Would you call that 'incest'?

[Classik]

Genesis 24 NKJV
2 So Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house, who ruled over all that he had, “Please, put your hand under my thigh,
3 and I will make you swear by the Lord , the God of heaven and the God ofthe earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell;
4 but you shall go to my country and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac.â€
15 And it happened, before he had finished speaking, that behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her pitcher on her shoulder.
24 So she said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel, Milcah’s son,whom she bore to Nahor.â€

It seems Isaac married his own relative, close relative. Is this incest??? Seems to me like one marrying one's own blood relative. :dunno Can one do something similar, marrying from your own people? I keep thinking about what really happened here. [I need a better interpretation of verses 15 and 24 ]
thanks

Also compare these verses:

Genesis 28
1 Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, and said to him: “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.
2 Arise, go to Padan Aram,to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father; and take yourself a wife from there of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.

9 So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

See 29:10, 12, 13 etc

 

[Carolyn]

In our day it is. But this occurred before the 10 commandments were given. It was more important to keep faith pure and free from idolitry than to keep out corrupted DNA. The DNA became damaged over the ensuing centuries. They lived in a much different culture under much different circumstances. Abraham also married his half sister. This was no longer allowed during David's reign.
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[Classik]

In our day it is. But this occurred before the 10 commandments were given. It was more important to keep faith pure and free from idolitry than to keep out corrupted DNA. The DNA became damaged over the ensuing centuries. They lived in a much different culture under much different circumstances. Abraham also married his half sister. This was no longer allowed during David's reign.
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Thanks a lot. (I think some cultures still practise that, or something very close today.) In most cultures today a man is not allowed to even marry from the mother's or father's village.

 

[Lewis]

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="99" width="546"><tbody><tr><td valign="bottom">Top 6 Incestuous Relationships In The Bible


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Religious scholars say that God suspended the laws of incest in the early days of man in order to ensure that man spread on the earth. In the words of the commentators of the Douay Rheims Bible: “God [dispensed] with such marriages in the beginning of the world, as mankind could not otherwise be propagated.†Despite that, these tales are not all simply matters of procreation – particularly item 1. So, here is a list of 6 of the more questionable relationships in the Bible.
6 Cain and his Wife

And Cain went out from the face of the Lord, and dwelt as a fugitive on the earth, at the east side of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and brought forth Henoch: and he built a city, and called the name thereof by the name of his son Henoch. [Genesis 4:16-17]
​

Cain was the first born son of Adam and Eve, and Abel was the second. In Genesis 4 we read how Cain kills his brother and is sent east of Eden where he marries a woman and “lays†with her. Because Adam and Eve were the first humans – from whom all people come – Cain’s wife was his sister – and, consequently, all of the early Biblical relationships were incestuous (with the exception of Adam and Eve). Cain, incidentally, was the guy that caused so much trouble for the Mormon’s who believed that the cursed “Mark of Cain†meant black skin, leading them to forbid blacks from entering the Mormon priesthood (God “revealed†that they were allowed to let black skinned people in to the priesthood in 1978). You can read more about that blunder here. In the image above we see Cain killing his brother Abel.

5 Abraham and Sara

Howbeit, otherwise also she is truly my sister, the daughter of my father, and not the daughter of my mother, and I took her to wife. And after God brought me out of my father’s house, I said to her: Thou shalt do me this kindness: In every place, to which we shall come, thou shalt say that I am thy brother. [Genesis 20:12-13]
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Abraham married his half sister Sara in Ur. The King of Gerara took her from Abraham and God sent him a dream to tell him that he would be destroyed for taking a woman who already had a husband (God approved of the marriage between the brother and sister). The King returned Sara to Abraham and they remained together as a couple until she died at the age of 127. Incidentally, Abraham died 38 years later at the ripe old age of 175.
4 Nachor and Melcha

And Thare lived seventy years, and begot Abram, and Nachor, and Aran. And these are the generations of Thare: Thare begot Abram, Nachor, and Aran. And Aran begot Lot. And Aran died before Thare his father, in the land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nachor married wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai: and the name of Nachor’s wife, Melcha, the daughter of Aran, father of Melcha, and father of Jescha. [Genesis 11:26-29]
​

This is one of those complex “generations†quotes that are found throughout the early stages of the Bible, but if you pay close attention you can see that Nachor (Abraham’s brother) married Melcha (his niece). It is phrases like those above which make it so difficult to read the Bible cover to cover. Frankly, these parts of the Bible make Proust’s “In Remembrance of Things Past†read like a Doctor Seuss book!

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3 Lot and his Daughters

And the elder said to the younger Our father is old, and there is no man left on the earth, to come in unto us after the manner of the whole earth. Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the elder went in and lay with her father: but he perceived not neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up. And the next day the elder said to the younger: Behold I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also to night, and thou shalt lie with him, that we may save seed of our father. They made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and lay with him: and neither then did he perceive when she lay down, nor when she rose up. So the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father. [Genesis 19:31-36]
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It doesn’t really get much more blatant than that. The two daughters had sex with their father, Lot, in order to preserve his family line. Incidentally, this all happened shortly after they had fled from Soddom and Gomorrah which was destroyed by God for its immorality – ironic?. After the events described above, Lot had no memory of it (maybe it was the liquor) and nine months later the daughters gave birth to two sons, Moab (father of the Moabites), and Ammon (father of the Ammonites).
2 Amram and Jochabed

The sons of Merari: Moholi and Musi. These are the kindreds of Levi by their families. 20 And Amram took to wife Jochabed his aunt by the father’s side: and she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of Amram’s life were a hundred and thirty-seven. [Exodus 6:19-20]
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This is the family history of Moses – the guy who lead the Jews out of Egypt and later was given the ten commandments (which were not actually 10 commandments – more on that here). Jochabed was Moses’ Great-aunty Mom.

 

[Classik]

This is superb. Well. I think the only way people could multiply throughout the earth was really through incest (that is if God had only created Adam and Eve and no other people. Perhaps the devil was also fighting to wipe away human race, too. So, God probably allowed incest.)

If God really permitted incest and it was moral before the people of A&E ...I wonder why Lot's daughter could not boldly go to the father for procreation matters. They had to do it secretly, deceiving the father. Seems it was abominable to do that..... :dunno

Thanks for the input. It's interesting

 

[Classik]

some claim incest still exists in some parts of the world - and it's ok for them, dunno

 

[handy]

Rebekah and Isaac were first cousins... and even in the world today a lot of first cousins marry. It's very unusual in the United States now, but I know of several couples that were also first cousins. Most of these people are either my parents or were my grandparents age, but it's really not all that uncommon.

 

[joethemechanic]

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever:

It seems like what went on between Lot and his daughters really didn't please God

 

[Classik]

Rebekah and Isaac were first cousins... and even in the world today a lot of first cousins marry. It's very unusual in the United States now, but I know of several couples that were also first cousins. Most of these people are either my parents or were my grandparents age, but it's really not all that uncommon.

Thanks a lot for that clarification. I read those verses a million times until I got fed up.