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What Kind of Woman was Rebecca?

Originally posted on 

Thursday, 6 November 2014


Today I read Genesis 27 (in NLT.... if that matters to you) and at the end of it I found myself wondering what kind of woman Rebecca was.

Let me give some background to this passage, for a while now I've been reading Genesis and Acts (on a long overdue bible plan on my bible app). So I've been reading Genesis since Abraham sent his servant to go find a wife for his son Isaac. I've followed the story since when this servant was unsure that he'd find a woman willing to follow him back to be the wife of his master's son. I've read through the parts where he prayed to God for a specific sign and Rebecca- unaware of his prayer-did exactly what the wife would do if she were an answer to his prayer. I loved that story a lot because I'm all for God being as specific as possible. Faith is a great gift from God and even believing in an unseen God requires great of Faith. But when you ask God specifically for something and it happens in that way that you know that it could only have been God's hand, it just has a way of building your faith in God. I honestly wish things would be more like that, but where would my faith be and how would it grow if all my believing came from seeing.

Anyway that story was beautiful. Rebecca was the ideal woman. We have no background about her asking for a husband, and from her family's asking for a little while to prepare her and to say their goodbyes, one could induce that she hadn't really been waiting on the husband to come. So it's safe to say God just provided. Jehovah Jireh right? I picked so many things on from there. Like how in going about your daily business in a diligent manner, and just being in line with God's word He will supply your needs.

Then fast forward to today, I see Rebecca having a preferred child between her twin sons. I see her being the master mind behind the ploy to steal her firstborn son's blessing. I see her being not only the mind, but the hands that find Esau's clothes and puts them on Jacob to make him smell like Esau, that puts goat skin on Jacob's neck to make him feel like Esau. So I'm sitting here and wondering why all this?  Aren't they both your sons, Rebecca? Why go to such great length to deceive your husband. Couldn't you possibly convince him to bless them both since they could technically be both firstborn sons? Why such cunningness?

And even after her ploy has been successfully carried out, she is again the evil genius who sends Jacob away to her brother, Laban, for safety and cooks up a sweet lie for Isaac her husband (probably so he wouldn't suspect that she had a hand in this foul play. She said, "I'm sick and tired of these local Hittite women! I would rather die than see Jacob marry one of them." Hmmuhm, so you would be okay with Esau marrying one of them, but not Jacob eh?


As with many of my questions, I Googled this to find out what others were saying, one person said she was a godly woman, just still with some human characteristics, such as this lying and craftiness. Did she really have anything to gain from all these things? Praying now that God transforms me daily and takes away any part of me that is of me and not of Him.

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