Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #17 of Genesis, chapter 27, and we going to be reading Genesis 27:43-46:

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran; And tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's fury turn away; Until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him: then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day? And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

I will stop reading there.  In our last study, we were looking more closely at Rebekah, trying to get a better understanding of who she represents in the Bible.  We find the name “Rebekah” about thirty times in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament and, yet, it is difficult to define or see a spiritual meaning for her name.  Actually, I do not know of anyone who has come up with the spiritual meaning.  If you read the concordance, you will read about some idea that Strong presented, but he did not get that from the Hebrew, or at least from how her name is used in the Bible.  When you look at the consonants that make up her name, you do not get any help from related words.  There is nothing really close to the name “Rebekah” in the Strong’s Hebrew Concordance.

Therefore, we have to look at how God uses her.  Earlier in the book of Genesis when Abraham sent his servant to his family in Haran to find a bride for his son Isaac, it was clear that she was a picture of the elect, the bride of Christ.  She did return with the servant and married Isaac, a type of the Lord Jesus. 

But in this chapter, we see that there is an emphasis on obeying her voice.  We read it again in Genesis 27:43:

Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran;

Back in verses 8 and 13, Rebekah had said the same thing to Jacob: “Obey my voice.”  And he did.  And as a result of obeying her voice, Jacob did, indeed, obtain the blessing from his father Isaac.  We covered that.  It is a picture of salvation.  More than that, Rebekah was someone that had received divine revelation from God, so that she was aware of some incredible things and some very intimate, personal information that only God knew, and He only revealed it to her, as Roman 9 indicated: “The elder shall serve the younger.”  When we think about that spiritually, it only fits if Rebekah is a picture of the Word of God or the Law of God.  And, of course, Christ is the Word, so she would tie into the Lord Jesus Christ in that sense. 

The Bible does speak of Deborah, the prophetess, and she was a woman.  The word “Deborah” is the feminine of “daw-bar,” the Hebrew word for “word.”  So God, in that instance, does liken His word to the feminine.  Also, we know in the book of Proverbs, “Wisdom” is personified in a feminine way.  Just read Proverbs 8, and “Wisdom” was there before the mountains were brought forth.  Of course, “Wisdom” is Christ, and Christ is the essence of wisdom, and He is called “Wisdom” in 1Corinthians 1:30.  But wisdom is also personified in the feminine.

So putting these things together, we see that Rebekah is a picture of the Word of God.  God chose Jacob and did not choose Esau, which takes us back to eternity past, spiritually, and before the world was created, God communed within the Godhead to determine, “Jacob I will love, and Esau I will hate.”  So the Word of God or the Law of God was commissioned in that sense.  The Lord Jesus Christ was commissioned to carry out that task once the world was created and time was set in motion, and that was exactly what happened over the course of history as the Word was sent forth to make sure that Jacob received the blessing.  All those predestinated to obtain the blessing did indeed receive it at some point in their lives until all whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life were blessed in receiving the blessing.

By the way, this also helps us to understand something I brought up earlier in Genesis 27:41-42:

And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob. And these words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah: and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee.

She let him know of her brother’s plot to kill him.  Remember I said that Esau had said this in his heart, so how was it told to Rebekah?  Historically, it had to be that Esau said it in his heart, and then he said it (later) with his lips.  The Bible does make that distinction in the example of salvation that we confess with our mouths as we believe in our heart.  The words come out of the mouth, but there first needs to be a belief in the heart.  And that has to do with salvation.   Someone can  just confess with the mouth, but there is no belief in the heart, meaning that the heart remains dead in sin, and there has been no actual salvation.  And that is why a confession of faith means nothing as far as changing a person.  Standing alone, it is not even a good indicator of a person’s actual spiritual condition.  But Esau thought this in his heart, and it came out of his mouth, and a servant or someone heard it and informed Rebekah.  Historically, that is probably what happened, or it could have been that God gave further divine revelation to her.  That is a possibility, but I would go with the first option.

But, spiritually, once again she is in possession of information God knows.  Nobody else knows, but she is aware of it, and that is because God knows the heart.  So Rebekah then commanded Jacob, again: “Obey my voice; and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran.”  As we see how Rebekah is being used by God in this chapter and how she is instrumental in Jacob obtaining the blessing, it becomes clear that she is a type and figure of the Word, the Law of God, and the Law commands the people of God, and God gives His people a heart and a nature to obey and to keep His commandments.  For example, we went earlier to Ephesians 6:1-3:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

This is really a summation of what it says in Exodus 20:12:

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which JEHOVAH thy God giveth thee.

You see, the land of Canaan was given to Abraham and his descendants as an everlasting possession and, therefore, it cannot be the physical land over in the Middle East.  It is not this physical world, but it is the world to come that God links to honoring one’s parents.  And Ephesians further links honoring one’s parents to obeying your parents.  When you obey your parents in the Lord (for this is right), then you have fulfilled one of the Ten Commandments: “Honour thy father and thy mother.” 

Again, God the Father is in view, spiritually, and the mother is the Law of God, the Word of God, which provides spiritual milk.  I mentioned this before, but let us look at it, in 1Peter 2:2-3:

As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

The “milk of the word,” and, of course, that is picturing the Word as a “mother.”  It is a mother that gives milk to a sucking infant, and she provides nourishment for the young child.  And that is how God likens His Word.  You know, the figure is that of being born again or new birth.  How are we born again?  It is through the action of the Word of God, as it says in Romans 10:17:  “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  So it takes the Word of God to “conceive” or to give birth to a sinner who is dead in sins, so they receive a new heart and a new spirit to become a new creature, a new child of God.  Of course, this must be within the boundaries of God’s times and seasons during the day of salvation.  That is when that could take place, but we are now outside of that boundary.  We are in the Day of Judgment.

So would it be the Word of God by itself?  Can the Word of God bring forth a “child” by itself?  No – and that is why the churches today have Bibles in their pulpits and people can hear with their physical ears the teaching and preaching of the Word of God, but there is no “conception”  even outside of the churches because God has ended His salvation program and He has saved everyone He intended to save.  There are no further people to become saved.  God’s plan was a limited plan of salvation.  He intended to save only certain ones, and He carried that out and finished that work and, therefore, there is no more salvation.  But there is still time on this earth during the prolonged Day of Judgment and the Bible is still here, so why cannot people listen to the Bible and become saved?  It is like a woman that desires a child, but she cannot bring forth a child on her own.  It takes a man.  Of course, God determined that in the marriage relationship, a man and woman would come together and have relations, and through those relations, God could bless it and bring forth children.  But when it comes to spiritual reproduction, as it were, it takes the Word of God working with the Spirit of God to bless that Word.  There is the union that has to take place in the spiritual realm for there to be spiritual birth.  So there can be men that proclaim all day long that God is still saving, and they preach and pray, and they are trying to use the Word because they know that faith comes by hearing.  They are trying their best to use the Word of God: “This is how it’s done.”  In this case, it is the feminine (the Word) without the masculine (the Holy Spirit)  It takes the Holy Spirit to bless the hearing of the Word to the heart in order to create the new birth.

But God the Holy Spirit first removed Himself from the congregations back in 1988 and ended His salvation program within the churches, as judgment began on the house of God at that time.  Then on May 21, 2011, after 23 years of judging the churches, God’s judgment transitioned to the whole world, and the Holy Spirit stopped working in the nations, as well as the churches.  So there is just no way of doing it.  There is no way possible because God is not going to bless the Word within the churches or outside of the churches and, as a result, there are no more spiritual children being born.

Anyway, the Word of God is like a “mother” and nourishes her children, and provides milk for her children after they are born again, instructing and teaching them, just as a mother does her child.  And, slowly, they grow in grace and in the knowledge of God, and the Word of God is providing instruction and nourishment to the point where the child can move on to “strong meat.”  And that is what the Word has done at this time, as God has opened up His Word, the Bible, to reveal a great many things (in our days).

So Rebekah is a picture of the Word that is commanding her son Jacob, who represents all the elect that are born of the Word: “Do this, my son, and do that, and you will obtain the blessing.”  And once the blessing is obtained, the Word is watching over its child, protecting it, and making sure no harm can come to it.  So Jacob continues to obey, even after obtaining the blessing.    We read in Revelation 22, the last chapter of the Bible, and it has application to our time as we live on the earth in the Day of Judgment, but it also tells us the situation about obeying one’s mother, honoring one’s mother, and how it relates to the life of a Christian.  The Lord Jesus says, in Revelation 22:12-14:

And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

Blessed are they that do His commandments.  It is characteristic of the elect, as represented by Jacob.  The Lord said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”  That is the nature of the elect child of God, and that is why we saw it said in Genesis 28:7:

And that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and was gone to Padanaram;

He honored his parents.  He did what was right.  He did what is characteristic of the individual who has received a new, born-again heart – He obeyed the Word.

Now I mentioned that Rebekah is mentioned over thirty times, but not too many more times after this chapter.  For example, we do read of Rebekah in the next chapter in Genesis 28:5:

And Isaac sent away Jacob: and he went to Padanaram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother.

Then she is mentioned in Genesis 49:31:

There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.

So here in Genesis 27, Rebekah told Jacob to go to Haran until Esau forgets what Jacob did to him.  “then I will send, and fetch thee from thence: why should I be deprived also of you both in one day?”  Rebekah told Jacob that later on she would send for him, but we never read of that happening.  We do not read of that in any way, and it is likely that she died, even though the Bible does not record the time of her death.  It does not give an account, except for the verse I read in Genesis 49 where she is in the grave.  We are not told of her death age or anything like that.  But she did not send for Jacob over the next forty years because that is how long Jacob was in Haran, so it is likely she died during that time period.  We do not know how old Rebekah was (when she died), but remember that Isaac was 40 when he married her, so maybe she was 15 or 20 years old.  Let us say that she was 20 when Isaac was 40.  She had the twins when Isaac was 60, which was 20 years later.  So if she was 20, then she gave birth to the twins when she was 40.  And now was the time when Isaac intended to bestow the blessing when he was 120, so if he was 20 years older than his wife, that would make Rebekah about 100 years old.  So Isaac was 120 and she was 95 or 100 years old, and now Jacob is going away for 40 years.  So if Rebekah was 100 when he left for Haran, then in 30 years she would have been 130.  Sarah lived to be 127 years old, and she is the only woman whose death age is recorded in the Bible, so it would not be surprising if Rebekah had died 20 or 30 or 35 years after Jacob left for Haran.  It is likely that she did die at some point during that time.

She was very concerned about the situation that developed, since she had played such a major role in how the situation worked out.  She orchestrated it.  And, of course, that also fits in with the Word of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ working out His salvation program in the world.  But, historically, she was very concerned that Esau now wanted to kill his brother Jacob, even though she pointed out, “until they brother…forget that which thou hast done to him. [Laughter]  You know, if it had been me, I probably would have said, “But, Mom, you are the one that told me to do it.”  But that was not brought up, and for spiritual reasons, because the Word of God works in the lives of men.  God works invisibly, and God is orchestrating events and controlling things.  But, ultimately, we are responsible for the things we do. 

So she said, in Genesis 27:45:

… why should I be deprived also of you both in one day?

If Esau were to have killed Jacob, then Esau would be gone, and if the Law of God was to be followed, Esau would have to be put to death for murder.  She would have lost both of her sons, her twins, and this she could not bear, so she went to Isaac, in Genesis 27:46:

And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?

The word “weary” is an interesting word.  I think it is found nine times in the Old Testament, and it is translated as “abhor” three times, and it is only translated as “weary” two times.  For example, it says in Leviticus 20:22-23:

Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out. And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

So God abhorred the people of the nations because they did these evil things.  You see, think of Rebekah as the Word or the Law.  “I am abhorring my life because of the daughters of Heth.”  The children of Heth, back in Genesis 23, were the ones that Abraham purchased some land from, and the name “Heth” is a Hebrew word that is derived from a word that means “to fear” or “terror,” or it is a word that is also translated as “beat down” or “broken in pieces.”  And it is used regarding God’s judgment upon Babylon.  It is a word that identifies with those that are under the wrath of God, in Job 21, where it says of the wicked in Job 21:13:

They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.

The English words “go down” is a translation of the word that “Heth” is related to, so it has to do with the wicked.  And Rebekah, as the Law, is looking out for her children, the elect, because the Word of God has conceived them.  If Jacob were to take a wife of the daughters of the land or earth, “What good shall my life do me?”  The word “good” is not in the text.   It is simply indicating something she abhors, and which cannot be.