17

THREE WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL

And when He desired to manifest grace and beneficence to men,

and to set the world in order,

He revealed observances and created laws;

among them He established the law of marriage,

made it as a fortress for well-being and salvation,

and enjoined it upon us in that which was sent down

out of the heaven of sanctity in His Most Holy Book.

Bahá’u’lláh¹

REBEKAH

To comfort Isaac after his mother’s death, Abraham decided to obtain a wife for him. Any woman who planned to become Isaac’s wife would have to leave her own home and join him in Canaan because Abraham did not want Isaac to leave the land God had promised to give to His descendants.

What’s more, Abraham wanted a relative rather than a Canaanite to be Isaac’s wife. So, to find the perfect mate, Abraham called upon a highly-trusted servant, asking him to travel all the way “to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife there for my son Isaac.”²

The servant (presumed but not proven to be Abraham’s chief steward, Eliezar), “took ten of his master’s camels and departed, taking all kinds of choice gifts from his master; and he set out and went to Aram-naharaim, to the city of Nahor.”³ The city of Nahor named in Genesis was, almost certainly, the town of Harran—the place where the family and descendants of Abraham’s brother, Nahor, were living. Nahor had married Milcah, who was the daughter of Abraham’s youngest brother, Harran—the brother who died in Ur before the rest of the family was exiled from Ur to Harran. Milcah had subsequently given birth to eight children, and she and Nahor now had grandchildren as well, creating a large extended family from which a bride could be chosen.

When Eliezar arrived in Harran, the blazing afternoon sun was fading, and dusk was approaching. Many of the women of the town were gathered at the town’s primary well, obtaining water with which to replenish the containers at their homes.

Fully aware of the importance of finding the right wife for Isaac, a wife who would be kind and generous of spirit, Eliezar prayed for success: “Let the girl to whom I shall say, ‘Please offer your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.”⁴

An offer to draw water from the well for a visitor plus the visitor’s camels would be more than a small favor. It would be an act of palpable generosity because the well at Harran was not an easily-accessible fountain or pool. Nor was it a simple hole in the ground with a bucket and rope. It was an underground spring that could only be approached by means of an inclined shaft. To get water, a woman had to walk down the slope, fill her jug and then walk back up again. Water weighs more than eight pounds a gallon, and a water jug of that period might hold three gallons, creating about twenty-five pounds of dead weight to be carried up the slope from the well on each trip, not to mention the additional weight of a two-handled ceramic jug.⁵

Finishing his prayer, Eliezar approached Rebekah and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.”⁶

“Drink, my lord,” Rebekah replied, and she “quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. After she had given him a drink, she said, ‘I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have finished drinking.’ So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, ran back to the well to draw more water, and drew enough for all his camels.”⁷

When the thirst of the camels was slaked, Eliezar took out three of the gifts that Abraham had provided: two gold bracelets and a gold nose ring. Judging by jewelry found nearby excavations, the ornaments were finely-crafted and decorated with lacy patterns of diminutive gold balls.⁸

Rebekah accepted the gifts, and when Eliezar asked if her house had room for him to spend the night, she cordially agreed: “We have plenty of both straw and feed, and a room to lodge in.”⁹

After Eliezar followed Rebekah home, he met with her father, Bethuel, and her brother, Laban, and explained his quest. They agreed that Rebekah could return to Canaan with Eliezar and marry Isaac. Then, in a move unusual at that time, they gave Rebekah the honor of deciding for herself whether or not she wanted to proceed with the marriage. She agreed and accompanied Eliezar to Canaan. Isaac was charmed and comforted by his bride, and everything was copacetic.

In the Book of Genesis, the whole bride-seeking adventure is written out in scrupulous detail. It is true that a wife for Isaac was imperative, but the account takes up so much space—more than all three of Abraham’s marriages—that one can’t help pondering the possibility of numerous mystical layers.

When Rebekah leaves Harran and her family to join Isaac and Abraham, she reunites a family that was torn apart when Abraham announced His new beliefs. Unlike her grandfather, Nahor, who did not join Abraham in exile, Rebekah is willing to journey to a strange land and follow Abraham’s teachings. Because she is Abraham’s great-niece as well as His daughter-in-law, she reinforces the bloodline and will play an important role in continuing His legacy. Her good character, plus the way in which she independently agrees to marry Isaac, also creates a model for how women should be treated (with respect) and how they should behave (with dignity, thoughtfulness, and generosity).

In many ways, Rebekah is to Isaac what Sarah was to Abraham. The account of her life establishes this relationship by presenting several events that are identical—or nearly so—to those of Sarah’s life: Most strikingly, Rebekah is asked by her husband to say she is his sister rather than his wife. This is the very thing that happened twice to Sarah—once in Egypt and again during a visit to an area ruled by Abimelech. Another similarity occurs when Rebekah endures years of being barren before she is able to conceive a child. Furthermore, as Rebekah’s children grow up, she realizes that she must help the younger son claim for himself what would normally be the rights of the elder son—reminiscent of the way in which Sarah had to clarify Isaac’s position so that he, rather than Ishmael, the firstborn, would be Abraham’s primary heir.

On reading the relevant verses in Genesis about Sarah and Rebekah, one wonders how and why the parallels between the two women occurred. Are they a literal recitation of facts or—more likely—are they symbols of certain moral truths? Does the repetition exist precisely so that we will ponder the inner meanings of the stories? Is it possible the events are intended to demonstrate that women are just as important to the history of religion as men are? And does the yielding of an older son to a younger one represent the way in which an older, well-established religion is destined to be upset by a newer and younger Revelation from God?

A PROPER WIFE FOR ISHMAEL

Isaac was not the only brother to marry. Ishmael was also in need of a wife in order to continue his line and fulfill the promises made about his descendants. According to the Torah, Ishmael’s wife was selected by his mother, Hagar. She chose a woman from Egypt, presumably because she herself was originally from that country and wanted a daughter-in-law whose customs would be comfortingly similar to her own.

Jewish tradition fleshes out the bare bones scriptural account of Ishmael’s wife with a great many details, which are fascinating though not necessarily reliable. According to some accounts, Abraham decided to visit Ishmael in order to meet his wife. When Abraham arrived, Ishmael and Hagar were out collecting dates and pomegranates, but Ishmael’s wife was with the children. Abraham greeted the woman and tried to talk with her, but she rebuffed His overtures and refused to give Him any water to quench His thirst. After telling Abraham to leave, she turned her back, entered her tent and began quarreling with her children, cursing them in a loud voice and hitting them as well. Abraham called out to her and asked if she would do him the great favor of giving Ishmael a message.

“Speak, old man,” said the wife, who did not guess who Abraham really was, “I am listening unto thee.”

“When Ishmael, thy husband, returneth home, tell him this: an old man from the land of Canaan was here and inquired after thee; he also bade thee change the peg of thy tent, for it is a bad one, and to put a better one in its place.”

When Ishmael returned to his wife and heard the message, he realized that his father had been to see him and had not been pleased with his wife. Heeding the advice that had been so obliquely tendered, he changed the “peg of his tent” by sending his wife back to her original family and taking a new wife by the name of Fatima. After three years, Abraham visited for the second time, and this time His reception was quite different. When Abraham asked about Ishmael, Fatima replied, “He is away from home, hunting; but prithee, my Lord, come down from thy camel and honour me with thy presence in our humble tent. Rest awhile from the fatigue of thy journey and refresh thyself with food and drink. Thou wilt thus bestow a great favour upon thy servant.”

Abraham accepted Fatima’s hospitality and stayed long enough to pray with her and share a meal. As they parted, Abraham asked Fatima to tell Ishmael that an old man “bade me say that he found the new peg of thy tent a very good one. He bade thee keep it and cherish it.”¹⁰

Whether borne by one wife or two, Genesis attributes twelve sons and a daughter to Ishmael. The sons are presumed to have begun tribes of their own in Arabia, but the daughter, named Mahalath, moved to Canaan to become a daughter-in-law of Isaac and Rebekah when she married their son, Esau.

THE UNEXPECTED WIFE

Abraham was now “old, and well stricken in age.” His sons were married, and grandchildren were beginning to arrive. His wife, Sarah, had died, as had His concubine, Hagar. It was a time to ease up a bit and bask in the sun. Or at least that would be the usual way of things if Abraham were a usual man. But He wasn’t, so He opened a new chapter of His life on earth by marrying Keturah and fathering six sons with her.¹¹

The name Keturah, which can also be spelled Katurah, Cetura, or Qeturah, has the meaning of perfume or sweet-smelling incense. Very little is known about her, except for a single suggestion that she was the daughter of two of Abraham’s household servants, people who might originally have been from either Ur or Harran.¹²

Among the many questions people have about Keturah are whether she was a wife or a concubine, and whether she and Abraham were united while Sarah was still alive or after she died.

The New Testament mentions Keturah as a concubine, but the Old Testament and the Bahá’í writings agree in describing her as a wife. And although the sequence of Abraham’s life as outlined in Genesis indicates that He and Keturah married after Sarah’s death, that particular sequence may have more to do with the needs of laying out the story in an easy-to-follow form than with the actual order of events. It is quite possible that the union took place while Sarah was alive, but, even so, Keturah could still have been a true wife. As the Old Testament indicates time and time again, taking more than one wife—plus a cluster of concubines—was a common and accepted practice.

But, wife or concubine, the most significant bit of information about their union is that Keturah subsequently bore six sons, giving Abraham a grand total of eight male children. All of Abraham’s seed would be blessed by God, and these six were indisputably part of the family. In order that the genealogy might be remembered and traced over the centuries, Genesis records it this way: “And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.” One of the six—Midian—receives the honor of having his children named: “Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abidah, and Eldaah.” Another—Jokshan—receives even more attention by having both children and grandchildren listed: “And Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.”¹³

After the six sons had been born, Abraham gave Keturah and the children gifts and, in the succinct but not-very-informative words of Genesis, sent them “eastward, unto to the east country.”¹⁴ Abraham was nearing the end of His life, and the destiny of this group of children lay not in Canaan but elsewhere. If, as suggested by the Book of Jubilees, Keturah’s parents were originally from Ur of the Chaldees (which certainly can be described as the east country) she would have had tribal relatives there who would be happy to see her and delighted to meet her children.

The most common notion about what the sons did after leaving Canaan is that they and their descendants became involved in trading spices, silks, gems, and other goods. Midian moved northeast of Canaan—to the upper part of Arabia near the Gulf of Aqaba—and is credited with founding the Midianite tribe. Muḥammad mentions Midian several times in the Qur’án as Madyan and refers to the Midianite tribe as the Madyan people.

One of Midian’s descendants, Jethro, makes an appearance in both Islam and Judaism. In the Qur’án, Jethro is called Shu’aib and is acclaimed as a prophet who was rejected by the other members of the Midianite / Madyan tribe. In Judaism, Jethro is chiefly remembered as having been the father-in-law of Moses, something that occurred when Moses fled to Midian from Egypt and married Zipporah, who was one of Jethro’s seven daughters. Zipporah was later instrumental in saving Moses’ life, an incident that underlines the importance of Keturah’s descendants.

Jokshan (the second son of Keturah and the father of Sheba and Dedan), is also thought to have settled in Arabia, somewhere along the western coast. This supposition is based primarily on the way that the names of his children correspond with Arabian geography. Sheba was a kingdom in southern Arabia, and Dedan (currently called “Al ‘Ula”) was an oasis along an ancient path that connected southwestern Arabia to Canaan and the Mediterranean. With the passing of centuries, the amount of traffic on the path increased (a single caravan might contain two thousand camels), and Dedan grew into a city. The path eventually became known as the “incense road” because the most prized products carried along it were aromatic nuggets of dried sap harvested from frankincense and myrrh trees growing in southern Arabia. The way that Keturah’s name—incense—was applied to the route along which most of her sons settled is an intriguing congruence.

Zimran, too, is said to have settled in Arabia, but farther to the south than either Midian or Jokshan. His name has been linked with the town of Zabran, which once lay between Mecca and Medina.

Various cuneiform texts connect Shuah, the youngest son of Keturah and Abraham, with Syria. They place him in the land that was known as Sûchu or Suhi, an area that lies along the northern part of the Euphrates river.¹⁵ The idea that Shuah succeeded in founding a tribe / kingdom bearing his name is reinforced by the book of Job in the Old Testament because several verses describe Job—who lived several hundred years after Shuah—as having a friend who was a Shuhite.

Shuah’s slightly older brother, Ishbak, probably lived to the north of Shuah and founded a tribe of his own. Old Assyrian records affirm this by listing one of the northern Syrian tribes as “Iasbuq.”¹⁶*

The most mysterious of Keturah’s sons is Medan, the third to be born. None of the sacred scriptures shed light on where he settled, but there have been suggestions that he lived southeast of Midian. There is also a very tenuous connection between his descendants (and / or the descendants of Midian) and the marsh dwellers of Mesopotamia—the same marsh that surrounded Ur when Abraham lived there—because the marsh dwellers are currently known as the Medan people (also Ma’dãn or Mi’dan). Those who connect the marsh dwellers to Medan think that people from his tribe fled to the marshes and settled there to escape being killed during one of the many wars that swept across Syria and northern Iraq.*

Wherever Keturah’s children really settled, the manner in which Abraham deliberately scattered six of his eight sons and their “gifts” along trade routes connecting three continents (Africa, Europe, and Asia) is charmingly symbolic. More than any other single event, the act of sharing so many sons with the larger world outside Canaan indicated that God’s magnificent promise to Abraham really was meant to come true: “I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.”¹⁷

A FUNERAL

When Abraham did, at last, die, Ishmael and Isaac worked together to bury Him, though the exact timing of events is unclear. If Ishmael was already visiting because he had been summoned to the bedside of his ailing father, he and Isaac would have buried Abraham within a day or so of His death. Together—or with the help of servants—the brothers would have cleared out the shaft or tunnel leading to the Cave of Machpelah, which Abraham had so purposefully acquired. Once inside the small cave, they might have gathered the decomposed remnants of Sarah’s body and placed the bones in a box or jar. Or they might have placed Abraham’s corpse near where Sarah lay and left it to future generations to gather the bones of both parents and mingle them in a single container. A few treasured objects might have been placed in the tomb as well.

If Ishmael was summoned after Abraham’s death, and if it took him days, weeks, or months to arrive, the burial of Abraham might have occurred in two stages. Within a day or so of death, His body would have been buried in a shallow pit, probably in a hillside cemetery area that the household had been using for years. The gravesite might have been marked with a rough tombstone or a terracotta jug half-buried in the earth. When Ishmael arrived, he and Isaac would have removed Abraham’s desiccated remains, transferred them to a container, and placed the container in the Cave of Macphelah as Abraham intended.

As previously mentioned, the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron is thought to lie directly underneath a complex of buildings and shrines—some ancient, some newer—known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Because the shaft leading to the cave was hidden under the floor of the building erected to protect it, the exact location of the shaft was forgotten. It remained unknown for centuries until a monk, Arnulf, reportedly rediscovered it and entered the cave in AD 1119. Christian Crusaders were in control of the area at that time, and a group of them were reportedly so excited by Arnulf’s discovery that they, too, entered the cave, gathered up the bones they found lying there, and carried them into the building above. The bones, it is said, were placed in reliquaries (decorated boxes) and buried beneath the floor of the central building of the Tomb of the Patriarchs rather than being returned to the cave. Then the shaft leading down to the double-chambered cave was resealed. Gruesomely, some of the bones were said to have been given or sold to important pilgrims before the reliquaries were buried.¹⁸

What today’s visitors see when they enter the Tomb of the Patriarchs are several large, ornately-decorated cenotaphs (boxy structures approximately the size of a pickup truck) that aren’t really tombs at all. They are nothing more than elaborate monuments built two thousand years ago, during the reign of Herod.¹⁹ They are not thought to contain any bones, though no one has taken them apart to find out. If a few original bones do exist at the site, they are likely to be somewhere under the floor of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, still encased in the reliquaries buried by the Crusaders.

* Although I have suggested specific places where Keturah’s sons settled, it is far more likely that the process by which they and their descendants moved to the east and became credited with being progenitors of tribes was a gradual one that extended over several generations.

* One objection to the idea that a son of Keturah—Medan and / or Midian—could have influenced the name of the marsh dwellers comes from a difference in meanings, though meanings often change over time. Medan or Mi’dan, as in marsh dweller, is usually translated as meaning dwellers of the plain. Medan, as in Keturah’s son, means judgment, while Midian can mean either strife or place of judgment.