Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #19 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are going to read Genesis 24:17-22:

And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher. And she said, Drink, my lord: and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking. And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.  And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether JEHOVAH had made his journey prosperous or not. And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold;

I will stop reading there.  We have been going over this passage very slowly and carefully, and we have seen that there are different spiritual pictures, depending on which spiritual perspective you look at, whether it be that of the servant Eliezer or the girl Rebekah.  And both run.  The servant ran to meet her, and then Rebekah ran again unto the well.  We were talking about this, and we went to Psalm 119:32 which said, “I will run the way of thy commandments,” and we also went to Psalm 147:17 which said, “his word runneth very swiftly.”  It is the Word of God. 

We discussed how God’s people do go the way of God’s commandments.  We walk in the commandments.  The Bible says to “walk in the truth” or “walk in the light.”  They are all synonyms.  We walk in the commandments, and the commandments all have to do with truth and light.  And it has to do with a new-found ability to “walk.”  Prior to salvation, we are like the lame, and we cannot walk in the commandments of God.  But once we become saved, we can not only “walk” but “run” the way of God’s commandments, as it says in Habakkuk 2 in a couple of verses that have everything to do with our present period of time at the end of the world.  It says in Habakkuk 2:1:

I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

The watchman or the believer is at the watch post or tower where we keep watch and that is “at the Bible.”  When we are reading the Bible, that is when we are watching, and that is where God speaks, so that is why it says, “…and will watch to see what he will say unto me.”  We read the Bible, and read the Bible, and we wait on the Lord and watch: “Does He have any Word to us?  Does He have any message to us?”  And generations have done this down through the history of the world and the history of the church age.  They were “watching.”  Remember how many times Jesus would say that word “watch” and command His people: “Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh.”  Because it was not for them to know the times or the seasons, the people that lived during the church age had no need to know end-time information.  But all were commanded to keep watch; keep reading the Bible; keep studying the Scriptures; keep comparing Scripture with Scripture, making sure our conclusions harmonized with the whole of the Bible.  That is what we were commanded to do, and God’s elect children did carry out that command. 

Then when the proper time came at the time of the end, the Lord opened up His Word.  The people of God just followed the same methodology they had always followed, but now God was blessing it as we waited upon our watch to see what He would say.  And the information came forth like a flood.  It just “gushed out” of the Word of God, and we learned about the timeline of history, the faith of Christ, the true meaning of baptism as the washing away of sin; and the true significance of the Sabbath; the end of the church age; the loosing of Satan; the Latter Rain and God’s plan to save the great multitude outside of the churches; and the very day of Judgment Day itself, May 21, 2011.  Since then, we have been continuing to learn about the nature of Judgment Day, the character of the righteous judgment of God as He has brought revelation (through His Word) in the Day of Judgment itself; that is, He has continued to open His Word as we follow the proper process and watching in the Bible. 

It goes on to say in Habakkuk 2:2:

And JEHOVAH answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

Remember, the Ten Commandments were written upon two tables of stone.  If we searched out that word “tables,” it has to do with where the Word of God is written or upon that which the Word of God is written.  And it would be made “plain upon tables,” and the Bible qualifies as that “table,” and the Bible is written in parabolic form.  And the Bible says of Jesus, the Word, that without a parable He did not speak, and He was trying to teach us the nature of the entire Word of God from Genesis through Revelation.  So, if anything, a parable can be described as something that is not “plain.”  It is not apparent.  It is not clear.  It is a mystery.  But, now at the time of the end, “make it plain upon tables.” That is, it is not in “dark speeches” any longer, but God would make it known.  He would interpret and decipher the Word of God as His people compare spiritual things with spiritual, and the Holy Ghost teaches.  And as the Holy Ghost teaches, He will make it plain.

And as it is made plain, God adds, “…that he may run that readeth it.”  Now if you do not look elsewhere in the Bible, you would have no idea what that means.  What would that mean?  You are going to read some mysterious information that has been made plain, and then you will run after reading it.  “Oh, I will run the way of God’s commandments,” indicating that as these doctrines come forth (as they have been doing over the last couple of decades), they are God’s commandments and they are to be followed.  We are to run the way of His commandments, and to do them and keep them, whether it be the command to come out of the churches or the proclamation that the door was shut at the beginning of Judgment Day on May 21, 2011, and so forth.  That is what we are to do, and then it goes on to say in Habakkuk 2:3:

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak…

And the word “it” should really be the word “He,” and I am going to read it with the masculine pronoun instead of this neutral one because it is obviously referring to the Holy Spirit.  Again, it say sin Habakkuk 2:3:

For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end he shall speak, and not lie: though he tarry, wait for him; because He will surely come, He will not tarry.

That matches perfectly with our present situation where God the Holy Spirit has spoken through the process of comparing spiritual with spiritual.  It is the truth.  It is not a lie.  And here we are, and He is apparently tarrying, but He is not really tarrying, is He?  All has been done according to His Word and according to the perfect timetable of God.

Well, I just wanted to read this passage because it has the word “run” in it, and God’s people have been “running” the way He has directed us throughout the whole history of the world.  The book of Genesis goes back thousands of years, but this “running” is still going on today.

One other thing I want to mention is that the servant Eliezer, a type of Christ, was running to meet her, and Rebekah, a picture of the elect, ran to get the water.  And we understand that.  In understanding that Eliezer is a type of Christ or God, I do not think I mentioned this, but in Luke 18 we read about the prodigal son in Luke 15:17-20:

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

Here, we see the mercy of God and the great love of God the Father for those that He has saved.  He had already paid for their sins at the foundation of the world.  The Lord Jesus Christ, who is one with the Father, paid for the sins of His elect, and when the Gospel would go forth to work upon the heart of one of these chosen individuals, they would be drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ as the bride is drawn to the bridegroom.  And as they begin to come, there is eternal God the Father and the Almighty God.  Does He wait, staying in a fixed position and in a horrid way saying, “Well, now, you are the one that went astray, sinner.  You are the one that went far from me.”?  And that would definitely be true.  God is the one who is the offended party.  It is the sinner that has done wrong, and He would have every right to stay where He was and wait for the sinner as he approached: “You have to come to me, right where I am, before I will have anything to do with you.”  But that was not the case.  Instead, we see the grace, mercy, love, goodness, kindness and gentleness of God as he “ran” to the sinner and met him on that road that led back to sanity, back to the good path, the narrow way that is good for man to go.  And God ran to meet him, and that tells us a great deal about the character and being of God, and how wonderful a God He is, and how gracious and kind He is to His people.  So we can see an element of that as the servant ran to meet Rebekah.

We are going to move on now.  I think we have covered this pretty well, as far as the Gospel picture viewed from various angles.  Now we will move on, and I will read, again, Genesis 24:20-21:

And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels.  And the man wondering at her held his peace…

The Hebrew word translated as “held his peace” is also translated as “silent.”  And just to mention this, I have not been able to prove this, but I did wonder if there could be a sort of picture of the Gospel going forth in the church age.  And we know that after the church age, there was a period of silence in heaven, according to Revelation 8, for about “the space of half an hour,” which identifies with the 2,300 evening mornings of famine in which virtually no one was being saved in the whole world.  Then God broke the silence, and the silence had to do with a lack of joy in heaven, because when God saves, there is joy in heaven.  Then He broke the silence with the outpouring of the Latter Rain to save the great multitude outside of the churches and congregations.  And we did see that Rebekah gave drink to the man, and then when he was done drinking, she ran back to the well – there were two times when she filled her pitcher.  But I do not know for sure.  I just do not see clearly the markers of the two outpourings of the Holy Spirit, which would be outpourings of Gospel water.  So that could be in view, but it does not seem to be too defined here, so I am just mentioning it because it may be pictured here, but I do not see it too clearly at this point.

So, again it says in Genesis 24:21-22:

And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether JEHOVAH had made his journey prosperous or not. And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking…

So the drinking of the camels and the providing of water for them, since the camels were “unclean” animals may be pointing to the Gentiles of the nations during the Latter Rain.

Then it goes on to say in Genesis 24:22:

… that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold;

It does not say that he put it (the bracelets) on her.  I thought that was curious.  It just says that he took the golden earring and the two bracelets for her hands.  But he did put them upon her, because if we read further down, it says in Genesis 24:29-30:

And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban: and Laban ran out unto the man, unto the well. And it came to pass, when he saw the earring and bracelets upon his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, Thus spake the man unto me; that he came unto the man; and, behold, he stood by the camels at the well.

(Laban also ran, but we will not get into that now.)  So Laban saw the earring and the bracelets upon her hands.  Then I wondered, “It does not say where he saw the earring.”  But then a little further down, it says in Genesis 24:47:

And I asked her, and said, Whose daughter art thou? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milcah bare unto him: and I put the earring upon her face, and the bracelets upon her hands.

It is the servant who was speaking, so did the servant put the earring in her ear?  No – it does not say that.  It says he put it upon her face.  I am not sure exactly where he put the earring because the word “face” in verse 47 is Strong’s #639.  And this is a very interesting Hebrew word that is often translated as “anger” or “wrath” many, many times.  It is also translated as “nostrils,” and maybe that explains why it can be translated as “anger” or “wrath,” because when people get made their nostrils tend to flare.  The flaring of the nostrils is a sign of anger or wrath.  It is translated as “nostrils” in Genesis 2:7:

And JEHOVAH God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

It is also the same word, Strong’s 639, translated as “nostrils” in Job 27:3:

All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;

So the word “nostrils” is this same word translated as “face,” and it is also translated as “face” several times, but not as often as “anger” or “wrath.”  Normally, when it is translated as “face,” it is when someone fell on his face.

The servant put the earring of gold upon her face or it could be upon her “nostrils.”   It is translated as “nose” in Isaiah 3:16-26:

Moreover JEHOVAH saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and JEHOVAH will discover their secret parts. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,  The rings, and nose jewels, The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails. And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.

Here, God is speaking of the daughters of Zion.  First, He tells us of their adornment or the ornaments they wore, but then He goes on to say there is going to be a change.  Instead of the sweet smell, there will be stink, and instead of a girdle a rent, and that has to do with the judgment on the churches.  The churches can be typified by the “daughters of Zion.”  Let me just say that the “daughters of Zion” could be the true elect children of God, or it can be the corporate church.  It is just as a “virgin” can typify the elect, like Rebekah, or a “virgin” can typify the unsaved within the churches and congregations.  If you go to Matthew 25, you see ten “virgins,” five that were wise and five that were foolish.  Therefore, the adornment of the daughters of Zion could picture either the elect or those in the churches that identify with the elect.  In this case, because God is bringing judgment, it ends up that it says in verse 26, “And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground,” and it is a clear reference to God’s judgment beginning at the house of God.  We saw listed among the things that the daughters of Zion were wearing bracelets, earrings and nose jewels, just like the things the servant Eliezer put on Rebekah – a golden earring and gold bracelets.

We will have to get into this more in our next Bible study.