Camels in the book of Bereshit

Bereshit 12:16 records that Pharaoh gave camels to Avram (Avraham) as a present. Later when Avraham sent his servant to find a wife for Yitzhak, camels are mentioned repeatedly, 24:10-64. Yaakov also had camels, 30:43, 31:17,34, 32:8,16 and camels are referred to when the Yishmaelites took Yosef to Egypt, 37:25. All of these references to camels have been questioned since Albright (1960) claimed that the camel was only domesticated in the land of Israel around 1000-1100 BCE, long after the lives of the patriarchs. This claim has been buttressed by a study from Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef (2013) who using radiocarbon dating argue that the first significant appearance of camels in the Aravah Valley (an area a little north of Eilat towards the Dead Sea) was not earlier than the 10th century BCE. How could Avraham, his servant and Yaakov have had camels?

Before reviewing some of the evidence not referred to in the above studies, it should be mentioned that, as pointed out by Sarna (1989, p. 96), in the book of Bereshit, the camel is not the main animal used for travelling, but rather it was a sign of prestige, as for example Avraham’s servant took the camels to impress the family of the prospective bride to Yitzhak. In the book of Bereshit, when an animal is needed for regular work, then a donkey was used: Avraham travelled to the akedah with a donkey, 22:3, Yosef's brothers travelled with donkeys to Egypt, 42:26, and Yosef sent supplies to his father with donkeys, 45:23.

Landa (2016, p. 107) notes that if the camels were added anachronistically to the Torah, then one would certainly have expected camels to be referred to when the brothers went to Egypt to get supplies and when Yosef sent back supplies. One can add that when Avimelekh gives Avraham presents after abducting Sara, he gave sheep and oxen, but not camels, 22:14. Again if camels were added to the Torah anachronistically, then one would certainly have expected that Avimelekh would have given camels to Avraham just like Pharaoh had given camels to Avraham in similar circumstances. Landa also points out that horses are first mentioned in Egypt when the Egyptians were offering their animals to Yosef to get food, 47:17, but Pharaoh did not give Avraham horses since horses seem not to have yet arrived in Egypt. However, if one claims that camels were added to the Torah anachronistically, then why were horses not added as well?

What is the archeological evidence concerning camels? Bulliet (1975) has an extensive discussion on the history of the camel, and he discusses Albright’s dating of camels. Bulliet notes (pp. 45,56) that the camel was most likely in Somalia between the years 2500-1500 BCE, and "that the domestication process first got under way between 3000 and 2500 BCE,” which is before the time of Avraham. Furthermore, he notes (p. 60) that camel hair was found in a cord in an Egyptian gypsum work from around the year 2500 BCE. Also, a bronze figurine from before 2182 BCE which was on a foundation which had "strong Egyptian influence" appears to have a picture of a camel. In addition, he notes (p. 62) that there are drawings of camels on a pot found in Greece and on a seal found in Crete both of which date to around 1500 BCE. Furthermore, (p. 64) in a list of rations found in a northern Syria, Alalakh, from around the 18th century BCE there is a reference to food for camels. Bulliet concludes (p. 65):

The most satisfactory explanation of this circumstance is that the camel was known because it was brought into the area by traders carrying goods from southern Arabia but that it was not bred or herded in the area. It is worthy of note whereas the citations from the Bible associating camels with Abraham and his immediate descendants seem to fit the generalized pattern of later camel use in the area, they could also fit a pattern in which camels were very uncommon. The largest number of animals mentioned in those episodes is ten, and those ten are probably most of what Abraham had since they were sent with his servant with the apparent intention of creating a sufficiently wealthy impression to entice the father of a woman of good family into letting his daughter cross the desert to marry Isaac. No man, incidentally, is described as riding a camel, only women, who seem to have perched atop camp goods instead of riding in an enclosed women's traveling compartment as was later to be the norm.

This does not mean, necessarily, that Abraham or his descendants were mixed up in the Arabian incense trade, although they lived in such great proximity to the main route from Syria to Arabia that such involvement might have been possible. It means simply that in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries BCE when Abraham and his immediate descendants appear to have lived, camels were already known in small numbers in the northwestern corner of the Arabian desert the western Arabian trade route branched out to go to Egypt or further into Syria. Local tribes in the area may have owned a few of the animals, perhaps as articles of prestige, without being heavily involved in breeding them….

(pp. 66,67) The probable sequence of events seems to have been that by 2000 BCE incense was reaching Syria with some regularity along the western Arabian land route. Some Semitic speaking tribes saw the potential benefits of this trade and became interested in it at its northern extremity. In Biblical parlance these would be the Ishamaelites who appear in the story of Joseph as traders of incense. Other tribes, probably later, undertook to follow the trade back to its source and this became the nucleus of Semitic settlement in southern Arabia. Again in Biblical parlance these would seem to be the children of Abraham's son Jokshan (Bereshit 25:2, Arabic Yuqtan progenitor of the south Arabian tribes). When the Semites had arrived in sufficient numbers, they overwhelmed the indigenous inhabitants of southern Arabia, and became themselves masters of the land and the incense trade.

 

The entire process, it has been argued, took place without the benefit of camel transport, the camels making their appearance only at a much later date from parts unknown. But it has been demonstrated that the camel was already in use during the period in question and that its probable homeland was southern Arabia. It is much more reasonable, therefore, to assume that the camel was the main carrier of the incense route from the very beginning, or nearly so, and the Semitic tribes came to know the camel in this way in very small numbers. In other words, the presence of camels in the Abraham story can be defended and story treated as primary evidence of camel use without disrupting Albright's contention that camel-breeding nomads did not exist in Syria and northern Arabia at that time.

A short time after Bulliet's study, Compagnoni and Tosi (1978) reported finding camel bones, camel dung and camel hair in ruins of a settlement in southeastern Iran, Shahr-I Sokhta (today province of Sistan in eastern Iran) that dates to around 2500-2600 BCE. They also provide a table (p. 98) which lists findings of camel bones in southern Turkmenia and representation of camels in Kashan (central Iran) from 3000-3500 BCE. They also note (p. 100) that in a finding off the coast of Abu Dhabi "representations in relief on tombstones and osteological finds of camels are dated as early as 2500 BCE, have revealed a convergence between Iran and Oman, in the more highly evolved farming communities, in the domestication process of C. bactrianus (two-humped camel) and C. dromedaries (one humped camel)." They write, (p. 99) "In conclusion, in the third millennium all archaeological evidence points to the fact that the dromedary (one humped camel) occupied an area lying between Oman and Sind (eastern Pakistan) to the east and North Africa and Palestine to the west."

Potts (2004) reviews the presence of the two humped camels in the Middle East (Camelus Bactrianus) and he concludes (p. 161), "in view of the ever increasing body of evidence for ties between Central Asia and Elam (western Iran), and between Elam and Assyria and Mari (eastern Syria on the Euphrates) in the early 2nd millennium BCE (between 2000 BCE and 1500 BCE), it is entirely possible that this was the period in which the peoples of the Near East first became aware of Camelus Bactrianus."

These two findings show that camels would have been known in Haran (northern Syria) when Avraham’s servant came and would explain how Yaakov acquired camels.

A more recent finding is from Steinkeller (2009) who discusses a tablet that has been dated to Ur III period, during the reign of Shulgi (approximately 2094-2047 BCE), maybe 100-200 years before Avraham. The tablet records a gift to the King of Ur of various animals, and Steinkeller (p. 416) writes that there is a "strong possibility that the herbivore (on the tablet) in question is the two-humped Bactrian camel." Avraham was from Ur, and we see that camels existed in his locale. Furthermore, the fact that the camel was given as a gift accords with the references to camels as being animals of prestige in the book of Bereshit.

An even more recent finding is Maria Guagnin et al (2023, p. 2) who write:

A tradition of large, naturalistic camel engravings has recently been documented across northern Saudi Arabia. This tradition is represented at sites such as the Camel Site in Jawf Province, where life-sized camels were carved in high relief. Analyses of the reliefs at this site, coupled with archaeological 

surveys and excavation show that use of the site overlapped with the mid-sixth millennium BCE.

These engravings would indicate that camels lived in northern Saudi Arabia several thousand years before Avraham lived, and from the figures in the article, it looks like the camels were one humped camels. 

Accordingly, these new finds show that camels (one humped and probably two humped) were known and used by humans, though probably not on an extensive scale, and not in all places, in the time of Avraham. Avraham could then have received camels as a gift from Pharaoh, and it was from these camels that his servant had camels to take to find a wife for Yitzhak.

Bibliography:

Albright, William Foxwell, 1960 (first published, 1949), The archaeology of Palestine, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.

Bulliet, Richard W., 1975, The camel and the wheel, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Compagnoni, Bruno and Maurizio Tosi, 1978, The Camel: Its distribution and state of domestication in the Middle East during the third millennium B.C. in light of finds from Shahr-I Sokhta, in Approaches to Faunal Analysis in the Middle East, edited by Richard H. Meadow and Melinda A. Zeder, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 91-103.

Guagnin, Maria, Ceri Shipton, Finn Stileman, Faisal Jibreen, Malek Al Sulaimi, Paul S. Breeze, Mathew Stewart, Amy Hatton, Nick Drake, Deepak Kumar Jha, Fahad Al-Tamimi, Mohammed Al-Shamry, Mishaal Al-Shammari, Andrea Kay, Huw S. Groucutt, Abdullah M. Alsharekh, Michael Petraglia, 2023, Before the Holocene humid period: Life-sized camel engravings and early occupations on the southern edge of the Nefud desert, Archaeological Research in Asia, Vol. 36, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2023.100483.

Landa, Judah, 2016, Camels in the Bible, Jewish Bible Quarterly, 44:2, pp. 103-115.

Potts, D.T., 2004, Camel hybridization and the role of Camelus Bactrianus in the ancient Near East, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 47:2, pp. 143-165.

Sapir-Hen, Lidar and Erez Ben-Yosef, 2013, The introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant: Evidence from the Aravah Valley, Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, 40:2, pp. 277-285.

Sarna, Nahum (1923-2005), 1989, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.

Steinkeller, Piotr, 2009, Camels in Ur III Babylonia, in Exploring the longue durée: Essays in honor of Lawrence E. Stager, edited by J. David Schloen, Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, pp. 415-419.

Bereshit 24:50-55 – Lavan and Betuel holding their tongues

Bereshit 24:50 records that after Avraham's servant presented his marriage proposal that Rivka should marry Yitzhak, both Lavan, Rivka's brother, and Betuel, Rivka's father, agreed to the proposal saying, "The matter comes from G-d, we cannot speak anything to you bad or good. Here is Rivka before you, take her and go, she may be a wife for the son of your lord, as G-d had spoke," (Fox, 1995, translation).

After this acceptance, the servant gave gifts to Rivka, her mother and her brother, but not to her father, 24:53. The following morning, Rivka's mother and brother tried to delay the marriage by requesting that Rivka stay at home for some time, and again Betuel is absent, 24:55. Where was Betuel in the morning and why did the servant not give him presents?

Rashi (on 24:55) quotes from the Midrash that Betuel died during the night, while the Bekhor Shor (on 24:55, also see Luzzatto on 24:55) explains that he did not speak in the morning since he did not want to delay the marriage.

Perry (2007) suggests that it is possible to explain Betuel's disappearance based on idea that Rivka's mother and father had separate houses. He suggests that Rivka was always in her mother's house (24:28), and that Lavan went back and forth between her mother's house and her father's house. When Rivka came home after meeting the servant, she went to her mother's house, but the servant went with Lavan to her father's house. After Lavan and Betuel agreed to the match, the servant went back to the mother's house, where he gave presents to Rivka and to Lavan who went with him but Betuel stayed in his house so he did not get any presents. Finally, in the morning, when the servant went to take Rivka, he went to Rivka's mother's house and Betuel was not there.

While these approaches are possible, I do not understand why there is even a question why Betuel did not speak in 24:55. After Betuel heard the servant's tale he said that the marriage was destined by G-d, and that "he would not say anything bad or good," 24:50. This means he would keep quiet. Why should one expect him to say something the following morning?

One might then wonder why 24:55 records that Rivka's brother asked for Rivka to stay at home for some time if Lavan had also said in 24:50, that "he would not say anything bad or good"? Did Lavan go back on his word? More likely, the reference to Rivka's brother in 24:55 is not to Lavan but to a different brother of Rivka. The proof is that had 24:55 been referring to Lavan, then the text would have referred to him by his name, as occurs throughout the chapter. Instead, 24:55 is referring to another brother of Rivka who is referred to anonymously as Rivka's brother, and this anonymous brother asked for Rivka to remain at home for some time.

With this understanding, maybe we can also understand why the servant did not give any gifts to Betuel in 24:53. The servant already had the agreement from Lavan and Betuel for the match, and they had indicated that they did not want to have anything more to do with the servant as they said, "here is Rivka before you, take her and go," 24:51. Thus, the servant did not give them any gifts. However, the servant must have sensed that not everybody else in the family was so thrilled with the match. Thus, he gave Rivka's mother and her anonymous brother (not Lavan) gifts to get them to be more supportive of the match, but in this effort he did not succeed since the following morning they tried to stop the match by requesting that Rivka not leave right away, 24:55.

Bibliography:

Fox, Everett, 1995, The Five Books of Moses: A new translation, New York: Schocken Books.

Perry, Menachem, 2007, Counter-stories in the Bible: Rebekah and her bridegroom, Abraham's servant, Prooftexts, 27, 2007, pp. 275-323.

Bereshit 24:1, 25:1,2 – Avraham in his older years: To be virile, again

Bereshit 24:1 records that Avraham was old, advanced in years, and G-d had blessed Avraham with everything. This verse raises several questions. One, we already know that Avraham was old, why is this information recorded? Two, what does the phrase "advanced in years" add after the verse already stated that he was old? Three, what is the connection between Avraham's age and the second half of the verse that he was blessed? Four, what was the blessing? What does the word everything refer to? Finally, how does this verse relate to the previous section of burying Sara and the next section of appointing a messenger to find a wife for Yitzhak?

The phrase "advanced in years" in 24:1 also appears in 18:11, which states that Avraham and Sara were old advanced in years, and then 18:11 records that Sara was no longer menstruating. 18:12 continues this theme, as the verse records that Sara stated that both she and Avraham were too old to have children. We see that the phrase "old advanced in age," means not just that the person is old but that with this old age, the person is no longer virile or fertile. Avraham and Sara were in this state prior to the announcement of Yitzhak's birth, and then G-d performed a miracle to restore Avraham's virility and Sara's fertility, 18:14. What happened since then? It appears that the normal course of time again returned, and they did not have any more children after Yitzhak.

Accordingly, the first half of 24:1 is stating that Avraham was no longer virile, and then the blessing of everything was that G-d returned to Avraham his virility. Maybe G-d did this as a comfort to Avraham after the death of Sara, that with his renewed strength, he could re-marry. However, before he re-married, he wanted Yitzhak to be married since many times it is difficult for children when their parents re-marry. To minimize any problems, Avraham waited to re-marry until after Yitzhak had found a wife. Furthermore, as Yitzhak was still at least 37 and not married, he decided to move things along by appointing a servant to find a wife for Yitzhak. After, the servant's successful mission, Avraham re-marries, 25:1, and and with his renewed virility he had more children, 25:2. This renewed virility and children might be the beginning of the fulfillment of the blessing to Avraham at the akedah, 22:17.

This understanding of 24:1 can answer another question. 25:2 records that Avraham had six sons with Ketura, which is quite surprising. Sara died when Avraham was 137, and already when he was 99, both he and Sara had expressed doubts that he was able to father any children, 17:17, and 18:12.

Netziv (on 25:2) explains that once Avraham was given the ability to father Yitzhak at the age of 100, then he never lost this ability. This is difficult since then we would have thought that Avraham and Sara would have had more than one child.

Hoffmann (1969) argues that although people lived longer in those days, the years were proportional to modern day lives. Thus, he claims that when Avraham was 140 this was comparable to being 56 in modern times, which allowed him to have had children without requiring any miracles. Hoffman then argues that the miracle of Yitzhak’s birth was that Sara was able to give birth. He follows Ramban’s explanation of 17:17, that Avraham was expressing doubt that he could have a child with Sara since they had not been able to do so before, but not that he himself could not father a child. While it must be that the aging process for Avraham and Sara was different from modern times, as how else could they live such long lives (see our discussion, "Longevity and the aging process in the Torah"), yet still 18:12 remains unexplained, as Sara says that Avraham was too old when he was 99. (Presumably, Ramban and Hoffmann understand 18:12 as they did 17:17, but it is a difficult explanation.)

Luzzatto (on 25:1) writes that there is no doubt that Avraham married Ketura before Sara died. This would seem to explain how Avraham was able to father the children of Ketura, but it seems difficult to believe that Sara would have allowed Avraham to take another wife after all the fights she had with Hagar. Also, presumably Avraham did not marry Ketura before he married Hagar, since then there would have been no need to marry Hagar once Avraham had fathered children with Ketura.

A simpler explanation on 25:2 is our explanation of 24:1 that G-d restored Avraham's virility to him after Sara died. This strength remained with him for enough years that he was able to father the six sons recorded in 25:2 and possibly more depending on how one understands 25:6. 

Bibliography: 

Hoffmann, David Tzvi (1843-1921), 1969, Commentary on Genesis, Bnei Brak: Nezach.

Bereshit 24:3,4,7 – Avraham's instructions to his servant to find a wife for Yitzhak: All in the family

Bereshit 24:3,4 record that when Avraham commissioned his servant to find a wife for Yitzhak, Avraham told him go to his (Avraham’s) land and moladeti to find a wife and that Yitzhak could not marry a Canaanite woman. The servant went to Haran where Avraham’s family lived and he chose Rivka, Yitzhak’s cousin. Later, 24:38-41 records that the servant told Rivka's family that Avraham had told him to take a wife from Avraham's family (mishpacha) and from his father's house. Was it Avraham’s intention that Yitzhak’s wife be from his family or was this just a coincidence? Was the servant lying?

The answer to this question depends on how one understands the word moladeti in 24:4 and 24:7. Rashi (on 24:7, also Radak and Ibn Ezra on 24:4) explains that moladeti refers to a person’s birthplace which he explains means Ur Kasdim, as that was where he believes Avraham was born. This implies that in 24:4, Avraham was telling his servant to go both to Haran (Avraham’s land) and to Ur Kasdim (Avraham’s birthplace) to find a wife for Yitzhak. However, once the servant was successful in Haran, he did not have to go onto to Ur Kasdim.

Cassuto (1964, pp. 274,275, see also Ramban and Rashbam on 24:7) argues that the word moladeti means extended family and he explains that Avraham was sending his servant to the land of his family, which was Haran. According to him, 24:4 and 24:7 would mean the land of my kinsman, (a hendiadys), see Sarna 1989, p. 162. Among the proofs that Cassuto brings is that Bereshit 43:7, 48:6 and Megillat Esther 8:6 (also see Vayikra 18:11) show that the word moledet means family and not birthplace. 

N. Leibowitz (1976, pp. 214-222) argues that Rashi’s interpretation of the word moladeti, birthplace and not family, must be correct based on the behavior of the servant. The servant devised a test to choose a wife, and this test was apparently for all the women of Haran. How could the servant have used such a test, if the wife had to be from Avraham’s family? Accordingly, N. Leibowitz argues that it was a coincidence that Rivka was from Yitzhak’s family, and she reviews several reasons why the women of Haran were more suitable for Yitzhak than the women of Canaan. Yet, if really the servant could have chosen anybody, then the choice of a family member seems too coincidental. Furthermore, Yitzhak later would tell Yaakov to marry from his family (28:2) and if it was just coincidence that Yitzhak married within the family, why was Yaakov told to marry within the family? Finally, 22:20-24 tells us of the birth of Rivka and that this information was told to Avraham. If Avraham was not concerned if Yitzhak married within the family, why did the Torah have to tell us that Avraham learned of Rivka’s birth? (See Seforno on 22:23, I thank David Barrett for this source.)

As I discuss on Bereshit 24:12-61 "All the world's a stage,"  I believe that the test devised by the servant was not a random test. The servant had already chosen Rivka and the test was staged to get the family’s agreement to the match. The servant ran to Rivka, he gave her presents before he asked her name, and he referred to her as Rivka without ever being told her name. The servant’s test was not open to all the women of Haran, and the test is no proof that Avraham was willing for his son to marry anybody from Haran.  Thus, the word moledet means extended family, as argued by Cassuto. The servant was not lying when he recounted Avraham's instructions, but his use of the word mishpacha, did imply a smaller circle of family members than Avraham had told him.   

Why did Avraham want Yitzhak’s wife to be from his family? Yehoshua in his final address to the people reviewed their history and he stated that Terah and Nahor, Avraham’s family, were idol worshippers, Yehoshua 24:2, what made a member of Avraham’s extended family more suitable for Yitzhak than anybody else? My guess is that relatively the people in Avraham’s extended family were less idol worshippers than other people.

There are two proofs for this assertion. One, the whole family of Terah was part of the initial journey from Ur. 11:31 even records that Terah was the initiator of this trip. This journey was not simply a normal migration, but rather the beginning of the mission of Avraham. Therefore, it is likely that the whole family and not just Avraham had some notion of G-d, see our discussion on Devarim 32:10, "Who did G-d find and protect in the desert?"

Secondly, when the servant came to speak to the family, Lavan said, “Come in, O blessed of G-d” (24:31) and after the servant finished speaking, Lavan and Betuel stated “the matter came from G-d” (24:50) both times using the personal name for G-d. Presumably, only one who has some idea of G-d would make such statements. This relative belief in G-d explains why Yitzhak wanted Yaakov to marry within the family. However, over time these religious ideas and feelings started to wane, as evidenced by 31:53, where Lavan distinguished between the G-d of Avraham and the G-d of Nahor. Accordingly, we do not know that any of Yaakov's children went back to the family of Nahor to find wives.

Bibliography:

Cassuto, Umberto (1883-1951), 1964, A commentary on the book of Genesis, part two: From Noah to Abraham, Jerusalem: Magnes Press.

Leibowitz, Nehama (1905-1997), 1976, Studies in Bereshit, translated by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization.

Bereshit 24:12-61 - Avraham's servant and choice of Rivka to be Yitzhak's wife: All the world's a stage

Bereshit 24:12-61 records the efforts of Avraham's servant (traditionally Eliezer) to find a wife for Yitzhak. He devised a test to choose the wife, that he would say to a maiden, please let me drink from your jar of water, and she was to respond "Drink, and I will also water your camels," 24:14. Immediately after the servant stated this test, Rivka, Yitzhak's cousin, appeared by the well. The servant ran to her and asked to drink water from her jar, 24:15-17. Rivka told him that he should drink and after he drank, she then said she would give water to his camels, 24:19. Rivka provided water to the camels, and the servant then proceeded to get her family's permission for her to marry Yitzhak, 24:28-61. This test of Rivka is quite surprising since it seems to be a very haphazard means for choosing a wife, and R. Yochanon (Ta'anit 4a) states that the servant acted inappropriately.

I believe the most popular understanding of the servant's action is that the request for water was a character test to select a wife for Yitzhak (see for example N. Leibowitz, 1976, pp. 223-229). The idea being that if Rivka offered to give water to the camels on her own then this showed that she was a kind and considerate person, and this would make her an excellent choice for a wife for Yitzhak. However, this approach is problematic.

First, one act of kindness is not enough proof that a person is a suitable wife. Maybe the test was a fluke. Maybe she was willing to provide water for the camels since she saw the wealth that the servant had brought with him. Would you marry somebody based on their answer to one question?

A second problem, as mentioned by the Radak (on 24:14, see also the Midrash Leviticus Rabbah 37:4), is that maybe the person who passed the test would be a slave and hence not a possible wife for Yitzhak. After Rivka gave the camels water, the servant asked whose daughter are you? Rivka told him that she was daughter of Betuel, 24:22,23 and from this information the servant would have learned that she was not a slave. Yet, this answer was insufficient since there could have been other social problems (married, engaged, going out seriously, etc.), that would have made her ineligible for Yitzhak that could not have been ascertained by just knowing who her father was. For example, 24:16 records, from the perspective of the "narrator" that Rivka was a virgin, as apparently this fact was important for the match, but the servant could not have learned this information from the test.

A third problem is that before the servant asked Rivka about her father, he gave her numerous presents, 24:22. Thus, before he knew that she was not a slave, he already had given her presents, which would have been forgone if she was a slave. In order to answer this problem, Ramban (on 24:22) explains that 24:22 only means that he took the presents out, but he did not give them until she told him that she was the daughter of Betuel. Ibn Ezra (on 24:14) writes that the verses are recorded out of chronological order, as according to him, the events described in 24:22, the giving of the presents, occurred after Rivka answered the servant's question, 24:23,24. These answers are difficult. The simple reading of the Torah is that the servant gave Rivka the presents before she told him who was her father.

A fourth problem is that it is not clear if Rivka's offer of water to the camels was such a generous offer. 24:32 records that water was brought to the men who accompanied the servant to enable them to wash their feet. While it seems obvious that the servant had men with him since he took ten camels (24:10), this is the first time these other men are mentioned. Were these men with the servant when he tested Rivka at the well? If yes, then it is odd that she offered water to the camels and not to the men. More likely, when the servant went to the well the other men stayed behind. The servant would then only have had a few (two?) camels with him when he made the test. If this is true, then Rivka did not have to give water to ten camels, which made the test easier for Rivka since she just had to offer and give water to a few camels.

Finally, there are many coincidences in the story. Of all the possible choices for a wife, it seems quite coincidental that the test would just happen to be done to Rivka, Yitzhak's cousin. Furthermore, 24:15 records that just when the servant finished stating the test, Rivka appeared. If she would have come to the well fifteen minutes later, would Yitzhak have married somebody else?

A second (and I believe the older) approach to understanding the actions of the servant is that this is a case of divination (see comments of Rav in Hullin 95b and Rambam, Mishnah Torah, Laws of Idol Worship, 11:4.) Divination is when a person acts based on some arbitrary sign, and here the sign would have been Rivka's statement in response to the servant's request for water. With this approach it makes sense why the servant gave Rivka the presents before finding out about her background since with divination one is relying on the sign, and no other information is necessary (see Kesef Mishnah on Rambam 11:4).

However, the divination approach is also difficult. 24:21 records that while Rivka was providing water to the camels, the servant wondered whether he would succeed in his mission of finding a wife. What was the doubt if she had already passed the test? Furthermore, by divination the sign must be exact, and Rivka did not exactly pass the test. The test was that she would say "Drink and I will waters the camels too," but she said drink, gave the servant water and only after the servant drank did she offer to water the camels, 24:18,19. She was supposed to immediately respond to the servant with an offer to give water to the camels, and not to wait until after the servant had drunk water. While this lapse might seem nitpicky, by the case of divination, due to the fact that the sign is arbitrary, one must pass the test exactly as stated, and when the servant repeated the incident he changed the order of events that Rivka offered to give the camels water prior to giving the servant water, 24:46.

Both of these approaches are based on the premise that the servant had no idea who Rivka was when he did the test, but the Torah gives many indications that he knew who she was along. One, 24:17 records that he ran to her. Why did he need to run to her and not ask the first girl who came to the well? Clearly, the servant wanted to do the test on Rivka. Two, as mentioned above, 24:22 records that the servant gave her the gifts before asking her about her family and this was because he knew who she was. Three, 24:23, records that when the servant asked Rivka who her father was, he did not wait for her answer, but he also asked if he could stay by her father's house for the night. We see that he desired to talk about the marriage even before she told him of her lineage, and this was because he knew who she was and her lineage. Four, the Torah never records that the servant asked Rivka her name or that he was told her name, but in 24:45, when recounting their meeting, the servant referred to her as Rivka, which again proves that he knew who Rivka was before the test.

I have been asked how could the servant have known who was Rivka? The answer is that the Torah records that he went to the well prior to meeting Rivka, 24:11. At the well he was able to learn who she was, just like Yaakov later learned who was Rahel when he came to the well, 29:4-6. In that case, the Torah specifies that the people at the well pointed out Rahel to Yaakov, while here this information is not recorded, but here there was no need for the Torah to mention this information since afterwards, as I mentioned above, the Torah makes it obvious that the servant knew that he was testing Rivka.

Rivka, Yitzhak's cousin, was always the destined wife since she was from the family of Terah, see 22:20-23 and our discussion on 24:4, "All in the family" (https://lobashamayim.blogspot.co.il/2009/11/bereshit-244-hayyei-sara-all-in-family.html). Avraham did not refer to Rivka when he commissioned his servant since if she would not have agreed to come to the land of Israel, then the servant could have chosen other members of the family. Even if one believes that the choice of a wife was really open to all, still a wife from Avraham's family would have been the preferred choice.

However, just knowing the desired wife did not make the mission simple since the servant had to get the family to agree to the match, and he had a problem that the prospective groom, Yitzhak, was not with him. Not only would the family not meet Yitzhak before the wedding, but due to the great distances between Nahor and the land of Israel, it is likely that they would never ever meet Yitzhak or see Rivka again. How could he get the prospective girl and her family to agree to the match without seeing Yitzhak? This apprehension is evident when the servant spoke to Avraham about the mission. He wondered what to do if the woman did not agree to come to the land of Israel, 24:5. The servant did not question whether he would be able to find a wife, but rather whether he would be able to convince her to come back to the land of Israel. Avraham told him that in such a case he would be exonerated from his oath, but it unlikely that the servant was completely reassured.

Accordingly, the servant devised a plan to get the family's permission for the marriage. His plan was that he would stage a test which would make it seem that her selection was destined from G-d. He was relying on the family's belief in divination, and in 30:27 we see that Lavan had this belief even after this incident. With this idea, we can understand the flow of the test.

When the servant reached Nahor, he stopped at the well, 24:11, where he learned who was Rivka. (Did he also learn the information recorded in 24:16?) The servant then prayed to G-d, both as a prayer for assistance and to set the test as a sign for G-d, and stated the test, 24:12-14. The servant timed his declaration of the test with Rivka's appearance at the well, and then just as he finished stating the test, he ran to her, 24:15,17.

The servant asked Rivka for water and she gave him water, and then she offered to give water to the camels, 24:17-20. As mentioned above, the delay in offering water to the camels was a small failure, but this was immaterial because the servant would be able to fix the small discrepancy when he would speak to the family. When Rivka was giving water to the camels, the servant wondered whether he would succeed in his mission (24:21) since the main part of his mission was not to find Rivka, but to convince her family to agree to the match, and this was the next stage of his mission. The servant was wondering whether G-d had decided to help him that his staged test would convince the family. (This reference to G-d might refer to his prayer in 24:11, but more likely refers to Avraham's declaration that G-d would help the servant in 24:7.)

The servant then gave Rivka the presents to get her approval to the match even before she told him that she was Betuel's daughter since he already knew this information, 24:22. He then asked here who was father and could he stay at her family's house, 24:23. Rivka answered that she was Betuel's daughter, she was a descendant of Nahor (the son of Terah), and that he could stay at their house, 24:24,25.

The servant then bowed to G-d, and said, "Blessed be G-d, the G-d of my lord Avraham…" 24:26,27. This prayer marks the completion of the first part of the mission which was to get Rivka's approval to the match. An almost identical phrase occurs in Ruth 2:20, when Naomi is thankful that Ruth had successfully been introduced to Boaz. In both cases, the crucial issue was the ensuing act, here the servant meeting Rivka's family, and there, when Ruth would go to Boaz in night. In both cases, the thanking of G-d was also a prayer for the successful fulfillment of the second and more difficult part of the mission.

Once the servant met the family, he immediately told them about the test without even eating first, 24:33. The servant began his re-counting of their meeting by mentioning that Avraham had been blessed, and that that Avraham had told him to pick a wife from his father's family, 24:34-38. Perry (2007, p. 302) wonders why the servant told Rivka's family this information since if the wife had to be from Avraham's father's family, there was no point to doing the test by the well. Did the servant slip-up? My guess is that this addition was to demonstrate to the family how Rivka was destined to be Yitzhak's wife. Not only was she Avraham's choice, but also when he did the test, which in theory was open to everybody, Rivka was chosen.

The servant then re-told all the narrative from 24:5-27, 24:39-59. The Torah records his recounting of the test at length since this was the crucial part of his mission. In his recounting of the test, the servant corrected Rivka's action as he said that Rivka told him that she would provide water for the camels before she gave him water to drink, 24:46, the exact version of the test, and that he gave her the presents after finding out about her lineage, 24:47.

When the servant ended his recounting of his meeting with Rivka, he demanded an immediate answer from the family whether they would agree to the match, 24:49. This need for an immediate response was because the effect of the supposed divination would start to diminish with time, and the family could begin to question the story.

The servant's plan worked perfectly. Rivka's brother and father, Lavan and Betuel, responded to the servant by stating that since the selection of Rivka was from G-d, they agreed to the match, 24:50,51. Note 24:50 first refers to Lavan and Betuel in the singular to indicate that each on his own believed that the match was from G-d.

This agreement meant that the servant had succeeded in his mission, and he left early the next morning, 24:54-61, before the family would change their mind and/ or learn that the test was staged. My guess is that the servant would have even wanted to leave immediately after he had the agreement, but it was too late at night to start the journey home.

Bibliography:

Leibowitz, Nehama (1905-1997), 1976, Studies in Bereshit, translated by Aryeh Newman, Jerusalem: The World Zionist Organization.

Perry, Menachem, 2007, Counter-stories in the Bible: Rebekah and her bridegroom, Abraham's servant, Prooftexts, 27, 2007, pp. 275-323.

Schein, Andrew, 1997, The test of Rebecca, Tradition: A journal of Orthodox Jewish thought, 31:4, pp. 28-33.