Rebekah: Women of Genesis (40 page)

“I’ll try to make you proud of me,” said Rebekah. “All my life, I only wanted to serve the God of Abraham.”

“The God of Abraham and Isaac,” said Abraham. “And Esau, if God is willing.”

Or if Esau is, Rebekah said silently.

“I never even hoped that I might be blessed to spend so many years in your household, learning from you. God has been kind to me.”

He smiled then, and did not remind her of how much she had resisted living in his household and learning from him. He didn’t need to.

“Send my boy to me now,” he said. “Send me Isaac. I need to hold him to my heart again before I die.” He sighed, and his breath caught with emotion. “God sent us such a good and pure spirit to be our son. We couldn’t bear to think of the world soiling him or hurting him, and we protected him too much. We should have known that his goodness was strong enough to stand anything.”

Those were the words she had longed to hear. The words she hoped he would also say to Isaac, for if there was any shadow in Isaac’s life, it was his hunger to know his father loved and honored him. Why couldn’t he have said them before, to Isaac’s face, or to others in Isaac’s presence?

She leaned over and kissed Abraham’s brow, and thanked him, and bade him farewell, and then went out to fetch her husband.

Isaac went in to his father and remained alone with him until he died.

Chapter 14

Rebekah had expected that Abraham’s death, when it came, would change their lives completely, and things were in fact different. They moved back to Lahai-roi, because Rebekah and Isaac both preferred it there—and because it was farther from the cities of the Philistines, where Esau now was being inexorably drawn. With Keturah gone, Rebekah was the undisputed ruler of the women, and because they already knew her, and because Rebekah was a fairer and more patient mistress than Keturah had been, she found no lack of loyalty and help among the women.

But those were all relatively small changes, really. Rebekah had hoped for a more profound change—that without his father’s overwhelming presence, Isaac would become less diffident with the servants, more willing to issue firm commands. But he remained as he always had been, kind and compassionate but prone not to make decisions unless they were of particular urgency. His patience was as inexhaustible as ever—even in cases where firm action could have solved a problem before it got started. It was frustrating that one of Isaac’s finest virtues as a man should be a weakness, at least sometimes, as a ruler.

On the other hand, Rebekah was relieved that contrary to Sarah’s old fears, Ishmael did not make any kind of move against Isaac at all. Ishmael came to Abraham’s burial as he had come for his blessing, with only a small retinue of men. Cousin Moab actually brought more men from his town east of the Jordan. And when Isaac gave Ishmael a gift of a vast number of cattle—which Eliezer had counseled against, lest it be interpreted as tribute—Ishmael responded by giving Isaac a gift of even more sheep, so that neither could be said to have enriched—or intimidated—the other.

As the brothers laid their father’s wrapped body in the cave of Machpelah beside the dried, mummified body of Sarah, Rebekah felt nothing but relief in her heart, for instead of quarreling they embraced each other and wept for their father. Perhaps they wept for different things—Ishmael for the loss of his company when he was a youth and needed him; Isaac for the way Abraham never seemed satisfied with him despite all his effort to be worthy—or perhaps they wept for the same thing, because he was a good man that they loved deeply and whose absence would be keenly felt. Either way, they were at peace with each other there at the tomb Abraham had bought to hold the body of his beloved wife.

And the house of Isaac remained at peace with all his kin, and as for possible enemies outside the family, any who had power enough to be a threat simply had no motive. Abraham had been a man of peace with the strength and will to preserve it. Isaac was no less peaceful, and at first, no one tried to test his will or strength.

Only Rebekah could see that Abraham’s death, rather than liberating Isaac from the burdens that his father had placed upon him, only guaranteed that there would be no relief as long as Isaac lived. That memory of his father choosing to obey God and offer up his life, however he might understand it and even agree with it in his mind, still preyed on him in his heart and showed itself in Isaac’s contempt for his own abilities. Whatever Abraham might have said to him on his deathbed, whatever blessing he might have given, it was not enough to counter all the years of self-doubt, the hopeless self-evaluation that had become a part of Isaac’s character.

The one gift I long most to give him, thought Rebekah, the one that a wife
should
be able to give, is simply beyond my power. Whatever preys on Isaac’s soul, only God can take from him; whatever happiness he hungers for, only God can give it.

With time, however, changes did come. As the Philistine cities grew, so did their need for farmland to support their growing populations, and soon Philistine farmers were deliberately filling the wells near their cities that Abraham’s herds depended on. It was an act of war, but when Isaac sent complaints to the king of this or that Philistine city, the king always protested that he had never given permission for such a thing, that he deplored it, and that he would surely find and punish the perpetrators.

Isaac, Eliezer, and Rebekah conferred about it, and decided that there was no point in dying or killing over it. “If we had fewer herds,” said Isaac, “we’d have no need of those wells.”

Eliezer’s response was, “If you had no herds at all, we’d need no water except for ourselves.”

He meant it to be a joke, but Isaac didn’t laugh. “I couldn’t feed the men and women who have served my father all these years if I did that. But I’ve found a middle way. I have a loyal servant whose grandsons are now grown men, and it’s wrong to keep him in service to the end of his days. He has earned an inheritance to give to his sons and grandsons, and so I’ll give him all the flocks and herds that are watered at the wells of the Philistines, along with the servants who now tend them. If he’s wise, he’ll move them immediately to other pastures, and avoid quarreling with the Philistines. But since they’ll belong to him, that decision is his as well.”

“That’s nearly half your wealth,” said Eliezer.

“That’s how this servant deserves to be rewarded,” said Isaac. “Though in another sense he will still be lifting half my burden, so even this gift gives back as much to me.”

“And who is the servant who will receive this burdensome gift?”

Rebekah sighed. “Why can’t we just say these things plainly?”

Isaac laughed. “All right, then. Eliezer, you’re the man, of course—who else could it be?”

“You are discharging me from your service?”

“Of course not. I’m finally paying for it.”

“But I bound myself to Abraham forever.”

“Stay bound to Abraham. I’m Isaac, and I declare that you and all your children are free. What I give you now will be your inheritance to pass on to your children. Even if you think you shouldn’t receive so much, remember how little it will be divided among your grandsons.”

“But if I’m not the steward of Isaac, I’m only Eliezer. Who is Eliezer?”

“All your cattle and sheep and goats will low and bleat your name. Soon everyone will know it.”

Eliezer bowed himself to the earth then, and wept, and accepted the gift that Isaac gave him.

After Eliezer left Isaac’s tent, Isaac sat heavily on the rug and said, “It wasn’t about the wells or the Philistines, you know.”

“I should hope not,” said Rebekah. “The right to water is precious and shouldn’t be so easily abandoned.”

“I thought my father should have done this before he died. I even suggested it, but Father said that I’d need all my strength and all my wealth to maintain my position. Which I suppose is true. Father never needed wealth—he could walk into a king’s palace without a single servant, without being armed himself, and still be treated with the respect due to a great lord. While I need to have a few hundred thousand sheep and cows and goats under my control before anyone will take me seriously.”

“You underestimate yourself.”

“You overestimate me,” said Isaac. “But I’m getting older and my vision is beginning to fail. It’s better if I rule over a smaller household. It’s more in line with my abilities.”

“Well,
I
could rule over a household twice this size,” said Rebekah.

When Isaac looked at her with dismay, she laughed and nudged him. “Isaac, you and I are both very good at ruling a household peacefully. If you were king of the whole earth, there’s not a city that wouldn’t be better governed. But I’m content with half of what your father had, or half of that, or half of that, though you should keep in mind that a vast household will be left alone by enemies the way a snake never bothers to try to swallow a sheep. But if you shrink your holdings small enough, then some ambitious desert snake or city viper will begin to think he can swallow you up and add what you have to his domain.”

“I’ll heed the warning,” said Isaac. “I have no one else to give another half of my wealth to.”

“Until you decide to divide what you have between your sons.”

“The inheritance is whole. It will go to one son, not the other.”

“The birthright is whole,” said Rebekah, “but you know you’ll give half of the flocks and herds and servants to one son as a gift, and the other half to your heir as his inheritance. Call it what you will, it amounts to the same thing. They’ll each get half of the half of your holdings that you now have left.”

“So I leave each of them with a quarter of the strength that my father left to me.” Isaac said it with a note of despair in his voice.

“That’s absurd,” said Rebekah. “The strength of your father was always faith in God, and when he and Sarah were alone in Egypt during the drought, God made them mightier than Pharaoh.”

“Yes, well, that was Father. And Mother.”

“And this is you. All the flocks and herds could be swept away in a moment, and you would still be Isaac.”

“And you would still be Rebekah. But we’d be very very poor.”

They laughed together.

“The wealth is what we give our children who haven’t the faith to rely on God,” said Rebekah.

“The girls will all be like their mother—like stone in their faith,” said Isaac.

“I only worry about Esau,” said Rebekah.

“You don’t need to worry about him,” said Isaac. “His faith is strong.”

Rebekah wondered how he could say that with such confidence. “What sign of faith have you seen in him?”

“He and I speak of the things of God often,” said Isaac.

“Even if Esau really does think of God when he’s talking to you,” said Rebekah, “that still doesn’t account for when he’s out on the hunt with his wild friends or with one of Ishmael’s sons, which is even worse. Do you think he’s thinking of God when he’s out stalking some animal to kill it, or in some town or other, playing at whatever games he plays?”

“Games?” asked Isaac. “What kind of games do you think a young man Esau’s age plays?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been a boy. Not that Esau is a boy anymore. He says he’s going hunting, and he comes back with a smirk on his face and says the deer were elusive today, and I keep thinking it’s no hart he hunts, but hinds.”

Isaac got a distant look on his face. “He knows the law of chastity,” he said. “He assures me that there is no girl whose virtue is in danger from him.”

“Which leaves a vast number of girls whose virtue was ruined long ago,” said Rebekah. “My concern is whether Esau’s virtue is in danger from
them.
”

“How did we get from our children’s inheritance to Esau’s
endless
faults?”

“His faults aren’t endless, and I see his virtues as well as you do,” said Rebekah. “I’m proud of him. But what kind of keeper of the birthright will he be, when he takes no thought of the teachings of the prophets except when he needs to do it to impress you?”

“Do you think I’m so easily deceived as that?” asked Isaac.

“Yes, you are,” said Rebekah.

Isaac got the cold look that told Rebekah she was one sentence away from having him leave in silence.

“Isaac, it’s one of your virtues. You’re so absolutely honest yourself that it never crosses your mind that the person you’re talking to might be telling you only what you want to hear.”

“Esau loves the Lord.”

“And I tell you that he doesn’t,” said Rebekah.

“And Jacob does?”

“With all his heart.”

“And you know this because
he
tells
you.
How is that any different?”

“Because I
don’t
know it just from that. I see it in everything he does. Jacob keeps his word, even when it isn’t convenient. Can you say that about Esau?”