‘Eliezer and Rebekah,’ by Frederic Leighton

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Eliezer and Rebekah

Frederic Leighton

Produced after 1863, but not published until 1880–81

Proof wood engraving cut by the Dalziel Brothers, printed on India paper

7 x 6 ¾ inches

Illustration in Dalziels’ Bible Gallery.

Plate 11. The scene represented here is from Genesis 24. Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, has been sent to the town of Nahoor to select a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac. [Commentary continues below.]

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke. [Click on image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]

The divine expectation is that a favourable wife, and the one to be chosen, will demonstrate generosity by offering Eliezer water. Leighton depicts the moment just before this event happens; Rebekah is placed in a group of other women carrying an urn, as Eliezer ponders what will happen. Rebekah’s statuesque beauty marks her out as being morally beautiful, and her charitable nature is symbolized by the verdant plants in the foreground; a giver of water that creates life, she is also a giver of the spirituality gainful. The use of lush vegetation as a means to signal a moral virtue is in marked contrast to the sterility of the land in Leighton’s treatment of Cain and Abel, where the deadness of the land manifests the sterility of Cain’s behaviour.

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Bibliography

Dalziels’ Bible Gallery. London: Routledge, 1881 [1880].

Created 23 June 2026