Originally published on the Doxa blog.
Rebekah ran home with gold on her wrists. "The girl ran and told her mother's household about these things" (Genesis 24:28), and her brother Laban was out of the door before she had finished.
Genesis is careful about what Laban noticed first. "As soon as he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister's wrists" (Genesis 24:30), he went to find the stranger at the spring. He greeted him warmly, "Come, you who are blessed by the LORD" (Genesis 24:31), and had the camels fed and water brought for the men's feet.
Why did Abraham's servant refuse to eat?
Then the food came out. A man who had crossed the desert with ten camels had every reason to eat first and talk afterwards. He said, "I will not eat until I have told you what I came to say" (Genesis 24:33). The food stayed where it was.
Laban said, "Please speak." So the servant told it all from the start, and Genesis gives us the story a second time, which is why chapter 24 is the longest chapter in the book.
What did the servant tell Laban's family?
He began with who he was: "I am Abraham's servant" (Genesis 24:34). He never gives his own name, here or anywhere in the chapter. He told them how the LORD had blessed his master, and then about the son: "My master's wife Sarah has borne him a son in her old age, and my master has given him everything he owns" (Genesis 24:36). He told them about the oath.
Then he told them about the prayer, and added something we did not know the first time. The prayer at the well had been silent. "Before I had finished praying in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her jar on her shoulder" (Genesis 24:45). Rebekah offered to water ten camels without hearing a word of the prayer that asked God for exactly that.
He finished with worship, as he had at the well: "I bowed down and worshiped the LORD; and I blessed the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who led me on the right road" (Genesis 24:48). Only then did he ask for an answer.
What does this teach about knowing God?
The servant had seen God answer him that afternoon. By evening he was telling it, in order and with the details, while the meal sat untouched in front of him. In a house where Laban had looked at the gold first, he made sure the first thing anyone heard about at that table was the LORD.
That is how we come to know God and to be known by Him: we keep what He has done while it is fresh, and we tell it truly to people who were not there. A psalmist would later say the same thing out loud: "Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for me" (Psalms 66:16).
How does this passage point to Jesus?
The servant told this family about a son they had never seen, the son to whom Abraham had given everything he owned (Genesis 24:36). John's Gospel says the same of Jesus: "The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands" (John 3:35). Rebekah would agree to go to Isaac on the strength of one man's account of him, and she would not see his face until the camels came near a field in the Negev at evening.
Tell it while it is fresh
When God answers you, write it down the same day in the Doxa app, in order, with what you asked and what happened. Then tell someone. The servant's account worked because he remembered the details, even the silent prayer.
Who needs to hear what God did for you this week?
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Also please feel free to read the Doxa Deeper Dive below where we delve into the original language and historical context.
The Doxa Deeper Dive
Why Does Genesis 24 Tell the Same Story Twice?
Originally published on the Doxa blog.
When the meal is set before him, the servant says, "I will not eat until I have told you what I came to say" (Genesis 24:33). In Hebrew it is ad im-dibbarti devarai, until I have spoken my words. The verb is dabar (H1696), to speak, and the noun is dabar (H1697), and the noun runs through the whole scene.
What does dabar mean in Genesis 24?
Dabar means a word, and it also means a thing, an event, a matter. Hebrew uses one noun for what is said and for what happens. When Rebekah "ran and told her mother's household about these things" (Genesis 24:28), the Hebrew is kaddevarim ha'elleh, according to these words. What happened at the well and the report of it are the same devarim.
An English reader meets this phrase without seeing it. "After these events, the word of the LORD came to Abram" (Genesis 15:1) reads in Hebrew achar ha-devarim ha-elleh hayah devar-YHWH: after these words, the word of the LORD. Genesis 22 opens with the same phrase, which BSB renders "Some time later" (Genesis 22:1). In Genesis the things that happen and the word God speaks are told with one noun.
Now read the answer Laban and Bethuel give once the servant has finished: "This is from the LORD; we have no choice in the matter" (Genesis 24:50). The Hebrew is me-YHWH yatsa ha-davar, from the LORD the davar has gone out. The verb is yatsa (H3318), to go out. Isaiah uses that verb for God's speech: "so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty" (Isaiah 55:11). The family heard a servant tell what had happened at a well, and they recognised it as something that had gone out from God. The servant's words carried the LORD's davar, and they knew it.
Why does the servant repeat the whole story?
In the ancient Near East a messenger was expected to deliver his message in full, and often in the same words he had been given. The Ugaritic poems from the coast north of Canaan show it again and again: a god gives a message, and the text repeats the whole of it when the messenger arrives. Hospitality had its own order too. A guest ate first and stated his business afterwards. The servant reverses that order, and he refuses to accept the bond of a shared meal until the family knows exactly what they are agreeing to.
He is a careful messenger. Read his account beside the first telling and a few lines move. Abraham sent him to "my country and my kindred" (Genesis 24:4); at Laban's table it becomes "my father's house" (Genesis 24:38), the family he is sitting with. Abraham's warning "do not take my son back there" (Genesis 24:6) is left out. At the well he brought out the gold before asking who she was; in the retelling he asks first and then gives the ring (Genesis 24:47). He shapes the account for the people listening, and he never changes what God did.
What did Abraham promise the servant?
Abraham told him, "The LORD, before whom I have walked, will send His angel with you" (Genesis 24:40). The word is mal'akh (H4397), which means a messenger of any kind, heavenly or human. What the chapter shows at the well is a man with ten camels who arrives at the right spring at the right hour and then tells the story. Abraham promised that God would send a mal'akh, and the one the reader watches arrive and deliver a message is the servant, doing exactly what a messenger does.
How did Israel first hear the servant's story?
Genesis was first heard by a people who had been commanded to tell. "On that day you are to explain to your son, 'This is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt'" (Exodus 13:8). "When your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' you are to tell him, 'With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt'" (Exodus 13:14). Israel told its story at the Passover feast every year, with the details, to children who had not been there.
So when they heard a servant push his food aside and tell a family exactly what the LORD had done, they recognised their own duty in him. They also knew this house. The Laban who ran out at the sight of the bracelets is the Laban who would later swap one daughter for another in the dark, and hear Jacob ask, "Why have you deceived me?" (Genesis 29:25). Israel heard the servant's careful, honest account told in the house of the man who would one day deceive Jacob.
What does this show about knowing God?
The servant came to know the LORD on that road, and he made Him known by telling exactly what He had done. His account was so faithful that the family named its source: the davar had gone out from the LORD. That is the reason we keep what God says and does. We know Him by it, and we can tell it truly to someone who has never met Him.
Record what God has done for you in the Doxa app the day it happens, with the details you will want later, so that when someone asks you what it means, you can tell it in order.
Keep exploring. If this raised a question, or brought back something God has said to you, take it further. Ask Doxa. It answers from Scripture, real stories, and your own journey, free in your browser. No signup to start.
Questions and comments are welcome below.
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