Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #52 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are reading Genesis 24:59-60:
And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men. And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.
In our last study, we observed that when they sent away Rebekah, they also sent away her nurse, and the word “nurse” is translated as “suck” in some places. We went to 1Samuel 1:23 where Hannah gave her son suck until she weaned him. Then we spent some time discussing the picture the Bible presents of the time of the church age as being a time of being on the milk of the Word, as a child.
But at the time of the end of the world, God has opened His Word and there is maturity and a growing unto the fulness of the stature of Christ. There is development and progression from the milk to “strong meat,” and God’s people are growing in grace and the knowledge of God as He has revealed a great many things.
As we were studying this chapter, we did notice that the land of Haran and Laban’s household identify with the corporate church, so we are not surprised that Rebekah was sent away along with her nurse, the one giving “milk,” because it identifies with the time of the giving of milk during the church age. We learn the nurse’s name later on, in Genesis 35:6-8:
So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Bethel, he and all the people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place Elbethel: because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother. But Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak: and the name of it was called Allonbachuth.
And I want to read the next couple of verses, too, in Genesis 35:9-10:
And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.
That links together the year that Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died with the time of Jacob’s name change to “Israel.” And it can be shown from the Bible that Jacob’s name was changed when he was 100 years old. He was 60 when he went into the land of Haran. He spent 40 years there, and he came out when he was 100, and God changed his name to “Israel,” which means “prince of God.” And that is when Deborah died.
We also know that Isaac was age 40 when Rebekah and her nurse would come to him after taking this trip, as it says in Genesis 25:20:
And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.
After Jacob and Esau were born to them, it says in Genesis 25:26:
And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.
So Rebekah had been married to Isaac for twenty years when Jacob was born. Therefore, Rebekah and her nurse had been in the house of Isaac for twenty years when Jacob was born. Then 100 years later Jacob was 100 years old, and the nurse Deborah died, and that was the time when Jacob had his name changed. So we add 100 plus 20, and we know that Deborah spent 120 years with her mistress Rebekah in the house of Isaac. She was a handmaid and servant to her mistress, and we know she was called a nurse. She was called a nurse when they left Haran, and she was called a nurse when she died, or one that gives “suck.” We also know her name was Deborah. Remember in the book of Judges, there was a prophetess named Deborah. It says in Judges 4:4:
And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.
Then she called for Barak to commission him to fight the oppressors of Israel at that time – King Jabin and Sisera – and she went with him, as it says in Judges 4:8-9:
And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for JEHOVAH shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.
Then later, it says in Judges 4:14-15:
And Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in which JEHOVAH hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not JEHOVAH gone out before thee? So Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him. And JEHOVAH discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet.
Barak is a type of Christ, and the “ten thousand” would identify with God’s elect, as we read in several places that the Lord comes with “ten thousands of his saints.” But notice this was done at the direction of Deborah: “Barak, Up,” and this is because “Deborah” is a translation of the Hebrew word “daw-bawr,” which is translated as “word,” as in the Word of God. Deborah is a picture of the Word of God, and in the Day of Judgment Christ will not go without her. He will bring judgment, but “Deborah” or the Word of God must go with Him. Remember what He said in John 12:48: “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” We see an emphasis on the Word of God judging in many places. In Revelation 19, Christ is seated upon a white horse and He is called Faithful and True, and His name is “the Word of God.” Then He smites the nations with the sword coming out of His mouth, and the sword also identifies with the Word of God. And, of course, Christ is the Word made flesh. There is an incredibly strong emphasis in those verses in Revelation that God is judging the nations, the unsaved inhabitants of the earth, by His Word.
And that is exactly what we see revealed as God has brought “revelation;” that is, He has opened up our understanding of the written Word and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. His judgment program has come forth. Why is it that we know that the churches have been judged? It is through the Word of God. And how is it that we know the world is currently being judged? It is through the Word of God. The elect children of God read these things in the Bible, understand them by God’s grace, and we share it. It is the process that God has established for His judgment program in which we participate: “Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?” And the manner in which we do so is by simply reading what the Bible says and sharing it. (We are not pointing the finger at any individual.) And in doing so, we are saints that are executing the judgment written, according to Psalm 149.
So Deborah the prophetess was necessary. She was key to the success of Barak coming with his ten thousand, just as the Word of God, the Bible, is absolutely necessary for God’s judgment program to be carried out.
And Deborah in Genesis 24 is a nurse, and she is a picture of the same thing – the Word of God. Rebekah has a nurse, one that gives “suck.” And Rebekah left with her and she ministered to her and her family for 120 years. Why 120 years? We do not know Deborah’s age, but we only know the time she was in Isaac’s house, but the 120 years is significant because it is the same length of time that God gave to Noah in Genesis 6:3:
And JEHOVAH said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
We have talked about this before. The 120 years relates to 12,000 years, just like we read of 130 years (Jacob was 130 when he entered into Egypt), and that pointed to 13,000 years. The main numbers are in both. The number “120” is “10 x 12,” and the number “130” is 10 x 13. The number “10” points to “completeness,” and the number “12” points to “fulness.” The number “13” points to “super fulness” at the end of the world, along with “completeness,” the number “10.” According to all we read in the Bible, the world should have lasted 12,000 years, and then God worked out His end time program, but it was actually 13,000 years. We will not get into all the details of that in this study, but it is like Israel had 12 tribes, but there were actually 13; and there were 12 Apostles, but there were actually 13. There should be 12,000 years of history, but there is actually 13,000.
So when we read of “120,” it can relate to the fulness of time and identify with the 13,000th year of history, and it was over that time span up until the year 1988 (the year the church age ended) that a “nurse” was required. Deborah, the nurse, ministered to the house of Isaac, and Isaac is a picture of Christ and Christ’s house was the churches and congregations during the church age. It was “Bethel,” the house of God. So Deborah ministered to that house, but when we came to the end of the church age, there was no more time for a “nursery.” God was not going to pander to the churches and continue to give only milk to those that would profess to be His people. It was time to grow up and mature and to put away the nurse, and that is why Deborah the nurse died at that point in history when Jacob was 100 and she had ministered for 120 years. There was no more giving “suck.” There must be strong meat. There must be a development and growing in the Word of God, because God opened the Scriptures at that same point in 1988. Over the course of many years from 1988 to the end of the world will be the time He feeds and nourishes His people with increased understanding, bringing them along to perfection of doctrine – all the doctrine He intends for us to know while we are living on this earth. So there is this growing in grace and the knowledge of God.
Going back to Genesis 24:59-60:
And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and his men. And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.
Historically, this is an expression of the desire of the family that she be fruitful and have many children, and that God would bless. To have children is a blessing from God. It was a desire that her family would grow into a great number of people. Traditionally, for most of history that was a legitimate desire. They wanted big households and large families, for various reasons, but it was also in obedience to God’s command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Of course, in our modern day at the end of the world it is looked down upon if you have more than a couple of children. Mankind has been given up to his iniquity and sinful desires, so man does everything backwards. He thinks blessings are curses and curses are blessings. He thinks good is evil and evil is good, so he devises all kinds of means to limit children, like birth control, or things to eliminate children, like abortion. Of course, in his own wisdom, he says he is trying to exercise population control to make sure that people do not starve. Does that make a lot of sense? “Let us kill a bunch of children so some people do not starve to death at some future point.” It is just incredibly desperate wickedness, showing the deceitful, ugly nature of the stony heart of man that devises such a thing, carries it out, and then turns around and says, “What a good and wonderful thing we are doing! How excellent it is that women have such good health care.” And it is evil – just pure evil. It goes against everything the Bible says.
So it was a good desire that they were expressing to their sister. It would have been Laban and his brother and maybe other sisters that were saying this: “Be thou the mother of thousands of millions.” The word “mother” is in italics, but if she was going to be of thousands of millions, she would have to be a mother. Then it goes on to say in Genesis 24:60:
… and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.
This is very similar to what we read back in Genesis 22:15-17:
And the angel of JEHOVAH called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith JEHOVAH, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
You can see how similar that is to the verse we are looking at in Genesis 24:60:
… and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.
And, of course, if someone hates you, he is your enemy. And Genesis 22:17 is really a statement of the promise of God that was given to all the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob regarding His blessing upon them concerning the “seed.” We spent a good deal of time talking about that already. Historically, it was Isaac who was born to aged parents, but he was only a figure of the “seed” (singular) that was to come, the Lord Jesus Christ. So that seed that would be multiplied as the stars of the heaven are all those that God would save in Christ and through Christ, as He was counted for the “seed,” and we are in Him. Therefore, we experience the blessing that was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is ours. It is the blessing of God’s salvation program. We understand that pretty well, but you can go to Galatians, chapter 3 to review the statements about Jesus being the “seed,” singular, and then it says in the last verse of Galatians 3:29:
And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
So we have the promise of the land for an everlasting possession, and that can only refer to the new heaven and new earth. And the seed would be multiplied.
Here, a second time God speaks of a gate: “… and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.” The gate identifies with “the Door,” and the Bible speaks of Christ as that Door. The door is the Word of God, and the Word of God ministers entrance into the kingdom of God, as the Word would find one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and then God would bless His Word (according to His timetable), saving that individual and transporting him or her through the “door” into the glorious kingdom of God. Then that person would be seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, becoming saved and finding entrance into (eternal) life, even though he might remain on this earth for a time. So that would be possessing the gate.
It is the gate of heaven, but the Bible also speaks of a gate of hell and of death. We do not have time to get into that in this study. But, Lord willing, in our next study we will look at the relationship between the “gate” of those which hate us and the “keys of the kingdom” or the gate of hell that would not prevail against the church, according to the Lord Jesus, and those that were given the key. Christ is the one in charge of the key, but as His people minister the Word, we have something to do with it. Again, we will look at that in our next Bible study, Lord willing.