"And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived" (Genesis 25:21).
Isaac was forty years old when his father's servant brought Rebekah back from Abraham's homeland to be Isaac's wife. He had recently lost his mother, and marrying Rebekah helped him through his grief. He loved her and rejoiced in the wife God had provided for him.
But like Sarah before her, Rebekah was barren. This must have incurred some confusion. God had promised that Abraham would have many descendants through Isaac; how then could his wife not have children? Had the servant been mistaken in his choice of Rebekah? Had she not been the one God had prepared for Isaac, after all?
Instead of panicking and trying to take matters into his own hands, Isaac brought the situation before God. He prayed, asking God to heal his wife's womb and allow her to bear children. He himself was a child of impossibility, born to a couple who had been childless for a century. Was it too much to hope that God would do something similar again?
And that's exactly what happened. God listened to Isaac's prayer, and Rebekah gave birth to twins. The younger, Jacob, would become the father of twelve sons, who would become the twelve tribes of Israel. In that family God would do incredible things, revealing Himself to the world as the God who keeps His promises, the God who delivers His people, the God who brings life out of death.
The barrenness of Rebekah and of Sarah before her wasn't a curse. They hadn't done something wrong that God was punishing them for. Rather, God used them to prove a point: This family was special, and He was going to do something through them that only He could bring about. He would bring life to a place that had known only death. Through them, He would change the world.
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