Pastoral Peace?

 (Lectionary for July 9, 2107)

There are few occasions in the saga of Genesis where the reader may breathe a deep sigh of relief, an opportunity to cease for a time keeping a wary eye on the shady and ironic dealings of the patriarchs and matriarchs of Israel. We may stop at the well in Nahor along with Abraham’s faithful servant and watch with great pleasure as the beautiful virgin Rebekah fulfills all the hopes of the anxious servant by offering him, and his camels, refreshing water from the well, thus acting in precisely the way that affirms her as Isaac’s intended bride. Indeed, at the end of the long and deliciously repetitious tale, Isaac sees Rebekah returning from Nahor as he walks in a field. She asks after his identity, and upon learning that he is Isaac, she without comment slides off her camel, demurely and appropriately veils her face to meet him, and immediately joins Isaac in Sarah’s tent to begin the relationship that concludes with their marriage, clearly a love match (Gen.24:67) that provides “comfort” to Isaac when his aged mother finally dies (Gen.24:67).

Well, what are we to preach about from this quite lovely but seemingly simple tale of YHWH’s will thoroughly and completely fulfilled? There are at least two undercurrents here that may be worthy of our reflection.

First, Abraham, as he charges his servant to go back to his home country across the Jordan River to secure a wife for his son, emphasizes that no local girl will do. Abraham lives among the Canaanites, and makes it crystal clear that the servant “will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites,” but instead “will go to my country and my kindred and get a wife for my son Isaac” (Gen.24:3). To seal his concern Abraham makes his servant swear “by YHWH, God of sky and earth” that he will secure a wife from his homeland. Of course, there is a certain irony here, since it was precisely YHWH’s call to Abram long before that “he should leave his country and his kindred” and follow YHWH “to a land that I will show you” (Gen.12:1-3). Now the servant reverses the movement of that call and heads back eastward to fulfill his master’s human call. Obviously, there is something about these local Canaanites that is to be avoided.

I suggest that intermarriage among the Canaanites and Israelites was a quite common feature of early Palestinian history. There is no record of any peoples living cheek by jowl that indicates that the intermingling of those peoples was not the usual activity expected and performed. To be sure, there may have been prohibitions established at both local and regional levels that proscribed such behaviors, but we can be certain that local desires often and regularly trumped such official demands. After all, the languages of the two peoples were quite close, the customs similar, religious practice hardly as distinct as the biblical record implies. But especially for later Israelite storytellers, it became important to make clear that the now-hated Canaanites were in no way part of the patriarchal family tree. Hence, first cousin Rebekah from Nahor must be wife of Abraham’s son and no local Canaanite need apply.

Unfortunately, it was a text like this that cemented in the minds of many Bible readers that intermarriage of any sort was to be avoided as unworthy of God’s will and way. After all, it was only barely 50 years ago that marriages across racial lines were viewed as illegal in the US. Today, in 2017, it is a common feature of our country. The most recent census figures suggest that well over 15% of all marriages here are interracial ones. Clearly, Abraham’s fear of a Canaanite wife for his son has passed into the dustbin of history, at least for an increasing number of modern couples and families. Intermarriage across races is another sign that our world is becoming more accepting, more open, to new ways of seeing our neighbors, despite the continuing pains and agonies of racism in our day.

The second undercurrent in this long pastoral story is a subtler one, and sets up a later feature in the story still to come. After Rebekah waters the servant and his camels, she runs to tell her brother, Laban, of the encounter she has just had at the communal well. The narrative tells us much of this brother if we read with care. “Rebekah had a brother whose name was Laban (from the Hebrew for “white”); and Laban ran out to the man to the well.” Now listen! “As soon as he had seen the nose ring and the bracelets on his sister’s arms” (the objects given to Rebekah by the servant as tokens of her superb hospitality at the well), “Laban said, ‘Come in, O blessed of YHWH” (Gen.24:29-31)! Old Laban, upon spying the rich gifts that this unnamed stranger offered to his sister, becomes roundly magnanimous in his greeting. “Come in! Why stand outside when I have prepared the house and a place for the camels” (Gen. 24:31)?

This will not be the last time that Laban reacts with magnanimity when he sees riches displayed by an Israelite relative. I prefer to call Laban “Whitey” in recognition of his shrewd eye for wealth. Later in the tale when another Israelite relative shows up at the well of Nahor, Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebekah, and falls madly in love with one of Whitey’s daughters, Rachel, Whitey uses that love to lure Jacob into marrying his eldest daughter, Leah, by tricking him in a darkened tent (see the wonderful story of Jacob, Whitey, Rachel, and Leah in Gen. 29-31). Then, when Jacob becomes wealthy, having married both Leah and Rachel, and having 11 children by them and two concubines, Whitey gazes with jealousy on the vast wealth that Jacob has accumulated.

However, lest we cast aspersions on Whitey alone about his love for cash, we cannot forget the wily Jacob, who when first seeing Rachel at the well indeed falls for her, but his love is not only due to Rachel’s great beauty. Listen! “Now when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother’s brother Laban, and the sheep of his mother’s brother Laban, Jacob went up and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well and watered the flock of his mother’s brother Laban” (Gen. 29:10). He saw Rachel but also cast at least one eye on the vast flock of sheep that she was tending; both Rachel and her sheep empowered Jacob to rush to the well head and heave the enormous stone off of it single-handed and watered Laban’s flock. Both Whitey and Jacob (“Grabber” in Hebrew) have eyes for the dough that will later lead them to a dual over the wealth generated by the one and its supposed theft in the eyes of the other. Even in this pastoral scene, the narrator seems unable completely to stifle the desire for complexity in the tale. And that, of course, is why the Bible remains so much fun to read after nearly three millennia.

So enjoy the respite in Genesis, but keep your eyes peeled for that saucy narrator to surface out of the well of Nahor, amid the green grass, and among the gamboling sheep. (Images from Wikimedia Commons)