Then Eliezer came into the house; and Laban ungirded his camels, and gave straw and provender for his camels, and water to wash his feet and the feet of the men that were with him. Meat also was set before him to eat; but he said, "I will not eat, till I have told my errand." And Laban said, "Speak on."

The man said, "I am Abraham's servant. And the Lord hath greatly blessed my master, and he is become great; for the Lord hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and men-servants and maidservants, and camels and asses. Sarah, my master's wife, bare him a son in his old age, and my master hath given him all that he hath. Now my master made me swear that I would not take a wife for his son from the daughters of Canaan, but would go to his own kindred to seek among them a wife for his son. So I came hither. And I prayed to God, and said, I will stand by the well; and when the damsel cometh to draw water from the well, and I say to her, Give me to drink; if the damsel say, Drink, and I will draw for thy camels also; let the same be the woman whom the Lord hath appointed for my master's son. And lo! even before I had done speaking, Rebekah came down to draw water of the well. And she did as I had said. Then I asked her, Whose daughter art thou? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, whom Milcah bare to Nahor. Then I put the ear-ring in her ear and the bracelets upon her hands. Then I bowed down my head and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, who had led me in the right way to find a wife for my master's son among his own kindred. And now tell me whether ye will deal truly and kindly with my master, that I may go away?"

Laban and Bethuel answered, "The thing is from the Lord: we cannot say bad or good. Behold,

Rebekah is here, take her to be the wife of thy master's son, as the Lord hath spoken.”

Then Eliezer worshipped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth. Also he brought forth jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and gave them to Rebekah. He gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things. After this he and the men that were with him ate and drank, and tarried all night.

The next morning they rose up, and Eliezer said, "Send me away to my master."

But the damsel's mother and brother said, "Let Rebekah abide with us a few days, ten at the least."

But he said, "Hinder me not, seeing that the Lord hath prospered me; send me away to my master."

They answered, "We will call the damsel, and ask whether she be willing."

So they called Rebekah, and asked her, "Wilt thou go with this man?"

And Rebekah said, "I will go."

So they sent away Rebekah and her nurse1 with Abraham's servant and his men. And they blessed her, saying, "Be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and may thy children possess the gate of their enemies."

So Rebekah and her nurse, and the damsels that were with her, departed with Abraham's servant, riding upon camels. Now, when they came near to the place where Isaac dwelt, it chanced that Isaac had gone out into the field at eventide to meditate. When Rebekah saw him, she asked, "What man is that?" Eliezer answered her, "That is my master." Then she alighted from her camel, and covered herself with a veil. And Eliezer told Isaac all that he had done.

1 The name of the nurse was Deborah. Her death and burial at Beth-el are recorded in Gen. xxxv.

So Rebekah became Isaac's wife, and he was comforted after his mother's death. Isaac was forty years

old when he took Rebekah to wife.

Abraham lived yet thirty and five years after these things. And he died in a good old age, being one hundred and seventy-five years old. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah,' which he had bought of Ephron the Hittite. By the side of Sarah his wife they buried him.

1

1 The cave of Machpelah is one of the sites in the Holy Land about the identity of which there can be no manner of doubt. It is now covered by a mosque, which itself occupies the site of a Christian church, and indeed contains many remains of the old building. In this mosque are three shrines, which are the monuments respectively of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah. These shrines are supposed to be over the actual tombs of these personages. The mosque has been inspected three times of late years by Christian visitors. These, on the last occasion, were permitted to see what they could of the outermost of the three chambers of the cave by help of a lamp, which was let down through a hole in the floor of the mosque. Nothing of importance, however, could be discovered in this. Possibly this outermost chamber is not part of the cave itself, which indeed was described in early times as having been double. Into the sepulchre itself no one has entered for many years. In fact, it is walled up. But in 1163, when the crusading forces still held possession of the Holy Land, a certain Benjamin of Tudela inspected the place. He speaks of two empty chambers, and a third in which are six sepulchres, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob on one side, with those of Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah opposite to them. In this inner chamber were also many coffins filled with the bones of Israelites who desired to rest in the holy spot. The burial of Isaac is recorded in Gen. xxxv. 29. No mention is made of Rebekah's death or burial, but that she was buried in the cave appears from Gen. xlix. 31. Jacob's body was embalmed (Gen. 1. 2), and probably remains intact to the present day.

THE STORY OF JOSEPH

JACOB, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, married two wives, daughters of Laban the Syrian, Leah and Rachel by name. Of these he loved Rachel the better; but for many years she bare him no children. At the last, in the twenty-seventh year of her marriage, she bare a son, and called his name Joseph. Seven years afterwards she bare another son, whom she would have called Ben-oni, that is to say, "Son of my sorrow," for she knew that she was dying, but his father called him Ben-jamin, that is, "Son of my right hand." These two Jacob loved more than all his children, because they were the sons of his old age, and because Rachel, his best beloved, had borne them. In these days Jacob dwelt at Hebron with Isaac his father, and Joseph and Benjamin dwelt with him, and his other sons fed his flocks, wandering over the land from place to place, according as they found pasture.

When Joseph was seventeen years of age, Jacob made for him a dress of honour, such as princes wore. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him

1 The "coat of many colours" of the Authorised Version. The general opinion is that it was a long tunic made with sleeves, which may or may not have been ornamented with colours. The other interpretation is supported by a representation on an Egyptian tomb (of the twelfth dynasty, circa 2080 B.C.) in which strangers of race akin to the family of Jacob appear clad in garments of what we should call patchwork.

more than all his sons, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him. Moreover, they hated him for certain dreams which he told them. One of the dreams was this: "Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo! my sheaf arose, and stood upright; and your sheaves stood round about it, and made obeisance to it." And his brethren said to him, "Shalt thou indeed reign over us?"

After this he told his brethren another dream, saying, "Behold, I have dreamed another dream; the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me." His father rebuked him, and said unto him, "Shall I and thy mother1 and thy brethren indeed bow down before thee?"

After these things Jacob's elder sons went to feed the flocks in Shechem, and Jacob said to Joseph, "Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and with the flocks; and bring me word again." So Joseph went from Hebron to Shechem.2 And a certain man met him wandering in the open country, and said to him, "What seekest thou?" Joseph said, “I seek my brethren tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks." The man said, "They are departed hence; I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan." So Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan.

When Joseph's brethren saw him coming, they said one to the other, "Behold, this master of dreams. cometh ;" and they conspired together to slay him. "We will slay him," they said, "and cast him into a pit, and we will say that some savage beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of

1 "Thy mother" must mean his stepmother Leah, for Rachel must have been long since dead.

2 Shechem, afterwards Samaria. was twelve miles to the north.

Dothan (so called from its two wells)