How Many Camels Would You Water?

How many camels are you willing to water for the sake of God's will?  Strange as that question is, let me explain, with a story found in Genesis 24.

In a small settlement called Paddan Aram, a virgin was minding her own business hauling buckets to the well to fetch water for her family.  This was a young man, granddaughter of Nahor whose ancestor had settled in this community.   Off in the distance, a man with many camels approached her family well and seemed to fall to his knees somewhere in the distance.  Was he famished from a long journey, or could he be praying to the God of her own ancestors?  This young woman didn't know.   After she had drawn a bucket, the man approached her with a question, "May I have a drink?" he asked.  She, raised in a good family, knew the answer immediately as she offered hospitality as anyone in her family would have done.  She didn't understand why she was compelled, but before thinking, she also offered to nourish his animals.  She looked beyond the man as the words escaped her lips, ten, did I count correctly, he has ten camels with him, she thought.   Oh well, what better thing to do with my time, she mused--not the typical teenager of today, she quickly turned toward the well once the man had finished his cup of water.  Drawing up the bucket from the well she thought I wonder how much these camels can consume, four maybe five buckets each.  After two or three camels, she lost count of the trips she made back and forth gathering water and filling the trough.  She had always been fond of animals. 

Little did Rebekah know the purpose for this man's visit, but it had been a while since they had seen such a man enter their parts.  She continued to obediently traipse back and forth between the trough and the well picking up her pace just a bit when she realized that each camel seemed to consume about 40 gallons of water.  Rebekah, unlike her brother, Laban had never received the education that would allow her to calculate how much work she had ahead.  She could count, but the math skills of multiplication were beyond her.  For the sake of her guest, she didn't want to appear weary as she considered that perhaps he had been walking for many days to find them in this little community that she called home.  She only paused briefly to smile and chat with the man.  Possibly she would discover why he had stopped.  Was this his final destination, or was this just a stop along his journey.  So many camels, in her understanding, wealth was counted in herds.  What must things be like where he had come from? 

When she completed her task she could not fathom the number of times she had drawn water from the well, but her arms were tired, and her back was aching.  She was grateful that she could do this task for the man who had asked for a drink.  She, much younger, would bounce back much more quickly than he doing this manual labor.  The man asked a few questions requesting a place to sleep for the evening, a meal for himself and a meal for his camels.  The girl knowing that her family was generous would welcome this guest willingly into their abode and be pleased to feed not only him and those who accompanied him including the animals. 

On their journey toward her homestead, her brother Laban met them in the field and offered to escort their guest the rest of the way.  She hurried up ahead to warn her mother that they needed to set a few extra plates at the dinner table.  She wanted to freshen up just a bit, the task of watering this gentleman's camels had caused herself to sweat just a bit, and with all this dry dust she could feel the dirt accumulating on her face, neck, and arms.  Her extremities were almost as filthy as her feet as she shuffled through the sandy terrain.  She once again considered the important conversation that this man wanted to discuss with her father.  He had asked her to explain whose family her people were from.  
she thought she detected a renewed interest in meeting them almost as if this was the reason for his journey.  The man was so kind, he had given her a beautiful nose ring and two gold bracelets for her work.  Never had she received something so beautiful, from a stranger no less.  She couldn't wait to show these gifts to her mom.  Who was this man, she thought?  She would find out soon enough; her family shared everything.

     I've now told enough of the story that you may have guessed that this is the story of Rebekah, the great-niece of the patriarch, Abraham, the promised father of many nations.  This story reveals how God answered the prayer of Abraham's servant when he asked for a revelation when selecting a wife for Abraham's son Isaac.   In reading this story have you ever considered how much water a camel can drink?  In my research, on the conservative side of things, about 40 gallons, some report as high as 53 gallons per animal.  If we err on the conservative side, then Rebekah would have drawn approximately 400 gallons of water.  A gallon of water weighs about 8.3 pounds.  Since we have the skill to calculate this math problem much better than Rebekah, we can easily see that Rebekah hauled about a ton and a half of water to nourish these long-necked water guzzling creatures.  Can you image dragging over 3,200 pounds or four hundred gallons of water drawn from a well to serve the needs of a stranger whose business nor importance you understood? 

How many camels would you water to serve a stranger and ultimately obey the will of God?  Do you think Rebekah had heard stories from her ancestors on how her great uncle Abraham had entertained angels before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed?