OK, you will not really appreciate this like I do, I am sure, but please indulge me (Hey, it's my blog). I don't know why, really, but this memory just came back to me as I was thinking about Thanksgiving and all the family reunions we used to have around this holiday. I guess there is just too many of us now and too many places to go and things to do and blah, blah, blah, but my whole extended family used to get together every year, usually at my uncle and aunt's house in Houston. We always had way too much food, people and fun but the thing I remember most vividly was standing around the piano as Aunt Billie would play song after song and we would sing and sing. Sometimes just the aunts would sing or just the uncles and they always had their favorites: mainly old hymns that I am afraid nobody sings anymore. Then one of the aunts would beg all the cousins to come sing our song. We would finally all drag up there and sing "Eliezer Call". You can find the story of Eliezer and Isaac and Rebeccah in chapter 24 of Genesis but this is the song we would sing:
ELIEZER CALL
(1) 'Twas a day in early spring time by an ancient wayside well, Eliezer paused to rest his camel train. He had found a bride for Isaac, 'ere the evening shadows fell, For his weary journey had not been in vain. So, he took the fair Rebekah, decked in jewels rich and rare, Back to Abraham and Sarah far away, Where Rebekah loved her Isaac, and he loved Rebekah fair, Oh, it must have been a happy wedding day.
CHORUS
Oh, get ready. The evening shadows fall. Don't you hear the Eliezer call? There's going to be a wedding. Our joy will soon begin, In the evening when the camel train comes in.
(2) So the blessed Holy Spirit from the Father God above, Has come down to earth to find a worthy bride, For our Isaac over yonder has prepared our tents of love, For He wants His fair Rebekah by His side. We have left our kinfolks gladly, we have bade the world good-bye. We are going to a land beyond the sky. We shall soon behold our Isaac in that blessed eternity. What a happy, happy meeting that will be!
Thanks for the indulgence and maybe you just had to be there to appreciate it. I'm glad I was.
3 comments:
Pity that society today is too much with the world, self-absorbed with the latest electronic gizmos, and breathlessly following the antics of depraved celebrities.
Perhaps the filter of nostalgia gives a distorted view of a reality that never quite was. Perhaps. But I don't think so.
I have to believe that so much greater is the value of shared family traditions -- a hypothesis that seems to be borne out by your fond remembrances.
Would that more families today connected, 'round the piano, the kitchen table, wherever, as yours did in the days of yore - building memories to last a lifetime.
I just snatched the Eliezer Call lyrics from your site. Yours was the only google hit for the lyrics. I heard it on a tape "Return to Me" that long ago wore out. Thanks for the post.
i second the thank-you for posting lyrics. my mother used to sing this to me when i was little; it's interesting to see that the song holds meaning to other people's families as well!
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