Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #20 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are going to read Genesis 24:21-28:

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; And said, Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee: is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor. She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in. And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped JEHOVAH. And he said, Blessed be JEHOVAH God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, JEHOVAH led me to the house of my master's brethren. And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother's house these things.

We are continuing to go carefully through this chapter in the book of Genesis, verse by verse.  It says in Genesis 24:21:

And the man wondering at her held his peace…

Remember he had an inner dialogue in his mind with God in which he said to let the damsel be the one that comes forth to offer him a drink and his camels drink.  And Rebekah came along instantly after he had this talk with God, and she did that very thing.  That is why he is wondering at her and holding his peace.  He was silently watching her, and it goes on to say in Genesis 24:21:

... to wit whether JEHOVAH had made his journey prosperous or not.

Now the word “prosperous” is found in Joshua 1:8:

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Also, it is found in Isaiah 48:12-15:

Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together. All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? JEHOVAH  hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans. I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.

This is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ who had been called by God.  And, of course, this completely has to do with God’s salvation program.  The whole purpose of this world is so that God can redeem a people for Himself and glorify His holy name, and so forth.

Let us look at one last place in Isaiah 55:10-11:

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Again, this would have everything to do with God’s salvation program and the sending forth of the Gospel into he world to seek and to find the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Or, to put it another way, the Gospel would form the elect bride of Christ, the eternal church, which would be found by the Word of God and saved by the Word of God.  Thus, God’s Word would  not return void, but it would prosper because that has always been the focus and the point for sending forth the Word into the world during the day of salvation.  It was to find a bride for the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, here in Genesis 24, the servant is a type of Christ and also a type of the elect.  We need to be constantly reminded because we are so forgetful when it comes to spiritual things.  Christ went forth and also the children of God went forth carrying the Gospel, and that is why we see those two verses – one in Romans and one in Isaiah – where, on one hand, it says, “How beautiful are the feet them,” and the other verse says, “How beautiful are the feet of Him.”  So this servant pictures that seeking of the bride through the sending forth of the Gospel, and now he is wondering as he is observing Rebekah and silently watching her, “Has JEHOVAH made his journey prosperous, or not?” 

And this was always the concern and the hope of God’s people whenever we would take a Gospel journey.  For the Apostle Paul in his missionary travels to bring the Gospel to various cities like Corinth or Thessalonica, it was for the same purpose, and it was the purpose of all the missionary journeys of God’s people during the centuries of the church age, whether it was going forth into Africa or India, or wherever it was in this world, as churches were established.  At the last, finally, the going forth was not only done physically because it was not always necessary, because there was the going forth of the Word over the air waves of the electronic medium by radio, internet and television, as the Word of God was carried into the nations of the world into the ears of God’s elect people.  But, in addition, there were many tract trips.  There was “Project Jonah” abroad and “Project Caravan” in this country where God’s people did journey to various cities to share the Word of God in tract form.  We always had an eye on the people, hoping and waiting: “Has the Lord made our journey prosperous, or not?  Will He bless His Word and draw His people in this location?”  We always had hope that God would, but we are not God.  Eliezer the servant was picturing the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord would have a better perspective whether a journey was truly prosperous.  We, as mere men, had to leave it with the sharing of tracts, and we would go back home, always hoping and praying that the Lord did bless His Word, and we would take comfort from verses like this in Isaiah that the Word of God would not return void, but would accomplish that which it was sent forth to do.

Now let us go on to Genesis 24:22:

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;

Again, he had been very observant, watching everything unfold.  The camels were done drinking, so Rebekah had really performed her duty.  She had accomplished her task.  In the spiritual realm, remember she had the pitcher and she gave drink to all and, shortly, she would go home.  She would leave.  So when the camels had done drinking, it says, “the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold;”  Here, for whatever reason, we are not told what he did with them, but we know from later verses that he put the earring on her and he put the bracelets on her, because it says of Laban in Genesis 24:30:

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…

He saw the earring, but we are not told where on her face he saw it, but he saw the bracelets upon his sister’s hand.  Then 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.

Here, we see he put the earring upon her face, and we discussed this last time.  The word “face” can be translated as “nose” and “nostrils,” so it would appear likely that he put the earring on her nose, but I do not think that is definite.  She had the earring on her face, either on her nose or her ear.  Again, it said in Genesis 24:22:

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

Now let us consider what we are told about the golden earring.  It weighed half a shekel weight.  The Hebrew word translated as “half a shekel” is #1235 in Strong’s Hebrew Concordance.  It is only used two times in the Bible.  It is not the typical word for “shekel.”  The typical word is #8255, and that is found several times, but this particular word is found here as “half a shekel,” and the other time it is found is in Exodus 38:26:

A bekah for every man…

The word “bekah” is #1235.  It the word translated as “half a shekel” in our verse in Genesis.  This is really a sort of transliteration because if you took the Hebrew word and tried to pronounce it in English, it would sound similar to “bekah.”  Again, it says in Exodus 38:26:

A bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men.

The whole congregation of the men of Israel were numbered, and it was related to “half a shekel” or a “bekah.”  So, because God here defines a “bekah” as “half a shekel” it means our verse is a good translation; it is fitting and accurate that the golden earring weighed half a shekel or a bekah.  That also helps because the bekah in Exodus 38:26 is connected to half a shekel, so we can follow the Hebrew word translated as “half a shekel.”  Let me correct that, as the word “half” is another Hebrew word.  The word “shekel” is the word #8255 and, yet, “bekah” identifies with both the Hebrew word for “half” and the Hebrew word for “shekel,” so the servant’s giving of the bekah or the half-shekel earring points to what we read in Exodus 30:11-16:

And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying, When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto JEHOVAH, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of JEHOVAH. Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto JEHOVAH. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto JEHOVAH, to make an atonement for your souls. And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before JEHOVAH, to make an atonement for your souls.

So, there it is.  The half shekel is atonement money to make atonement for the souls.  Of course, atonement has everything to do with the sacrifice and death of the Lord Jesus Christ, accomplished at the foundation of the world on behalf of those that were chosen to receive that grace and mercy of God.  He died in their place and, therefore, forgiveness of sins and eternal life was given to them.  That is what the atonement identifies with, and that is true of the bekah because it is related to the half shekel and the half shekel, spiritually, is related to the atonement.

So we can come back to our verse where we see a man, but it is not just any man that is a servant, but we are told in the book of Isaiah, “…shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.”  And this servant of Abraham identifies with that “righteous servant,” the Lord Jesus Christ, so it is as though Christ took a golden earring of a bekah’s weight and He put it on her face.  It has to do with a picture depicting that the Lord Jesus atoned for the sins of that person, and Rebekah would represent God’s elect people.  From all we can read about Rebekah in the Bible, it would appear that she was a true child of God.  I do not think we read anything that would dissuade us of that idea but, in any case, she would represent a picture of God’s people, His elect children, and the golden earring that was placed upon her points to the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now let us think about it being an earring of gold.  We saw in our last study (in Isaiah 3) that bracelets and earrings were part of the attire the daughters of Zion were fitted with, and we see this same thing in the book of Ezekiel.  I will read a verse first so we can see what the context is in Ezekiel 16:2:

Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,

Then God is going to continue to pronounce condemnation and to pour out His wrath upon Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is a type and figure of the corporate church.  So Jerusalem can also be identified with “daughters of Zion,” as we read in Isaiah 3.  Jerusalem can be a picture of the corporate church, or it can be a picture of the eternal church in Revelation 21:2:

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

There, “new Jerusalem” is as a bride adorned for her husband.  What kind of adorning would it be?  It would be an adornment of “gold and silver” in a figurative way. 

So the Bible does speak of “Jerusalem above” or “Jerusalem below,” and the earthly Jerusalem would refer to historical Jerusalem or the nation of Judea which also had an outward corporate relationship to God.  Or, it could be the outward churches and congregations as typified by Jerusalem and Judea.

Going back to Ezekiel 16, let us skip down to Ezekiel 16:6-12:

And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, and thou becamest mine. Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead….

Take note that it said, “I put bracelets upon thy hands,” and that is what the servant did in our verse.  The word “jewel” is the same word that was translated as “earring” in our verse, and the word “forehead” is the same word translated as “face” in Genesis 24:27.  We followed this word, Strong’s #639, and it is also translated as “nose” and “nostrils.”  So we see the bracelets on the hand and jewels or earring on the forehead.

And, by the way, this gives us another (spiritual) picture.  The forehead has to do with the mind, and in the Bible, the heart, mind and soul are synonymous, so this word can also identify with that.

It goes on to say in Ezekiel 6:12-14:

… and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord JEHOVAH.

You see, these trinkets (the bracelets and earring) that were put upon Rebekah are pointing to God’s comeliness and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It makes the “woman” beautiful.  It was a decking of gold and silver.  And, again, that points to the cleansing of salvation and the washing away of sin, and now stands the glorious bride.

We will have to continue this, once again, when we get together in our next Bible study.