3. Isaac and Rebekah: Marital Missteps and Misery
3
ISAAC AND REBEKAH
As is true with many sons of celebrated fathers, Isaac simply cannot compete. Abraham is larger than life, a fascinating figure whose flaws and failures are easily ignored while his heroism is commemorated. Indeed, Father Abraham possesses a universal quality that few biblical characters can match. FatherAbraham, the children sing in worship, ManysonshadFatherAbraham; Iamoneofthemandsoareyou—Solet’sallpraisetheLord. Would such laudatory lyrics ever be sung to Isaac? Surely not.
The twists and turns in Abraham’s life are played out on the world stage, from Ur to Haran and Canaan and Egypt, and back to Canaan. Isaac’s story takes place on a much smaller scale, and even then he is often overshadowed by his father (as on the hike to Moriah) or mimicking his father’s behavior in saying Rebekah is his sister. For travel and adventure, Abraham’s colorful story has few equals in Scripture. Alongside of this, Isaac’s story almost seems drab.
The setting for the account of Isaac is primarily the home front. The domestic tension that permeated Abraham’s household is repeated in his son’s. Indeed, for those fascinated by family dysfunction, Isaac’s story surpasses that of his father.
From the moment she is introduced in the text, Isaac’s wife Rebekah is a commanding presence. As a young woman she exudes poise and hospitality. She is strong willed and a force to be reckoned with. Isaac is no match. When she enters the room, all eyes are on her. She steals the show with her dynamic personality. But she is also a master manipulator, who easily outsmarts her husband.
Like Abraham, Isaac demonstrates no real emotional attachment toward his sons. His favoritism for Esau seems to be associated more with the tasty meals he prepares from wild game than with love for the boy himself. Absent is the passion that Rebekah displays for Jacob or that Jacob has for his son Joseph.
Even Isaac’s relationship with his half brother Ishmael demonstrates no real emotion or passion. It does not rise to the standard of biblical drama—drama of bitter sibling rivalry. The enmity they are supposed to harbor against each other is less theirs than it is their mothers’. In fact, there is virtually no interaction between the two of them.
The Pentateuch often pairs brothers: Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Moses and Aaron. More often than not they are at odds, in part because God reverses tradition and selects for special honor the younger brother. So it is with Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael is Abraham’s firstborn dear son. But he is passed over when his baby half brother joins the family. From this point on Isaac almost seems to be a pawn in the fulfillment of God’s promise. He is acted upon more than he acts.
It is noteworthy that Ishmael fares far better in the hands of God than he does in the hands of Jewish and Christian interpreters. But why should he be neglected—and arrogantly dismissed? He is, after all, the son of Abraham, which alone should make the reader sit up and take notice. He is the son of Hagar who also receives God’s blessing. But even in the text Ishmael is an outsider making a life of his own—ever on the fringe. His influence will prove to be enormous, however, as the head of a warring people who will be a thorn in Israel’s side for generations to come.
Ishmael: Shoved-Aside Son
The nativity of Ishmael is noteworthy. Apart from the annunciation of the birth of Jesus to Mary, there is no more startling and descriptive birth prophecy in Scripture.
From this pregnancy, you’ll get a son: Name him Ishmael;
for GOD heard you, GOD answered you.
He’ll be a bucking bronco of a man,
a real fighter, fighting and being fought,
Always stirring up trouble,
always at odds with his family.[1]
There is no question about the paternity of the child—eighty-six-year-old Abraham. But his mother? Who was she? Servant girl Hagar is a surrogate mother. Sarah, according to her own scheme, is to be the baby’s mother. But it does not work out that way, as is often the case with such setups. So some thirteen years later Isaac, the real son of promise, is born to Abraham and Sarah.
But Ishmael is also a son of promise. God’s promise to Hagar is virtually identical to the one given to Abraham. In the desert these are the first words she hears the angel of the Lord say: “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”[2] If the message she receives is not enough to confirm Ishmael as a son of promise, a second message is even stronger, in this case given to Abraham.
When Abraham is ninety-nine and hears from God that he will father a son by Sarah, he thinks he has misunderstood and begs God to keep Ishmael safe and spare his life. God explains that he truly means that Abraham will have a second son, this one Sarah’s biological child. But Ishmael will not be forgotten. God says to Abraham: “I heard your prayer for him. I’ll also bless him; I’ll make sure he has plenty of children—a huge family. He’ll father twelve princes; I’ll make him a great nation.”[3]
There is an interesting contrast between the promise the slave girl alone in the desert receives from God and the one the wealthy herdsman receives. She hears God speak of a mighty fighter at odds with his family. It is no doubt reassuring to Hagar that her son will be the protector she needs against the family—the power of Sarah and her household. But the message Abraham hears highlights Ishmael as the father of princes and a great nation. In neither case should this extraordinary son of promise be sidelined.
Ishmael grows up in the shadow of the great patriarch Father Abraham and two mothers: Sarah, a beautiful old woman, and Hagar, the fetching servant girl. Does he feel the intense rivalry between them? Does his fighting spirit and tendency to stir up trouble begin as he sees the old one abuse the younger?
At thirteen Ishmael is circumcised. Why the long delay? Because it is only then when God gives the command. It is mass circumcision that includes ninety-nine-year-old Abraham himself and all the other males in the household. For the boy just coming of age this experience must surely have been no less than traumatic.
The next episode involving Ishmael occurs when Abraham is throwing a party to celebrate the weaning of little Isaac. Ishmael is stirring up trouble, as adolescents are prone to do, apparently poking fun of Isaac. Ever accusatory, his mother Sarah catches him and explodes. She orders both him and his biological mother out of her house. She makes it very clear that she is no mother of this wicked boy.
Abraham is devastated. How can he send Hagar and his son Ishmael out into the desert to die? But God makes it clear that this is part of the plan: “Regarding your maid’s son, be assured that I’ll also develop a great nation from him—he’s your son, too.”[4] Here, for the third time, is a message that clearly identifies Ishmael as a son of promise.
Ishmael must have wondered how his father could allow such a dreadful thing to happen to him. He heard no voice from God, and had his father told him of the voice he had heard, it would have only added insult to injury. So he is sent on what seems to be a death march with his mother into the arid desert. There he is left alone under a shrub because his mother does not want to watch him die. What a pitiful scene. Ishmael is in the desert dying alone. Hagar, because of her own neediness, does not even stay with him. He has been abandoned three times over: by his surrogate mother Sarah, by his aged father, and now his birth mother. What does he do? He weeps.
But there is a sudden turn for the better when God hears his cries and sends an angel, who speaks to Hagar (with perhaps more concern for the boy than for her, the mother who had given up). The angel says: “God has heard the boy and knows the fix he’s in. Up now; go get the boy. Hold him tight. I’m going to make of him a great nation.”[5] This is now the fourth time his status as son of promise is confirmed.
At that moment Hagar spots a well of water. She goes immediately to fill her jug and brings a drink to her crying son. Ishmael had been abandoned by everyone except God. The descendants of Ishmael will be a thorn in the side of the Israelites for ages to come, leaving the reader to realize once again that God’s ways and purposes are very intentional, though not easily understood.
A Bedouin shepherd boy today
As for Ishmael himself, the text is very clear: “God was on the boy’s side as he grew up. He lived out in the desert and became a skilled archer. He lived in the Paran wilderness. And his mother got him a wife from Egypt.”[6] He died at age 137, having seen his twelve sons grow up. Though not as familiar as Isaac’s sons, their names are all recorded in Scripture: “Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah.”[7]
Isaac
Isaac’s name, not Ishmael’s, will forever be linked with Abraham’s as father and son. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a legendary trio embedded deep in the soil of Scripture. Isaac is the son of promise. No other recorded birth in the Bible, apart from that of Jesus, is so significant—and so extraordinary. Though not a virgin birth, it seems equally implausible. Sarah is ninety years old, long past menopause. Abraham is one hundred. How could she possibly get pregnant? But angels pay a visit and make a prophecy. The following year a son is born. Isaac means “laughter flowing from gladness.” How appropriate. At his birth, both Abraham and Sarah must have laughed for sheer delight. Then eight days later he is circumcised.
The next big event in Isaac’s life is his weaning, which Abraham celebrates with an extravagant party. Sarah notices that Ishmael is poking fun of his little brother and goes ballistic. She may very well have been looking for an excuse to evict Ishmael and his mother Hagar from the house. And she succeeds.
More than a dozen years after this, when Isaac is an adolescent or perhaps a young adult, he is on a three-day hike with his father, two servants, a donkey, and a load of wood for a burnt offering. To any passing stranger nothing would have appeared notably peculiar as the four trek on to Mount Moriah.
There is no record of any conversation along the way. Without warning the little party comes to a stop. Abraham tells the servants to stay with the donkey while he and Isaac continue on with the wood, a knife, and burning embers. Isaac trudges along with the pile of wood hoisted on his back, bewildered by the turn of events. He is not used to challenging the good sense or authority of his father, but he screws up enough courage to ask where the lamb is for the offering. He has no doubt witnessed many such offerings—perhaps cringing at the killing of the lamb—and knows very well something is missing.
His father is evasive, saying God will provide the lamb, while knowing full well that Isaac himself is the one to be sacrificed. They continue walking in silence until they reach a spot where the father tells the son he can relieve himself of the bundle of wood. The father goes about building an altar and places the wood on it. Then, instead of God providing a lamb, as Isaac had imagined would happen, the father grabs ropes—perhaps those holding the wood or their robes together—and begins binding up the astonished son. Far worse is the sight of his father grabbing the knife.
Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah
Is he nuts? Isaac surely must have wondered. Has he lost all sense of reality in his old age? His mind is racing; his heart is pounding. But there is no indication that he even struggles to escape. As a youth, he could have decked the old man and been done with it. He does not. A patriarchal father is to be feared and respected. The son submits. Just before the knife slices his throat, however, his father cocks his head as though hearing voices. Then Isaac is set free.
There are no consoling words from the father. No I’m so sorry; I didn’t want to. God made me do it. Nothing. He simply walks over to where he sees a ram in the thicket, catches it by its horns, kills it, and places it on the altar prepared for Isaac. God speaks again to the father, and after that Abraham heads back to where he left the servants. The whereabouts of the traumatized Isaac are unknown.
Did Isaac ever hear the rest of the story? There is no evidence that he did. It is entirely possible that all he knew was that his father was about to kill him and then changed his mind.
How Isaac spent his life for the next decades in not recorded. He is apparently not present when his mother dies and when his father purchases a burial plot for her. But he grieves. Indeed, his grief is not assuaged until he takes Rebekah into his mother’s tent and loves her.
Isaac is not involved in any way in his father’s arranging to secure a wife for him. At forty he’s still a bachelor, perhaps wondering if the right woman will ever come along. Older brother Ishmael is probably a grandfather by now. Isaac does not know that his father has been working behind the scenes. Indeed, Abraham feels compelled to demand of his servant (who swears an oath) that he will not get a Canaanite wife for Isaac, but will travel to his home country and arrange for a wife from among his kin. Abraham is adamant that Isaac must remain at home. So the servant sets out with ten camels loaded down with gifts for the prospective bride’s family.
Everyday Life
Arranged Marriages
Arranged marriages were the norm in the ancient world, that of Isaac and Rebekah being an intriguing example. It was not uncommon that a potential bride would be given an opportunity to reject a proposal, as was true with Rebekah. Indeed, she had far more say in the matter than did her intended husband.
In many instances the bride and groom were in the same clan or otherwise related, though they may have never had an opportunity to meet. A marriage partner was often chosen sight unseen.
The bride-price, however, was out in the open, often determined at the end of hard-nosed negotiations. In some cases, the wealthy family of the groom could so impress the bride’s family that there would be no cause for wrangling. So it was with Rebekah. The gifts for her and her family were extravagant by any standard.
The dowry was different from the bride-price. It was given to the bride by her family and consisted of gifts of clothing and jewelry and items for her new home as well as servants. This was given in lieu of an inheritance. Such valuables protected her in the case of widowhood or abandonment and would be passed on to sons—never to fall in the hands of her husband’s family.
When all such gift giving and negotiations were completed, the bride was officially betrothed to the groom. They were married. No further promises or ceremonies or rites were necessary. A celebratory feast, however, was in order, and after that the marriage would be consummated.
One day when Isaac is out in a field meditating, he hears sounds in the distance. And then, from seemingly out of nowhere, a loaded caravan arrives, headed by Eliezer, his father’s most trusted servant. Abraham’s servant now tells Isaac the whole story. But Isaac, unlike the servant, is not a talker. Rather, he does what is expected of him or what he is prodded to do. He takes the veiled stranger into his mother’s tent and seals the deal; they consummate their marriage.
Now as husband and wife they see each other for the first time, and he falls in love with her. Strong-willed and stunningly beautiful, she no doubt reminds him of the one for whom he grieves. Indeed, it is only now that he finally finds some solace over the death of his dear mother.
For Isaac, Rebekah is everything he could want in a wife, but for her barrenness. Apart from consoling her, what can he possibly do about this unfortunate situation? He prays for her. God answers the prayer twice over, and Isaac becomes the father of twin boys—an incredible gift from God. But even as the boys are growing up, they become a source of tension between the parents. Isaac favors Esau, the one who loves the outdoors, over Jacob, who hangs around the house with his mother.
Isaac was an unbuttered bagel kind of a guy. Plain. That’s why we have the old saying: “An Abraham is usually followed by an Isaac.”
Stephen M. Miller, Who’s Who and Where’s Where in the Bible
One of the most perplexing episodes in Isaac’s marriage and his occupation as a wealthy nomadic herdsman is his encounter with King Abimelech during a time of famine in Canaan. In a déjà vu scenario that harks back to Abraham, he tells Abimelech that Rebekah is his sister. It is a bald-faced lie. She is not his sister. A relative, yes, but not sister.
Abimelech believes him, but when he sees Isaac being intimate with Rebekah he knows he has been duped. He asks Isaac why he has lied to him. That is a good question. Did Isaac tell Abimelech his wife was his sister simply because that is exactly what his father had done? He uses the same excuse his father had used—that he feared he would be killed.
Abimelech allows Isaac and his household to settle on the same land utilized by Father Abraham, but Isaac ends up having serious conflicts over water rights. He has the advantage of using the very wells his father had dug, indeed, becoming so prosperous that fierce resentment flares up. The locals, having been pushed aside, vent their fury by filling the wells with dirt. Abimelech then orders Isaac and company out of the area.
Isaac moves on and his servants rejuvenate old wells Abraham had dug decades earlier. When the servants discover a spring of fresh water, the local shepherds are furious, insisting the water is theirs. So his servants move on and dig another well, but that water is contested also. Finally Isaac moves on to an area where his men can graze the livestock and dig for water without conflict. It is named Rehoboth, meaning “wide-open spaces.” From there he goes to Beersheba, where God appears to him and repeats the blessing he has already given to Father Abraham. Isaac builds an altar and prays, referencing God by name. And again he digs a well.
No sooner has he settled down than Abimelech and his army show up. Isaac is startled by this show of force, because he had obediently moved on when Abimelech ordered him out of the territory. But Abimelech suspects God is on Isaac’s side, and he wants to secure peace. So dinner it is: Isaac as host, a toast, a treaty of friendship the next morning.
But there are serious conflicts on the distant horizon. When we meet Isaac again he is a blind old man, and he thinks he is about to die. But he wants one final tasty meal and he wants to bestow his blessing on his elder son. So he sends for Esau and makes a request that his son is most obliged to carry out. His appetite is not for leg of lamb or prime rib. He wants wild game that is hunted down and delectably prepared by his sportsman son.
While Esau sets off on his safari, Isaac sits back and waits, knowing it will be a long time before Esau returns home. But hardly have a few hours ticked by when his son shows up with the meal—already prepared, no less. Blind old Isaac is confused, asking which son he is. Prodded by his mother, Jacob confounds the old man into giving him the blessing, thinking he is Esau.
Soon thereafter Esau arrives with a hearty dish he himself has prepared from wild game. Only then does the old man realize he has been tricked by Jacob. He begins to tremble, shaking violently. In confusion, he cries out to Esau, asking who it was that just brought him a meal—who it was that received his blessing.
Whether Isaac ever learns that Esau had earlier traded his birthright for a bowl of stew is not recorded. Rebekah no doubt finds out, but Isaac seems often out of the loop. Although he had thought he was near death when he sent his son out to hunt game for his final meal, Isaac lives on for many years, becoming a grandfather many times over. He dies at age 180. Together Esau and Jacob bury him in the family plot, the Cave of Machpelah.
Rebekah: Strong, Confident—and Manipulative
Rebekah, like the mother-in-law she never met, is a looker—a striking young woman who, on top of that, takes seriously her purity ring. She’s a virgin. She is also competent, gracious, and strong, with an altogether impressive demeanor. She draws buckets from the well for ten thirsty camels, each of which is capable of a massive intake of water. Abraham’s servant is truly awed.
She also comes with an amazing pedigree: the daughter of Bethuel, son of Milkah, wife of Nahor. This stellar lineage is repeated three times in the story because of its significance. Since Rebekah’s mother is not closely related to Abraham, she is not mentioned. Her grandparents on her father’s side, however, are Abraham’s close relatives—Nahor, his brother, and Milkah, his sister-in-law.
After showing exceptional hospitality to Abraham’s servant, she returns home to bring the news to her family. Brother Laban hurries out to represent the family in welcoming Uncle Abraham’s emissary. Such a visitor bringing news from faraway places is a refreshing interruption to everyday life—all the more so because he has arrived with gifts.
It is significant that Rebekah is brought into the conversation about an arranged marriage. Typically a daughter would not be party to such negotiations, even if she did have some right of refusal. But Rebekah is not one to be ignored. Nevertheless, she is not in control of her own destiny. Abraham’s servant asks Laban and Bethuel (brother and father) if Rebekah can return home with him, explaining how God had answered his prayer by sending her to the well to give him and the camels water. They immediately respond in the affirmative, though insisting the matter is out of their hands—not, however, because the decision is Rebekah’s. Rather, they insist, it is God’s: “This is totally from GOD. We have no say in the matter, either yes or no. Rebekah is yours: Take her and go; let her be the wife of your master’s son, as GOD has made plain.”[8] Whether they would have seen the clear hand of God in the matter without the expensive gifts is doubtful. Laban would later show himself to be a most devious wheeler-dealer.
Rebekah gives water to Eliezer
Though Rebekah’s fate is determined by God, through Laban and Bethuel as mediators, she does hold the authority as to when she would leave. Both Laban and her mother want her to wait ten days before leaving, but she informs them she is prepared to go immediately.
As she departs with Abraham’s servant, Rebekah knows she will never see her family again. But she is determined to carry on the family line in obedience to God. So she and her servants journey by camel to meet the forty-year-old groom. When they arrive, they see him at a distance; he is out in a field. When he sees the camel caravan and begins walking to meet them, Rebekah covers herself with a veil and soon after that enters the tent with Isaac.
What happens next is not offered in the text. Sure, Isaac knew his wife. But before that did they share their hopes and dreams for the future? Did she tell tales of her childhood growing up on the farm? Was there any chitchat about the weather or the dust storms she encountered along the way? Or did they simply get down to business? What happens behind closed doors of a marriage is often kept secret—especially when two decades pass with no children. How do they pass the time? Does he ever tell her about his father, who was about to make a human sacrifice out of him? Does she even meet her father-in-law?
Unfortunately, the newlyweds soon discover that, like Isaac’s mother, Rebekah is barren. She has come into all the wealth she could want, but for the next twenty years she counts down the weeks, not missing a menstrual period. Then God answers Isaac’s prayer and she conceives. But the pregnancy is anything but routine. The cramps and kicking of one fetus can be painful enough; turns out she is carrying twins. And no ordinary twins. They are kicking and punching to the point that death would be sweet relief. She pleads with God for an explanation. This dreadful discomfort is not simply her imagination. God knows exactly what is ailing her:
Two nations are in your womb,
two peoples butting heads while still in your body.
One people will overpower the other,
and the older will serve the younger.[9]
This diagnosis would have hardly brought her joy, but at least she knows why she is having such a painful pregnancy. When the time comes for her to deliver, she and her midwives are prepared for a difficult childbirth. And so it is—one right after the other. The first is born as a baby should be, head first. But the second is coming through the birth canal arm first, and not only that but clutching the heel of the first. Truly an abnormal birth. But both mother and babies survive.
The young boys grow up heading in very different directions and under the care of parents who play favorites. Esau, the rough-and-tumble, burly boy who loves to be outdoors, is his father’s favorite. Jacob, the more thoughtful boy, who hangs around the house, is his mother’s pet. They are rivals, and they know how to jerk each other around—particularly when Esau sells his birthright for a pot of porridge.
The next we hear of Rebekah is when she, Isaac, and the entire household are sojourning among the Philistines due to a famine in Canaan. Isaac is introducing her to King Abimelech as his sister. She is his cousin but surely not his sister. She may have feared being taken into his harem and may have staged a public show of affection for her husband. At any rate, Abimelech looks out his window and sees them making out—or at least Isaac fondling Rebecca with no apparent objection from her. Brother and sister? He’s no fool. He’s onto Isaac and orders him to get out of his kingdom.
The years fly by and the boys are approaching middle age. Esau leaves home at forty and marries two Hittite women. Rebekah is furious, and she never gets over it, commenting to Jacob that she is absolutely fed up with these Hittite women.
Many years later, when the feeble Isaac has perhaps passed his 120th birthday, Rebekah overhears him telling Esau to prepare for his blessing. She’s heard decades earlier that Jacob is to be his father’s successor, and now she’s determined to take matters into her own hands. So while Esau is out hunting, she prepares a stew—and the reluctant Jacob—for the blessing. With skins on his arms and a tasty bowl of food, they pull it off, only to face Esau’s fury when he returns.
Rebekah obtains the blessing for her son, but she loses her son in the process. She sends him off to live with her brother Laban, where he will work and marry and father children who will never know their grandmother. The time of her death is not mentioned in the text, but it is presumed to be many years before the death of her husband. She is buried in the family plot in the Cave of Machpelah.
Concluding Observations
Rebekah’s character is easily painted in bold strokes. She is out there for everyone to see and hear—as well as criticize and admire. So also Ishmael, though he merits far less coverage in the Bible than does Rebekah.
But who is Isaac? Because the Bible offers so few details about this patriarch sandwiched between Abraham and Jacob, scholars are tempted to speculate. We can only imagine how deeply traumatized he was as a youngster on Mount Moriah, no doubt seriously questioning his father’s love. Indeed, the reader might question Abraham’s love for him. Why did Abraham argue so adamantly with God to spare the cities on the plain but not his own son? Might Isaac have been what Abraham considered a defective child? Is that why Ishmael poked fun of him? Did Abraham favor Ishmael and fear that Isaac would not marry and carry on the family line? Why was he so insistent that a servant go alone to secure Isaac a wife? Why did Isaac as a wealthy adult live in his mother’s tent rather than having a tent of his own?
Why did he not immediately recognize that Jacob was pulling a fast one on him when he gave Jacob Esau’s blessing? Is it possible he was mentally impaired?
Isaac was born to parents, half brother and sister, at a time when his mother was well past childbearing age—both factors considered to be serious issues for normal births. Is it possible that Isaac was afflicted with Down syndrome? Such a scenario does not require a massive stretch of the imagination.
Some might argue that an individual with such an impairment could not have maintained herds and flocks and dug wells and contracted business deals. Isaac did that and more, but such activities are not beyond the ability of someone with Down syndrome, especially someone pushed to succeed by his determined mother. Likewise, he learned by working with his father, who had herdsmen and personal servants to carry out his wishes.
Might Isaac have carried an extra chromosome 21? If so, how appropriate it is that a biblical patriarch would serve as a model for all those who have been marginalized by this condition.
Further Reading
Bakhos, Carol. Ishmael on the Border. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2006.
Gaubert, Henri. Isaac and Jacob: God’s Chosen Ones. Translated by Lancelot Sheppard. New York: Hastings House, 1969.
Moyers, Bill, ed. Genesis: A Living Conversation. New York: Doubleday, 1996.