What Does Genesis 24:51 Mean in the King James?
Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master’s son’s wife, as the LORD hath spoken.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “spoken” shares its root with “matter” or “thing,” holding the LORD’s word and its concrete arrival in Rebekah together.
THE MEANING
A promise spoken by the LORD takes visible form in Rebekah, standing before the servant. Her family places the choice plainly before him: take her as Isaac’s wife, recognizing this as what the LORD has spoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that divine speech is only abstract or inward: here it is recognized in a person and a consequential choice.
THE ROOT
דִּבֶּר
dibber
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; the same root also names a word, matter, or thing.
The verb translated “spoken” belongs to the same word-family as דָּבָר (dāḇār), meaning “word” or “matter.” English can separate speech from what it concerns; this root keeps them in view together as Rebekah stands before them and the family names the moment as what the LORD spoke.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word, saying, matter, or thing
דָּבָר
This noun shares the root of “spoken” and can refer both to words and to the matter at hand, linking the LORD’s speech with the concrete choice before the family.
devarim: Words, matters, or affairs
דְּבָרִים
The plural form preserves the same overlap between speech and matters, echoing how the verse places the LORD’s utterance beside Rebekah’s presence.
THE PATTERN
What the LORD speaks moves from utterance into concrete fulfillment.
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.THE THREAD
The LORD God of heaven, which took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from thence.Abraham says the LORD “spake unto me” while giving the charge that a wife will be taken for Isaac. The same Hebrew root connects that utterance to the family’s recognition here: Rebekah stands before them as the concrete arrival of what was spoken.
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