Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #21 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are going to read Genesis 24:22-28:

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 look at the historical account found in this chapter, and we have been looking at the deeper spiritual meaning.  The servant that Abraham sent is a type of Christ, and he can also be a type of the people of God that go forth with the Word of God, and the Word does accomplish what it was sent forth to do.  And it will accomplish the purpose for which God sent it.  That is why it said in verse 25: “And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether JEHOVAH had made his journey prosperous or not.”

Once the camels were done drinking, he took “a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold,” and he put them on her.  Verse 30 told us the bracelets were on her hand and verse 37 reveals that the golden earring was on her face.  And the word “face” is Strong’s #639, and it is translated as “forehead” in Ezekiel 14.  It is translated as “nose” in some places, and 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.

We know the Word went forth and that is exactly what the Word did in the spiritual realm.  It breathed life into the dead soul of God’s elect, raising them to life in their soul.  So, here, we have the golden earring of half a shekel.  We discussed that “shekel” is the word “bekah” that is found two times here, and it is found once in Ezekiel 38:26, where it is transliterated – it is just written out in English as it sounds in the Hebrew.  Then we saw where God said, “A bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel…”  So a bekah is half a shekel.  Then we followed the “half shekel,” which is a “bekah,” and we saw that it identified with the atonement money for the soul.

So we have a “golden earring of half a shekel.”  You know, this is how the Bible works.  It is how God speaks.  It is the language of the kingdom of God.  We have to look up the word, and see where the word leads us, which will define the word itself.  We do not use Webster’s Dictionary, and it is not our own understanding of what the words mean, but it is how God defines them in His Word.

In this case, the half shekel (bekah) is significant because it relates to the atonement.  Here, the atonement is tied to the golden earring put on her face or on her nostril, where the Lord originally breathed life into man’s nostrils, and he became a living soul.  Whenever the Word of God was sent forth in the day of salvation and found one that was predestinated, it breathed life into the individual and applied the atoning work of Christ to that person.  So that is what we see in view with the golden earring of a half shekel weight.

As far as the earring, we also saw in Isaiah 3 and Ezekiel 16 that when God found a people for Himself and established “institutions” or outward representations of His kingdoms on the earth (like Old Testament Israel or the New Testament churches), in a figure it was as though He took them and “cleaned them up,” clothed them and decked them with gold and silver.  But for those that were never truly saved, it meant they would pollute, as it were, the grace of God and the goodness God had shown to them.  They corrupted and polluted it, turning it into something vile, because they were never saved.  That is why when the Lord spoke of the daughters of Zion in Jerusalem in Isaiah 3 and Ezekiel 16, He also pronounced His judgment upon them for polluting His Word and the relationship they had with Him in an outward way.  If they had a true inner relationship in their spirits, it would mean that God had done to their souls what He does for His elect (and not just a type of the body of the corporate church), and then all their sins would have been washed away and forgiven, including any filthiness they were involved in after the Lord bestowed salvation upon them.  But because it was only an outer relationship, God did finally judge them, and He destroyed the churches and congregations.

But earrings, as well as the bracelets, were part of what they were clothed and attired with, wherein God placed upon them His comeliness (in a figure), and made them beautiful.  This is the reason why the servant, a type of Christ, put the golden earring of a half shekel upon Rebekah and two gold bracelets upon her hand.

In Proverbs 25, we read of an earring of gold.  It says in Proverbs 25:12:

As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.

The word “earring” is the same word we find, as well as the word “gold.”  It was an earring of gold, and here God is going to make a spiritual link.  He is really giving us a definition of what it means to receive an “earring of gold,” in the Bible.  Just like the Lord Jesus would say, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”  That is what this is saying: “As an earring of gold or like an earring of gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.”

I just have to mention something.  I remember that almost thirty years ago, I worked at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Philadelphia.  I worked with a young man that was a counselor, and he also said he was a Christian, and sometimes we would have talks about the Bible.  He wore an earring, and I remember asking him, “Why do you wear an earring?  Do you think that a Christian man should wear an earring?”  And he pointed to this verse: “As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.”  He tried to use this to justify his wearing an earring.  “You see, God is speaking well of an earring here.  It is like somebody who has an obedient ear.”  Of course, that is really typical of many in the churches regarding the mysteries of the Bible.  They completely lose sight of the meaning on the spiritual level, and what it is trying to say, and the fact that God uses types and figures.  Just because God uses types and figures, we are not to apply them physically to ourselves and, in this case, especially for a man.  There are very good reasons why a man should not wear an earring.  It is sort of described in the Bible, as we saw in Isaiah 3 and Ezekiel 16, as the attire of a woman, and a woman is in the position of being beautified, and that is not the position of the man.  And it really does tend to draw attention to the individual if a man puts on an earring – it is not what God’s people want to do.  We do not want to draw attention to ourselves with tattoos, earrings, or styling our hair in a way that people are drawn to us individually regarding our beauty.  That is not for us men.  We also want to dress in a way that does not necessarily draw the attention of others to us. 

What if we were going forth with the Gospel, and as we are handing a person a tract, they are looking at our physical bodies and things we have done to our bodies.  Of course, if we do things like tattoos, you cannot always correct that, and you have to live with that.  But going forward, once the Lord has come into our lives, we want to live humbly and lowly.  We do not want the attention to come to us personally or individually, but we want the attention to go to Christ.

Anyway, that man I worked with a long time ago was wrong.  This verse does not give allowance for men to put on earrings, but God is simply making an identification between an “earring of gold” and a “wise reprover upon an obedient ear.”  Who would that wise reprover be?  Who is wise and reproves?  Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is the essence of wisdom, and He reproves.  He is also the Word made flesh.  We read in 2Timothy 3:16:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

By the way, the word “inspiration” in the Greek is a compound word that means “God-breathed,” just as it says in Genesis 7 that God breathed into their nostrils the breath of life.  The Word of God is wisdom.  It is wisdom, and the Bible is wisdom.  And when the Bible comes to the ears of the people of the world, do they receive it like an “earring of gold” comes upon an obedient ear?  No – they are very disobedient.  They refuse to hearken.  They will not do it.  The world thinks that wisdom lies within.  How ridiculous is that?  Just take a look around.  Where do you find wisdom in this world?  Go ahead, and take all the time you need, and look at other religions.  You will not find wisdom there.  Look at philosophies.   Look at the world’s science.  Look at sports, entertainment and the movie industry.  Look at its journalism.  Wherever you look, what do you find?  On a minute by minute and second by second basis, in this world you will find nothing but foolishness.  It is unbelievable that people think they are so smart and so intelligent. 

Yes – a man measured against his fellow man may have some level of intelligence and he may be smarter than many of the other finite little creatures running around.  That really makes him something, does it not?  It is just like an ant that thinks he is something because he is the greatest of the ants and, yet, he can be stepped on in a second and his anthill demolished.  What is man’s intelligence and wisdom?  (And intelligence is not in itself wisdom.)  But what is man’s wisdom in relationship to the Almighty God of the Bible?  It is absolutely nothing.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so God’s wisdom and God’s thoughts are higher than our ways and our thoughts.  We are tiny, tiny, tiny little creatures that were made in the image of God, but we get into matters that are “too high” for us, and we delve into things of wisdom that are way out of our league, and we think we have all the answers.  We are going to decide what is right and what is wrong, and what is good and what is evil. 

We think we know, and we are going to  put forth a “new morality,” and declare that the things of the past are all wrong, for example, regarding men being men or women being women.   “No – we are going to open it up, and we will leave it to the individuals regarding what gender they are going to opt for.”  How utterly foolish, blind and ridiculous.  Not even animals are that foolish – an animal knows if it is male or female.  And, yet, man in the darkness of his spiritual fall into sin is giving evidence of that dead inner condition, and they do not know if they are male or female, or they do not know that men should marry women and women should marry men, and not men with men and women with women.

Nor does man know when life begins.  He does not know if it is at conception or at three months or six months.  And now even with a baby outside the womb and in a baby crib, they are saying, “Let us decide,” and they are still trying to call it a fetus, even though the baby is breathing over there.  How wicked!  How evil is man!  And how utterly foolish is man! 

So the wisdom that has always been there (in the Bible), man has taken from the Bible and twisted, and tried to make it as if he is wise and intellectual, and he is the one that is all-wise within.  Now we see the reality, even though it has always been true, but now God is showing us all how utterly foolish man is, without wisdom and understanding.  How true and faithful these words are in Romans 3:10-12:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

There is no understanding in man.  It is all “put on” and it is all a show, as man acts as if he knows something: “Well, now, let me tell you.  Billions and billions of years ago, here is what happened.”  I am sorry.  I am sorry.  I am getting too sarcastic, I suppose, but it is so foolish and ridiculous to think that we little creatures…and I am one of them.  I am speaking for myself, too.  (But for the grace of God, God had mercy on me and opened up my eyes.)  But, in general, the fallen human race are just tiny things and little vessels that God makes unto honor or unto dishonor.  As a potter, He has made us.  And now those little broken vessels that, if left to ourselves, would be completely “unto dishonor” think they know better than God.  If there was any inkling of understanding or wisdom or real intelligence within a man, he would look around at this world and see its condition and realize, “It is not in us.  It is not in us.”  And he would turn to the Bible, and there we read of real wisdom and real knowledge and understanding, and things too high for us and too far above us.  Only by God’s grace can we be enabled to see it and, yet, He has granted understanding to His people.

The golden earring is, as it says in Proverbs 25:12:

As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  So we see Eliezer bringing the golden earring and putting it upon her face.  Whether it be upon her nostril or her ear, it is a picture of the same thing.  God is working in the life of that individual and life has been breathed into their “nostrils” or it has been placed upon the ear, so they can finally hear, spiritually.  The individual is no longer “deaf.”  Before salvation, we are “deaf,” “dumb,” “blind,” and “lame,” and anything else you can think of, and we have no life in us.  But after salvation, we now have ears to hear.  What do we hear?  The voice of Christ: “My sheep hear my voice.”  And that is because we have received ears to hear.  As Jesus would speak a parable, He said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

The rest (of mankind) will not hear.  They will not understand.  They will not hearken.  There will be no obedient response to the Word of God.  But in the case of God’s elect, there is an obedient response.  That is what “to hearken” means.  It is not only to hear with the ear, but to hear and respond in obedience, that is to hearken.  When it was proclaimed, “May 21, 2011, Judgment Day,” practically everyone heard, but very few hearkened.  When it was proclaimed that the  church age was over and the Bible said to flee to the mountains and depart out of the midst, many heard.  Few hearkened.  A few had the obedient ear that comes with salvation.

Well, we will end this study at this point and, Lord willing, when we get together again in our next Bible study, we will come back here to Genesis 24 and see what other interesting things the Lord has placed there for us to dig into.  “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.”