Genesis 24:29

29. Laban Note the prominence of Laban in all this interview . He is more prominent than his father, or even than his mother . He goes out to meet the servant of Abraham; he gives the usual blessing and hospitable welcome . Genesis 24:31. Bethuel is mentioned in Genesis 24:50, but second to Laban, and in Genesis 24:53; Genesis 24:55, the brother and mother are mentioned, but not the father, and in Genesis 24:59-60 Rebekah is called “their sister” and “our sister,” rather than daughter. Some explain

all this as springing from a prominence and authority which the oldest son is supposed to have in the East; but others point, farther, to Genesis 29:5, where Laban is called the son of Nahor, and Bethuel is passed over as if he were a person of no account, and argue that this consistent and uniform ignoring of Rebekah’s father is designed. Laban is not thus ignored and his sons made prominent in the marriage of Rachel and Leah, Chap. 29. It has been suggested that some weakness or imbecility rendered Bethuel incapable of managing his own affairs. This Blunt places among the remarkable coincidences of the Bible, and remarks: “The consistency is too much of one piece throughout, and marked by too many particulars, to be accidental. It is the consistency of a man who knew more about Bethuel than we do, or than he happened to let drop from his pen. This kind of consistency I look upon as beyond the reach of the most subtle contriver in the world.”