Carolyn writes: "Rebekkah is no relation to Isaac. Jacob's servant chooses her as a mate for Isaac because of her generosity to him and others at the well, Beershevah, the seventh well. Not veil - well. Jacob does however send his servant back to his, Jacob's,  ancestral homeland to choose the bride, so only in that sense is she related to the family. I believe many arabs and non-arab muslims still do this to this day."

 

But, forgive my pointing it out, Carolyn is doubly mistaken. (See 1 and 2 below.)

 

In Genesis 24.15, "Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milcah the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor, came out with her jar on her shoulder."

 

(1.) Since Isaac is the son of Abraham and Sarah, Bethuel and Isaac are first cousins. Rebekah is therefore indeed related to Isaac. She is his first cousin once removed.

 

(2.) Moreover, it can hardly be Jacob (Isaac and Rebekah's future son) who sends his servant to choose the bride who will marry his father Isaac (and become Jacob's own mother). It is Isaac's father Abraham who does this.

 

The cousin-marrying continues when, in Genesis 28.2, Isaac tells his son Jacob to journey "to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take a wife there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother." Laban's daughters Leah and Rachel are thus Jacob's first cousins, and through Laban's trickery Jacob marries first Leah and then Rachel, his beloved. 

 

Anthony Stadlen
"Oakleigh"
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