Rebekah: Women of Genesis (21 page)

They had no idea, of course, since they didn’t know anyone from Byblos.

“Belbai,” said Father.

For a moment Laban’s face was blank, though Rebekah remembered at once. Khaneah’s son, who had been beaten and expelled along with his mother from the camp, because he had written ugly things about Rebekah.

Then it dawned on Laban, and his face filled with rage.

“No, don’t be angry,” Father soothed him. “It’s nothing more than a testament to your sister’s beauty. The boy is still entranced!”

Laban wrote in the dirt, “I should have killed him here.”

Rebekah punched him in the arm, thinking he was merely exaggerating, but Father took him seriously. “Perhaps,” he said. “Pillel even offered to have him killed for me.”

“Father!” Rebekah cried, and even though he couldn’t hear her, he certainly could read the expression on her face.

“He committed a crime worthy of death,” said Father simply. “I could have killed him then in perfect justice. But now? No. I let him go, and that’s that. You’re not to do anything either, Laban. Do I have your word?”

Laban set his lips and hesitated.

“I want your oath before God,” said Father. “You will cause no harm to Belbai, yourself or by anyone else’s hand. Swear!”

Laban wrote the oath Father demanded.

“And don’t think,” said Father, “that God will not hold you to that oath just because you wrote it instead of saying it with your lips.”

Laban rolled his eyes.

“The boy has done well for himself,” Father said. “In fact, he’s really quite clever. He took his knowledge of writing and started teaching it to other poor boys in the streets of Byblos. Now they call themselves scribes, and they write things for people. The regular scribes were outraged and tried to get it stopped, but since they weren’t using cuneiform, they weren’t actually doing the same thing, or so the judge ruled. And since our writing system is so much easier to learn—so few characters to memorize!—Belbai can train his boy-scribes in no time, and soon they were all over the city, offering their services for even the most casual messages, and at a half the normal price. Now he’s rich. He owns a house. His mother has servants of her own.”

“From something he stole from us,” Laban wrote.

“I don’t recall ever trying to keep this a secret,” said Father. “It’s a gift of God. And even though it was intended for writing the holy words, I don’t think it offends God that we use these letters to help a deaf man hear—or to help a poor lad prosper in a faraway city.”

Rebekah took Father’s view of it—she didn’t see what Laban was so angry about. It was a little mad of Belbai to think there might be a chance that Father would let him have Rebekah as a wife, but she certainly didn’t begrudge him his ambition or the prosperity that came from it. Indeed, it was ambition that had gotten him in trouble in the first place, only now it was working for him instead of against him.

And it was flattering that the thing he wanted to do was marry the girl he had once longed for in camp.

When she told all this to Mother, she took a darker view. “Unless of course he was brooding and seeking vengeance and hoped to have you as his wife in order to mistreat you.”

“Oh, Mother, how can you even think that?”

“There are many husbands who beat their wives for less reason than that,” said Mother. “No, Pillel was right. He should have had the boy killed without consulting your father first. Bethuel is too merciful for his family’s good. This boy is clearly obsessed with you. He’ll cause you harm someday.”

“Or he loves me,” said Rebekah.

“You say that as if you think it’s not the same thing,” said Mother, amused.

“Love and obsession? Tenderness and harm?”

“The man who hurt me worst in my life,” said Mother, “was the one who loved me most.”

And, when she thought about it, Rebekah realized that she could say the same thing.

What was love, then? Something to be feared and shunned, because it caused so much pain?

That was a question that was useless to ask, she realized. Love was love. You didn’t choose when it would enter your heart, any more than you chose what kind of people your own parents would be. You just loved whom you loved. And then hurt whom you hurt, and forgave whom you forgave, and lived your life day to day as best you could.

After Belbai, though, other suitors began to show up. Apparently whatever bad impression it gave when Ezbaal’s suit was rejected had faded, and even unveiled, Rebekah was still considered a good match. And Rebekah was getting older. Sooner or later, Father would say yes to one of these men, and Rebekah would agree, because if you waited too long, they stopped coming.

Late one afternoon, in the quiet hour when supper was being prepared and she had a lull in her work, Rebekah rose from the bed where she had thought to nap, went to her tent door, and prayed. She made no demands; she was not impatient. Just offered the suggestion that if God had kept her from Ezbaal in order to find a better husband for her, it would be good if he sent that husband soon.

Of course, as soon as she was through with the prayer, she realized that it wasn’t that different from her mother’s prayer to Asherah. Now it would be easy to persuade herself that any husband she ended up with must have been the answer to this prayer. After all, she prayed and . . . he came. How soon was “soon”? For that matter, how much divine intervention did there have to be for a man to seem “sent”?

There sat Mother at the door of her tent, taking advantage of the last bright light of the afternoon to work on sewing nice tight stitches in the linen of Father’s new undergarment. Feeling smug, no doubt, because she had achieved exactly what she wanted. Her story about Asherah choosing her wasn’t designed to convert Rebekah to Asherah—it was designed to make her doubt that the God of Abraham answered prayers any better.

Rebekah wanted to go over to Mother and argue the point with her, explain why her experiences with God were completely different from Mother’s with Asherah. But Mother would only look at her with that puzzled expression and say, “What did I say to bring
this
on?” and Rebekah would look like a fool even to herself. No, Mother had planted the seeds of disbelief, and it was Rebekah’s business now to make sure they took no root.

Mother saw her and waved cheerfully.

Rebekah waved back, determined not to let Mother annoy her today—especially not for something she had done long before. She went to the main hearth and picked up one of the large water jugs. It was a chore she often did. So much water had to be hauled from the communal well for each day’s cooking that it was like spinning thread—whoever had a free moment could always be of service by spending a few minutes doing it. Besides, for Rebekah it had the added benefit of giving her some time away from the annoyances of camp.

It wasn’t far to the well, but it put her within sight of the village of Haran on its hill, and there were several girls from town about Rebekah’s age at the well already. They had long since gotten used to seeing Rebekah without the veil, just as they had eventually gotten used to seeing her with it. Still, there was a little strangeness between the village women and the women of Father’s camp, and after a cheerful greeting, the girls ended their gossip and headed back to the village, each with a jug on her shoulder.

Rebekah heard and saw enough as she approached, however, to know that their gossip was about the dusty traveler who stood beside the well, murmuring to himself. He was an older man, not ancient but with a beard thick-streaked with grey. There were several heavily-loaded camels only a few rods back from him, and a few men with them. He could be a merchant, with that amount of cargo, but he wasn’t dressed like one. More like a servant, in fact. Like Pillel. Rebekah was intrigued, but of course it would be immodest to speak to a stranger, and instead she began lowering the pitcher into the well and raising it to fill her water jar. Each time she did, of course, she made the jar all the heavier, so that carrying it back would be harder. But what was the point of making the trip to the well, if you came back with the jar only half replenished?

“Girl, could I have a little water from your pitcher, so I can drink?”

She looked up and saw that he was now speaking to her. His request was so tentative sounding, so . . .
shy
. . . that she had to smile at him, to reassure him. “Of course,” she said. Never mind that he had called her “girl” as if she were not a daughter of one of the great wandering families. People were not always what they seemed. He might be a servant who took her for another, but then, he might be a man of such high birth that he assumed he could speak familiarly to anyone he met.

As she poured from the pitcher into his cup, she glanced back at his men and camels. The animals looked tired. They must have traveled all day in the heat, and they looked exhausted.

He put the cup to his lips and drank.

“Bring your animals up to the trough, sir,” she said, “and I’ll pour water for them as well.” And then, without waiting for his answer, she picked up the water jug she had been filling and poured it all out into the trough.

The man looked at her oddly and said nothing, but returned to his men. Soon the animals were drinking lustily, the men quietly stroking them and murmuring to them. These fellows had an air about them, of easy confidence, that impressed Rebekah. Most travelers were suspicious of everyone and everything—after all, there were many dangers along the road. But these men seemed to fear nothing—they were alert, but not wary. And . . . they seemed to like each other. To get along, at least, and that was a good thing. It meant they were well led, because in any group there would be quarrels in the course of a journey. She had watched Father more than once as he worked to smooth differences, and quietly separated men who irritated each other. Her respect for the man who led them grew.

She worked to refill her water jar as the older man rummaged through one camel’s load. Surely he didn’t mean to insult her by trying to pay her for the water. She hurried in order to be gone before he could do something so patronizing, for she didn’t want to embarrass him by explaining whose daughter she was, for then he would have to apologize for asking her to pour for him in the first place. It was a conversation she didn’t want to have.

Sure enough, he hurried toward her as she shouldered the heavy jug. She was too late—so heavily loaded, she couldn’t get away in time.

“Whose daughter are you?” asked the man.

Well, that wasn’t what she expected to hear. In fact, it suggested that he
had
known that she was no servant.

She turned to face him.

“I ask,” he said, “because I need to know, if you’d kindly tell me, whether there’s room for us to lodge in your father’s house tonight?”

“I’m the daughter of Bethuel, son of Nahor by his wife Milcah,” she said—name enough that unless he was from some hopelessly remote place, he would recognize the stature of her family. As for lodging, Father never turned away a traveler who seemed honest, which this man certainly did, though he had not had the courtesy to give his own name. “We have plenty of food for you and for your animals,” she said, “although a house with walls is not within our power to offer, since my father’s household live in tents.”

Still the man did not thank her. Instead he bowed his head and sank to his knees, saying, “Great is the Lord God of Abraham, who blesses my master and never leaves him wanting for mercy or for truth. For I had not finished my prayer before the Lord answered it. He has sent me to the house of my master’s brother.”

Master? So this man was someone’s servant—but one with great trust, no doubt a steward, like Pillel. Which had been one of her first impressions of him. And his master was kin of theirs? But he hadn’t used the general term for a relative. Rather he had spoken as if Father were his master’s own brother. But she would have known the stewards of any of Father’s brothers—messages were always passing back and forth among the families.

Unless he meant that his master was the brother of her grandfather, Nahor. But only one of Nahor’s brothers was still alive.

Abraham.

This man was Abraham’s steward.

She dared not ask him, though, for what if she was wrong? What if he was the steward of one of her father’s brothers? Then she’d look like a fool, for who would look for Abraham’s steward to be traveling this far north, and with such a small company? What possible business would Abraham have with Father, anyway?

And then the question was answered before she could begin to think through the possibilities, for what the man had looked for and found was a gold bracelet, which he was now offering to place upon her wrist. He had come as an emissary from one great house to another. He had come with gifts for a girl.

It was not just this man whose prayer was answered almost in the moment of asking. She, too, had prayed for the Lord to hasten her marriage. And in the moment she finished her prayer, she had thought to go for water to the very well where this man was waiting. The steward of Abraham, who had come here in search of his master’s relatives. And his first act was to give her a gold bracelet—no, now there was another, and earrings as well. There could be no mistaking the meaning of such an act.