GIRL BY THE WELL.
WELL… IT JUST MIGHT WORK.
I have had undergraduate students much more interested in falling in love than reading the Bible. The irony is that if they read their Bible closely than they would know— the best way to find true love is to sit at a well in the desert and wait. Seriously, it worked for Jacob. And it worked for a servant on behalf of Isaac. And it worked for Moses. I am just saying it seems to get you by most of the time. Forget online dating and awkward pick up lines. Just be at the right place at the right time, when it is time to water the camels…and shazaam. “Well…You never know,” I have told students. It just might work.”
TYPE SCENE AND ANCIENT LITERATURE.
All joking aside. Why do so many characters in the Bible meet their true love at a well?
This is called a type scene. A type scene is a common, recurring story device used over and over by ancient Near Eastern authors. Scribes composing literature did not pride themselves on being novel, so often, as they tried to weave together well tread traditions into a larger plot. They use the same kinds of scenes over and over. And so we have type scenes. And so this is how you meet the girl of your dreams. This is what to do if you find a baby in a basket. This is how to do a miracle if you are leading a people in the wilderness. This is what a messenger from the divine will say to you when it appears.
WHAT HAPPENED IS THE WORST QUESTION.
Type scenes are found throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and all the comparative literature surrounding the Bible. This is why things seem to follow a pattern. This is why you kind of know what to expect when you have read enough of the Bible. This is also why “what happened” is among the worst questions you can ask of a biblical story. The Bible is literature, and biblical writers are part of a long tradition of story telling. They do not much care whether Jacob and Isaac actually both met their wives at a well…and neither should you.
HOW IS THE SCRIBE USING THE TYPE SCENE?
Instead, here is a better question: How does the writer put the type scene to work. That is, how does the author take the stock type scene and nuance it to make a point? Let’s take a closer look at a “woman at the well” type scene:
10 Then the servant left, taking with him ten of his master’s camels loaded with all kinds of good things from his master. He set out for Aram Naharaim and made his way to the town of Nahor. 11 He had the camels kneel down near the well outside the town; it was toward evening, the time the women go out to draw water.
Abraham charges his servant to find a wife for Isaac from his home across the Jordan, because remember, it is a threat to fulfilling the promise of SEED. PEOPLE. and LAND. if Isaac leaves Canaan. The servant loads up ten camels with gifts for a potential bride and goes to the homeland of Abraham in northwest Mesopotamia. He had his camels kneel down near a well… but not just to give them water. It was late in the day when women come for water.
12 Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. 14 May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”
Notice that the servant of Abraham knows this is how you find a lady. He prays for success and sets up a test— will one of the girls show hopitality to the foreigner? Think about that in terms of the larger Patriarchal story of a foreigner seeking hospitality in Canaan. She needs to be able to keep pace with the hospitality we have witnessed from Abram the patriarch when he was visited by messengers. And so the right girl will offer him and his camels a drink. This is a twist on the type scene, as we shall see in our next blog post, where the young man does something heroic to win the girl. Instead, it is Rebekah who will prove her worth at the well:
15 Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. 16 The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again.
The setting up and fulfilling of a sign is a common way the writers of the Bible show us the hand of Yahweh in the story. The servant prays for an action (an uncommon offer of water) and it comes to pass (Rebekah offers the servant and the camels water)…and so he knows this is the one for Isaac. Now, we read that she is closely related to Abraham and we get….a bit uncomfortable. In the ancient Near Eastern minds eye, we are being told she is from the right stock— she is not only not a Canaanite, but was connected to God’s family from the get go.
17 The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.”18 “Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. 19 After she had given him a drink, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have had enough to drink.” 20 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.
Rebekah offers the water and proves she is the one by fulfilling the sign which the servant prayed for. In the larger story, the servant now reveals that she is the “lucky one” and tells of his wealthy and blessed Master who is seeking a wife for his son. She takes them to her father and the marriage is arranged.
THE TYPE SCENE AND THE TWIST.
Now ios where it gets interesting. The type scene of the woman at the well is supposed to go a certain way. This is the type scene:
Young man sits down at a well.
A young girl comes to get water.
A stranger threatens the girl.
The young man rescues her.
She takes him to her father.
The father takes the young man as a son. They are married.
But this is the twist. In our story of Rebekah being selected for Isaac, it is the very points the author changed the pattern that contain the meaning. And so rather than a threat to the girl, she addresses the need for water and removes the threat of thirst after traveling far. And so the hero’s test of protection and strength is swapped out for a test more suitable for Rebekah. Instead of heroic deeds, hers are domestic and fitting of a virtuous wife within the Near Eastern culture. And so our type scene looks like this:
Young man sits down at a well.
A young girl comes to get water.
A stranger threatens the girl. (THREAT OF THIRST INSTEAD).
The young man rescues her. (REBEKAH RESCUES STRANGER FROM THIRST).
She takes him to her father.
The father takes the young man as a son. They are married.
Now instead of being bothered by repeated scenes, you see the craft of the writer. Now you can see that at the precise points of nuance, steps 3 and 4, the message of the story lies. This is how the scribe is using the story. This is how the type scene is being put to work. Instead of asking “did Jacob and Isaac and Moses really both find wives at a well?” now you can ask a better question: How does each writer use the type scene of the woman at the well. Intead of what happened, you can ask how the story is being used.