Rebekah herself was asked whether she was willing to go so great a distance from her father’s house to marry the son of Abraham. She believed that God had selected her to be Isaac’s wife, and said, “I will go.”
The servant, anticipating his master’s joy, was impatient to be gone, and when morning came they set out on the homeward journey. Abraham was living at Beersheba, and Isaac, who had been tending the flocks in the adjoining country, had returned to his father’s tent to wait for the messenger from Haran. “And Isaac went out to meditate in the field in the evening; and he lifted his eyes and looked, and there, the camels were coming. Then Rebekah lifted her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from her camel; for she had said to the servant, ‘Who is this man walking in the field to meet us?’ The servant said, ‘It is my master.’ So she took a veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.”
Abraham had noticed the result of intermarriage between those who feared God and those who did not, from the days of Cain to his own time. His own marriage with Hagar and the marriage connections of Ishmael and Lot were before him. Abraham’s influence on his son Ishmael was counteracted by the influence of Hagar’s idolatrous relatives and by Ishmael’s connection with heathen wives. The jealousy of Hagar and of the wives whom she chose for Ishmael surrounded his family with a barrier that Abraham tried to overcome, but could not.
Abraham’s early teachings had not failed to have an effect on Ishmael, but the influence of his wives resulted in establishing idolatry in his family. Separated from his father and embittered by the strife and contention of a home that lacked the love and fear of God, Ishmael was driven to choose the wild, plundering life of a desert chief, “his hand ... against every man, and every man’s hand against him” (Genesis 16:12). In later life he repented and returned to his father’s God, but the stamp of character given to his descendents remained. The powerful nation that came from him were a turbulent, heathen people.
The wife of Lot was a selfish, irreligious woman, and she worked to separate her husband from Abraham. If he could have had his way, Lot would not have stayed in Sodom. The influence of his wife and the associations of that wicked city would have led him to apostatize from God if it had not been for the faithful instruction he had received in his youth from Abraham.
It is dangerous for one who respects God to connect himself with one who does not respect Him. “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” (Amos 3:3). The happiness and prosperity of marriage depends on the unity of the parties; but there is a radical difference of tastes, inclinations, and purposes between the believer and the unbeliever. However pure and correct one’s principles, the influence of an unbelieving companion will tend to lead away from God.
Those who have entered marriage while unconverted and are later converted are under stronger obligation to be faithful to their companions, no matter how they may differ in religious faith. Yet the claims of God should be honored above every earthly relationship, even if this brings trials and persecution. The spirit of love and faithfulness may win the unbelieving one, but marriage with the ungodly is forbidden in the Bible. “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14, 17, 18).
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