Week 2 Genesis
Isaac’s wife Rebekah first showed up in chapter twenty-four. She was a very beautiful young woman and a considerate, helpful and hospitable host to Abraham’s servant. She seemed to be brave and venturesome too, willing to head into an unknown future with an unknown guy from an unknown country. A beautiful, nice, strong, young woman.
There’s a twenty-year gap in the story. Then Rebekah had her twin boys Esau & Jacob. Isaac loved Esau; Rebekah loved Jacob. Maybe not the best situation in a family, but not the worst either – depending on how it played out.
Years later when the boys were grown-up Isaac decided to give the family blessing to Esau. But in the best-known episode in Rebekah’s story she and Jacob colluded in deceiving Isaac – the blind old man is tricked into giving Esau’s blessing to the devious Jacob. It was a cold piece of domestic treachery and a side of Rebekah we didn’t see before showed up – she was dishonest ambitious self-interested unscrupulous conniving.
I think it’s easy to get the sense from the little bit of info the writer tells me that Rebekah started stronger than she finished. But that’s hard to say. Maybe her ambition was there from the beginning.
Either way, in the end she was more than a match for her older husband.
And whatever the quality of their relation was before, it’s hard to imagine it got better after that.