‘And Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the oak, and the name of it was called Allon-Bacuth.'
The ceremony was marred by a sad event, the death of Rebekah's nurse. It is probable that Rebekah had sent her nurse to keep a motherly eye on Jacob on his flight to Paddan-aram as she could not do so herself. Thus she had been with him many years. It was the end of an era. (Alternately Rebekah may have come with her nurse to see Jacob on his return to Canaan). She had watched over Jacob these many years and now he has returned to Bethel her work is done She has done what God required. The writer probably saw it as the final evidence of the end of the past and a new beginning.
It may be that the death of such a faithful retainer at such a time was seen as somehow a fitting offering to God for she was buried under an oak tree ‘below Bethel'. The place was thus called Allon-Bacuth - ‘the oak of weeping', an indication of the sorrow that accompanied her departure. Possibly it became for the people a place where they could weep when they were enduring sorrow.