We learn from Scripture that the family of Shem had become very corrupt in the days of Terah, the sixth or seventh generation from Shem; they were serving false gods. But the power of the Spirit and the call of the God of glory were heard by the heart of Abram, the son of Terah, and separated him from that corruption.
We also know that a godly influence extended itself from this to others in the family. Terah the father, Sarah the wife, and Lot the nephew join Abram in this, and they all leave the land of Mesopotamia together. Abram’s brother Nahor, however, did not come within this influence. He and his wife continue in Mesopotamia and thrive there. Children are born to them; goods and property increase. They pursue an easy and respectable life, but they do not grow in the knowledge of God, and they bear no testimony, or only an indistinct one.
The character of Nahor’s family was thus formed. They were not in gross darkness and corruption like the descendants of Ham in Canaan, among whom Abram had now gone to sojourn. They had a measure of light derived from their connection with Terah and Abram, and as descendants of Shem. However, all that was sadly dimmed by the cherished principles of the world from which they had refused to separate themselves, and a family character was thus formed.
The Refreshing Energy
of the Spirit
Bethuel was one of the sons of Nahor, and the one most brought into view. He had flourished in the world, and he had a son named Laban who evidently knew how to manage his affairs well. He seems to have known the value of money, for the sight of gold could open his mouth with a very hearty and religious welcome, even to a stranger (Gen. 24). Here we reach a significant period in the history of this family.
A fresh energy of the Spirit is about to visit this family. They had been brought into a certain measure of light. Now it becomes us seriously to notice the nature of that visitation of the Spirit, for it will be found to be a separating power or visitation. As the call of the God of glory had before disturbed the state of things in Terah’s house, so now the mission of Eliezer disturbed the state of things in Bethuel’s house. Abram had been separated from home and kindred, and so is Rebekah now to be. It leaves the serious impression that a respectable, professing family may need to be visited by the same energy of the Spirit as a more worldly or idolatrous family. The ministry of Eliezer (God’s servant, as well as Abram’s) came to Bethuel’s house to draw Rebekah out of it and to lead her on that very journey on which, two generations before, the God of glory had led Abram. A professing, decent family may have to be aroused and a fresh act of separation produced in the midst of it.
Character and Mindset
But there is another lesson in this history to which I would call your attention. Rebekah comes forth at the call of Abram’s servant, but a character had previously been formed, as it is with us all, more or less, before we are converted. We may heed the separating call and power of the Lord, but the character and mind derived from nature, from education or from family habits we take with us after we have been born of the Spirit, and they may carry in us from Mesopotamia to the house of Abram.
I need only briefly speak of what took place; Rebekah’s history sadly betrays what we may call the family character. Laban, her brother with whom she had grown up, was a subtle, knowing, worldly man, and the only great action in which Rebekah was called to take part gives occasion to her exercising the same principles. In the procuring of the blessing for her son Jacob, we see this Laban-leaven working mightily. Her mind was too little accustomed to repose in the sufficiency of God and too much addicted to calculate and to lean its hopes on its own inventions.
We too must watch against the peculiar tendency of our own mind and rebuke nature sharply, that we may be sound or morally healthful in the faith (Titus 1:1313This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; (Titus 1:13)). We must not excuse this tendency of our nature, but rather mortify it for His sake who has given us another nature.
These lessons we get from the story of this distinguished woman. Beyond this, her way is not much tracked by the Spirit. She reaps nothing but disappointment from the seed she had sown. She loses her favorite son Jacob and never sees him again after her own schemes and contrivances ended in his long exile.
Jacob’s Character
But there is more; Jacob got his mind formed by the same earliest influence. He was all his days a slow-hearted, calculating man. His plan in getting the birthright first and then the blessing, his confidence in his own arrangements rather than in the Lord’s promise when he met his brother Esau, and his lingering at Shechem and settling there instead of pursuing a pilgrim’s life in the land like his fathers — all this betrays the nature and the working of the old family character. How important to watch the early seed sown in the heart!
The birth of Esau and Jacob is given us at the close of Genesis 25, and as they grow up, occasion arises to let us look in at the family scene, which is truly humbling. This was one of the families of God then on the earth — the most distinguished, in which lay the hopes of all blessing to the whole earth and where the Lord had recorded His name. But what do we see? Isaac the father had sunk into the stream of human desires; he loved his son Esau because he ate of his venison! Esau, as a child of the family, was entitled to the care and provision of the house, but for Isaac to make him his favorite because he ate of his venison was sad indeed. Do we not see here some further illustration of our subject? Isaac had been reared tenderly. He had never been away from the side of his mother; he was the child of her old age. His education perhaps had relaxed him too much, and he appears before us as a soft, self-indulgent man.
What sad mischief opens to our view in this family scene! Are we saying too much that one parent was catering to nature in one of the sons, and the other parent to the other son? Isaac’s love of venison may have encouraged Esau in the chase, as Rebekah’s cleverness, brought from her brother’s house in Padan-aram, seems to have formed the mind and character of her favorite Jacob. What sorrow and cause of humiliation is here! Is this a household of faith? Is this a God-fearing family? Yes, Isaac, Rebekah and Jacob are children of promise and heirs of His kingdom, but they gave precedence to their own desires over acting in faith and obedience to God’s promises.
The Consequences
At another time and in other actions this family delights and edifies us. See Isaac in the greater part of chapter 26; his conduct is altogether worthy of a heavenly stranger on the earth. He suffers and takes it patiently, and his altar and his tent witness his holy, unearthly character. So with Rebekah in chapter 24; in faith she consents to cross the desert alone with a stranger because her heart was set upon the heir of the promises. But here in chapter 27, what shame fills the scene, and we blush and are confounded that heirs of promise and children of God could so behave!
But it remains for us to see grace assuming its high, triumphant place and attitude. Isaac loses his purpose touching Esau, Rebekah has to part with Jacob, and Jacob himself, instead of getting the birthright and the blessing in his own way, has to go forth a penniless exile from the place of his inheritance. The only wages of sin is death, but grace takes its high place and shines through Jehovah’s burning holiness.
Jacob, the son and heir, has to lie down alone, uncared for, unsheltered, the stones of the place his only pillow. But grace is preparing a glorious rest for him; he listens to the voice of wondrous love, and he is shown worlds of light in this place of solitude and darkness. He sees himself, though so erring, so poor and so vile, thus associated with an all-pervading glory full of present mercies and consolations. The holiness of grace still leaves him a wanderer, but the riches of grace will tell him of present consolation and of future sure glories.
There is then such a thing as family character, and the recollection of this, when we are dealing with ourselves, should make us watchful and jealous over all our peculiar habits and tendencies. When we are dealing with others, it should make us considerate and of an interceding spirit, remembering that there is a force of early habit and education working more or less in all of us. But let us not forget that if a certain family character clings to us or habits with which birth has connected us, so are we debtors to exhibit that character with which our birth and education in the heavenly family have since connected us.
J. G. Bellett, adapted