Giuseppe Simonelli (attrib., 1650-1710), Rebecca Receives the Gifts from Eliezer

Oil on canvas, 76 x 100 in. (193 x 254 cm.)
Galleria Regionale della Sicilia, Palermo

This painting illustrates the key moment in Genesis 24. Eliezer, the steward whom Abraham has charged with finding a bride for Isaac, is given a sign that he should choose a young girl he sees at a well near the city of Nahor. He gives her gifts, she invites him to stay with her family, and in the evening he arranges the marriage.

The sign from God involved Rebecca's offer to give water to Eliezer and his camels using the very words that he had prayed she would. The camels are in the background of the painting, the well is on the right, and the gifts are the jewels Rebecca is holding in the center. The young women with Rebecca are "the daughters of the inhabitants of this city" (v. 13), Nahor, which is seen in the background.

The dark skin on the young woman to Rebecca's right may be the artist's way of expressing the foreignness of the milieu. Biblical Nahor is thought to have been in northern Mesopotamia.1

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Read more about Isaac and Rebecca.

Photographed at the site by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.





































1 New American Bible, note to Gen. 24:10.