And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions…And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord was entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled within her;and she said, ‘If it be so, why am I thus?’ And she went to enquire of the Lord.
And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in they womb…and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
The story behind The Struggle Within
Symbolism in The Struggle Within
Rebekah was childless twenty years before she bore Esau and Jacob (see Genesis 25:20,26) and so, even though we do not know Rebekah's exact age, she is depicted here as middle aged.
According to Biblical scholar James Freeman, Arab tents were made of camel or goat skin draped over poles varying in number according to the size and shape of the tent (Freeman 242). These structural poles were, "...made useful by having hooks driven into them from which [were] suspended clothes, baskets, saddles, weapons, and various other articles of daily use" (Freeman 245). Accordingly, the viewer sees baskets and fabrics draped along the tent pole behind the figure.
Rebekah's costume is loosely based on the type of block printing visible in the design of costumes worn by the women in the wall painting of the Beni Hasan tomb (Robinson 15). The blue dye of the fabrics she wears could have been produced from indigo, a plant dye dating back to Egypt in 2500 B.C. (Robinson 24).
The plant to the right of the figure is the lentile (lens culinaris). It is used here to symbolize the time recorded in Genesis 25:29-34 when Esau sells Jacob his birthright for a "pottage of lentiles" (Genesis 25:34).
Copyright and terms of use
© By Elspeth Young, All Rights Reserved. You may not print, copy, or reproduce this artwork or make derivative works from it without the prior written consent of the copyright holder. For permissions, please review our FAQ page.From the Newsroom
By Al R. Young
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We have framed our own artworks for more than 30 years, and during that time we have provided a variety of framing services to patrons upon request. For many reasons—including constant changes in the availability of moulding styles—we cannot offer off-the-shelf framing options or response times typically associated with such a service. Of necessity, all of our framing projects are aproached, priced, and billed as constuling projects... Read more »
Tags: Into The West, Spring Rain, North Country, The Grey Havens, Journey's End, Looking Back, Enchanted Stillness, Bedtime Story, In The High Valley, The Daydream, Before The Ball, Old Shannon, Pavane, Sweet Brier, Legend, Mountain Home, And I...
By Al R. Young The 2010 Calendar: Women of the Old Testament, published by Deseret Book, featured 13 original oil paintings by Elspeth Young. All of the paintings are part of Al Young Studios' Women of the Bible Fine Art Collection.
Commentaries (in the calendar) accompanying each painting provide a reference passage from the Bible, a summary of the character featured in the painting, and an artist's commentary concerning the painting itself. The calendar also features a biographical sketch about the artist and a list of research sources that figured in the artist's work... Read more »
Tags: The Protector, By The River's Brink, What Is To Be Done For Thee, Charity Never Faileth, A Lamp Unto My Feet, Is Anything Too Hard For The Lord, Treasure The Word, The Daughters Of Zelophehad, The Struggle Within, For Such A Time As This,
By Al R. Young Women of the Old Testament by Camille Fronk Olson is the companion volume to Women of the New Testament, published by Deseret Book in 2014.
The Old Testament volume features fifty six illustrations from the Artists of Al Young Studios, listed here under the Studios' fine art collections and portfolios to which they belong.
From the Women of the Bible Fine Art CollectionFull-color details (cropped images) from the following 17 paintings appeared in the book (in the order in which they appear here)... Read more »
Tags: The Mother Of All Living, The Joy Of Our Redemption, The Protector, Blessed, By The River's Brink, What Is To Be Done For Thee, Charity Never Faileth, A Lamp Unto My Feet, Is Anything Too Hard For The Lord, God Liveth And Seeth Me, Treasure...
By Al R. Young
High-resolution digital copies are available from the Studios for use as illustrations. Use the serial number—appearing below the thumbnail—in requesting permission from the Studios (see links at the bottom of this page for detail).
The correct form of attribution when publishing an image is specified in the license agreement issued to the publisher by Al Young Studios.Guidelines for requests to copy or publish artworks created by the Artists of Al Young Studios
Guidelines for commissioning Al Young Studios to create illustrations
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The original image is available for sale, please contact us for details... Read more »
Tags: The Struggle Within, 2007, People and Stories of the Bible
By Al R. Young The Struggle Within is the newest oil painting to be added to the line of original artworks from Al Young Studios.
Click here to see a larger image of the new painting, read the artist's commentary, and look at the selection of prints--if any are available.... Read more »
Tags: The Struggle Within, 2007, Elspeth C. Young, Legacy, News, Oil paintings and prints, Women of the Bible Art Collection