The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  “My bone and my flesh!” he announced. “You must stay with me at least a month.”

  DURING THAT MONTH Jacob worked for his uncle Laban with eagerness and a tireless efficiency. I will be no lazy shepherd, he thought. I’ll make myself indispensable.

  Therefore, he learned the lay of the land around Haran, the places of best pasturage, the caves where he might, if necessary, protect sheep from wild beasts or bad weather, the springs and wells and cisterns scattered in the wilderness. No matter where the shepherd led his flock, it must always be within a day’s reach of water.

  Laban’s family lived in round stone houses with roofs of flat stone laid on wooden beams which radiated from a central pillar. The roofs were plastered and did not leak. Until this month Jacob had always dwelt in tents.

  Moreover, Laban had created an elaborate system of sheepfolds by means of many low, stone walls. All his flocks could therefore return in the same night and still be kept separate.

  In the evenings Jacob watched as hundreds of sheep and goats came home. He had a quick eye for the slightest limp and an easy hand with the crook to single out the sick kid. Better yet, he knew how to bind a wound and heal an infection.

  At the end of a month Laban came to Jacob rubbing his jaw and shaking his head.

  “Son of my sister,” he said, slapping the young man’s back, “I don’t think I can do without you anymore. I have sons of my own, of course. And daughters, as you know very well: Leah, the older, and Rachel, the younger. Excellent children, all of them. Good workers, too. But you! You—” He started to laugh. Jacob, too, laughed. They laughed together.

  “Will you stay?” said Laban. “Will you work for me? I’ll pay you, nephew. You name your wage and we have a deal.”

  Jacob knew exactly the wage that he wanted.

  “Rachel,” he said.

  Laban’s smile stuck. “What? Who?”

  Jacob said, “Sir, I’ll serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel.” His grin, when he pronounced the name, was dazzling; but his eye had a naked quality and a flash of panic: “That she might be my wife,” he said.

  Laban said, “Better I give the girl to you than to any other man. We have a deal.”

  FOR SEVEN YEARS Jacob went forth every morning singing.

  Everyone in Laban’s house knew when Jacob was putting on his leather sandals and his cloak of leather. He sang about them. He sang about the girdle he wore. He named each bit of food in his scrip: bread, cheese, dates, raisins. To him his water bag contained a wine of criminal sweetness. And curdled goat’s milk was the meat of kings and queens.

  So he strode forth ahead of his flocks carrying three weapons: a sling, a stout studded club, and a voice of such garrulous confidence that any wild beast who heard him coming fled.

  “Such long black lashes on these ewe lambs!” he sighed. “Eyes like Rachel’s eyes.”

  He would lie on the ground in the midst of the flock, murmuring, “I’m surrounded by a host of Rachels!”

  And the time passed as easily as a river at high water. Jacob the son of Isaac was very happy.

  AT THE END of seven years, Jacob washed himself, perfumed his hair, put on fresh clothes and new sandals, and went to the house of his uncle Laban.

  “Sir,” he said, “it’s time. The years of my service are complete, and I wish now to marry your daughter.”

  Laban said, “Yes, it is surely time that you marry a daughter of mine!”

  So the father of the bride sent out invitations to all the people of that region.

  On the wedding day women gathered with Laban’s wife and daughters in their private rooms to prepare the bride. By afternoon men had crowded into Laban’s courtyards where they ate and enjoyed a variety of entertainments. Jacob sat in a seat of high dignity, beaming, speechless.

  Finally at midnight Laban escorted his daughter, veiled face and foot in the most expensive raiment, to Jacob the bridegroom; then he led the couple through a pathway of grinning guests to a newly-built house, the doorway of which was graced by a carved stone lintel.

  To the groom he said, “Here is your wife for the rest of your life. Take pleasure in her, my son.”

  The bride he admonished with these words: “My daughter, hold your tongue. Obey your husband ever in a humble silence.”

  Then he cried, “Tonight, no lights! Pleasure only, my dear children!” And he shut the door upon them.

  In time the wedding guests departed, both the men and the women. Servants cleared away all signs of celebration.

  IN THE MORNING there rose from Jacob’s new house such a roaring that half of Haran woke.

  Jacob burst out and crossed the courtyard to Laban’s door. He didn’t knock. He went straight inside and pointed at the man on his pallet, shouting, “What have you done to me?”

  Jacob struck his forehead with a fist. “I served you for Rachel,” he cried. “It is Rachel I love. All night long I thought I was with Rachel. Rachel! But this morning I look, and what do I see? I see Leah! Leah of the weak eyes! Leah! Why have you deceived me, old man?”

  Laban sat up with a wounded look on his face. “How can you say such things to me?” he said. “One would think you were an enemy, not a nephew.”

  “Enemy?” shrieked Jacob. “Fraud! You are a fraud and not a father!”

  “Please, Jacob. Please, let’s not argue so,” said Laban, smooth as honey. “Harsh words hurt me. This is all a mere misunderstanding.”

  He stood and reached up to pat Jacob’s shoulder. “We have a custom here. I thought you knew. In this country we let the firstborn marry first, and the second-born second. It’s the natural sequence. But,” said Laban, throwing open his arms to embrace his son-in-law, “if you will serve me another seven years, you may marry the second-born, too. Within the week, in fact! Within the week you may lead the lovely Rachel, too, to your new stone house.” The short man stood back and smiled. “What do you say? Do we have a bargain?”

  Jacob’s face was black as thunder. But his voice was small muttering, and he said, “Yes.”

  “What? What did you say, nephew?”

  “Yes,” said Jacob. “We have a bargain.”

  III

  Leah Speaks

  WHEN MY HUSBAND discovered that I was not my sister, I did not blame him for his anger. I had expected anger. I only hoped he would not hit me, and he didn’t. He scarcely looked at me. At me, I mean. He did not see Leah. He saw not-Rachel.

  Mine was the more elaborate wedding, of course, being first. Louder. More food, more guests.

  It was when he led my sister into the same room where one week earlier he had led me; it was when he asked me to leave my new house and return to my mother’s house a while; it was when he went into my sister fully knowing who she was and able, therefore, to call her by name; it was then that I surprised myself with sorrow.

  I had said I would not love him. But I failed.

  Thereafter I cooked well, and he praised my food. But he lingered over Rachel’s.

  At shearing time he weighed our portions of wool evenly. Each bundle was the balance of the other. But Rachel’s wool, when it was washed, showed not a fiber that was not white.

  I tried to hide my sorrow. It had not been planned that I should love Jacob. Nor was it his fault that I did. So he did not see my heart. But the Lord saw.

  The Lord soon opened my womb and I conceived and I carried the baby nine months and I bore for my husband his firstborn son. I named him Reuben, because the Lord had looked upon my affliction, and I thought: Surely now my husband, too, will notice me.

  Not long after that I conceived again and bore another son, and I thought, Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also. So I named him Simeon.

  Again I conceived and bore a son and I called him Levi. I thought that surely now my husband would be joined to me, seeing that I had borne him three sons.

  Well, but I who was rich in one thing was poor in the other. Jacob loved his children,
yes. And since that first night he nevermore looked with anger at me. Simply, he did not look at me with anything at all, neither a thought nor a word nor a feeling. When he looked at me he did not see Leah. He saw not-Rachel.

  While I was bearing children all those years, my sister was barren. She was unhappy. So Jacob was unhappy, too.

  I heard them whispering at midnight.

  She said, “Jacob, eitheryou give me children like Leah, or I shall die!”

  He said, “Ah, Rachel, do you think I am in the place of God? I’m not the one who closed your womb.”

  When, therefore, I conceived and bore another son, I no longer sought the love of my husband by means of my children. I said out loud, “This time I will praise the Lord!” And I named the baby Judah.

  But this fourth child tormented my sister. She stopped talking to me. She ignored my four sons. And if ever she was saying something to Jacob when I drew near, she broke it off and glared at me.

  I saw that Jacob’s shoulders began to droop and his eyes grew tired.

  Then I saw that Rachel’s maid, Bilhah, was with child, and I understood. Bilhah bore the baby upon my sister’s knees, so it was considered to be Rachel’s; and as soon as she saw that it was a boy she cried, “God has judged me and has heard my voice and has given me a son!” She named him Dan to commemorate this judgment of God.

  Within a year Rachel’s maid bore another son. I was not in the room at the time, yet the whole family heard Rachel’s voice ring out when the boy was born. She said: “With mighty wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed.” The word she used for “wrestle” is niphtal. So she named the baby Naphtali.

  Shall I be blamed for offering my husband my maid then, too? By Zilpah I had two more sons. I named the first one Gad because he was for me good fortune; and the second I named Asher: Happy. And why should I not be happy, seeing that I was now the mother of six?

  Still, my sister was not happy.

  One morning during the wheat harvest my oldest son found mandrake roots. Roots shaped like a little man. They help women to bear boys. Rachel must have noticed. That afternoon she came to the threshing floor where I was working, picked up a flail, and began to beat the wheat beside me. Then she astonished me by speaking.

  “Give me some of Reuben’s mandrake,” she said.

  Those are the first words my sister had spoken to me in more than ten years. God forgive me, mine were no kinder than hers.

  “Why should I?” I said. “Does the woman who stole my husband’s love now want my son’s roots, too?”

  “Jacob visits you,” she said.

  “Not for years, Rachel,” I said. “With Zilpah, yes. Not with me.”

  “Not for a single night?”

  “Well, you tell me which night he has not been with you, and that will be the night he spent with me.”

  “Not one?”

  “None.”

  Rachel fell silent, swinging her double stick, thumping the hard dirt, beating the wheat-sheaves into kernel and chaff—while I said nothing. I had covered my face with my skirt. I did not want my sister to see that I was crying.

  But then she stopped threshing and I felt her hand on the back of my neck.

  “Leah,” she said, “let’s make a trade. I’ll give you nights with Jacob, this night now and others hereafter, and we will not be enemies anymore, but sisters. And will my sister then give me some of her son’s mandrake roots?”

  This is the moment in my story which I most want to tell: that I embraced my sister. We burst into tears and held one another, and I found how deeply I loved her. No, I had never ceased to love the beautiful Rachel.

  The mandrake did not help her. But she helped me. I bore two more sons and a daughter after that, and for each birth my sister was my midwife. We named the first of these three Issachar, and the second Zebulun, and the little girl Dinah. That was the end of my childbearing. I gave birth to no more children.

  But my sister did.

  Finally God hearkened to our ceaseless prayer on her behalf and opened her womb and the entire family rejoiced when Rachel conceived and bore a son.

  On that day Jacob remembered how to smile again. Ah, his face was a flood of sunlight. He was happy. I was happy.

  And Rachel gave beautiful voice to her own happiness. She said, “The Lord God has taken my reproach away!”

  She named her first son Joseph.

  IV

  WHEN LABAN WAS HAPPY he would grin so hard, that he produced beads of sweat on the top of his bald head. Lately the short man was sweating all the time, always dandling some new grandchild on his knee.

  Jacob, the son of his sister Rebekah, had been for him an incalculable treasure. Ever since the young man’s arrival nineteen years ago, Laban’s flocks had continued to redouble themselves. Moreover, because his nephew held the rank of a servant in the household, the laws of the land gave Laban authority over Jacob’s wives—his daughters—and over all their children.

  Laban couldn’t say that he’d actually planned such a rich old age; but neither would he deny that he deserved it. It was his cunning that had caused it, after all; a lesser man would not now be sitting so easy, dandling grandsons.

  But there came a morning when Laban stepped outside to find Jacob standing by the door, hunched, haggard, and brooding.

  “My son, what’s the matter?” Laban boomed, full of good will.

  Jacob said, “I have to leave Haran.”

  “What did you say?”

  Jacob looked directly at Laban. “Sir, I beg you to let me go.”

  “Go? So you’re speaking of going somewhere. Where?”

  “Home.”

  “Ah,” said Laban. “Of course. A visit.”

  “No, sir. No,” said Jacob. He wore a full beard now, grizzled grey with his working. He was broad-shouldered; no day went by when he did not bend his back to some heavy labor. But he had in these latter years descended into silence. Who knew why talkative young men gave up that grander part of themselves? Laban, on the other hand, had kept his tongue oiled and was proud of his ready speech.

  “Say on, my son,” he said.

  Jacob drew a deep breath. “You yourself know how your herds have increased all the years I’ve served you,” he said. “And you know how honest I’ve been. Please, sir: release your daughters to me. Let me take my children and return to the land of my fathers. I want to be wandering again. This sitting in one place—” Jacob shook his head. “This working all in one place for so long…I…Laban, I haven’t even been able to lay anything by for my family!”

  “Right!” cried Laban. He seized Jacob’s arm. “Exactly right! You must provide for your family before you do anything else! Before you even think of leaving, we must negotiate some better wage for you and the children. Tell me what you want, and it is yours.”

  Jacob gazed at his uncle a moment. He turned and looked toward the sheepfolds, then back at his uncle again. “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t want you to give me anything—”

  “Jacob!” Laban shouted. “Nephew! Don’t be hasty. I’ve a mind to be generous today. Just tell me what I should give you.”

  Softly Jacob said, “Give me nothing. But let me keep for myself those few lambs and kids born spotted or mottled or speckled or striped. Every white sheep shall be yours. Every goat born completely black or brown—yours.”

  Small sweat popped out on Laban’s head, but he restrained his twitching grin. He frowned, murmuring, “Multicolored cattle to you, the rest to me. Hmm.” But lambs are nearly always white, and kids all brown or black. Laban, subdued by the stress of this decision, said, “I agree. Keep them that drop speckled from their dams.” Then he clapped his hands and cried, “So you’ll stay, right? Building your herds? Working for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. It’s a beautiful day. Let’s go to work.”

  As soon as Jacob was out of sight, Laban called his sons and commanded them to separate every sheep with the slightest color, e
very goat with the tiniest white, and drive them away, a full three days’ journey away.

  That night when he returned from the fields, Jacob met cattle all one color. Not one goat had a star on its forehead, not one ewe showed one hair brown.

  ONE YEAR LATER—in spring, when Laban, his sons, and all his shepherds were busy shearing their sheep—Jacob’s servant found Leah and Rachel among the women, washing the wool.

  The servant spoke secretly with them. “Veil your faces,” he said, “and follow me. I’ll show you where Jacob is.”

  This was curious. Both wives had assumed that their husband was with the rest of the family. Instead, they were led by a hard route westward, traveling all day till suddenly a valley opened below them, and there they saw huge flocks and herds, and strange people guarding them—and tents! Here were men and women and children, living in tents!

  Jacob, bearded and light in a loincloth, strode up the slope of the valley and met them. He put his hands first on Rachel’s shoulders and next on Leah’s, gazing into their eyes so intently that they felt distressed and wondered what it meant.

  He dismissed the servant, then led the women to a massive stone nearby. He himself did not sit.

  “Jacob,” Leah said, “I’ve never seen these cattle before, have I?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Are they yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does my father know about them?”

  Her husband’s eyes widened with an agitation Leah hadn’t seen before. “No,” Jacob said softly, “Laban doesn’t know.”

  Leah turned to Rachel. “Not one animal has a solid color,” she said. “See that? They’re all speckled or spotted. But they look strong. Jacob, they look very large and strong.”

  Jacob said, “I have something to say to you. Listen first, then tell me what you think.”

  The man spoke quietly. There was such appeal in his voice—such concern for their present response—that the women felt a certain strength come into them, and a certain dread.