Chapter 18
The unnamed Servant
The character of Abraham’s Unnamed Servant is mentioned in Genesis 24 of the Bible. In this chapter, Abraham, who is advanced in age, tasks his servant with finding a wife for his son, Isaac.
Let’s continue with the story.
Upon arriving at his master’s ancestral city, Abraham’s servant first had a practical concern, to water his camels. He then had a spiritual concern, asking for God’s guidance through providential circumstances. Is this a lesson of how to pray. Furthermore, the fact that God uses an unnamed servant instead of Abraham, Sarah, or even Isaac to teach this demonstrates why God says things like, “The first will be last”.
Is this is a lesson here?
God often acts in countercultural and counterintuitive ways.
Upon arriving at his master’s ancestral city, Abraham’s servant first had a practical concern, to water his camels. He then had a spiritual concern, asking for God’s guidance through providential circumstances. Is this a lesson of how to pray.
Another lesson is prayer?
The servant’s prayers were divided into three categories: prayers for self, prayers for others, and prayers to thank and glorify God.
The servant then took ten of his master’s camels and departed, as all his master’s goods were in his hand. He arose and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. He made his camels kneel down outside the city by a well of water at evening time, the time when women go out to draw water. Then he said, “O LORD God of my master Abraham, please grant me success this day and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I stand by the well of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water.”
Before he had finished speaking, Isaiah 65:24 provides an example of a gracious answer to prayer:
It will be demonstrated that, before the supplicant has even uttered a word, an answer will be forthcoming; and, before the supplicant has finished speaking, an answer will be given.
In the rabbinic literature, Eliezer of Damascus is the prototypical loyal servant, who embodied the ethical values he learned from his master, the patriarch
Abraham. Eliezer was the servant whom the then childless Abraham complained to God would inherit Abraham’s estate (Gen 15 : 2). The rabbis identify him as well as the unnamed servant Abraham later sent to find a wife for Isaac. Importantly, the rabbis say that, in carrying out this assignment, Eliezer acted against his own interests, since he himself had a daughter whom he hoped Isaac would marry. Eliezer thus modeled the highest level of loyalty and virtue, carrying out his master’s will even against his own personal interests. As a reward for finding a wife for Isaac, Eliezer is said to have been awarded the kingdom
of Bashan, which he ruled under the name Og. The rabbis read the designation “Damascus”
(Dammasek) as deriving from the Hebrew words Doleh we-Mashkeh (“drew and passed on”). Thus they hold that Eliezer drew from his master Abraham and passed his teachings on to others. Rabbinic texts assert that Eliezer even looked like Abraham and that, because of his loyalty, the curse that applied to all other Canaanites was lifted from him.
As I was writing, I realised that I had come to a different conclusion than I started out with. I thought I would land at an usual topic of mine: the unnamed, the weak. This unnamed individual was not weak; he was influential, important to a whole family, knew his role, was loyal and stuck to his task! I like this example.
This story is about the unnamed servants and invisible forces that may cross our paths. They could have a significant impact on our lives.
Wishing you a wonderful day and start to this week!
Philemon