The Providence of God in a Cheap Egyptian Tailor
Do you ever stop and think about how the decisions you’ve made have led you to where you are? Our stories are made up of thousands of little decisions, with a few big ones mixed in. Think about all the decisions made for you, decisions you probably never noticed or thought about. For example, if the couple who let my grandparents stay in their garage apartment as newlyweds hadn’t invited them to church, they may not have heard the gospel and been saved and passed down a legacy of gospel faithfulness in my family.
Russell Moore, in his book Adopted for Life, says, “All of human history is like that. Providence moves forward mysteriously as God works through billions of seemingly inconsequential decisions.”[1]
One writer points out God’s mysterious providence in the life of Joseph. He says, “If one Egyptian tailor hadn’t cheated on the threads of Joseph’s mantle, Potiphar’s wife would never had been able to tear it, present it as evidence to Potiphar that Joseph attacked her, gotten him thrown in prison, and let him be in a position to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, win his confidence, advise him to store seven years of grain, and save his family, the seventy original Jews from whom Jesus came. We owe our salvation to a cheap Egyptian tailor.”[2]
This idea of God being in control of everything that happens is called providence. In his book Providence, John Piper defines God’s providence as his “purposeful sovereignty.”[3] “Sovereignty” means he has the right and the power to do what he wants. Psalm 115:3, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” But providence takes this a step further, saying that God has designs and goals in all that he does. God isn’t only powerful, he’s also wise, and the Bible says he has purposes in all that he does. “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isa. 46:10). Providence is God’s purposeful action in all that happens.
God’s providence means that this world is not ultimately idiotic. It may appear to be run by chaos or by an absentee landlord, but the Bible teaches us that everything that happens in the world happens according to a plan, God’s plan to accomplish his promises.
Providence Accomplishes Promises
In Genesis 24, we’re going to see an amazing example of God’s providence. God promised Abraham many descendants (15:5). But his wife Sarah is dead (ch. 23), he’s old, and Isaac isn’t married. There’s no longer a mother in Israel.
Abraham surveys the situation and acts wisely and decisively. He sends his most trusted servant on a mission to get a wife for Isaac and the servant returns with Rebekah. 24:67 links this chapter back to chapter 23. This narrative begins with Sarah’s tent being empty, and it ends with it being occupied by Rebekah.
Between these bookends, the text emphasizes that it was the Lord’s providence that led the servant to the bride God had appointed for Isaac. The main idea of this chapter is that God’s providence ensures the accomplishment of God’s promises.
In this chapter, we see a wise plan (vv. 1-9), a providential encounter (vv. 10-28), a long speech (vv. 29-49), and a continuing covenant (vv. 50-67).
A Wise Plan
In verses 1-9, we see the wise plan that Abraham initiates to secure a wife for his son Isaac. The issue this narrative seeks to resolve is the continuation of the seed of Abraham, or more specifically, the seed of the woman who’ll crush the head of the serpent (3:15).
There are times when God tells Abraham exactly what to do (12:1, 15:7ff). But here he doesn’t. Rather, Abraham devises a plan to get Isaac a wife. But his plan is in line with the word of God. His plan is threefold: Isaac must have a wife, she must not be from the Canaanites, and Isaac must not return to Mesopotamia.
These weren’t direct commands to Abraham from God. They were inferred from things that God had told him. God didn’t command Isaac to marry, but he did tell Abraham that he’d be a great nation (12:2) and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars (15:5) and the sand on the seashore (22:17). Abraham deduced from this that Isaac needed a wife.
God didn’t tell Abraham to not take a wife from the Canaanites, but he likely remembered that God cursed Canaan, Noah’s grandson (9:25), and that God said that the Amorites, or the people in Canaan, were marked off for judgment because of their sin (15:16). Knowing this about the Canaanites surely gave Abraham great pause about forming marriage alliances with them. So while God didn’t tell Abraham explicitly to not take a wife for his son from the Canaanites, Abraham had been so shaped by the word of God that he knew what to do.
And thirdly, God didn’t tell Abraham to make Isaac stay in the land of Canaan, but Abraham was adamant on this point (24:6, 8). Why would Abraham feel this way? Because God had called him out of that land and promised him a new land. To go back there would be to disbelieve God’s promise and his power to fulfill it. So Isaac must not leave the land of promise.
Abraham’s threefold plan isn’t a direct command from God but is based on the trajectories of God’s word to him. These trajectories merged into a single decision: someone besides Isaac must leave Canaan to find a wife for Isaac.
Abraham is confident in his plan, despite an objection from his servant (v. 5), because he knew and believed the promises of God (v. 7). He believed that God’s sovereign power would carry his plan through because it was in accordance with his word.
A Providential Encounter
In verses 10-28, we see the servant’s providential encounter. When the servant arrives at the city of Nahor, he begins watering his camels (v. 11) and begins praying (vv. 12-14). In his prayer, he asks for a specific sign from God, namely, that the woman he asks for a drink from would also water his camels (v. 14). This is likely because he wants to find a wife for Isaac who’s servant-hearted and hospitable. Someone like Abraham who quickly showed hospitality to the strangers who visited him in chapter 18.
The servant uses a word in his prayer that shows us that the providence of God is the focus of this whole story. He says in verse 14, “Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac” (cf. v. 44). The servant believes that the Lord has already selected, or “appointed,” the woman who’ll be Isaac’s wife. This is a high view of God’s providence in the world.
Verse 15 says that Rebekah arrives before he’s even finished praying. It’s only us, the readers, not the servant, who know at this point that this is Rebekah. Moses is telling us from the start that the Lord has answered the servant’s prayer. He sacrifices narrative suspense for the sake of his main point, namely, that God has providentially provided Rebekah for Isaac, even before the servant knows it. The rest of the story only confirms what we learn here, that this is the wife God prepared for Isaac.
Narrator Moses has organized the narrative this way because he wants to emphasize the servant’s response. In the character and response of the servant, we’re shown what a proper response to God’s leading looks like (vv. 26-27).
This servant is a model for how one should respond to the work of God: humility (he “bowed his head”) and worship (he “blessed the Lord”). Success inflates men of the world, but it humbles the man of God. The servant’s first thought is for God, then for his master, and only then for himself. Derek Kidner says that this servant “is one of the most attractive minor characters of the Bible, with his quiet good sense, his piety and faith, his devotion to his employer and his firmness in seeing the matter through. If he is the Eliezer of 15:2-3, his loyalty is all the finer in serving the heir who has displaced him, almost as a John the Baptist to his Master.”[4]
This servant is committed to Abraham, and to Abraham’s God, believing that he’s big enough and strong enough and wise enough to work all things together for good for those who love God.
A Long Speech
This providential encounter then leads to a long speech by the servant to Rebekah’s family in verses 29-49. The servant’s speech in verses 34-49 is the longest speech in Genesis. Before the speech begins, Moses tells us that Laban was enticed by the gold jewelry on Rebekah, not in what the servant said (v. 30). We’ll learn later in Genesis that Laban is a cunning and deceitful man who uses people for his own profit.
Notice that there’s no flattery here, no pressure. The servant merely tells of his oath to his master, Abraham’s faith that the Lord will provide, and the providential leading to Rebekah. All of this makes it clear that God is the one guiding these events.
Ends and Means
Every good engineer knows that having their project design completed is not enough. The final product’s design is important and necessary. It shows you where you’re headed. But it doesn’t tell you how to get there. A good engineer knows how to draft a design and how to create the steps to making it a reality. In other words, a good builder or engineer or architect knows how to create the end and the means to that end.
God’s end goal for Abraham was that his family would be a nation living in the land of Canaan, blessed so that they would be a blessing to all the families of the earth. That was God’s plan, his design. God ordained this plan. But he also ordained the means of its fulfillment.
Like a good builder, God designed the end and the means. The final product and all the steps to complete the final product are God’s idea. He’s the one working all the details and decisions in this story together toward the glorious end of fulfilling his promises to Abraham.
A Continuing Covenant
Rebekah’s brother and father agree that God is leading these events. The last section of the chapter shows us that the covenant will continue through her (vv. 50-67). Laban and Bethuel acknowledge that this is “from the Lord” (v. 50) and agree to let her return with the servant and marry Isaac, even acknowledging that “the Lord has spoken” these events into existence (v. 51).
Providence and Prayer
God’s answer to his prayers leads the servant to pray again (v. 52). Have you noticed how often the servant prayed in this chapter (vv. 12-14, 26-27, 52)? Some may think that, since God is in control, we don’t need to pray. But the Bible teaches that prayer is a means of providence. In other words, God will only accomplish certain things through, or because of, prayer. God saved Jonah through prayer. He gave Peter freedom from prison through prayer. He gave Hannah a child through prayer. He sustained Jesus to the end through prayer.
God has the power to make promises and the power to keep them. We don’t. So we must pray for the Holy Spirit to help us keep our wedding vows if we’re married, our covenant obligations as church members, our promises as friends, and our obligations as employees.
This should lead us to devote ourselves to prayer, as individuals and as a church. We can pray through the member directory, pray with people after service, or during the week. We spend a lot of time praying in our service because we know that we’re dependent on God, not ourselves, to accomplish his plans in our lives, our church, and the world. We pray because we believe in providence, not in spite of it.
The Seed of the Woman is Continuing
The servant doesn’t want to stay any longer, but the family wants ten more days (vv. 54-55). The servant is intent on leaving quickly, so they decide to ask Rebekah what she thinks (vv. 56-57). Her response indicates that she also trusts in the Lord’s plan (v. 58). Like Abraham, she’s willing to leave her family and country to follow the Lord into the unknown.
As she’s leaving, the family speaks a blessing over her (v. 60) that sounds a lot like the blessing the Lord spoke over Isaac in 22:17. The same blessing is given to Isaac and Rebekah, indicating that the covenant God made with Abraham is continuing with them. God’s covenant love is passing from Abraham to Isaac because he keeps his promises generationally.
The servant arrives back in Canaan with Rebekah and introduces her to Isaac (vv. 61-66). Verse 67 lets us know that Rebekah is taking the place of Sarah as the mother of Israel. The seed of Abraham, and the seed of the woman who’ll crush the head of the serpent, is continuing.
Another Love Story
God “appointed” Rebekah to continue the line of the seed of the woman. Later the Lord would select another young woman to advance the cause of the seed of the woman. “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin…the virgin’s name was Mary” (Lk. 1:26-17). As Rebekah had said, “I will go,” so Mary said to the angel, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (v. 38).
The son born to Mary was the Seed of the Woman who God sent to save, not just Israel, but anyone who believes in him, fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham, that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).
Genesis 24 thus reminds us of another love story, another story where a father sends a servant to secure a bride from a foreign land to give to his son. The bride is led on an exodus by imitating the faith of Abraham, and because of her faith, inherits the promises given to Abraham. Then the wife is given to the son and the son loves her and makes his home with her.
God’s providence ensures the accomplishment of his promises. He will see to it that every detail and every decision works together for the good of those who’re called according to his purpose. Our Father always and only does what’s best for his sons and daughters.
[1]Russell D. Moore, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2009), 144.
[2]Peter Kreeft, C. S. Lewis for the Third Millennium: Six Essays on The Abolition of Man (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1994), 61, quoted in ibid.
[3]John Piper, Providence (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 18.
[4]Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1967), 146.