Chapter

IT AM now coming to a portrait of the Great Gallery which I at once recognize as having seen before. It is said to be that of Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel; but it has been reproduced in so many subsequent Uves that it has almost become typical. My impression is that I have met this woman often, in the streets of my own town, in the hours of my own life. Her features are quite familiar; her gait is not new. She has a breath of modern culture about her and more than a breath of modern freedom. We feel that we are not in the presence of the zenanas, that in spirit we have left the east far behind. We stand before a representative of the whole course of time, refusing to be classed under any nationaUty and resisting all efforts to limit her to a special age. (In the case of Sarah we found that the real

75 drama opens with the married life. In the case of Rebekah it opens with the proposal of marriageA The offer comes from Isaac, the son of Abraham, a near relative of her own, and it is sent by the lips of a servant. When she sees the servant approaching she has no idea of his errand. He comes to her in the light of a physical suppliant, toilworn and weary, seeking shelter for himself and provender for his master’s camels. By a grand stroke of the artist she is found off guard, when people are apt to show the weak side of their nature. But Rebekah has a wonderful talisman against such surprise. I can better describe it than name it; it does not lend itself easily to an epithet. Shall we say that she had a fine manner; that suggests something artificial. Shall we say she had remarkable tact; that suggests something utilitarian. The truth is, Rebekah has in her that which is the root of all fine manners and the source of all tact. She has an astonishing power of putting herself instantaneously in the place of those to whom she is speaking — of diagnosing their need, of saying the right thing. It is not only in high life that her urbanity shines. It cannot help shining anywhere. It is as gracious to a serving-man els to his master, as considerate to the burdens of a camel as to the troubles of a companion. I would add that it is as pleasant to those at home as to strangers, for they are loth to get quit of her by marriage; she must have been a sunbeam to the household. And all this is made more striking by the fact that Rebekah is a very beautiful young woman.

She has that gift of physical charm which is apt to produce self-consciousness. A weak nature would have been carried away. Not so Rebekah. She has the gift of intellectual sympathy. It probably manifested itself before she. got the sense of her own beauty; it got the start and it kept the start. Rebekah’s morning ray is a ray of sympathetic insight.

But I must go farther. There is a peculiarity about Rebekah’s sympathetic insight. It is not only manifested to things near but to things at a distance. I would call her a far-seeing woman, by which I mean a woman with an insight into the future. We often hear the phrase “a scheming woman;” let no one imagine that this is a synonym for “far-seeing.” A scheming woman is not one who foresees, but who makes, the future. She weaves out of her own brain a plan of what she would like to happen; she tries to adapt events to the plot she has conceived. But the far-seeing woman weaves nothing, plans nothing; she only looks forward and tries to see what is coming. Rebekah is no schemer; she has too much reverence for that. She looks into the future, not to find what can be changed, but to find what is inevitable. What she seeks is a vision of the coming will of God. When that vision reaches her, so far from scheming to alter it she will bow to it, cUng to it, live in the light of it. Her seeing of God’s future will be the guiding-star of all her present. It will mould her every act, it will tinge her every project, it will prompt her every thought. The sympathies of Rebekah are sympathies that look out into to-morrow; they are dominated by the light of other suns than that of the passing hour. We see this exhibited on the very threshold of her life.

As we have said, she has received an offer of marriage. Will she accept it? To answer that question before the event and to answer it correctly, I should require to take into account Rebekah’s keen sense of the days to come. If I left out of view her far-seeingness, I should anticipate the answer No. For, from a near point of observation, the prospect held out by such a union is not very encouraging. From a worldly standpoint I think she could do better than marr)’ Isaac. She was living among the sons and daughters of Heth — in the empire of the Hittites. Rebekah knew then, and modern investigation has proved now, that the empire of the Hittites was a very great power. True, it was sunk in idolatry; it was far below the light that had dawned among the Chaldees. But just on that account it was more on a level with the world of that day. A son of Heth would from an outward point of view have made a better match for Rebekah than a son of Abraham. There is a cave in Kentucky where the fish are bUnd. Suppose that a few seeing fish accidentally fell in, it would be their present interest to unite with the non-seeing, for these could move much more easily through their environment. Rebekah had fallen into a locality of spiritually blind people; but spiritual blindness was the fashion, and to be in the fashion was a claim to eligibiUty. It was her physical interest to ally herself with a son of Heth; and she could have won them by the thousand. And then, from a worldly side, Isaac was not the man whom an ambitious young woman would choose. He had great virtues, but they were rather of the heart than of the head. His youth had been one of beautiful sacrifice, of fine personal surrender. But such a youth was rather a preparation for the Kingdom of Christ than for the kingdom of the Hittites. To the man of this latter kingdom it must have seemed a weakness. His after years showed that he was not capable of a Hfe-struggle. If a possession was disputed, he would rather give it up than fight for it. He shrank before the men of Gerar as if he were a subordinate; he refused to contend for the wells which his own hands had digged. Providence had denied him what had been given to his father Abraham — an entrance into the great world. He was forbidden to go into Egypt.

He was confined to a narrow sphere, a humble, prosaic sphere with commonplace work and no outlet. He was too domesticated ever to be dominant — better suited for the summit of Mount Moriah than for the vision of physical conquest to be seen on the heights of Pisgah. Truly this was not a man who would be Ukely to captivate an enterprising eastern maiden!

But there was another side of the question, a far-off side. If Rebekah’s insight had been limited to the things around her, she would have rejected the suit of Isaac. But this young woman is not only keen-sighted, she is far-sighted. She sees that in this poor insignificant race to which she belongs there is one colour which will last, last in the night as in the day, last when gaudier hues have faded. What is that colour? It is the religion of the true God. Rebekah looks into the future and says: “My kinsman Isaac is less gorgeously apparelled than the men of Heth; viewed by the light of the hour they seem to outshine him. But I feel that the verdict of to-morrow will reverse that of to-day. I feel that his comparatively plain garment has in it an element which will outlast theirs, which will stand the wear and tear when theirs is moth-eaten and wasted. I feel that this race of mine, which is also his race, has in it that which will survive the brilliant trappings of the Hittites and bequeath an heirloom to posterity which they are powerless to bestow.” That was what far-seeing Rebekah thought, and it became the dominant thought of her life. She stands before us at this time and at all times as a woman of caste. Hers is not the caste of birth, of station, of wealth, or even of learning. It is the caste of religious faith. She would have recoiled from no poverty. She would have shrunk from no man of toil. She would have despised no alliance of an inferior degree. But to unite with a worshipper of another God, to join matrimonial hands with an idolater, this was the revulsion of her soul. And so, from Rebekah’s gaze all Hittite offers fade; and the figure of the Hebrew Isaac stands triumphant. Her decision is like the lightning flash. It waits not, it lingers not; and when her friends ask, “Will you go with this man?” the answer comes clear and ringinj5, “I will go.”

And now the scene changes, and we have Rebekah in her new married home. And the first reference to her domestic life is one of the sweetest in the annals of womanhood. It is contained in a single sentence, stating that she supplied to Isaac the place of his deceased mother. Her influence in the house was that of a compensation. The heart of Isaac had been overshadowed by the death of Sarah; Rebekah crept into the vacant spot and rekindled the ashes on the scene of the vanished fire. Rebekah’s first love for Isaac was a mother’s love. It is a great mistake to imagine that maternal love is something which can only exist between mother and child. There is many a woman whose attitude to her husband is instinctively that of motherhood. Not seldom is the feminine nature the stronger. Where it is, female love takes the form of protectiveness. It does not feel itself to be resting under the shadow of a great tree. Rather is it conscious of being itself the overshadower, of stretching out its arms to be a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest. Rebekah was intellectually the stronger life, and from the very outset she became the protective life. She took the lead early in the morning and she kept it till the night. And the first act of her lead was motherhood. The task of her marriage morning was to fill the chasm left in the heart of a bereaved son. Romance could not do that. Flattery could not do that. All the blandishments of amorous endearment could not do that. Nothing could do that but the strength of a maternal instinct. Women, proverbially, look up to their husbands; there are times when they must look down, must see wherein they themselves are stronger. It is a grand thing that this old primitive picture has so early revealed the marriage relation in a light so utterly paradoxical. Later years show us the protectiveness all on the male side. But on the threshold of this old book of Genesis it is the man that is sheltered by the oak of womanhood and the husband that is shielded by the motherhood of the wife.

Then comes the actual motherhood of Rebekah. Two sons are born, Esau and Jacob. They are twins; but in order of birth Esau has the precedence. This means that he is the heir to two things, the sovereignty, and the priesthood, of the clan, the birthright and the blessing. The birthright is the right of poHtical succession; it conferred upon the son the promise of inheriting the father’s kingdom when the father had passed away. But the blessing was something to be given during the lifetime of the father. The patriarch was more than a king; he was a priest. He was not only the head, but the religious minister of his clan; and he had to bequeath to his son not only his kingdom but his ministry. The process of bequeathing this latter inheritance was, as I take it, what is called the blessing. I understand it to have been an act of ordination by which the father imparted to his son a portion of his own priesthood and made him partaker of that part of his office which pertained to the service of God.

Esau, then, being the firstborn, was the natural heir both to the birthright and the blessing. In the ordinary course of things, if not superseded, he would be both monarch and priest of the clan. But now there comes into play the extraordinary foresight of this woman Rebekah. With the eye of an eagle she watches the growth of her two boys; and she makes a dreadful discovery. She finds that her firstborn is utterly unfit for the great destiny that Hes before him. With the piercing gaze of maternity and the still more piercing intuition of the religious devotee, she sees that Jacob and not Esau is the man for his father’s priesthood. She observes them from the cradle, she studies them from the dawn; and the dawn of her own conviction is deepened. I am aware this is commonly put in another way. I am told that Rebekah had become subject to favouritism, that by the weakness of maternal partiaHty she had fixed her affections on the younger-born. But they who say so forget the character of the woman. They forget that this daughter of Bethuel has a far-seeing eye for the Kingdom of God. They forget that from the very dawn of maidenhood she has measured the character of men solely by their power to accelerate the coming of that kingdom, that for the want of that power she has passed the gaudy Hittites by, that for the possession of it she has chosen the plain and unworldly Isaac. Is it likely that such a woman would be guided by preliminary favouritism! Her favouritism is a result, not a cause. Her estimate of her children is built on their conformity to the interests of God. If she wants Jacob to be the heir, it is not because her heart yearns for him, it is because her heart yearns for the God of her clan. If she would see him, and not his brother, promoted, it is because she is convinced that he, and not his brother, will promote the spread of God’s kingdom, that he, and not his brother, will lay the foundation of that ladder of ministry to man which is to be the true communion between earth and heaven.

Has she not marked these two boys through every stage of their being! Has she not seen the secular bent of the elder and the priestly mould of the younger! Has she not observed how Jacob cHngs to the clan of Abraham and how Esau associates with the children of Heth! Has she not pondered how Jacob worships at the altar of God while Esau spends time in the hunting-field! Has she not laid deep in her heart how Jacob like herself looks forward, and how Esau lives but for the hour! Has she not seen on

Jacob’s face the expression of a far-off dream of Divine glory at the very moment when the face of Esau wsis absorbed in the contemplation of a mess of pottage! That is the ground of Rebekah’s choice. I believe in my heart she would have made the choice even though personally she had loved Esau best. But personality with this woman had nothing to do with it, only the personality of God. It was not maternal favouritism, but religious enthusiasm that led her to desire a change in the natural succession to the priesthood.

Will Rebekah obtain her desire? It looks very doubtful. The decision must come from the father; it is Isaac alone that can ordain his successor to the priesthood. But Isaac has already made up his mind; he is all for his first-born, Esau. It is in the father, not in the mother, that we really find the spirit of favouritism. Rebekah supports Jacob for the sake of God; Isaac supports Esau for the sake of Esau himself. Rebekah is for Jacob in the interest of truth; Isaac is for Esau in the interest of partiality. Rebekah wants the younger because he will help the fire of the Divine altar; Isaac desires the elder because he will fan the flame of the domestic hearth. Rebekah’s advocacy is impersonal, it is lit by the lamp of heaven; Isaac’s championship is paternal, it comes from the love in a father’s heart. There is here between Isaac and Rebekah no common ground. There is mutual affection, but it cannot get through this field. It is a field on which they have planted separate, nay, opposite hopes; and Isaac keeps the key. He alone can pronounce the blessing; can it fall on any other than Esau! It is hard to see how Rebekah can get her wish.

But in the midst of the deadlock something happens, something apparently irrelevant, which is yet destined to change the whole aspect of the day. The health of Isaac has become very uncertain. “Uncertain” is perhaps the word. In point of fact, he survived many years, outliving even his vigorous partner. But I think he must have become subject to a physical affection of the heart which, while not incompatible with a long lease of life, made it imprudent to build thereon. He expressed the state of matters in the words, “I know not the day of my death, go REBEKAH THE FAR-SEEING

I might die any moment.” This was an argument for hurrying on the ceremony of ordination; and it seemed the death-knell to the hopes of Rebekah. But at this critical moment, as I have said, something happens. Isaac*s delicacy passes into his eyes, he becomes bHnd. Instantly into the soul of Rebekah there darts a ray of light, light born of her husband’s darkness. Surely God had sent her at last a means of fulfilling her desire! Might not Isaac be made to ordain God’s man instead of his own! Might not his hand be laid on the head of Jacob when he thought it was on the head of Esau! Could the younger son not be so clothed in the garments of the elder as to deceive the hand of the sightless patriarch! Isaac would be working in the dark; but God would be in the light! Isaac would choose the son he meant not; but the meaning of the Lord would be made plain! It seemed a glorious blindness; it had struck fire from heaven upon Rebekah’s darkened way. It had made her see clearly, through the tangled forest, through the mazy labyrinth, through the mists of doubt and fear, right into the kingdom of God.

“Are you going to apologize for Rebekah!” cries the indignant spectator of the picture. No; be comforted; I am not. I have always recognized this incident as the one blot of her life. A blot it certainly was — deep, dark, disconcerting. But it is none the less a blot with pure ink and the very ink with which she is writing her life. This woman’s sin was not, as most sins are, the fall from an habitual path of righteousness; it was a fall in her habitual path of righteousness. David fell by revolt from God, Solomon fell by forgetting God; but Rebekah fell by fanaticism for God. Sinners are usually conscious rebels against the Divine Will; but Rebekah’s darkest deed came from the sense that she was obeying the Divine Will. She never dreamed that she was working for any end but the cause of Providence. She was wrong, as Saul of Tarsus was wrong, as hundreds of persecutors have been wrong; but the light which blinded was a supposed light from heaven. All through her life this woman never wavered in her purpose. It was her refusal to waver that made her stumble. She wanted to present to God a soul of her own house who would keep unblemished the priesthood of her race. She fell by the weight of the very burden which she believed she was carrying for Htm.

We need not prolong the well-known story, how the blessing went to Jacob that was meant for Esau, how Esau swore to take his brother’s life, how, to save that life, the mother sent her son away. She thought she was parting with Jacob only for a few days, till his brother’s wrath should cool down. She never saw him again; mother and son had parted for ever. And, as in the case of Job, the critics have gathered around her desolation to point the moral of the judgment of God. They say, “This is your punishment, Rebekah; you showed favouritism for your son, and God has taken your son from you.” But I think from out of her own whirlwind Rebekah could have amply answered the critics. I can imagine her from her place of bereavement to cry: ‘’He has taken my son from me not to punish but to prove me. If I had been guilty of the favouritism you attribute to me, do you think I could have borne this separation! If I had chosen Jacob that he might remain for ever by my own side, the loss of him would have killed me. But I chose him for God’s sake, not for mine; I chose him because I believed he would open a door of the kingdom. Therefore in my bereavement, in my sadness, I die not; I have lost my son, but the Lord has found him. This cloud has proved my sincerity. The fact that I have outlived my bereavement shows that my selection of a son was no mere gush of a mother’s partiality, but a zeal for the honour of God, a desire for the welfare of my people, an effort to accelerate the advent of the reign of righteousness.”

Here I bid Rebekah a friendly farewell. I part with her at her worst moment. The handwriting of her life has been clear and legible; but on the last page there is one big blot. Yet I find that this blot has come, not from a slackening, but from a tightening of the hand; it has been caused by an exaggeration in the current of her zeal. There are many who commit fraud to help Satan; of this woman it must be said that she committed fraud to help the Almighty. The act was wicked, but the motive was pure. We shall impute to her the motive instead of the deed,

and we shall leave her in peace. She rests in

the cave of Machpelah beside Abraham and

Sarah; and when everything has been said by

way of detraction and everything conceded by

way of criticism, we feel bound to record our

verdict that she has earned her right to repose

there.

* *

Lord, help the mothers of our land to adapt their children to the calling suited for them! Give them something of Rebekah’s insight! Have they a boy of dreams, gazing ever toward the starhght to find a ladder between earth and sky; let them not send him to break stones in the quarry! Have they a lad of mechanical parts, ever piecing together physical contrivances, ever inventing things of outward genius, let them not send him to Bethel with its visions beyond the earth! Above all, O Lord, let them set apart the right man for Thee for Thine altar, for Thy temple, for Thy worship! Let them not bring Esau from the hunting-field to offer the evening sacrifice! I would not have them disparage Esau or his hunting-field; let them recognize Thy hand even in the secular! But forbid that they should put Esau to the work of Jacob! Give Rebe ah an inspired heart to choose the minister of the family! — it is Rebekah’s work alone. Isaac may choose its huntsman; Laban may choose its lawyer; Ishmael may choose its soldier; but Rebekah has a right to its priest. Let none interfere with Rebekah, neither Isaac nor Laban nor Ishmael! Let none plead primogeniture in a question of primal grace! Whoever may select Thy warriors, Thy sailors, Thy merchants, let Rebekah be the chooser of Thy prophets! Wing her soul with Thy wisdom; light her eyes with Thy love; stir her heart with Thy sympathy; point her way with Thy penetration; direct her vision with Thy discernment! Give her the power to see on which member of her household the spirit is ahghting in the form of a dove! and when she beholds the dovelike form she will know that she has found the man.