HEBREW WORD STUDY – DEBORAH – דברה  Daleth, Beth Resh Hei

Genesis 24:59,61: “And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant, and his men.  (61) And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man: and the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.”

Genesis 35:8: “But Deborah Rebekah’s nurse died, and she was buried beneath Bethel under an oak: and the name of it was called Allonbachuth.”

We have the story of the journey that Jacob and his family took to Israel where he faced his brother Easu.  There is a verse that seems strangely out of place and that is Genesis 35:8 which tells us that Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse died. She is only mentioned one other time and that is not even by her name which is in Genesis 24:59 where she is identified only as Rebekah’s nurse who accompanied Rebekah back to Abraham’s home where Rebekah married Isaac.  Two verses later she is not identified at all but apparently was just among other women who accompanied Rebekah. 

Why was this woman even mentioned in the Bible, what did she accomplish and why was she so important that the writer interrupts his narrative to mention her passing.  There are very few clues other than her name, her occupation as a nurse, the exact location of her burial and the place she was buried.

First let’s look at her name. It is Deborah and if you google the Hebrew meaning for the name you will find it means a bee.  That sure doesn’t give us much insight other than to say she was a busy body. Like a bee, always busy and working.  Maybe we get a little picture that she was a faithful and dedicated worker like a bee always working for the sake of the hive or the people she served.  But examine this name further.  It is from the root word devar which means to speak from the heart. This I believe is more telling of her relationship with Rebekah, she was one who always shared her heart, she was no phony, no one who would flatter her mistress to win favor, she was one who spoke from her heart, the truth.  She was one that Rebekah could trust and one that Rebekah loved.

Her occupation is rendered in the KJV as a nurse.  They did not have nurses in that day as we think of a nurse and why would a young healthy woman need a full time nurse.  The word used for nurse here is yanaq which means to suck in the terms of a baby sucking its mother’s breast for milk. In English the word nurse is a professional word and should not be used here. This woman was just a surrogate or what we would call today a wet nurse.

Wet nursing has been leaked to social classes where upper class women had their children wet nursed for the benefit of the child’s health with the hope of becoming pregnant again.  This may be the reason why Rebekah had a wet nurse as it was prophesied that she would bear children who would create a new race.  But with only two children, twins, why keep a wet nurse?  Perhaps this wet nurse was actually the one who nursed Rebekah and became almost like a nanny being raised by this wet nurse.  Rebekah’s mother was Bethuel an Aramean from Abraham’s home town.  Since Abraham and Sarah were the first in line of Hebrews, there were no Hebrew women to find a bride for Isaac and Abraham did not want Isaac to marry a Canaanite woman so it was back to Aram, his home country.   We know very little of Bethuel other than she was the sister of Laban. 

It is very likely Deborah was more Rebekah’s own wet nurse who then became her nanny and literally raised Rebekah.  She was likely more Rebekah’s mother than her real mother.  The Talmud teaches that if one raises a child not their own in God’s eyes it is as if they gave birth to that child.   This may explain why she is named and given an obituary in Scripture. She was an important influence not only on Rebekah but more than likely also on Jacob and Easu, mainly Jacob.  We only have a record of where Rebekah was buried but no mention of the fact she died where Scripture made it a point that Deborah not only died but where she was buried. The place of burial is also a clue, it is Allonbachuth which means plain of tears. 

Why would Jacob weep so much for his mother’s nurse and his mother just getting honorary mention of her passing?  Most likely Deborah was more of a mother or grandmother to Jacob than Rebekah. Here was a woman raised in a pagan culture in Aram and yet she helped raise and teach two important people, the wife of the patriarch Isaac and the patriarch Jacob.  

The Targum Jonathan renders the word for nurse as pedagogue a teacher. Deborah was Rebekah’s teacher when Rebekah was growing up in an immoral land with a deceitful father and brother Laban.  She trained Rebekah to be strong and pious in an immoral environment and then became a spiritual grandmother to Jacob. Here is a non-Jewish woman impacting the life of a Jewish matriarch and patriarch transforming history forever. 

The final clue to the life of this amazing woman is that she was buried beneath Bethel (house of God) under an oak tree.  Trees live a long time, especially oak trees and it is traditionally believed this is the same tree or place that 500 years later is where the prophetess Deborah was also buried.

There are many people who live very  humble lives, seemingly never accomplishing anything other than influencing some young child who will grow up to change the world.  Sometimes it is as Billy Sunday used to say; “You need to brighten the corner where you are.”