Deep Learnings from a Distant Past - Reflections on Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

by John C. Holbert on Friday, May 1, 2026

         I write this essay against the backdrop of two historical events, one national and one personal. This Sunday follows directly from an important Fourth of July celebration, the 250th anniversary of the founding of US America, at least as it is counted from the Declaration of Independence of 1776. It is our country’s semiquincentennial, a mouthful of a name that will perhaps readily be forgotten! 250 will do nicely. The day was feted by the usual bands and parades, but this year, a WWF cage fighting event occurred on the lawn of the White House, a rather peculiar way to mark such an auspicious date, to say the least!

         My more personal occasion is the fact of my 80th birthday, which will occur on the 8th of this month. As a lover of all things Hebrew Bible, I am reminded of the statement of Psalm 90:10: “The days of our years number 70 among them, or 80 if we are warriors.” Does this ancient thought mean that I have achieved “warriorhood” by reaching this age? Well, I assume the psalmist means by his use of this word that unusual strength must make it possible for one to reach such an age, in a time when perhaps 40 or 50 was seen as old. The rest of the sentence should not be forgotten, adding as it does a melancholy air: “Their length is toil and trouble, and soon gone as we fly away.” The entire Ps.90 is a poem emphasizing human frailty in the light of God’s eternity.

         You may well ask just what these two contexts have to do with this famous Genesis tale of Abraham’s search for a bride for his son, Isaac. I have three comments to make about possible connections. The first has to do with the current state of US America with regard to our treatment of those who are immigrants among us. The administration of Donald Trump has spoken almost without ceasing about how the many foreign-born members of our country have degraded and “fouled the blood” of those of us who were born here. He, and especially his advisor, Stephen Miller, have bad-mouthed our immigrant neighbors in vile and repulsive ways, even resorting to old “blood libel” tropes, suggesting that immigrants have brought about the degradation of some sort of “pure-blood” Americans. This foul and horrifying characterization, echoing the monstrous claims of Nazi Germany, has demeaned many marvelous US foreign-born citizens, and at the same time has offered to the world a portrait of American policy that is perfidious, a picture far from the notion of an America open to the world’s peoples. 

         Ironically, this narrow-minded presentation of a closed-down America is rather more like the ancient 2nd-millennium BCE narrative of Gen.24. Traditional societies like Israel are based on kinship structures, stressing marriage within one’s larger kinship group rather than finding suitable partners outside of one’s kin. Abraham makes it plain that he will not have his son marry one of the local Cannanites, “among whom I live” (Gen.24:3), but demands that his servant go back to the ancestral home across the Euphrates river to find a suitable marriage partner. I would suggest that a later Israel opened itself up to foreigners in its midst, even going so far as to say in a 5th century BCE Leviticus “The foreigner who lives with you shall be to you as a citizen; you shall love the foreigner as you love yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Lev.19:34). Thus Israel, often characterized as a closed society, an exclusive community, opened itself up to others in the world in ways we can still learn from. Leviticus could be valuable Bible reading from those in the Trump world who seem to dote on Bible reading as a sign of their piety.

         My second observation concerning the contexts for today’s reading is that the 250th anniversary of the claims of the Declaration of Independence should cause us to look more closely at the ways in which we, as a country, have fulfilled or have fallen short of the lofty statements of that famous document. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” are goals that must include all peoples, not just those who have the power and wealth to possess them. The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah echo again and again the initial promise to Abraham and Sarah from YHWH concerning their chosenness as servants of that God. Genesis 12:3 reads: “through you (Abram and Sarai) all the world’s families will be blessed” (it may also grammatically be read “will bless themselves”). The call of Abram is far from a limited, exclusive one; his calling includes all the world’s families, bringing to them the blessing of God. Any celebration of US America’s founding must by necessity include the whole world; we can be a “beacon to the world,” a “city on the hill.” Unfortunately, our current leaders seem to have clouded or lost this vision for the country entirely in their rush “to make America great again,” which appears to mean to them to “make America exclusively white and restrictive again.”

         Lastly, with regard to my 80th birthday, as I read this long betrothal passage I note a fascinating reality. Isaac, the patriarchal son, does not appear in the scene at all until the very end. In fact, Isaac is by far the most passive of the three great founders of Israel; he may be quite literally “son of laughter,” his name coming from the Hebrew for “laughter,” though he rarely initiates anything in the great stories of the founding of the nation. In fact, in this long tale of his ultimate betrothal to Rebekah, it is she who is the forceful and enterprising partner in the relationship. She comes to the well; she waters the servant’s camels, she informs her family of the surprising visitor; she decides on her own to follow the servant back to the land of Israel for marriage to a man she has not met. And later in the story, she will make it possible for her favored son, Jacob, to take his place in the patriarchal triumvirate, along with Abraham and Jacob’s father, Isaac. This reminds me that I must always, even in my advancing age, be open to voices other than my own if I am to hear the fuller call of God to justice, mercy, and peace. I still, in my now 80th year of life, have much to learn about the God I have tried to follow. Perhaps you do, too.