Rebekah Goes — Seed, Gate, Marriage, and the Promise Moving Forward

Laban and Bethuel recognize that the matter has proceeded from the LORD, and Rebekah herself agrees to go. The blessing spoken over her is especially important: may her seed become innumerable and may her seed possess the gate of those who hate them. That language strongly echoes the promise just reaffirmed to Abraham in Genesis 22:17 that his seed would possess the gate of his enemies. Rebekah's marriage to Isaac is therefore placed inside the vocabulary of the Abrahamic seed promise.

Rebekah travels to Canaan with her nurse; Genesis 35 later names Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, when recording her death near Bethel. Isaac receives Rebekah, she becomes his wife, he loves her, and he is comforted after Sarah's death. The chapter thus closes the transition begun by Sarah's death: the promised line now moves through Isaac and Rebekah.