Rebecca
Rebecca () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical tradition, Rebecca's father was Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram, also called Aram-Naharaim. Rebecca's brother was Laban (Bi ...
.
Bethuel was also a town in the territory of the tribe of Simeon, west of the
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...
. Some scholars identify it with Bethul and Bethel in southern Judah, to which David gives part of the spoils of his combat with the Amalekites.
Hebrew Bible
Bethuel appears nine times in nine verses in the Hebrew Bible, all in the
Book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...
Upper Mesopotamia
Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the Upland and lowland, uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the regio ...
Terah
Terah or Terach ( ''Teraḥ'') is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis. He is listed as the son of Nahor and father of the patriarch Abraham. As such, he is a descendant of Shem's son Arpachshad. Terah is mentioned in Genesis 11:26–27, ...
. Bethuel's uncle Abraham sent his senior servant to Paddan Aram to find a wife for his son
Isaac
Isaac ( ; ; ; ; ; ) is one of the three patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith. Isaac first appears in the Torah, in wh ...
. By the well outside of Nahor in Aram-Naharaim, the servant met Bethuel's daughter Rebecca. The servant told Rebecca's household his good fortune in meeting Bethuel's daughter, Abraham's relative. Laban and Bethuel answer, "'The matter was decreed by יהוה; we cannot speak to you bad or good. Here is Rebekah before you; take her and go, and let her be a wife to your master’s son, as has spoken.'"
After meeting Abraham's servant, Rebecca “ran and told all this to her ''mother’s'' household”, that Rebecca's “''brother and her mother'' said, "'Let the maiden remain with us some ten days; then you may go'. ... So they sent off their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his entourage." Some scholars thus hypothesize that mention of Bethuel i Gen. 24:50 was a late addition to the preexisting story. Other scholars argue that these texts indicate that Bethuel was somehow incapacitated. Other scholars attribute the emphasis on the mother's role to a matrilineal family structure. Despite the importance of Rebekah's mother in the narrative of this bible passage, her name is not mentioned.
A generation later, Isaac and Rebecca sent their son
Jacob
Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...
back to Paddan Aram to take a wife from among Laban's daughters, Bethuel's granddaughters, rather than from among the Canaanites.
Rabbinic interpretation
In the
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
, Rabbi Isaac called Bethuel a wicked man. The
midrash
''Midrash'' (;"midrash" . ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...
identified Bethuel as a king.
The '' Book of Jasher'', a collection of sayings of the sages from the '' Amoraim'' period, lists the children of Bethuel as Sahar, Laban, and their sister Rebecca.
In the Talmud, Abba Arikha in the name of Reuben ben Strobilus cited Laban's and Bethuel's response to Abraham's servant as a proof text for the proposition that God destines a woman and a man for each other in marriage in Moed.
Joshua ben Nehemiah, in the name of Hanina bar Isaac, said that the decree regarding Rebecca that Laban and Bethuel acknowledged came from Mount Moriah in Genesis Rabbah 60:10.
Noting that reports that the next day, Rebekah's “brother and her mother said, ‘Let the maiden remain with us some ten days’” (), the Rabbis asked: “Where was Bethuel?” The midrash concluded that Bethuel wished to hinder Rebekah's marriage, and so he was smitten during the night. (Genesis Rabbah 60:12.) The Rabbis said that Abraham's servant did not disclose Bethuel's fate to Isaac.
In his retelling of the story, Josephus reported that Rebekah told Abraham's servant, “my father was Bethuel, but he is dead; and Laban is my brother; and, together with my mother, takes care of all our family affairs, and is the guardian of my virginity.”