Sad providences in the loss of dearest friends may befall the saints when they are in duty with God.
2. Parents’ friends should be dear unto, and accepted with their children also, especially gracious ones (Pro_27:10).
3. Death and burial are the events of providence unto the holiest and the oldest and dearest friends.
4. Burial places are of natural and not religious consideration, any fit place pointed out by providence.
5. Old gracious friends, as they live desired, so they die lamented.
6. Lamentations for good old friends, deceased, is a duty beseeming God’s church, yet not without hope.
7. Saints mourn for the loss of friends for goodness sake, not for gain. Jacob had no gain by Deborah.
8. Monuments of said providences, and lamentations over them, are not unbeseeming saints to make. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Death of Deborah
“But,” continues the narrative, “but Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died”; that is, although Jacob and his house were now living in the fear of God, that did not exempt them from the ordinary distresses of family life. And among these, one that falls on us with a chastening and mild sadness all its own, occurs when there passes from the family one of its oldest members, and one who has by the delicate tact of love gained influence over all, and has by the common consent become the arbiter and mediator, the confident and counsellor of the family. They, indeed, are the true salt of the earth whose own peace is so deep and abiding, and whose purity is so thorough and energetic, that into their ear we can disburden the troubled heart or the guilty conscience, as the wildest brook disturbs not and the most polluted fouls not the settled depths of the all-cleansing ocean. Such must Deborah have been, for the oak under which she was buried was afterwards known as “the oak of weeping.” Specially must Jacob himself have mourned the death of her whose face was the oldest in his remembrance, and with whom his mother and his happy early days were associated. Very dear to Jacob, as to most men, were those who had been connected with and could tell him of his parents, and remind him of his early years. Deborah, by treating him still as a little boy, perhaps the only one who now called him by the pet name of childhood, gave him the pleasantest relief from the cares of manhood and the obsequious deportment of the other members of his household towards him. So that when she went a great blank was made to him: no longer was the wise and happy old face seen in her tent door to greet him of an evening; no longer could he take refuge in the peacefulness of her old age from the troubles of his lot; she being gone, a whole generation was gone, and a new stage of life was entered on. (M. Dods, D. D.)
Rebekah and her nurse; or, friendly counsels to employers and employed
Here is a servant remaining in the same family through four generations, leaving Laban’s house with Rebekah, when a young bride, going with her into a distant country, living and serving in that family till one after another are conveyed to the grave. First, the elements of character in servants; second, the elements of character in the employer that would help to form and lead to the appreciation and honour of such a character in the employed.
I. I will begin by detailing SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER IN SERVANTS.
1. There must be in the servant a sense of responsibility to God.
2. Then you have another characteristic, that of willingly and cheerfully doing her work.
3. Then servants must be truthful.
4. Then faithfulness--just let us look at this. Faithfulness is to action what truthfulness is to word.
5. Faithfulness also implies frugality.
6. Then with regard to the influence on little children; as, you know, nursery rhymes and nursery talk cling to the child, when it has forgotten things that he had acquired in maturer life.
7. Then another thing is obedience.
II. Now, a few remarks in regard to THE CHARACTER OF EMPLOYERS.
1. He too must have the fear of God in his heart, as the ground of all his obligations, not only to God, but to his fellow-creatures.
2. Then there must be justice done by the employer to the employed.
3. In the next place, there must be order on the part of the employer.
4. Then next there must be right example before the servants on the part of the master and mistress.
5. Benevolence should be another part of the master’s character. Finally, I would direct the employer and employed to that world where the faithful servant of God will receive an inheritance that will never pass away, and a crown that will never perish, and where both masters and servants, who have followed the Lord in their lives, will become priests and kings unto God for ever. (T. Thomas.)
