Person
Rebekah
In Genesis 24–27, she waters the camels of Abraham's servant at a well and becomes Isaac's wife; mother of Esau and Jacob, she helps Jacob take his father's blessing.
See Genesis 24:19, Genesis 24:67, Genesis 25:21, Genesis 27:6.
A water jar marks Rebekah in the reading view: she carried her jar to the well and drew water for the camels (Genesis 24:15, Genesis 24:20).
Mentioned in 29 verses, first in Genesis 22:23. The verses below are the ones linked to this person (the Theographic dataset, with our sourced corrections).
How artists have pictured her
3 works from different centuries and traditions. Each shows how its time and place imagined Rebekah, not how she looked.
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In these stories
In the Bible
The first 10 of 29 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Genesis
- Genesis 22:23
And Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. Milcah bore these eight sons to Abraham’s brother Nahor.
- Genesis 24:15
Before the servant had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor.
- Genesis 24:29
Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban, and he rushed out to the man at the spring.
- Genesis 24:30
As soon as he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and heard Rebekah’s words, “The man said this to me,” he went and found the man standing by the camels near the spring.
- Genesis 24:45
And before I had finished praying in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her jar on her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew water. So I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’
- Genesis 24:51
Rebekah is here before you. Take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, just as the LORD has decreed.”
- Genesis 24:53
Then he brought out jewels of silver and gold, and articles of clothing, and he gave them to Rebekah. He also gave precious gifts to her brother and her mother.
- Genesis 24:58
They called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?” “I will go,” she replied.
- Genesis 24:59
So they sent their sister Rebekah on her way, along with her nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men.
- Genesis 24:60
And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, “Our sister, may you become the mother of thousands upon thousands. May your offspring possess the gates of their enemies.”
Events
Events the dataset lists Rebekah as taking part in. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 1856 BCIsaac Marries Rebekah
- c. 1836 BCBirth of Jacob and Esau
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. The entry is for the name and can describe more than one person who bore it. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
A noose, the daughter of Bethuel, and the wife of Isaac (Gen. 22:23; 24:67). The circumstances under which Abraham’s “steward” found her at the “city of Nahor,” in Padan-aram, are narrated in [Gen. 24](/gen#Gen.24)-27. “She can hardly be regarded as an amiable woman. When we first see her she is ready to leave her father’s house for ever at an hour’s notice; and her future life showed not only a full share of her brother Laban’s duplicity, but the grave fault of partiality in her relations to her children, and a strong will, which soon controlled the gentler nature of her husband.” The time and circumstances of her death are not recorded, but it is said that she was buried in the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 49:31).