Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #56 of Genesis, chapter 24, and we are reading Genesis 24:62-67:

And Isaac came from the way of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelt in the south country.  And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a vail, and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done. And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.

That brings us to the end of the chapter.  In verse 62 we read: “And Isaac came from the way of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelt in the south country.”  The word “Lahairoi” is literally “well of the living, seeing One.”  That is obviously God who is the ever existent One, all seeing and all knowing.  Isaac  is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, so he is coming from the well of the living, seeing One.  Then it says in Genesis 24:63:

And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming.

Isaac went out to in the field to meditate, and the word translated as “meditate” is only found here in this verse.  It is #7742 in Strong’s Hebrew Concordance.  Again, it is only used in this verse, but the consonants are the same as the word #7743.  Strong’s #7743 is a word translated three times: once as “bow down;” once as “incline;” and once as “humble.”

For example, it says in Psalm 38:6:

I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.

Another time it is used in Lamentations 3:20:

My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

So this is what is in view with the use of the word “meditate,” because Isaac was going to “bow down” and “humble” himself, and to humble oneself before God is to become “lowly” before God.  So some of the translations actually translated or interpreted this to mean that he was going to pray, and that is probably accurate.  Historically, Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide – he went out to “bow down.”  It could have been his custom to go to commune with God.  I think that is pretty certain.  And, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ often prayed and communed with the Father.

Then it goes on to say in Genesis 24:63:

…and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming.

He was coming from the “well of the living, seeing One,” so he sees, and he knows they are coming.  Remember that Rebekah was to be his bride, and this pictures the bride of Christ.  Really, the whole history of the world has been about obtaining the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ.  You know, every nation thinks that the history of the world is about them, or that it is all about warfare or scientific inventions.  No – that is not what is important.  The whole history of the world is about God obtaining a bride for Himself.  It is about God saving His elect people, only according to His good pleasure, and bringing them safely to Himself.

And that is what is going on here in this historical picture.  I know that it may seem to be an incidental historical account of a servant going to find a bride for his master’s son, but the deeper spiritual picture is incredibly more important than that, as it points to the entire purpose for human history and for everything that has ever taken place in this world.  It has been for the purpose of God finding a people for Himself and saving those He had obligated Himself to save, and then entering into that spiritual relationship with them, which the marriage institution typifies.  And it was happening.

And this is also why May 21, 2011 is such an important date (and such a great day to remember and to thank God for) because it was on that day that God finally completed the salvation of all that He came to save.  He saved everyone that was to be saved.  Everyone who was lost was found, and the whole company of the elect whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life were recovered and entered into the kingdom of God.  That is what is being pictured here as Rebekah is being brought back by the faithful servant, and they are coming to meet Isaac, who typifies the Lord Jesus Christ, in the land of Canaan, which typifies the kingdom of God.

So Isaac lifted up his eyes and saw the camels coming.  Then it says in Genesis 24:64:

And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.

She fell down off the camel.  Then it says in Genesis 24:65:

For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a vail, and covered herself.

Here, Rebekah saw a man approaching in the field and she asked the servant Eliezer, “What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?”  And he said it was his master.  One thing we can note about this is that Abraham was his master, but so was Isaac, because they both picture Eternal God – God the Father and God the Son.  God the Father is our Master  and God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is our Master.  They are One.

Also, we can see that it is not so much Rebekah coming to Isaac, but God is drawing the picture by saying that Isaac was moving toward Rebekah and toward the camels, and that is the important truth.  Remember in the Gospel of Luke in the parable of the prodigal son, he had wasted all his inheritance on riotous living, and then he began to be in want.  We read in Luke 15:15-20:

And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. 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.

The father saw him a great way off, and he did not wait for him to fully arrive at his destination, but he ran toward him.  God is indicating that He is the one seeking the sinner.  He is the one who finds the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  He is the one who makes the “motion” toward the rebel, and the return of the prodigal son is a similar picture as the return of this young bride Rebekah because they both typify those God saves, His elect children. 

In the marriage relationship, Rebekah typifies all the elect, and she saw the “man” walking in the field to meet her.  It is showing the great love and condescension of God to meet man in the world (as the “field” points to the world), and coming to us through His Word to have a relationship with us and to richly bless us by bringing us into the marriage with Him.  It is only possible because He died to free the sinner from the bondage relationship with the Law, as we were under the Law and subject to the penalty of the Law, which is death.  God has done all these things for His people.

Rebekah had gotten down from her camel and when she realized that it was the servant’s master and the one to whom she would be married, she took a veil and covered herself.  I think this would point to what we read in 1Corinthians 11 where it speaks of a “covering.”  It says in 1Corinthians 11:3-6:

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

Then it says in 1Corinthians 11:10-12:

For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.

It says in 1Corinthians 11:15:

But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.

The idea of a “covering” that the veil is accomplishing in covering Rebekah points to the fact that we are covered by the Lord Jesus Christ or the blood of Christ, which indicates that our sins are covered over.  We are not naked or exposed, and I think that would have to be the spiritual picture regarding Rebekah taking a veil and covering herself.  It is indicating that her sins have been paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ.

One other thing we want to look at where it says in verse 63 that says that Isaac went out to meditate in the field “at the eventide,” is that it was the time of the evening, and the evening comes at the end of the day.  This was when Rebekah was being brought to him.  The day is over.  Of course, she had been on the road, traveling for many days and nights, but it is significant that when she finally arrived, the day was over.  This is because God uses the figure of the “day” to signify His salvation program.  We have talked about this before, but let us go to John 11:9:

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.

We are used to thinking of 24 hours in a day, and each day is 24 hours long, but there are 12 hours of light and then 12 hours of dark.  Here, God is using the word “day” to literally describe the daytime or day light, and He says, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?  If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world,” but then He says in John 11:10:

But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

So these are interesting statements.  There are 12 hours in the day.  When we search elsewhere in the Bible, we find there is a parable in Matthew 20.  It is a parable about a vineyard owner that hired laborers to go into his vineyard.  He hired them at various hours, including the third, sixth and ninth hours, and, finally, he even hired a group of laborers that had been idle all that day at the “eleventh hour.”  We are told they worked “one hour”  in the vineyard.  They were hired at the eleventh hour, and they worked one hour, so they worked from the eleventh to the twelfth hour, which ended the (work) day.  It is pointing to “the day of salvation,” typified by 12 hours in the day.  This is why Jesus made the statement, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” 

It is also important regarding how God set apart that last hour or “one hour.”  It is unusual as we look at the pattern of hiring laborers at the third, sixth and ninth hour, or at three-hour intervals; but then it is broken up with hiring at the last hour.  Why?  It is because the Bible likens God’s salvation program to have worked out, for the most part, over the church age.  But then that dark period of the Great Tribulation is identified by “one hour.”  It is the last part of God’s salvation program when He was going to save that great multitude out of Great Tribulation, which would complete “the day of salvation.”  It represents that eleventh to twelfth hour, and when the Great Tribulation ended on May 21, 2011, it ended the 12-hour workday in the vineyard. 

Those men that had been idle only worked “one hour,” and they represent all those that God utilized to send forth His Word during the last (about) 17 years of the Latter Rain period  from 1994 to 2011 which typifies “one hour.”  Then the “day” ended.  It is just like what happens every day we live.  The sun comes up.  Hours pass, and even time comes.  Of course, people have all kinds of different work schedules today.  But, historically, when evening came, men stopped working because they had no more light to see in which to do their work.  And that is the figure the Bible uses.  And that is why God ended His salvation program on May 21, 2011.  His workday was complete, and He had finished His work.

We talked about this before, but we read this in John 9 as Jesus is speaking in John 9:4:

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

You can also go to John 6:27-29 where “work” is defined: “This is the work of God, that ye believe…”  So the work of God is granting belief.  Saving sinners is (entirely) the work of God, and the work that Christ was occupied with: “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day…”  He had to work for twelve hours until that “last hour” from the eleventh to the twelfth hour, which typified the Great Tribulation, had been completed, and then “the day” ended.  That is what we have seen happen.  We have witnessed this, as it has already taken place. 

So why is anyone surprised that God is no longer doing the work of salvation?  It is because they are not reading the Bible carefully.  Why was this not known before?  Of course, we could not know until God would open our eyes to see it, but at this point people should be studying these things and checking these things out, and not just holding on to conclusions left over from the church age and previous doctrinal understandings that are not helping them at this time.  We know that God has brought the world into the spiritual “night” because the “sun is dark” and “the moon is not giving her light” and the “stars are fallen,” and the day has ended.

And we can see the connection with the faithful servant Eliezer bringing the bride.  She had been found, and he was bringing her to Isaac (typifying the Lord Jesus Christ), and it is “even time,” and the 12-hour day has ended.  And he has come back with the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, so it is a beautiful picture that God is illustrating for us in this account in Genesis 24.  The whole chapter has been beautiful as we have gone through it and we have seen it worked out.

Then it says in Genesis 24:66:

And the servant told Isaac all things that he had done.

So it was a recounting of the Word of God.  He told his errand.  Remember he had told his “errand” and the word “errand” is “daw-bawr.”  When he went to Rebekah’s house, he told his Word.  And now he had come back, and he was still telling his Word to Isaac.  Eliezer the servant is also a picture of Christ, and it is the glory of God that will rejoice and delight in telling the “errand” of finding the bride, obtaining the bride, and bringing the bride successfully home to the bridegroom for evermore.  This is a story that goes into all eternity future, so we are not surprised that the servant told Isaac all things that he had done.  It is the Gospel, and the Word of God endures forever, so these Words are everlasting Words, and God will rejoice in His bride in an everlasting way.  So, again, we can see the spiritual meaning here.

And, finally, it says in Genesis 24:67:

And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.

God has loved His people with an everlasting love, and He will love His people into the boundless, endless, eternal future that all the elect children of God will enjoy.  We have the safety and security of knowing that nothing will separate us from the love of God.  There will not be divorce.  There will not be death.  There will not be anything that breaks the union or marriage bond between the Lord Jesus and His bride, perhaps as many as 200 million people that were redeemed from the earth, washed from their sins, and to be equipped with eternal spiritual bodies (to go with their eternal spiritual souls), and then entering into an eternal relationship to dwell in the newly created heaven and earth.  That is the truth of the “happily ever after” story.