“things.” The Hebrew text is dabar (#01697 דָּבָר), which is the common word for “word,” but also, like the Greek word logos, it had a wide range of meanings, including “thing,” “matter.” Thus the translation might well read, “These matters,” or “These things.” The semantic range of words used in the Bible is the reason translators cannot use the same English word to translate the same Hebrew or Greek word. The meaning of the Hebrew or Greek word must be understood in its context and then the proper English word can be chosen as a translation. In this case, Rebekah did not just tell her family about Abraham’s servant’s “words,” but about all that transpired.

“mother’s house.” This is most likely referring to the women’s part of Bethuel’s home, where the women lived with privacy from the men. Women had their own quarters even if the family lived in a tent. It has been suggested that young women of the time referred to where they lived as their mother’s house^a but the evidence for that seems to be very slim.

There are a number of reasons that Rebekah would have gone to her mother in the women’s quarters. As a young woman, she might have felt intimidated to go to the men in her family with such earthshaking news, and would have felt more comfortable going to her mother. Also, marriages were generally arranged by the parents, so it would have been natural for her as a woman to go to her mother.

Also, there were likely to be men around her father to whom she was not closely related. Her grandfather Nahor not only had Milcah as a wife, he had a concubine named Reumah who bore him four sons, who would have therefore been Rebekah’s half-uncles and who could easily have been with Bethuel or in the general vicinity because families often stayed quite close in those times. Under the circumstances we can see why Rebekah would have gone to her mother. Although her mother’s name is never given in the Bible, she was clearly alive (see commentary on Gen. 24:38).