And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebecca as wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan-Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian.
Genesis 25:20 sits at a seam in the book. Ishmael's short genealogy has just closed, and the line of promise picks up again with a marriage — one sentence giving Isaac's age, his wife's father, her brother, and the far-off district she came from.
The phrase "these are the generations of…" marks off the sections of Genesis, and one such section starts here. The rejected line is dealt with first and quickly:
Another of the divisions of this book begins at verse 12. Ishmael represents the rejected line. Scripture tells his generations first, and very briefly, because the generations of Isaac start with verse 19. He lived 137 years, and his sons became princes of some fame, since some of their names became well known and appear again in Scripture. Yet eight verses are enough for his story, since he is a picture of the first man, who must be removed to make way for the Second.
The place named in the verse is not incidental — it is where the family had settled after leaving their first home, and it supplied the wives of two generations.
A cultivated district in Mesopotamia. The city of Nahor stood there. Terah and his family moved there from Ur of the Chaldees, and from there came Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel, the wives of Isaac and Jacob. It is strictly Paddan-aram, meaning 'table land of Aram.'
Rebekah's descent is spelled out because Abraham had ruled out the women of the land his household lived in.
Then the servant is told that the bride for Isaac is "not to be of the daughters of the Canaanites." Abraham says she is to be of "my kindred." The Canaanites were under the curse and devoted to judgment. There can be no link between Christ in the glory and a world under judgment. Isaac's bride was not to be a stranger but one that already belonged to Abraham's family. So the Church is formed not of unbelievers, nor of a mixture of believers and unbelievers, but wholly of the family of faith.
Notice what the verse does not say: Isaac never travelled to Padan-aram. Others brought the bride to him. One writer contrasts this with Jacob, who later made that journey himself:
Jacob the wanderer had to refuse marriage with the Canaanite just as clearly as Isaac did. But only Isaac was forbidden, in the strictest way, to leave the land (Gen. 24:6, 8), so his bride had to be brought to him there. Jacob, by contrast, goes to look for a wife at the house of his mother's father. So Jacob's earthly place and family ties stand out just as plainly as Isaac's heavenly ones… Isaac's history is a picture of sovereign grace calling a bride to the Heir of all things in heavenly places.
The age matters. Set beside Ishmael's twelve sons just above, it measures how long the man of promise waited with nothing.
God Himself sees to it that faith is tried. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it. Ishmael can boast of his twelve sons, with names soon known by their villages, if not "towns," and by their camps, if not castles. Isaac mourned for a mother he loved, and had no wife provided for him until he was forty years old. Even then he remains childless some twenty years.
Another writer sets the two lines side by side and asks what time does to each:
The man of faith waits twenty years (Gen. 25:20, 26) for the first signs that his hopes will be fulfilled. Meanwhile the man of flesh shoots up into a great show of prosperity — a round dozen of princes in the family in little or no time!… When a man is in the right path, time is on his side and he can afford to wait… It makes a great deal of difference whether we work with time or against it. Put a seed into the ground and time will turn it into a forest. Put a sword into the ground and time will turn it into a streak of rust.
Abraham and Sarah had faced childlessness and reached for a human solution. This marriage met the same trial and answered it differently.
Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebekah as his wife. For twenty years they were childless — but under this trial they behaved even better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her servant to her husband. Isaac and Rebekah had no child; but they entreated the Lord, and waited for His mercy.
- Line. Scripture records Ishmael's line first, and briefly; verse 19 opens the generations of Isaac, the line God carries forward.
- Distance. Padan-aram, "table land of Aram," was the family's settlement in Mesopotamia — the source of the wives of both Isaac and Jacob.
- Separation. The bride could not come from Canaan, a people under judgment; she had to belong already to Abraham's family.
- Waiting. Forty years before a wife, twenty more before a child — the promise was sure, but the delay tested faith.
- Prayer. Where Abraham and Sarah once took matters into their own hands, Isaac and Rebekah asked the Lord and waited for His mercy.
And Isaac entreated Jehovah for his wife, because she was barren; and Jehovah was entreated of him, and Rebecca his wife conceived.
Isaac married Rebekah at forty, and then the promised line stalled: his wife could not have children. Why did God let twenty years pass before He answered, and what did the waiting do in Isaac?
The promise was sure, yet no child came. One writer sees God's hand in the delay itself, and prayer as its fruit.
It is of God that faith should be tried. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it. Ishmael can boast of his twelve sons, with names soon known by their villages and their camps. Isaac mourned for a beloved mother, and had no wife provided for him until he was forty years old. Even then he remains childless some twenty years… It was grace. But grace showed the channel through which the blessing was to flow. This drew out his prayers, while patience had its perfect work. Isaac therefore entreated Jehovah, and Jehovah was entreated of Isaac. The trial of his faith was far from being so searching as Abraham's. It was suited to each in divine wisdom. Strong faith shone in the father, gracious dependence in the son, to the praise of God in the blessing of both.
Kelly's older wording, "Jehovah was entreated of Isaac," is what the ESV gives as "the LORD granted his prayer."
Isaac was the promised seed, yet his home stayed empty. Another writer traces that emptiness to a lesson God meant him to learn.
So true and faithful are the dealings of our God with His people. Isaac, the promised seed, has no heir. He has none until he is cast on God and taught to look to Him instead of to nature. He must learn that God's blessings, whatever they are, will not yield the results he wants apart from Him. But once he learns this lesson, God can carry out the purpose He settled beforehand, and so He gave children to Isaac.
Another comment puts it in one line, looking back to Sarah, Isaac's own mother.
First, we learn here that Rebekah is as barren as Sarah, apart from the power of God. No principle of truth, no inherent power of grace, is enough for us apart from the direct working of God Himself.
One writer compares this couple with Isaac's own parents, who had faced the same problem years before.
Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebecca as his wife. For twenty years they were childless. But under this trial they behaved even better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her servant to her husband. Isaac and Rebecca had no child; but they entreated the Lord, and waited for His mercy. This was a difference. For a moment the last are first, and the first are last. We find such moral variety among the people of God to this day.
The verse says the LORD answered him. One writer finds God's delight in that answer.
The barren condition of Rebekah led Isaac to exercise faith and to cast himself upon the Lord for help. And He answered him. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and show His power in answer to prayer.
Another writer sets this answer against what idols can do.
In some countries people pray to idols for a son, but idols cannot answer — the true God can.
Some writers read Isaac's life as a picture of Christ. His prayer for his wife has a place in that picture.
Isaac intercedes for his wife (the church). These are all typical features of more or less interest, but the great course of his life is bound to be unheroic and obscure.
- Barren. Rebekah could no more bear a child than Sarah could — the line of promise had no strength of its own to continue.
- Withheld. God held the heir back until Isaac learned to look to Him, not to nature. His blessings yield nothing apart from Him.
- Waiting. Twenty childless years tried Isaac's faith. The promise was sure, but he had to wait, and patience did its full work.
- Prayer. His parents took a shortcut; Isaac did not. Grace showed him the channel of blessing, and that drew out his prayers.
- Answered. God delights to take up what is weak and barren and show His power in reply — idols cannot answer, the true God can.
And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If [it be] so, why am I thus? And she went to inquire of Jehovah.
Rebekah waited twenty years to conceive, and then felt a struggle inside her that she could not explain. Her question sent her to the LORD, and His answer reaches far beyond her own household.
Isaac and Rebekah faced the same childlessness as Abraham and Sarah. They handled it differently. One writer sets the two couples side by side:
Isaac was forty years old when he received Rebekah as his wife. For twenty years they were childless — but under this trial they behaved better than Abraham and Sarah had done. Abraham and Sarah had no child, and Sarah gave her servant to her husband. Isaac and Rebekah had no child; but they asked the Lord, and waited for His mercy.
Kelly explains why the wait was there at all:
It is God's way to test faith. The promise is sure, but the believer has to wait for it... It was grace. But grace revealed the channel through which the blessing would flow. That drew out his prayers, while patience did its perfect work.
One writer sees in the fight inside her the clash of two natures — a clash felt long before it can be understood:
But Rebekah conceives, and then she feels a struggle within her. It is once more that inner struggle of contrary natures, felt all through our course here. It begins before it becomes an outward, visible thing, and God must teach us its true meaning.
Mackintosh links this first struggle to what Jacob's whole life displays:
In the person of Jacob we have a most striking display of the power of divine grace. The reason is that we also have in him a striking display of the power of human nature... Before his birth, we read, "the children struggled together within her." At his birth, we read of "his hand holding Esau's heel."
Kelly notes the name of God in this verse — Jehovah, the covenant name, which the ESV renders LORD — and what her one move says about her faith:
There were to be twins. And the children gave an early sign to their mother, as we are told, for her trial, so that she too went to inquire of Jehovah. Who can miss how fitting the name of covenant relationship is here?... There is no ground to imagine that she consulted Melchizedek or journeyed to Moriah. Without either she knew where to find Jehovah and how to inquire of Him. Her faith might be weak, but it was real, and without superstitious dependence on any man or place.
Husband and wife each did the same thing in their own trouble, and that pattern is held up for imitation:
It is good to see both Isaac's entreating the Lord and Rebekah's inquiring of the Lord when problems arose.
Her question drew out a principle that runs through the whole Bible:
Rebekah also had learned to turn to the Lord for an answer to her question. In the reply that the Lord gave her we find another great principle stated. It marks God's purpose and runs all through Scripture. It is that of election... God declares His choice before the children were born, or had had any chance of doing either good or evil, as is so plainly stated in Romans 9:10-12.
Gaebelein guards against pushing this too far:
That this does not refer to any unconditional and eternal condemnation is clear. Notice that the words "Esau have I hated" do not appear in Genesis, but in the last book of the Old Testament. Then the character and defiance of Edom had become fully established. In Genesis the Lord speaks only of having chosen Jacob.
Some Jewish teachers once used this struggle to prove something the verse never says:
Rabbinical teaching carried the matter further. It held that a person could sin while still in the womb. That idea, it is said, rested on Genesis 25:22, where we read that the two children struggled together in Rebekah's womb. God does not send every bodily affliction as chastisement, though at times that may be the reason for it.
- Waited. Twenty childless years drew out prayer, not scheming. Isaac and Rebekah asked the Lord and waited for His mercy.
- Struggled. The struggle inside her pictures the clash of two natures. She felt it long before God taught her what it meant.
- Inquired. Rebekah needed no holy place and no holy man. Weak faith that knows where to take a question is still real faith.
- Answered. Her question drew out God's choice. He declared it before either child had done good or evil — the principle Romans 9 later builds on.
- Guarded. The verse says the children struggled. It does not say they sinned in the womb. Not every affliction is punishment.