Reading in Genesis I found something that struck me as odd/interesting. In Genesis 35.8 it says, "And Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Allon-bacuth." The name means "oak of weeping". The picture is that there were tears of sorrow at the death of Rebekah's long time nurse. A very understandable thing.
Shortly after this Rebekah dies in childbirth. Guess what--no mention of any tears. A monument is put up by Jacob/Israel but there are not tear. When it comes to the death of Leah--well, we are never even told the circumstances, we simply find out later on that she was buried in the cave of Machpelah with Abraham et.al. and again, no tears. Finally, there is no mention at all of the deaths of the two concubines of Jacob.
Why does a nurse get tears and others get none? Why does the death of nurse get a mention and a tree named after her, but two concubines get no mention at all--even though from them come some of the tribes of Israel. Why is it that the woman that Jacob fell head over heals in love with so that 7 years of service felt like a moment gets a monument but no tears?
What we need to realize is that Biblical writers both put things in and leave things out for a purpose. Sometimes we have to do some guessing as to why they do what they do. Here's my guess: the stresses and strains of this family with all of its infighting had killed love. Therefore, while death was painful tears were hard to come by because of all the pain that had happened over the years. The author wants us to see in a quiet way what damage is done by a family that doesn't love each other and pursue God's mission together.
No comments:
Post a Comment