Isaac Loved Her: A Marriage Built on Someone Else's Prayers

The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah is not a romance in the modern sense. Isaac never leaves home. Rebekah is found by a servant, at a well, hundreds of miles away, after a prayer for a specific sign. The two do not meet until the last verses of the chapter. Yet Genesis 24 ends with one of the tenderest lines in the Old Testament. Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah's tent, and he married her, and he loved her, and he was comforted after his mother's death.

Christians in the United States do not arrange marriages, and this piece is not suggesting that we should. But the chapter names several things a marriage needs that our culture tends to skip, and they are worth recovering.

First, the marriage was surrounded by prayer before it existed. Abraham sent his servant with the assurance that God would send his angel ahead. The servant prayed at the well before he saw a single face. Rebekah's family, when they heard the story, said that this was from the Lord. By the time Isaac and Rebekah were in the same tent, three parties had already committed the match to God. Many couples pray together after they are married. Fewer have anyone praying for the marriage before it forms. If you are single, ask people to pray for the marriage you may one day have. If you are a parent, pray for your children's future spouses by name, even though you do not yet know the names. If you are married, ask who prayed for your marriage, and thank them.

Second, character was the criterion. The servant's test was not beauty, though Rebekah was beautiful. It was whether she would offer to water ten camels for a stranger. A camel can drink a great deal, and ten camels is an afternoon's hard work. The servant was looking for a woman of generous, unprompted kindness toward someone who could do nothing for her. That is a better predictor of a good marriage than most of what dating profiles measure. If you are choosing, watch how the person treats waiters, strangers and family members who are not useful to them. If you are married, ask whether you are still the kind of person who would water the camels.

Third, consent was real. When Rebekah's brother and mother wanted to delay her departure, the servant pressed, and they said, let us call the girl and ask her. She said, I will go. The arrangement did not override her will. She chose. A marriage in which one partner has not genuinely chosen, or is not free to keep choosing, is not the pattern Genesis holds up.

Fourth, the marriage was shaped by the covenant. Abraham's insistence that Isaac not marry a Canaanite was not ethnic prejudice; it was about keeping the line of the promise within the faith. Paul echoes this in the New Testament when he tells believers to marry in the Lord. Shared faith is not one compatibility factor among many. It is the ground the marriage stands on when everything else shifts.

Fifth, and quietly, the marriage brought comfort. Isaac was grieving his mother. Rebekah did not replace Sarah, but her love comforted him. One of the mercies of marriage is that it gives grief somewhere to go. Husbands and wives, ask yourselves whether your spouse can bring their sorrow to you and find comfort, or whether they have learned to grieve alone.

Finally, note the order of the verbs. He married her, and he loved her. In our culture, love is supposed to come first and marriage to follow if the love holds up. In Genesis 24, love is something Isaac did after the vows, something that grew inside the commitment rather than justifying it. This does not mean feelings are irrelevant. It means that love in marriage is a practice as much as a sensation, and that a couple who have stopped feeling it can start doing it again. Water the camels. Bring the comfort. Love her, love him, as an act of the will that the heart will learn to follow.