The Sons of Isaac (11 page)

Deborah took the soft, flaxen bundle and was about to put it in with her things when she felt something hard slightly protruding from the cloth. She gave the mother a questioning glance.

“It is nothing, nothing to concern you,” the mother said as she looked around furtively. She nervously pulled Deborah aside to where none of the others could hear what she said. “You understand. I will not be there to help her. She may need this.” She reached out and pulled at the soft cloth until it covered the hard, dark object completely.

“A small goddess?” Deborah asked.

The mother nodded and whispered, “One made by old Terah in Ur.”

“But …” Deborah knew she would be severely punished if it were discovered that she was leaving with one of the household fertility gods. The ones from Ur that had been made by Terah’s workmen were especially prized.

“They are expecting many children,” the mother said, giving Deborah a knowing look. When she saw that Deborah didn’t quite understand, she leaned forward and whispered, “God forbid but she may be like our kinswoman, Sarah.” With that she drew the mantle across her mouth to stifle a sob.

Deborah was immediately filled with compassion. She tucked the package into the small bundle of her belongings. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’ll be there to take care of her.”

With that the mother impulsively grabbed both of Deborah’s hands and kissed them. “You must care for her in my place.”

“I swear by the gods of Ur, she will lack nothing.” The two women exchanged a long, meaningful look and then went together out into the busy courtyard.

It was immediately obvious that Laban was nervous and impatient. He, more than the others, was well aware of the conflict that could result if Rebekah did not get away as quickly as possible. He was frantically urging, cajoling, and insisting that they hurry. As a result it was within the hour that Rebekah mounted her camel and was ready to follow Eleazar and his men out the city gate and down past the well where she had met him such a short time ago.

Her mother and the servants ran along beside the camels until they came to the well, and then they stood weeping and waving as long as they could see them.

Rebekah had a moment of sadness as she realized that she was actually leaving her family and everything that was familiar. She turned to look back again and again; the familiar faces were all the more dear as they gradually faded from sight. Even more touching had been her old grandfather standing at the door of the courtyard with Bethuel. He was too old and feeble to follow them to the well. She would always remember that just before she mounted her camel he had reached out to her and whispered, “Abraham’s God has won again, and perhaps it’s for the best.”

*  *  *

Rebekah was flushed with the thrill of adventure and young enough to spend very little time grieving over leaving her family. It never occurred to her that it would be very difficult, even impossible, for her to repeat this trip and come to see them.

As she and her handmaidens rode along, they sang and from time to time called to each other remarking on the emerging wonders around them. Eleazar was thoughtful enough to ride back and explain many things about the landscape they were passing or the customs of the people they were about to meet. The camping in the early evening was the favorite time for everyone. They loved to sit around the campfire enjoying the snap and crackle of the burning twigs while watching for the rising moon. Then, long before daybreak they were up and mounted ready to ride again. They must make the most of the cool hours before the sun rose.

Rebekah asked many questions and Eleazar was able and willing to answer as many as possible. She was curious about the reason her uncle had chosen to leave the rest of the family. She wanted to know why they were living in tents away from the cities. She knew very little of her cousin Isaac, and of course she was most curious about him.

“Isaac is very handsome,” Eleazar told her. “Perhaps his most outstanding quality is a special charm that makes it easy for him to make friends. If someone doesn’t like him, it bothers him. He’s not content until he has managed to make that man his friend. He admires his half-brother Ishmael because he is a rather rough fellow who hunts and fights and is good at besting any opponent, but I find Isaac easier to live with.”

When they retired to their own tents, the talking didn’t stop. Each one came with new questions and some came with answers. One of the handmaidens, Tesha, had the news from her camel boy that Isaac had never gotten over his mother’s death. Rebekah fingered the bracelets she was wearing and thought about what it must have meant for Isaac to have sent her such dear treasures. Just wearing the bracelets made her feel a special kinship with her aunt Sarah.

She was learning many things about her aunt and each revelation made her more real. She knew that Sarah had been barren for many years. She could just imagine how difficult that would have been for her. Everyone believed only evil women or women under some terrible curse from the earth goddess were barren.

Rebekah spent some time thinking about blessings and cursings. Words had real power. Even a powerful curse written on a small bit of parchment and buried in a secret place could make someone ill.

Blessings could be just as powerful and would help a person overcome any difficulty. A blessing given by a parent or a priest was very strong. Usually only the sons in the family, and especially the firstborn son, received any blessing from their father. How amazing it was that her father had given her his blessing. It was more precious to her than great riches.

She was to be the mother of many. There would be no barrenness for her. She would give her husband strong children. She had been given that promise in the blessing of her father.

Then the strange blessing. What did it mean? “Let thy seed possess the gate of them that hate them.” She pondered on this a good deal. She knew very well that whoever controlled the gate of a city was in charge. So she finally decided it meant that even though the people within a city hated her descendants, her descendants would be in control of things. What an amazing, wonderful blessing.

She was elated with the blessing until she began to ponder on why the people of any city would hate her descendants. This was a great puzzle. It was only much later that she began to glimpse the larger meaning of the strange blessing.

She had a small brass mirror, which she looked in from time to time. The handmaids were always borrowing it. It was blurred and shaky but you could get some idea of how you looked. She had heard all her life that her aunt Sarah was the most beautiful woman in Ur and she worried that Isaac would think her too plain and ordinary to take her place. Maybe he would be sorry he sent his mother’s gold jewelry to her. She wondered if she would ever be to him what his mother had been, and how would she know.

Then she would think of Nazzim and how strange it was that only a short time before she had no hope but to marry him. The God of Abraham was indeed strong, and He obviously paid attention when even a maid prayed earnestly to Him. She felt a warm glow, a happy feeling of discovery. This God, who seemed to be known only to the men of her family, cared about her and had rescued her. She determined to give Him first place among the gods and to discover as much as possible about Him from the family of her uncle Abraham.

*  *  *

Though Eleazar pushed his caravan as fast as he thought wise, he indulged in considerable restraint for the sake of the young bride and her maidservants. As it developed, it was almost a month before they neared the area where Abraham was camped for the summer. Now when they pitched their tents for the night and sat around the fire waiting for the moon to rise or looking for the star clusters they called the seven sisters, Rebekah began to ask specific questions about Isaac. Eleazar had waited for just such a time to tell her the things he thought she should know about her bridegroom.

One night he told her how Abraham had taken Isaac up on Moriah to sacrifice him. Rebekah’s eyes grew round and questioning. “He would have sacrificed his only son, the son he and my aunt had waited so long for?”

“Abraham will withhold nothing from his God,” Eleazar explained.

“But my aunt, what did she say?” Rebekah was obviously puzzled. Usually it was the pagan Canaanites who sacrificed their children. It had never occurred to Nahor or Bethuel to sacrifice a child to the old goat-man. They didn’t really believe in his powers that much.

Eleazar was silent for what seemed a long time. He poked at the fire and studied the stars as though he didn’t intend to answer. Finally turning to her, he said, “She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all. There was a terrible scene as you can imagine. I must say I couldn’t blame her. All of us in the camp thought it was too much.”

Rebekah was leaning forward eagerly waiting to hear the outcome. Her maids—who had been preparing her bed and setting out her toiletries on the smooth, cool sand—stood motionless, quite shamelessly waiting to hear what happened next.

“And my cousin Isaac, what did he say?”

“I was not there to see it. I have only heard what happened, but the lad trusted his father.”

“And my uncle found he could not do such a thing. He could not sacrifice the son given so miraculously.” Rebekah could not wait for Eleazar to tell the story. She wanted Abraham to rescue his son even at the last moment.

“No, that is not what happened,” Eleazar said rather sharply. “It was an angel sent by Elohim that rescued him.” There was a gasp and rustling sound as the handmaids left their work and came closer so they could hear this strange tale.

“Abraham had tied the boy to the altar and was raising the knife …”

With a cry of horror Rebekah hid her face in her hands and turned away, not being able to bear what she was sure would come next.

At this Eleazar rushed ahead to relieve the tension. “It was an angel of Abraham’s God that saved the boy. He cried out and told Abraham not to harm his son. ‘For now I know that you fear God,’ he said. Then a strange thing happened, Abraham looked and to his surprise saw a ram caught in a thicket. He freed Isaac and sacrificed the ram in his place.”

Everyone was quiet as they marveled over the strangeness of the story. “And that is all?” Rebekah asked. “There was no explanation of why this had to happen?”

Eleazar looked surprised. “That much of the story is all I usually tell. It is enough for most folks.”

“I want to hear it all,” Rebekah said. “I must hear it all if I am to understand my husband and his family.”

“Well, it seems the angel called to Abraham a second time.”

He hesitated and Rebekah urged him to go on. Her handmaidens clustered even closer so they would not miss a single word. “And … what did the angel tell him?”

“The angel gave him a special message. Abraham has treasured this message and repeated it often as though he is constantly pondering its meaning.”

“And …” Rebekah said again.

“What the angel said was wonderful. He said, ‘Because you have done this thing and have not withheld thy son, thine only son, I will bless you and multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and the sand which is on the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.’”

“That was part of the blessing given me by my father,” Rebekah said. “How strange.”

“That has been an age-old saying of those who wish to give a meaningful blessing, but no one has ever heard such a promise from an angel of Elohim. This was different.”

“Is that all?” Rebekah asked.

“No,” Eleazar answered. “It seems you will pull every bit of the blessing out and examine it before you even meet your intended groom.”

“I must know it all. The good and the bad. Was there nothing bad predicted for them and their descendants?”

“Nothing bad but something even stranger. Something we have all pondered from time to time.”

“Tell me,” she said. “I must hear everything before we arrive.”

Eleazar looked around at them all, and when he spoke there was a break in his voice as though it were such a precious thing that merely speaking of it moved him deeply. “The angel said, ‘in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.’ His name had earlier even been changed from Abram to Abraham, father of a multitude.”

A great silence followed as everyone pondered the meaning of the angel’s words. Finally the handmaids rose and silently went about their work. Then Deborah followed them to make a last check of the tent and sleeping arrangements before retiring for the night. Only Rebekah remained by the fire. Eleazar, glancing at her, noticed tears in her eyes and knew she could not speak. “I understand,” he said at last. “You are the one who will bear the child who will fulfill all these promises made to Abraham. It’s not a simple thing to have been chosen for such a purpose.”

It was a long moment before Rebekah could speak. “I’m but a simple, ordinary maid, not one to be responsible for such glowing promises.”

For the first time Eleazar understood how overwhelming all of this must seem to her, and a great compassion filled his heart. Rebekah was so beautiful and had such a confident air, he had not thought of her as being overwhelmed by any situation. Now he realized that she could be very vulnerable. “I rather think Elohim knew just exactly what He was doing when He chose you to be Isaac’s bride.”

“I … chosen?” she asked.

“Of course. Were you not the one who gave me drink and then also watered my camels?”

“That was but a simple thing.”

“Were you not the one who agreed to come with me on such short notice?”

“Yes … but …”

“That was the sign I asked for, so that I would know whom Elohim had chosen.”

Nothing more was said between the two, and after a while when the night breeze grew strong enough to make the fire flare up, the tents billow, and the tethers creak and groan, they each rose and went quietly to their own place for the night. Eleazar went quickly to sleep, but Rebekah lay awake long past the moonrise pondering all that she had heard.