“And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent.” Tent life in the days of Abraham, in our estimation, must have been not only desirable, but grand and glorious. Living, as they did, so closely in contact with nature, as God made it, fresh, pure air, babbling brooks, rippling streams, and blue skies, theirs was a happy life. They were not confined in crowded cities, surrounded by dismal walls, but on the hillsides, the open valleys and the unbounded plains. Their tent was pitched in a clump of oaks, near a living stream, and overlooked the plain of Mamre--a beautiful picture of freedom, ease and comfort. To such a place he took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. So ends this most charming story of domestic life in the patriarchal age. For beauty, simplicity and directness it has no equal. We also see, in the closing words, one of those delicate and tender natures that find repose first in the love of a mother, and when that stay is withdrawn, lean upon a beloved wife. So ideally pure, and sweet, and tenderly religious has been the whole inception and carrying on and termination of this wedding, that Isaac and Rebekah have been remembered in the wedding ritual of Christian churches as models of a holy marriage according to the divine will. Though for nineteen years Rebekah was childless, yet retained she her husband’s love. This may have been a trial to Isaac, since the line of the blessing was to pass through him. That he thought much about it is evident, for, at length, he “entreated the Lord for his wife,” and his intercession was based upon a divine foundation in Jehovah’s promise. And, possibly, even Isaac had to be educated up to this point, namely, that the seed of promise must be sought from God, so that it should be regarded, not as the fruit of nature, but as the gift of divine grace. In due time Esau and Jacob were born, and they were twins, but with natures and characteristics marked more for their contrasts than similarity. Beyond the bare statement, “And the boys grew,” nothing is said of their childhood and youth--the formative periods of their lives.