Isaac is now forty years old and he has not yet gotten married or started a family. In our culture that's a little bit unusual, but in a time when people lived to be well over one hundred, he's not really even middle aged. In Isaac's day, forty was the new twenty! But now that Abraham has laid his beloved wife Sarah to rest, he realizes the importance of finding a good wife for his son. Abraham himself is quite elderly and doesn't want to pass on and leave Isaac alone, so he decides it's time to arrange a marriage for him.
"Abraham was now very old, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. He said to the senior servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, 'Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.'" (Genesis 24:1-4) Previously, in Genesis 15, Eliezer was Abraham's senior servant and I assume this is the same man since his name is not repeated to us here in Genesis 24.
Putting your hand under a person's thigh seems like an odd way to make an oath, but according to my research on the subject, it was an ancient custom for vowing a really serious oath. It's not as serious of an oath as a covenant, which usually involved the shedding of blood, but it is still a very binding promise. Perhaps we could compare the servant's oath to a sincere promise a man might make while shaking hands with the other party to the deal.
In Genesis 23 Abraham had learned that his brother Nahor, who still lived in Ur, had many children. Genesis 23 only names the sons of Nahor, but they were plentiful, both by his wife and by his concubine (a secondary wife, like Hagar was to Abraham). Abraham would prefer that Isaac marry a cousin than to marry any of the pagan women of Canaan. As we will see when we move on through Chapter 24, Nahor's family appears to honor Abraham's God, since they will say of the arranged marriage, "This is from the Lord," meaning, "It is the Lord's will for Rebekah to marry Isaac." Abraham wants Isaac to have a wife who serves the same God he serves.
Abraham is too old to make the journey himself. He will die in the next chapter. But he trusts his chief servant to do for him what he can't do for himself, so he sends him to Ur to find a good woman to be Isaac's partner in life. Eliezer is concerned about going to Ur alone in case the woman he prayerfully chooses for Isaac is unwilling to return to Canaan with him without having met her intended husband. "The servant asked him, 'What if the woman is unwilling to come back with me to this land? Shall I then take your son back to the country you came from?' 'Make sure that you do not take my son back there,' Abraham said." (Genesis 24:5-6)
Abraham doesn't dare send Isaac with the servant for fear Isaac will want to remain in the sophisticated and luxurious city of Ur and be drawn into the rampant idolatry there. I don't know whether there was any danger of Isaac doing such a thing, but like any loving and protective father, Abraham doesn't want to take a chance. He knows how enticing sin can be. He grew up in Ur and is aware of all the things it has to offer to satisfy the ungodly desires in the heart of man. If the young woman isn't willing to come to Canaan with the servant, Abraham is willing to give up on the idea of finding a wife from among his brother's family. He seems to think the danger of going to Ur is worse than allowing Isaac to eventually marry a woman from the land of Canaan. At least if he marries a woman from Canaan, he might convert her to the one true God. But if he goes to Ur and gets caught up in sin himself, the rest of his life could go down the drain.
Abraham instructs Eliezer to scrap the mission if the woman will not return with him. "'The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father's household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, 'To your offspring I will give this land'---He will send His angel before you so that you can get a wife for my son from there. If the woman is unwilling to come back with you, then you will be released from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there.' So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter." (Genesis 24:7-9)
Abraham says something like, "The Lord will choose the right woman for my son. When you get to Ur, He will let you know which one she is. But if she doesn't want to obey the Lord in this matter, and if she doesn't want to fulfill the Lord's plan for her life, then you are not obligated to do anything more. Do not come back here and get my son so that he can go with you to Ur to convince her. If she won't come with you, just return to me and let the matter end there."
In today's passage I believe we can see the importance of letting the Lord guide us in our choice of spouse. If you are unmarried, I would not advise choosing someone without seeking the Lord's counsel first. My husband and I knew we were in the Lord's will when we chose each other, not that our twenty-five year marriage has been without its challenges. Marrying the person the Lord chooses for us doesn't mean it's going to be smooth sailing all the time, but when the really hard times come (and they will come), knowing that the Lord put the two of you together will help you to stay together. There have been times when that's the only reason we've stayed together. It would have been easier to give up and walk away but when you know that the Lord put you together, it's a very serious matter to think about parting ways. Isaac is going to have a wife from Ur, and she is going to be the woman the Lord specifically chooses for him, and during all their years together this will be a source of strength for them.
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