Rebekah

by Jill Eileen Smith

  She fingered the threads, mentally counting the rows. The robe was nearly half done, and when it was completed, she would present it to Isaac to give to Esau. Perhaps then he would believe that she loved Esau too.

  A sigh formed within her, and she slowly let it out and looked through the open sides of the tent toward the hills, toward Gerar, where Isaac and Haviv had gone early that morning. The mist of dawn had long since lifted, and the women of the camp had settled into their normal daily routines, though Deborah had yet to join her at the loom. Selima needed her mother to help with her children more than Rebekah needed her help with the weaving. But she did not enjoy the loneliness such times afforded.

  She straightened, rubbing the small of her back, then chose another color to weave into the warp. Male voices made her look up again, and this time she spotted Isaac coming toward her. She jumped up from the low stool where she had been sitting and hurried into the sunlight.

  “You are back so soon! Did the king accept you? Are the water rights secure?”

  She had overheard the discussions, the arguments Isaac and Haviv had raised during many an evening meal. Even Jacob had given an opinion she thought fair, but Isaac seemed only interested in hearing Haviv’s comments. Esau had been off doing as he pleased.

  Isaac took hold of her elbow and gently guided her back into the weaving tent, out of the sun’s glare and out of earshot of the servants in the camp. “Order the servants to pack our things and be ready to leave in three days. We are moving away from here.”

  How familiar this conversation. She lifted a brow in question. “But what of the wells? I thought now that we have grown to such a large company, the king enjoyed our protection.”

  He studied her a brief moment. “The king is the one sending us away. He feels we are no longer protection but a threat.”

  “A threat?” Her gentle husband a threat? Ridiculous!

  “Yes.” He glanced beyond her, as though searching for something to convince her.

  “If the king says to go, we will go. There are better places to live, in any case.”

  He gave her a quizzical look, and she struggled to understand the thoughts behind his dark eyes. “Is there something more, my lord?”

  He shook his head. “Have you seen Esau?”

  A bitter twinge pierced her that he should desire to leave her so quickly to go off in search of his favorite son. “Jacob is in the camp, but I have not seen Esau.” Let him be reminded that he had one son he could count on to be nearby, to do his bidding.

  Isaac glanced beyond her, but she did not miss the firm set to his jaw. “Tell Jacob to meet me near the donkeys. And send a servant to find Esau.”

  “He is probably off in search of a wife.”

  The boy cared not a whit what she thought of his exploits. Perhaps this move would be good for him, get him away from the foreign women of Gerar.

  Isaac looked thoughtful, but there was a sternness in his gaze she did not like, one he had turned her way only when they had argued about the twins.

  “Perhaps it is time we seek a wife for him then.”

  “He is barely twenty!”

  “The age does not matter if the man is ready.”

  “Esau is not responsible enough for such a thing.”

  “And I will not expect his mother to coddle him and keep him from the life God intends if he is ready to bring a bride into the camp.” His words were firm, and she did not miss the challenge in his gaze.

  “I do not coddle him!” she hissed, glancing beyond him, fearful the servants would overhear.

  “No, you reserve that for Jacob.”

  The stinging words felt like a slap to her cheek. She flushed hot, and his dark eyes pierced hers. When had he grown so angry with her? Is that what he really thought? She would admit to enjoying Jacob’s desire to live near the tents, to come and go with the sheep rather than spend days away in the hills hunting in the wild. His malleable spirit had allowed her to train him, to teach him all he must know to be ruler of the camp one day. But of course Isaac resented this.

  “I do not coddle Jacob either.” She finally spoke, but the words were barely above a whisper now.

  Isaac stared at her, then shook his head as though the whole discussion were a frustration to him. “I thought we were past this. I did not come here to argue again. Just send for Esau and start packing. Be ready to leave in three days.”

  He turned and walked away from her without a backward glance, leaving her feeling like a child who had been severely chastised. She put a hand to her burning cheek, grateful to be alone in the tent, to recover from the shock of all of Isaac’s words.

  31

  Rebekah tucked a stray strand of hair beneath her head covering, but it was useless against the wind that seemed determined to whip both her hair and the scarf from their proper place. She gave up on the third try and faced the cool breeze coming down from the hills, not caring what she looked like or who might see. Strange how time had changed her. There had been a day in her youth when her beauty had been her prized possession, the envy of many a woman, the desire of many a man. When had she stopped caring?

  She trudged forward, at last setting her jar in the stone impression at the well of Shibah, the last and final well Isaac’s servants had dug near Beersheba, where they had settled and made peace with the Philistines. How long ago it seemed to her now.

  She lifted the rope that held the pitch-lined wooden bucket and lowered it to the spring gurgling in the depths below. The younger servant girls could handle this task, but today she needed the distraction and the time to clear her head.

  She strained against the rope, heavy now with the full water bucket, and startled at the sound of male voices behind her. She gripped the rope tighter and hurried to pull it up, her pulse jumping within her. But one glance behind her put her heart at ease.

  “Ima, let me get that for you.”

  Jacob’s welcome voice warmed her, and she could not help but smile at the man he had become. How strong and good he was!

  “Do you think your mother so weak that she cannot draw water?” She hefted the water over the lip of the well and grasped it in her hands, carried it to the stone jar, and carefully poured it to the rim. “Would you like some?” She offered him what was left in the bottom, then noted the men, Haviv’s oldest sons, who were with him. “There is enough for you and your friends, my son.”

  He took it from her and drank, then handed it to one of the men. “Thank you, Ima.” He sat on the side of the well and looked at her, his smile mischievous.

  “I know that look, Jacob. You are too pleased with yourself.”

  “I have good reason to be.” He laughed, and she thought the sound almost musical. He glanced at his two friends whose smiles stretched wide over tan, bearded faces.

  “Tell me quickly, lest I die of curiosity.”

  She leaned against the well beside him, struck again by the way the passing years had matured him. She ought to seek a wife for him soon, and not from the neighboring tribes as Esau had done. One wife, as she had been to Isaac, not like those two bickering heathens Esau had married without his parents’ permission. She held back a powerful urge to sigh, to give in to the weighted feeling she carried too often of late, the one that made her feel ancient and useless. If not for Jacob, what good would her life be? She and Isaac had grown so distant . . .

  “It all started with lentils,” Jacob said, pulling her thoughts back to the present and causing laughter among the three men.

  She was far too distracted and distraught these days, and she blamed it on Judith and Basemath, the daughters-in-law she did not want.

  “Lentils?” She pulled the scarf closer and turned her back to the wind, facing Jacob. “What are you talking about?”

  “Lentils and your son’s famous red stew,” Haviv’s firstborn son said.

  “Well, famous now,” said the other. “And it will be a long time before Esau asks to taste it again, if I were to bet on it.”

>   She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, leveling her most stern look at her son, but she could not keep the pride from filling her at the way he smiled when he returned her look with an amused one of his own.

  “Do not look so distressed, Ima. This news will please you. I promise.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned back against the well, stretching both legs out and crossing them at the ankles. “I took some of the lentils from the last harvest and added some vegetables and the spices you favor. The pot hung over the fire, and I checked on it now and then. I intended to surprise you with it during the evening meal, but Esau came into camp famished from being out in the fields, not to mention that his trek into the wilderness yielded nothing.”

  “Your father will be disappointed.”

  Isaac had grown even fonder of the wild game Esau hunted as he aged, since his own arm had weakened against trying to hold the bow.

  “Not as disappointed as he will be when he hears what Esau agreed to do.” The comment brought a sober look to his dark eyes, and for a fleeting moment Rebekah wondered if Jacob also regretted whatever had taken place between himself and his brother.

  “What did Esau agree to?”

  She felt the slightest wave of apprehension fill her. Esau’s wives already caused both her and Isaac enough grief. They did not need trouble beyond the normal silent animosity between their sons as well. Animosity driven by the rift that had grown between herself and Isaac, a chasm she could not seem to breach despite her best efforts.

  “He sold me his birthright for a pot of my stew.”

  The words rocked her, and she stared at her son, mouth agape, until she realized how awkward she must look to him, to his friends. She closed her mouth and searched his gaze. “Tell me you are serious and not making sport of me.”

  “I would not do such a thing.” Though he had teased her many times in the past.

  “Why would your brother despise his birthright so much that he would toss it away to fill his belly?” The idea was ludicrous—it made no sense.

  “Apparently, he did not care, Ima.”

  She held his gaze, saw the slightest waver, as though he were trying not to squirm under her scrutiny, much as he had done as a small boy when she had caught him in a lie. “You coaxed him into it.”

  He inclined his head in a half nod, and that mischievous smile courted the edges of his beard. “You could say so.”

  “Tell me.”

  He shrugged. “He came in from the fields, saw the stew, and demanded I give him some. I said he could have a bowl if he sold me his birthright first. He agreed. I made him swear it, and he did.”

  She looked at him long and hard, glanced beyond him to his two friends whose smiling faces affirmed Jacob’s words. Was this Adonai’s way of fulfilling the promise He had made to her all those years ago?

  Satisfaction filled her. Isaac would have to believe her now! And she would make sure he knew the full tale, would force Esau to admit it if she must. Then when Isaac was ready to give the final blessing of the birthright, she would remind him that it belonged to Jacob now.

  She smiled into Jacob’s eyes and patted his knee. “You did very well, my son. God will surely bless your efforts.” She chose not to dwell on the niggling thought that perhaps God’s plan might have come about in a different, less deceptive way.

  Isaac stood at the edge of the field that housed the well of Shibah, watching the exchange between Rebekah and Jacob. He shaded his eyes with a hand, the glare of the sun more troublesome than it had been in his younger days. A cloudy film made things in the distance harder to discern, but he knew his wife’s laughter in a crowd and the sound of her favorite son’s voice.

  The favoritism saddened him, as it always did when he thought on his sons. When had they taken sides, choosing one against the other? Except for the two women he had married, Esau had grown to make his father proud. Why could Rebekah not see it? It was Jacob who owned her heart, even taking Isaac’s rightful place. Had their disagreement come to this?

  He shook his head, his thoughts turning wistful. He loved Jacob. And Jacob did seem to possess a greater perception of Adonai’s ways, but he had no desire to get out in the fields with the servants, to lead by example, and he was much too content to stay near the tents with his mother. If God had chosen this one over the other, Isaac simply could not see it.

  He gripped his staff and walked toward the well. When had walking the uneven ground become so difficult? When had one hundred summers stopped feeling like forty?

  A sigh forced its way through his lips, and he turned toward the laughter coming from the group at the well. If only he and Rebekah could share such laughter once more. Surely there was a way to mend their differences. And yet, he wasn’t sure he was willing to sacrifice Esau on the altar of Rebekah’s choices.

  Jacob greeted him with a smile. “Abba! How good of you to join us.”

  His welcoming voice eased some of the tension around Isaac’s heart, and he accepted his son’s kiss with a smile.

  “I could not help but be drawn by your laughter.” He looked at Rebekah, searching her face for the comfort he longed for, that she used to offer him.

  “Jacob was relaying a story, my lord. You know how well he tells them.” Rebekah moved to his side and touched his arm, her expression serious. “You must listen to all that he says.”

  Something flickered in her eyes that made his knees suddenly weak as a newborn calf’s, and he quickly lowered his body to sit beside the well, listening as Jacob told the tale of Esau selling to him his birthright. Anguish filled him, and he could not move or speak.

  “Is this true?” He looked at Haviv’s two sons, who nodded affirmation, then held Jacob’s unflinching gaze.

  “All of it, Father.” He knelt at Isaac’s side and rested his head on Isaac’s knee. “I am sorry if this displeases you.”

  Isaac drew in a breath, willing his limbs to obey his commands, and at last rested a hand on Jacob’s head. “Your brother’s despising of his birthright displeases me.” Did the right of the firstborn mean so little to him? Isaac could not fathom a hunger that could not be assuaged some other way than by making such a rash choice. “The birthright is yours,” he said, though he still could not make his heart believe it.

  “The birthright and the blessing.”

  Rebekah’s voice broke through his mind’s fog, and he looked at her. This was what she had wanted all along. So be it.

  “The birthright and the blessing,” he said, patting Jacob’s head.

  Jacob rose up from his knees and kissed him.

  32

  The summer’s heat bore down on the camp even though the sun hit at an angle that suggested day was ending. The shade of the tent could not lift the oppression, and the intermittent breeze did little to rustle the leaves or cool Isaac’s skin. He opened his eyes to watch the women grinding grain and stirring some sort of stew or syrup, gossiping all the while, their voices like chattering birds. If only he could clearly see their faces as their shadows passed before his tent or recognize Esau’s children as they played somewhere nearby. But time had robbed him of most of his sight and left him with little pleasure.

  He rubbed a hand over his beard and sighed, recognizing Rebekah’s voice calling to Selima and, moments later, Jacob’s deeper one coming closer.

  “Abba, Haviv and I have come.”

  The cushions rustled beside him, and he felt Jacob kneel and kiss his cheek. His son smelled of a mixture of sheep and spice, as though he had just come from the cooking pots or the sheep pens. Perhaps both.

  “Good, good. Come and sit and visit for a while.”

  The sounds of the men settling near him told him they had complied with his wishes. When had life become more about spending time with loved ones and less about working the fields, gathering and setting aside for winter’s store?

  “My lord, there is news of Ishmael.” Haviv’s quiet voice held the hint of concern Isaac had come to expect from him. Concern mature
d by the heartache of losing his brother Nadab to his own choices, and by the deaths of his parents Eliezer and Lila several years before. Few were left of Abraham’s generation.

  “Tell me.” Though he already sensed the truth.

  “Word has come through a messenger sent from Kedar, Ishmael’s son, that Ishmael now rests with his fathers. They buried him several weeks past.”

  “And they are just now sending word?” He would have traveled to bid his farewell if he could have done so with ease. But at one hundred and twenty-four years, he did not move about as he once did. Blind men did not go anywhere of their own accord.

  “It would seem that they sent word as soon as they could, my lord. The distance is not a close one.” Haviv always managed to make the truth realistic.

  “I am sorry for Uncle Ishmael’s loss, Abba.” Jacob touched his shoulder, and Isaac lifted his face in the direction of his voice.

  “Has your brother Esau been told?”

  Esau was the one who would miss Ishmael the most. Esau still visited his uncle from time to time, staying away longer with each visit, giving Isaac and Rebekah even less respite from the two Canaanite wives he left behind. At least when Esau was home in the camp, he managed to keep peace between the women.

  As Jacob’s sigh reached his ears, he regretted asking after his brother. “Esau left the moment he spoke to Ishmael’s messenger. I do not expect he will return for several weeks now,” Haviv said, speaking for Jacob.

  “He left without a word to me?” The boy could have at least said farewell. The thought pained him, but he did not voice it. “He is impulsive. He will miss his uncle.”

  “Yes.” Haviv cleared his throat. “He did not take the women or children with him, so perhaps he will return more quickly.”

  Isaac grunted. “Would that he had.” He lowered his voice. “Is there not enough strife in the camp since he brought them here?” He and Rebekah had grieved long and often over Esau’s two Canaanite wives.