many have pointed out that the account tells the journey across the desert, however long it really took, as though it all happened within one day. Verse 54 speaks of "the morning," when the journey started. Verse 63 mentions "the evening," when the journey finished and Isaac met his bride. It is worth noting that he did not receive her while sitting in grand style in his father's tent. He received her as one who had gone out to meet her.
Her first sight of Isaac raises a question, and the servant who has guided her the whole way answers it. That answer is his last act before he hands everything over.
But the time is not long. Soon the bride sees a man walking in the fields, and her guide tells her that it is his master. Before he gave his account of everything, this faithful servant's last act was to say, "It is my master." What joy it will be to the Spirit of God — not only to have told us of Christ all our journey here, but before long to say to us, "This is He."
One writer turns her promptness into a question for the reader. Does anything in us answer to what she did?
Are we as simple in faith, as prompt and unlagging? Our journey is nearly over now, and the cry has already gone out, "Behold the Bridegroom!" — for those to whom the Interpreter-Spirit has spoken. Should there not be something in us that answers to this beautiful action of Rebekah's, when "she dismounted from the camel" and "took her veil and covered herself"? It is He whose glory Isaiah saw, and before whom the seraphim cover themselves. He calls us to a place near Him, and the intimacy is already ours, if we enjoy it. Both will show themselves only in deeper and more self-abasing reverence.
Another writer weighs working for Christ against waiting for Him.
Yes, the Bridegroom is coming! and the Spirit crying, Come out to meet Him. It is good to work for Him; it is far better to wait for Him... We need this hope in a world that lures on one side and destroys on the other, so that we purify ourselves as He is pure... Nothing can make up for this hope if it is lacking or even feeble.
- Eyes up. He watched for her; she looked for him. The hope held out to believers is the same: to see Him as He is.
- Feet down. She leaves the camel because there is nothing left to travel toward. The sight of him ends the road.
- He came out. Isaac did not receive his bride seated at home. He walked into the field to meet her.
- Ears open. The servant's last service is to name the man — a picture of the Spirit, who has spoken of Christ all the way and will soon say, "This is He."
- Head bowed. The nearer the bride comes, the lower she bows. Closeness to Christ produces reverence, not familiarity, and waiting for Him keeps the hope from growing feeble.
And she had said to the servant, Who is the man that is walking in the fields to meet us? And the servant said, That is my master! Then she took the veil, and covered herself.
Rebekah's long ride does not end at a house. It ends with a man walking toward her in a field at evening. The servant names him — "It is my master" — and her first move is to cover herself.
She does not put on the veil at random. The servant names the man first, and the veil makes her ready to be brought to him.
Notice how he received her. He was not seated in state in his father's tent; he had gone out to meet her. The servant recognised the lonely man in the field, deep in thought, as his master. He passed that knowledge on to the bride, and she then veiled herself, so that, hidden from other eyes, she might be presented to him.
The veil hides her from everyone else. One writer takes that as the pattern the church has failed to keep.
All the varied beauties that mark the saints of God are for the eye of Christ alone. The moment we do anything to attract the eye of man, the true character and beauty of the spiritual life are gone. When Rebekah saw Isaac she veiled herself — a very precious sign that she was to be for Isaac alone. The church ought always to have worn her veil. She should have kept herself for Christ alone, instead of displaying herself before the world that has refused and rejected her Lord.
She gets down from the camel before she covers herself. One writer asks whether the end of our own journey should draw the same response from us.
Our journey is nearly over, and the cry has already gone out, "Behold, the bridegroom!" For those to whom the Spirit, our Interpreter, has spoken, should there not be something in us that answers to this beautiful action of Rebekah's? She got down from the camel, took a veil and covered herself. It is He whose glory Isaiah saw, before whom the seraphim cover themselves. We are called to a place near Him, and the intimacy is already ours, if we enjoy it. Both will only show themselves in deeper and more self-abasing reverence.
The veil says something about who she now belongs to. One writer connects it with the covered head in the letter to the Corinthians.
Second, we see the man uncovered and the woman covered. This tells us of the difference between them, understood spiritually. As we read here, "For man was not made from woman, but woman from man." These two things are true not only of Adam and Eve, but of Christ and the church. So in the assembly the woman is to carry the sign of subjection, the covered head, and the man is to appear without it, picturing "Christ and the church."
One writer looks past Isaac to the day the church meets her Lord.
Isaac going out into the field, and the camels coming to him, is a faint picture of what will happen: the Lord Jesus Himself will come to meet His bride, the church, as she nears the end of her journey on earth. Of course the servant had to tell Rebekah who Isaac was, and then she covered herself with a veil (v. 65). She had no wish to display her beauty at that first moment. We too shall be glad to be, as it were, veiled when we meet our Lord, for we shall want Him to be the real Object of attraction.
The veil is not the end of the story. The marriage follows it.
After the meeting, Rebekah took a veil and covered herself. The bride made herself ready and the marriage followed, for "Isaac took Rebekah … and she became his wife, and he loved her." So too, our wilderness journey will end, and the great meeting will come. For the first time we shall see Him face to face, and He will receive us to Himself. Then we read, "the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready."
- Told. She veils only after the servant names the man. Recognition comes first, response second.
- Hidden. The veil hides her from every other eye. Her beauty was for Isaac alone, not for the road.
- Lowered. She comes down from the camel and covers herself. Nearness to a glorious person shows itself in deeper reverence, not in easy familiarity.
- Marked. The covering marks a relationship and an order. Writers carry it over to the covered head, and to Christ and the church.
- Married. The veil comes right before the wedding. She makes herself ready, and he receives her and loves her — the pattern of the meeting still ahead.
And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done.
The long journey is over, and the servant now gives his master a full account of the errand. Commentators call this short verse the close of a mission begun in Abraham's house, and a picture of the Spirit bringing a bride to Christ.
Commentators call this servant Eliezer. They tie his report to his single mind:
Eliezer set all his thoughts on carrying out the divine errand, and he could not rest until he had told Isaac all the things that he had done.
Another writer sees a man with one work, and a wish for all Christians:
Next comes complete and exclusive devotion to the service he had to perform. He would not eat until he had told his errand, and then there was no hesitation: he has one work and nothing else. If only it were so with all who are Christ's!
The errand had one destination, and the servant gives his report there. One writer follows the journey through to what fills the bride's heart at the end:
In the scene before us Eliezer conducts Rebekah to her bridegroom. So also the Holy Spirit conducts us to the end and the goal. What Rebekah first sees is Isaac; and Isaac takes his bride into his mother's tent. Now that she has the bridegroom, she takes no thought for anything else. She thinks no longer of the possessions, but of the bridegroom Himself. The important business was to bring the bride to the bridegroom.
One writer looks at how Isaac and Rebekah meet, and at what the servant's report may picture:
We see the most reverent love in her beautiful behaviour. And in his love and kindness we see the promises and testimonies of Eliezer fulfilled... This may be like the Holy Spirit delivering up His sacred charge to the Son of the Father, though He will dwell in the church for ever.
That handover does not mean the Spirit's presence with His people ends.
One writer describes the full range of what the Spirit puts before the souls He forms:
This is just how the Holy Spirit is pleased to form our renewed souls. He forms them with the love of Christ, and with the grace of His life and His death. He forms them with the glory that was His from eternity as a divine Person, and with His present exaltation as the risen Man and Head to the church over all things. He forms them with His coming appearing in glory, when He will make good His title and put all things under Him, having abolished all rule and all authority and power. Yet He never changes in that purpose, or in the nearness of love He has for His bride.
Not every writer presses the comparison the same way. One marks a limit:
Our Bridegroom has no need, as Isaac had, to hear what the servant had to tell. Yet no one can doubt this: in the communion of the Holy Spirit He takes every interest in her whom He loved as His own for heaven.
One writer applies the end of this journey to the church's own journey:
At the end of the church's pilgrimage the heavenly Bridegroom will come out into the air to meet her. He will then bring her into His Father's house... At the end of the journey the Bridegroom will be everything, and the present mission of the Holy Spirit will reach its perfect end.
- Errand. The servant had one work and nothing else; he could not rest until he had told his master everything.
- Errand's aim. Every step served one end: bringing the bride to the bridegroom.
- Errand told. Commentators read the servant as a picture of the Holy Spirit. He delivers up His sacred charge to the Son, yet still dwells with the church.
- Errand's content. The report covered all he had done. In the same way, the Spirit forms our souls with the love of Christ, His glory and His coming.
- Errand finished. Commentators differ on how far the comparison runs. Christ needs no report, as Isaac did. Still, at the end of the journey the Bridegroom will be everything.
And Isaac led her into his mother Sarah's tent; and he took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her. And Isaac was comforted after [the death of] his mother.
This verse closes the longest chapter in Genesis. The servant's journey ends, the bride arrives, and Sarah's empty tent has someone in it again. Commentators read the scene on two levels. It is a real marriage in Isaac's life, and it is a picture of Christ and those He calls to Himself.
One writer traces the servant's whole role and finds in him a picture of the Holy Spirit, whose work ends by handing the bride over.
Eliezer is a well-known type of the Holy Spirit "sent from heaven" on this gracious mission. He knows the mind of the father. He is in constant communication with God. He moves without hurry, straight to the point, and with dignity. He calls, wins, and adorns the bride. He carries and guards her through the wilderness until she is safely home. Then he hands her to the bridegroom, who goes out to meet her.
Isaac does not build Rebekah a new home. He brings her into his mother's tent, and his mother has just died.
The last verse of our chapter tells us that in gaining his bride Isaac forgot the sorrow caused by his mother's death. Sarah here is a type of Israel, out of whom Christ came as to the flesh. Right now Israel stands disowned as a nation. But the Spirit has filled that gap, and more than filled it, by calling out the church.
Commentators differ on the tent itself. Another writer keeps it for Israel's future and gives the church a different home:
Sarah's tent is, in type, for the bride on earth — Israel regathered. The Father's house is for the bride in heaven — the church — and for the friends of the Bridegroom.
"He loved her" is not the Bible's first mention of love. The order of the two mentions matters.
In Genesis 22 you have the story of the Father's love to the Son. Note that this is the first time Scripture mentions love. The next time we find it, it is the love of the Bridegroom for the bride (chapter 24). He loves her, and she comforts him. That is just what you would expect in Scripture: first the love of the Father for the Son, then the love of the Bridegroom for the bride, who comforts him. Yes, love is always personal, and mutual.
One writer lists the outward parallels first, then names the moral point that matters more.
Rebekah pictures the church in two main outward ways. She came out from among the Gentiles to be Isaac's bride, after his resurrection in figure. She entered Sarah's tent after Sarah's death. But the main moral point is that she believed without seeing… The mark that sets the church apart is this: faith in a message from her absent suitor wins her to betrothal. And so she receives the highest blessing and the closest affection.
The chapter ends with Isaac comforted. One writer reads the scene forward, to a meeting still ahead.
After the meeting Rebekah took a veil and covered herself. The bride made herself ready and the marriage followed… So too, our wilderness journey will end. Then comes the great meeting, when for the first time we see Him face to face and He receives us to Himself. Then we read, "the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready." Christ will present the church to Himself all glorious, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing — "holy and without blemish." Then it will be clear that Christ has found an object suited to His love, and responsive to His love, and He will be satisfied.
- Sent. The servant calls the bride, wins her, adorns her, and guards her across the wilderness. His work ends only when he hands her to the bridegroom.
- Won. Rebekah believed without seeing. A message from a man she had never met carried her across the desert, and that faith draws the closest affection.
- Brought in. She takes the tent of Sarah, who has died. For one writer this pictures Israel set aside as a nation, with the gap more than filled by the calling out of the church. Others keep the tent for Israel regathered.
- Loved. This is the Bible's second mention of love. The first was the Father's love for the Son in chapter 22. Here love is personal and mutual: he loves her, she comforts him.
- Satisfied. Isaac is comforted after his mother's death. The same line runs on to the day the bride appears without blemish, and the One who loved her is satisfied.