Rebekah

by Jill Eileen Smith

  “Not any man,” she said, her voice soft. “If not for Adonai sending Eliezer, I might have pined away in my brother’s home until it was too late.”

  He rose up on one elbow and searched her face. “Your brother would not seek a husband for you? What of your father? Surely he would have considered it long before his death.”

  She nodded, but her dark eyes grew distant, and he wondered at the flicker of sadness that clouded them. But a moment later, she looked at him with affection, her eyes clear. “My father did consider a man in Harran, but he was poor and could not give me what my father had always given. My mother would hear none of it, and my father died before he could secure someone else. Laban, his heir, kept promising to find a husband for me, but the few he considered were unworthy—men who did not treat women well and who had no reverence for Adonai. I could never have married such a man.”

  Her earnest tone and the smile in her eyes made his heart leap. Joy rose within him that Adonai had kept her for him, for surely she could have married years before if her father had allowed it.

  “We are not so very different, my love.” He intertwined their hands, her palm feeling perfect against his own larger one. “My mother, God bless her, never gave me the chance to marry. She would not hear of me taking a Canaanite wife, as my father had done with Keturah, or an Egyptian wife, as my father had done with my mother’s handmaiden, Hagar. I feared she would be accepting of no one unless my father demanded it, but even then, I am not sure she would have listened.”

  The memories evoked a sudden sadness that his mother could not have been more trusting, that his parents could not have kept their love strong. Despite her faith, Sarah had struggled with fear, particularly fear of losing him.

  “Your father has had three wives?” She already knew the answer, he was sure, but seemed to want to hear the response from him.

  He squeezed their intertwined fingers and nodded. “My mother was his first wife and only true love. When my mother feared the promise would never come to pass, that she would never bear a son for my father, she gave him her Egyptian maid, Hagar, to be his concubine. Hagar bore him Ishmael. You might meet him someday.” He paused, briefly wondering how his older brother fared.

  “Does your father still see Ishmael?” She pulled him down beside her again, and they turned to face each other.

  “No. Not that I’m aware of. But I do not spend all of my time in my father’s camp. I have met with Ishmael from time to time over the years. He spends his days in the desert, one of my favorite places to live.”

  At the slight curl of her lip, he paused. “You do not care for the desert?”

  “I do not know the desert.” She smiled. “But I am willing to have you show it to me.”

  He sighed, again relieved at her answer, his fears of displeasing her slowly dissipating.

  “My brother Laban has a wife of only five years and already has added a concubine.”

  He studied her face in the dim light, sensing the question she feared to ask.

  “I am not like my father or your brother.” He held her gaze, willing her to believe him. For though she could not know the future, he knew his own strength of will. Unless God took her from him, he would not take another wife. He would not ever make her subject to all that his mother had suffered in sharing his father.

  “You cannot know that. People change.”

  Her doubt did not surprise him. His own father had done the unthinkable in binding him when God had asked it of him.

  “People do change, Rebekah, but God does not. But on God’s righteous name, I promise you I will not take another wife or your maidservant or any other woman to be my wife while you are living. I could not do that to you.”

  The look she gave him shifted from doubt to awe, and tears quickly filled her eyes, spilling over. He brushed them away with his thumbs, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. “I would not have thought it possible in such a short time, but I love you, Rebekah. And no matter what the future brings to us, I will not break my vow.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” She blinked several times, and he knew she struggled to halt the emotion. He pulled her close and rubbed circles over her back. “No man I have ever known would make such a promise. If I give you no heir, you may wish you had stayed your words.”

  “God has already promised an heir, and I am confident He will give it in His time.” He held her away from him to search her face again. “I am living proof of His promise.”

  Her lip puckered, and he sensed she would cry again. On any other day he would let her fully express her emotion, but this was a day for rejoicing in the love they had found. There was no room for tears.

  He bent to kiss her again, tasting the salt still hovering at the corners of her mouth. “Only you, my love. For all of my life, there will be only you.”

  He pulled her beside him, his kiss driving away any tears she had left.

  15

  Rebekah heard the sound of the water flowing over rocks long before it came into sight. Isaac reached behind him, grasped her hand in his strong fingers, and pulled her to his side as they drew closer to the trees, which hid the stream from view. Mating crickets sang their distinct song, and a jackal howled from someplace over the ridge. She shivered despite her attempt at bravery.

  “Are we safe here?” She leaned close to Isaac’s ear, grateful when his arm came around her waist. “That sounded close.”

  Isaac stopped near the opening of a copse of terebinth and willow and turned to face her. He drew her against him, his face near enough for her to feel his breath. “Do not fear the jackals, my love, or the animals of the night. Adonai is the only one we need fear. Even the wild beasts obey Him.”

  She swallowed, unable to escape another shudder as the jackal’s howl sounded again. “I cannot help but hope those wild animals are able to hear Him when He speaks.” She gave him a look, but his response was only a deep chuckle.

  He brushed a light kiss on her lips. “Trust me,” he whispered. He took her hand again and moved them both through the trees toward the ever-growing sound of the water.

  Moonlight spilled over gleaming rocks along the water’s edge, the spray dampening their faces as they approached. Isaac led them higher to an outcropping of dry rocks where they could look down on the waterfall yet keep a safe distance from its edge. He sat, gently pulling her down to lean with her back to him. His arms held her close, and she laughed at the tickle of the water’s mist on her legs.

  “Look up,” Isaac whispered in her ear.

  She had been too intent on looking down, fearing they might fall or slip into the cascading water below. But she obeyed his words and lifted her head, her breath catching on the beauty of the starlit night.

  “The stars are so close and so many!” She craned her neck, turning her head to look from one end of the heavens to the other. The sky stretched taut like the fabric of a black goat’s-hair tent, and the moon sat to the left as though hung from a peg along heaven’s tent walls.

  “Well, we did climb up this hill, so we are closer than when we sit below among the plains.” His breath tickled her neck. “This is better than being cooped inside the tent for a week, is it not?”

  She could not suppress a little laugh that burst inside her at his mischievous tone and the way his breath moved the hairs on her neck. “Yes!” She leaned into his strength and let herself study the skies.

  They sat in comfortable silence, and she listened to the night sounds and the water as it mesmerized her, lulling her into a state of relaxed peace. The jackal had long since moved beyond them, and she took comfort in Isaac’s steady breath. She could not imagine a more comforting place or wanting to spend this time with any other man. How glad she was now that Adonai had kept her from marrying any of the men Laban had hoped to pair her with. Isaac’s quiet strength and gentle laughter brought her greater joy than she had known in all her life. But there was still so much about him that she longed to know. Things he seemed reticent to sha
re.

  “How would you feel about moving to Beer-lahai-roi once our wedding week is past?”

  His abrupt question pulled her thoughts back to her surroundings. She shifted, wanting to face him but unable to move easily on the narrow rock. Sensing her desire, he held firm as he helped her to turn.

  “But come.” He pulled her to her feet. “We can speak more easily in the clearing farther up the hill.”

  Her legs tingled, making her wobble slightly, but in the next instant he had stepped down from the rocky ledge and pulled her to safety. He grabbed her hand again, leading her up the incline. She pondered his question as they trudged higher and focused on her feet, trying not to get her sandals tangled among the protruding tree roots, leafy foliage, and fallen branches. At the top of the rise, he slipped both arms beneath hers and twirled her in the moonlight, laughing.

  She laughed with him, unable to keep from smiling at his infectious joy. Did her presence truly evoke so much happiness in him?

  “What is so funny?” she asked when he finally set her back on her feet.

  He sank to the grass and tugged her down with him, then leaned back on both elbows, his gaze toward the stars. She looked in the same direction, appreciating anew the ever-changing celestial landscape. But a moment later she pounced on him, wrapping her arms about his neck.

  “Tell me truly. Do you laugh because you think me funny or because you love my company?” She coaxed his head toward hers and sucked in a breath at the sudden intensity in his dark eyes.

  “Need you ask?” His voice grew husky, his emotion startling. “The day you arrived was the happiest of my life.”

  She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and wondered how the moment could move so quickly from laughter to tears. But the tears were not sad, and she knew a measure of relief that he already loved her beyond reason. She would go anywhere with him, do anything to please him.

  She ran a hand along the soft hairs of his beard. “Would you move us so soon, my lord?” She would go to Beer-lahai-roi, to the desert, even to Egypt if he asked, but a part of her begged to know why he would leave his father’s camp before she even had a chance to get to know the man.

  He looked beyond her as though the question pained him. Something troubled him, and she yearned to know it.

  She placed a hand over his heart, feeling its steady beat beneath her fingers. “Please, Isaac, what is it that causes the shadows to fill your gaze? Is there some problem with your father?”

  Isaac’s head gave an almost imperceptible shake, his look pensive. He drew a hand over his beard before resting it on top of her hand. He held her fingers in a gentle grip and sighed. “My father is a good man.” He looked at her as though willing her to believe he meant every word. “But our relationship . . .” He glanced beyond her, letting the sentence die.

  “Your father has other children,” she offered when the silence grew too lengthy, needing to be filled. “Does he not have time for you?”

  Isaac’s attention snapped, and she sensed his thoughts had taken him far away. “My father would spend every moment with me. But you are right. He has another wife and six sons to occupy his time. His life is not as it was when my mother lived, when I was but a boy.”

  “What was it like when you were the only son of both father and mother?” She ached to understand the pensiveness that had come over him, to know the man and the boy he used to be.

  He lifted her hand and kissed her fingertips. “They were days filled with much laughter. You must understand, my parents were very old when I was born, and my childhood was one of joy, though I will admit my mother’s watchful eye never left me. She was . . . protective.” He smiled and brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I did not understand why they sent my older brother Ishmael away—I was only four at the time. I had looked up to him, and he used to play games with me. But my mother was always watching, forever watching, how other boys and girls in the camp treated me. I was the heir, the prince, and she would not allow me to be mistreated.”

  A wistful look crossed his handsome features, and Rebekah’s heart stirred, hurting for the little boy who could not live as other boys would have lived.

  “Did you have no friends?”

  Some of the servants seemed close to Isaac the man. Did they romp and play as children?

  He shrugged. “Haviv and I carried out a few mischievous pranks—when my mother was not looking, of course.” He grinned.

  “Of course.” She smiled, sensing some of the tension had seeped from him.

  He leaned back, stretching out on the grass, and tugged her to lie in the crook of his arm, their gazes toward the stars again. “My father and I have been through some difficult times,” he said after another lengthy silence. “We do not speak of them, but we understand each other. My mother . . . she could never come to terms with my father’s obedience to Adonai Elohim, to the lengths he would go . . .”

  She waited several heartbeats, but he did not finish his thought. She felt the rhythm of his heart pick up its pace, and his breath came out in a strained sigh. What memories pierced him so deeply that he could not speak of them? Perhaps she had coaxed him too soon. They had a lifetime to discuss their pasts, to explain what lay beneath the surface of their thoughts. And yet, wasn’t this what the wedding week was meant to accomplish?

  She rolled onto her side, leaning on one elbow. “Can you not tell me, my lord? Are the memories painful?” Did his father do something to him? Discipline him against his mother’s will? She could not begin to imagine . . .

  He did not shift to face her, his eyes fixed on some point in the expanse above. “I will tell you, Rebekah.”

  She waited, watching deep furrows lengthen across his brow.

  “I will tell you what it is that separated my mother and father, that keeps me choosing to live a life apart from my father.” He turned at last, rising on one elbow to lean over her. “But not today. Not yet.”

  He traced a finger along her jaw, and she knew by the look he gave her that he was silently begging her to let it go, to wait for another time when he could trust her enough to share it. She nodded, saddened, yet grateful for the relief in his eyes.

  “It is a hard story to tell,” he said as his hand gently cupped her cheek. “The memories still invade my dreams.”

  Then why not share them and be rid of the memories?

  But she did not voice the question. She somehow knew that saying even this much had cost him. Did he trust no one? How many in the camp knew what had happened to him? Was he keeping it secret from only her?

  “I hope someday you will feel comfortable enough to tell it.” She lifted both hands to sift through his hair, pulled him toward her, and kissed him, surprising them both at her boldness. She laughed, and he joined her.

  “Thank you, my love.” His smile took her breath. “Someday I will not only tell you, but I will take you to the place where it all began.” He kissed her again, and she responded in kind.

  Rebekah smoothed the rumpled lines from her robe and tried to stifle a shudder as the beat of the wedding drum filled the camp. Flutes and lyres and the sounds of many voices took up the song of blessing, the one that marked the end of their wedding week. She waited at the tent’s door behind Isaac’s taller frame. He turned and reached for her hand.

  “Are you ready?” His look held all of the love he had expressed to her in the past seven days, and the mirth in his smile was one she had happily come to expect.

  “I am ready.” Heat moved from her neck to her cheeks, and she almost wished for the veil of her maidenhood to hide behind.

  He nodded once and touched her cheek. “You are beautiful, as always.” He rested his hand on her shoulder and offered her a reassuring squeeze.

  Loud cheers erupted as he emerged from the tent, and Rebekah heard the familiar sounds of boisterous back slapping along with Haviv’s deep voice and Eliezer’s mellow laughter. She waited, her breath shallow, until she reminded herself to breathe deeply. The m
ale banter continued, but the voices grew more distant, and still she waited.

  At last the music changed to a higher pitch, and the chatter of women’s voices came close to the tent. She drew a calming breath, lifted the flap, and stepped into bright sunlight.

  “There she is!” Selima’s squeal made her laugh, and she caught her maid in a quick embrace. Deborah’s arms came around her soon after, and Eliezer’s wife Lila, his daughters, and even Keturah hurried to her side.

  “When this last feast is over, I want you to tell me everything,” Selima whispered after the women had ushered her to the central fire, set her on a cushioned seat beside Isaac, and brought trays of food for them to eat.

  Rebekah glanced at Isaac, whose look held secrets shared and knowledge she knew she could tell no one. But she indulged Selima with a smile. “Perhaps not everything.” At the girl’s pout, Rebekah touched her arm. “But we will talk.” She accepted the tray from a servant, then turned to face Isaac.

  Plucking a date from the tray, she touched it to her lips, then placed it in Isaac’s mouth. He accepted her offering, the symbol of a promise that she would do all in her power to keep him well fed. He chewed slowly as the music played around them. Women danced, twirling to the rhythm of timbrels and shaking of sistrums, but Isaac appeared not to notice. His mouth quirked in a knowing smile as he tossed the pit into the fire.

  His hand closed over a thick piece of sheep cheese. He touched it to his lips, then held it to her mouth. She nibbled the end—his promise to provide for her from his flocks and herds. She took another bite but let him finish the large chunk, a joint promise to use each provision wisely.

  Eliezer handed Isaac a golden chalice, and he took a long drink from the fruit of the vine. He touched his mouth with the back of his hand, then tipped the cup toward her. She drank as well, peeking over the rim to hold his steady, loving gaze.