Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #24 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are going to read Genesis 24:25-28:

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.

Last time, we were talking about the words “straw” and “provender.”  We saw that “straw” was translated as “chaff” in Jeremiah 23:28:

The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith JEHOVAH.

The word “chaff” is the same Hebrew word, Strong’s #8401, that is translated as “straw.”  Then we looked up the word “provender” and we saw it used in Genesis 42:25-27:

Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way: and thus did he unto them. And they laded their asses with the corn, and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the inn, he espied his money; for, behold, it was in his sack's mouth.

What was in the sack was corn, so he was going to give his ass corn.  That was the provender.  That defines the word “provender.”  This is the only place where I could find “provender” defined and, in this case, it is corn. 

Then we looked up the word “corn,” which is  #1250 in Strong’s Concordance, and it led us right back to Jeremiah 23:28:

…and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith JEHOVAH.

The word “wheat” is Strong’s #1250 which is translated as “corn” in the passage we looked at in Genesis 42.  And “chaff’ is the word “straw,” so the chaff can identify with the straw, as Rebekah said there was straw and provender enough in her father’s house, and the “wheat” would identify with the provender or “corn.”  That is interesting.  Just think of “chaff and wheat,” and what does that bring to mind, in the Bible?  Maybe it will cause you to think of Matthew 3:12:

Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

(A garner is a barn.)  Here, we see wheat and chaff, and one is gathered into the barn and one is burned up.  There is a figure of the man purging his floor at the time of the harvest, and the wheat is saved into the barn and the chaff is burned up.  That reminds us of the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13:25:

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

Further down the page, it says in Matthew 13:28-30:

He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

The wheat was to be gathered into the “barn” or “garner,” which was the same word used in Matthew 3:12.  We can definitely see the relationship between Matthew 3:12 and what happens to the wheat, as it is brought into the garner.  And, here, in the parable of the wheat and tares, the wheat is gathered into the barn.  We can also see the relationship between the chaff mentioned in Matthew 3:12, as it was burned up.  And what happened to the tares in Matthew 13:30?  They were bound in bundles to burn.  So the same thing happened to the wheat in both passages and the same thing happened to the chaff or tares in both passages.  Therefore, spiritually, it is teaching the same truth.

The Lord Jesus explained the parable of the wheat and the tares to His disciples later in this chapter, in Matthew 13:36-43:

Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

We have rightly understood this parable to be the mechanism that God set in motion when He opened up His Word to reveal the end of the church age, and He issued forth the command to come out of the churches.  We were to leave the congregations and flee to the mountains.  All of God’s elect did come out, although we acknowledge that not everyone that came out was God’s elect, but all God’s elect that were in the churches did come out, leaving none of the “wheat” in the churches.  On May 21, 2011 when the Latter Rain concluded and the Great Tribulation came to an end, it left the bundled “tares” within every church and congregation in the world, without any wheat still there.  The wheat had been brought out, safely gathered by God and this was the separation of the “saved” and the “unsaved” that had previously been growing together and occupying the local congregations.  They were in the churches and you could not separate them, and it was not God’s plan to separate them until the time of the end.  We are living at the time of the end, so we saw God work that out.

One other thing I want to mention (before we go back to Genesis 24 and consider the significance of what Rebekah was saying) is that the Greek word translated as “wheat” in the parable in Matthew 13 and in Matthew 12 is also translated as “corn” in Acts 7:12:

But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.

Jacob heard there was corn, and what did he do?  He sent “our fathers,” which were his sons.  His sons went to Egypt and they got hold of some corn, and it was in their sacks.  That is the word we are looking at, which is “provender.”  So we see how the “dots connect,” and how the Bible does relate the corn to wheat and that would apply to the elect within the churches and congregations, and how the Bible relates the corn or wheat to the provender that Rebekah mentions back in Genesis 24:25.  Again, this had to do with her father’s house, as the servant asked if there was room in her father’s house to lodge.  She answered, “We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in.”  She is saying, “We have both chaff (tares) and we have corn (wheat) in my father’s house.  In other words, we have both wheat and tares in my father’s house.  Of course, the house is a reference to the house of God, spiritually, and we already discussed how Abraham’s family identified with the corporate church.  And now this is further confirmation that this is the spiritual idea God is conveying to us, the readers.  This “house” has both wheat and tares. 

Notice that it said, “straw and provender enough.”  The Hebrew word translated as “enough” is Strong’s #7227, and it is translated in various ways.  It is translated as “many” or “more” or “great” or “full” or “enough.”  For example, it is translated as “great” in Genesis 13:6:

And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so they could not dwell together.

Also, it says in Ezra 10:1:

Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children: for the people wept very sore.

It was a “great” congregation, which is the word translated as “enough.”  That is what Rebekah is saying.  There are wheat and tares enough, or they are great – there is a great congregation in her father’s house.  That is basically the idea.

Or, it says of the “city,” a reference to Jerusalem,  in Lamentations 1:1:

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

The word “full” is our word translated as “enough.”  It was full of people in the city of Jerusalem.  And, again, that would have related to members within the churches and congregations.

So I think this word really presents the idea that we find in 2Timothy 2:20:

But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.

Here, God is contrasting what was found in a “great house.”  There were vessels of gold and silver and vessels of wood and earth.  That reminds us of 1Corinthians 3:10:

Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

Then the fire was put to them, and the one endured the fire and the other burned up, just like the chaff and the provender, or the wheat and the tares.  One is not burned up, and the other is burned up.  The same is true with the vessels of honour and the vessels of dishonour.  Just read Romans 9.  The Lord explains that the “vessels unto honour” are His chosen people, and the “vessels of dishonour” are those not chosen and are the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.  It is the saved and the unsaved.

So the word “enough” leads us along those lines, and we can fit it with that understanding.  Of course, a word like this is used many, many times, but we can see how it can be understood in this spiritual context that the Lord is developing in this chapter. 

It goes on to say in Genesis 24:25:

… and room to lodge in.

The word “room” is Strong’s #4725, and it is also translated as “place.”  We will just go to one other passage, in Jeremiah, chapter 7 where this Hebrew word is used three times in the context of verses 1 through 7.  It says in Jeremiah 7:1-3:

The word that came to Jeremiah from JEHOVAH, saying, Stand in the gate of the JEHOVAH'S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of JEHOVAH, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship JEHOVAH. Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

The word “place” is the word translated as “room.”  What place is that?  Where is he standing?  It says in verse 2 that he is standing in the gate of JEHOVAH’s house, so this refers to God’s house.

Then it goes on to say in Jeremiah 7:4-7:

Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of JEHOVAH, The temple of JEHOVAH, The temple of JEHOVAH, are these. For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

The word “place” is used twice here.  Spiritually, the “place” is the kingdom of God, and the corporate church was the outward representation of the kingdom of God on this earth.  And that is the meaning of this particular word “room” as used in Genesis 24:25.  Again, it can be understood in other ways, but as far as the spiritual understanding that is being developed here, it fits in with “straw and provender” and “wheat and tares,” and the great congregation of people and the great house where there were vessels of honour and dishonour.  And it was a “room” or “place” to lodge in, and the place was the outward representation of the kingdom of God, which does point to the eternal lodging place of the eternal kingdom of God where God’s people will dwell for evermore in the new heaven and new earth.  But since this is related to the wheat and the tares with the unsaved and unsaved dwelling together, it would have more to do with the outward representation.

OK, now let us read Genesis 24:26-27:

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.

Perhaps you noticed this, as it has started to stand out to me in verse 27.  The word “master” is used a lot in this chapter.  We can go back to verse 9, where it said, “Abraham his master.”  It is mentioned twice in verse 10, and it is mentioned twice in verse 12, and also in verse 14 and now three times in verse 27.  And it will continue in later verses, so I added up all the times the English word “master” is used.  It is Strong’s #113.  It was used in this chapter twenty-three times translated as “master.”  And it was found one time as “lord” in verse 18, where she said, “Drink my lord.”  So this one Hebrew word was found twenty-four times in Genesis 24, and twenty-three of those times it is translated as “master.”  What does that make you think of? 

For one thing, it is not an accident.  It is not a coincidence.  It is not something that just happened.  There is a reason that God does these things.  Remember when we studied Daniel 3, musical instruments were mentioned four times and itemized.  There were six musical instruments mentioned in three verses and five musical instruments mentioned in the fourth place; that is, God left one out.  So we can add 6 + 6 + 6+ +5, totaling 23, and it was in a chapter that has everything to do with judgment.  There were 23, but there should have been 24 because we know there were six musical instruments, but God left one out in one case.  And we find here 24 instances of the word “master,” but actually only 23 instances because one time it is translated as “lord.”

This reminds us of 1Corinthians 10:8:

Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.

Some critics of the Bible are very thorough.  He tries to find a mistake in the Bible to justify why he does not have to listen to it because he can say, “Oh, it is not perfect.  It is not holy.  It is just like any other book.”  And to make the Bible seem like every other book, he has to find mistakes, because every other book does have mistakes and errors and inconsistencies, so these people are very thorough in their searching.  So when they find it says that 23,000 fell, they refer back to the original historical reference in Numbers 25:9:

And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.

Here it says that 24,000 died, and the critics say, “Ah, ha!  The Bible cannot be trusted.”  However, they are careless in their eagerness to find a mistake, and they did not take the time to carefully read what God has said.  If they did, 100% of the time there will not be a mistake, because the Bible is perfect and without error.  It is inerrant.  Whenever there is a “mistake,” the real mistake is on the part of the reader and his comprehension and ability to perceive what God has said.  In this case, 1Corinthians 10:8 tells us that 23,000 fell in “one day,” but there were still 24,000 overall, and a thousand people died the second day or third day, or however long it took for them to die.  But in one day, 23,000 did die and the Lord is allowing this language to encourage the Bible critic to grab ahold of these kinds of statements and end up a million miles away from truth in their conclusions.  He very intentionally wrote the fact that 23,000 died in one day, but in the other place He laid out the total number that died over the course of two or three days, or so.  However, both statements are true, and that is how it will always be in the Bible.  There may be two seemingly contradictory statements and, yet, more careful reading will always prove both as true.  That is how we know it is the Bible.  It is “mystery” and that is how God sets up the traps or snares for the natural-minded reader. 

So we found the word “master” 23 times, but actually 24 times.   And that would identify with the wheat and tares, would it not?  The number “23” is the number of “tribulation” of the house of God, that great house that has vessels of honour and vessels of dishonour.  It was an actual 23-year Great Tribulation that fell upon it.

Lord willing, we will look more at Genesis 24 when we get together in our next Bible study.