Early life

According to the account in the Book of Genesis, Rebecca is the daughter of Bethuel and the granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham's brother. She is the sister of Laban, who will later become the father of Rachel and Leah, two of the wives of Rebekah's son Jacob.

The news of her birth is told to her great-uncle Abraham after the latter returns from Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac), the episode in which Abraham was told by God to bring Isaac as a sacrifice on a mountain.

After the Binding of Isaac, Sarah, Abraham's wife, dies. After taking care of her burial, Abraham goes about finding a wife for his son Isaac, who is already at least 37 years old. He commands his servant Eliezer of Damascus to journey to his birthplace of Aram Naharaim to select a bride from his own family, rather than engage Isaac to a local Canaanite girl. Abraham sends along expensive jewelry, clothing and dainties as gifts to the bride and her family. If the girl refuses to come, Eliezer will be absolved of his responsibility.

"Let it be the the maiden to whom I shall say, 'Please tip over your jug so I may drink,' and who replies, 'Drink, and I will even water your camels,' her will You have designated for Your servant, for Isaac" (Genesis 24:14).

To his surprise, a young girl immediately comes out and offers to draw water for him to drink, as well as water to fill the troughs for all his camels. Rebecca continues to draw water until all the camels are sated, proving her kind and generous nature and her suitability for entering Abraham's household.

Eliezer immediately gives her a golden nose ring and two golden bracelets (Genesis 24:22), which Rebecca hurries to show her mother. Seeing the jewelry, her brother Laban runs out to greet the guest and bring him inside. Eliezer recounts the oath he made to Abraham and all the details of his trip to and meeting with Rebecca in fine detail, after which Laban and Bethuel agree that she can return with him. After hosting Eliezer and his men overnight, however, the family tries to keep Rebecca with them for another 10 months or a year. Eliezer insists that they ask the girl herself, and she agrees to go immediately. Her family sends her off with her nurse, Deborah, and blesses her, "Our sister, may you come to be thousands of myriads, and may your offspring inherit the gate of its foes."

As Rebecca and her entourage approach Abraham's home, they spy Isaac from a distance in the fields of Beer-lahai-roi. The Talmud (Berachot 26b) and the Midrash explain that Isaac was praying, as he instituted Mincha, the afternoon prayer. Seeing such a spiritually exalted man, Rebecca immediately dismounts from her camel and asks Eliezer who it is. When she hears that he is her future husband, she modestly covers herself with a veil. Isaac brings her into the tent of his mother Sarah, marries her, and loves her. According to Rashi, the three miracles that characterized Sarah's tent while she was alive, and that disappeared with her death, reappeared when Rebecca entered the tent. These were: A lamp burned in her tent from Shabbat eve to Shabbat eve, there was a blessing in her dough, and a cloud hovered over her tent (symbolizing the Divine Presence.)