chapter

Chapter 1

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description: # Chapter 1 ## Overview This is the first chapter of a book contained within the file `biblestoriesfory00newy.pdf`, extracted as part of the [More Classics](arke:01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS) collection. The chapter spans pages 33 to 45 of the original document and consists of five text chunks, covering lines 232 to 304 in the structured extraction. It focuses on the biblical narrative of Abraham’s servant journeying to find a wife—Rebekah—for Isaac, drawing connections between ancient customs and modern observations. ## Context The chapter is part of a larger work likely titled *Bible Stories for Young Readers*, given the source file name. It is preserved within the [More Classics](arke:01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS) digital collection, which curates selections from the Western literary and religious canon. The text reflects early 20th-century interpretive storytelling, blending scriptural accounts from Genesis with ethnographic commentary on Middle Eastern customs, travel, and cultural practices. ## Contents The chapter explores the journey of Abraham’s servant to Mesopotamia to secure Rebekah as a wife for Isaac, emphasizing the challenges of desert travel, the significance of hospitality at wells, and the servant’s prayer for divine guidance. It includes vivid descriptions of camel travel, drawing on firsthand accounts to illustrate the physical discomfort and dangers involved. Cultural comparisons are made between Eastern and Western norms, particularly regarding gender roles and etiquette, with an anecdote about Japanese women’s education used to highlight cultural relativity. The narrative underscores Rebekah’s virtue, promptness, and suitability, culminating in her meeting Isaac in the fields near Hebron. The chapter closes with a transition to the next story, “Esau Selling his Birthright,” authored by John R. Payton.
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description_title: Chapter 1
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text:  168 19 169 170 now when men lived one hundred and eighty years, as Isaac did. All that the Bible says of Abraham's relations in this long time is that Abraham knew his brother had children and grandchildren. But I believe the two families knew more than this of each other. 171 172 When Abraham dwelt in the plain of Mamre, where afterwards the city of Hebron was built, he was on the caravan road from Canaan into Mesopotamia, and Haran was a stopping-place for caravans going farther. We know this because Hebron still stands, and is still a starting-place for caravans. Haran has disappeared, but travellers think they have found the site of it on a small river flowing into the upper part of the Euphrates. That it was a centre of caravan trade we know from old writers. If this be so, the two families could send messages back and forth, and I think Rebekah knew more than we are told about Isaac when she said so readily, “I will go,” and started right off.  173 20 174 175 To go back to the servant setting out with the camels loaded with presents in search of a wife for his master’s son. He had no easy task, for besides picking out the right wife, a matter which greatly troubled him, as the story tells us, he had, what the story does not say, but what other travellers have found out for themselves, a hard and dangerous journey of between four and five hundred miles through a country probably as beset with robbers then as now. No one can go directly from Palestine to Mesopotamia, for a great desert lies between. Travellers in these days, like those in ancient times, have to go up to the mountains north of Palestine, then through them until they must turn towards Damascus, then again north from Damascus as far as possible, in order to cross as little of the desert as they can. A lady who once took part of this trip told me that it was the most dangerous and trying journey she ever had, and she rode a horse instead of a camel, which is far worse to ride.  176 21 177 When the servant drew near Haran, he stopped at the well, placed, as wells are now, just outside the town. Customs in the East do not change. A rich man today would send to his relations for a wife for his son in exactly the manner Abraham did, and the servant would stop where this man halted, for the well is the place to see all the people of a town, and to learn all the news. It is, at evening, to an Oriental village the same meeting-spot that the post-office at mail time is to small towns here. The women come for water with which to cook the supper, and the men bring their flocks to give them drink, before shutting them up for the night. 178 179 Now how would the servant set about his business in a country so different from ours? In this perplexity he prayed to God, and said: “Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water. And let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, 180 2  181 22 182 183 I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also; let the same be she whom Thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac.” 184 185 While he was yet speaking these words in his heart, Rebekah appeared with her pitcher on her shoulder, and behold, all he had wished came to pass. 186 187 It may seem strange to you that Rebekah should have to draw water, but the daughters of rich men in the East do the same thing now; only, travellers tell me, that they never find any one so obliging, nowadays, as to water their camels. To be kind to strangers gives any one a high reputation in Oriental countries. So you see what the servant meant when he decided to make the courtesy of the young woman the test of the success of his errand. In his eyes such a girl would be a well-trained lady, and the quickness (for it says “she hasted” and “ran”) with which Rebekah set about her task filled his cup of satisfaction to overflowing, especially  188 23 189 190 when he was sure she was one of the family he was seeking. For a man to stand by while a woman does such hard work as filling the stone troughs around a well for animals to drink from is not according to our notions, but it is still right in Palestine. Ideas of a girl’s accomplishments vary in different countries. I once asked a Japanese if young ladies in Japan were taught anything—meaning, did they go beyond what they learned as children. “Certainly,” he said, a little indignantly; “every Japanese young lady is taught the arrangement of flowers and the etiquette of making tea.” “What a different world from our own,” was all I could think. 191 192 Abraham sent his servant this long journey because he wanted Isaac to have a wife who believed in the true God as he did. The people who were filling up the country where Abraham dwelt, and most of those who lived in Mesopotamia, worshipped idols. We see, further on, in Genesis, when Jacob and Laban separate, that Abraham’s family worshipped God; but  193 24 194 195 they could not have cared so much for Him, or understood Him so perfectly as Abraham did, for, while he was willing to push forward wherever God led him, they were satisfied to stay behind. 196 197 The rich presents the servant brought were really the price he paid for Rebekah, for a bride in the East is bought from her family. When we read, though, that Rebekah's nurse and damsels (meaning her servants) were sent with her, we feel sure that the family gave her all that was suitable to a sister about to marry the son of a great man. 198 199 A hardy young woman like Rebekah perhaps did not mind travelling on a camel, but an American who once crossed a desert on one told me that a camel was a terrible beast to ride on. This was his experience. He did not have such a comfortable saddle as we see in the picture. His saddle was like a wooden saw-buck, placed so that the camel's hump, which is only a mass of fat, rose through the opening in the middle. To the four legs that  200 25 201 202 went downwards were attached the straps that bound the saddle on. In the centre, over the hump, should have been a padded cushion which should have stretched over the four legs that stood up, but there were only the tatters of a cushion, and pieces of old carpets, and whatever rags the Arabs could find, were put together to take its place. Across this improvised cushion was thrown a pair of big saddle-bags which hung down on each side of the camel. These were stuffed full of all the odds and ends of the camp. He once looked into his, and found a lot of old tin pans. When he sat astride the camel, the stretch was dreadful, to say nothing of knocking against the tin pans. When he sat sideways he could not keep on. He could not keep his seat because of the peculiar jolt of a camel’s gait. The camel moves the two legs on one side, then the two legs on the other, and as it has no spring in its motion, the traveller is jerked first to one side, then to the other, and his back and head keep up a continual wob-  203 26 204 205 ble, wobble, wobble. In despair, our American and his companions, for they all had the same bad saddles and dreadful saddlebags, and they all fell off when they did not want to, tried riding on the camels’ necks. The camels did not mind a particle, but as their necks are sharp and thin, the result was only a change from one discomfort to another. 206 207 This same unlucky camel-rider told me that a camel’s ordinary gait was three miles an hour, which is its natural walk; that it could go at a great speed, but only for a short time, as any gait faster than a walk tired it out very soon, nor could even the Arabs bear the jarring of a fast journey long. An Arab boasted to him that a camel could go sixty miles an hour. This he did not believe, but he did believe it could go a great many miles an hour, because, when running, its stride is enormous. A young camel never used for burdens, such as a sheik would ride, is as much better than an ordinary camel as a fine young horse is better than an old cart-  208 27 209 210 horse. Perhaps it was one of these young beasts that carried Rebekah. We have left her so long that she must be at the spot where she lifted up her eyes and saw Isaac walking in the fields thinking, and, most probably, watching for her arrival. Again she justified the servant's opinion that a courteous damsel would do everything right, for she alighted at once, as it was proper for her to do when Isaac was on foot, and covered herself with a long cloak-like veil, just as an Eastern bride would do now if she saw the bridegroom coming. Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel were all beautiful, and their husbands loved them, but Isaac and Rebekah are the only two of whom so long and pretty a story is told.  211 .  212 Esau Selling his Birthright 213 214 John R. Payton  215 ^{}[]
title: Chapter 1

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Version: 3
Created: 1/26/2026
Updated: 1/26/2026
Edited by: Description Service