Genesis 35:8

Verse Genesis 35:8. But Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died] She was sent with Rebekah when taken by Abraham's servant to be wife to Isaac, Genesis 24:59. How she came to be in Jacob's family, expositors are greatly puzzled to find out; but the text does not state that she was in Jacob's family. Her death is mentioned merely because Jacob and his family had now arrived at the place where she was buried, and the name of that place was called Allon-bachuth, "the oak of weeping," as it is likely her death had been greatly regretted, and a general and extraordinary mourning had taken place on the occasion. Of Rebekah's death we know nothing. After her counsel to her son, Genesis 27:5-1; Genesis 27:42-1, we hear no more of her history from the sacred writings, except of her burial in Genesis 49:31. Her name is written in the dust. And is not this designed as a mark of the disapprobation of God? It seems strange that such an inconsiderable person as a nurse should be mentioned, when even the person she brought up is passed by unnoticed! It has been observed that the nurse of AEneas is mentioned nearly in the same way by the poet Virgil; and in the circumstances, in both cases, there is a striking resemblance.

"Tu quoque littoribus nostris, AEneia nutrix,

AEternam moriens famam, Caleta, dedisti:

Eet nunc servat honos sedem tunus; ossaque nomen,

Hesperia in magna, (si qua est en gloria,) signat.

At pius exequils AEneas rite solutis,

Aggere composito tumuli, postquam alta quierunt

AEquora, tendit iter veils, portumque relinqult."

AEn., lib. vii., ver. 1, c.

"Thou too, Cajeta, whose indulgent cares

Nursed the great chief, and form'd his tender years,

Expiring here (an ever-honour'd name!)

Adorn Hesperia with immortal fame:

Thy name survives, to please thy pensive ghost

Thy sacred relics grace the Latian coast.

Soon as her funeral rites the prince had paid,

And raised a tomb in honour of the dead;

The sea subsiding, and the tempests o'er,

He spreads the flying sails, and leaves the shore."

PITT.