Rebekah: Women of Genesis (44 page)

At the end of his year, Midian wasn’t inclined to leave, even though Isaac pointed out that the purpose of training him had been to have a copy of the writings maintained in a widely separated place. “Don’t be in a hurry to send me away,” said Midian. “Jacob has a head start of a dozen years in his study of the writings, and I still have a lot of catching up to do.”

And when Rebekah pointed out that it was good for Jacob to have a friend in the camp, Isaac relented and Midian was not sent away—though Keturah began sending servants to relay petulant messages about someone having abducted her son or he would surely have come back, at least for a visit.

Perhaps it began as a joke that Jacob and Midian meant to play on Esau—certainly that’s how Midian explained it, later. But Rebekah suspected that Jacob, at least, had a serious purpose all along. He might have daydreamed his plot for years, but because he now had a friend to confide in, what had been a dream now became reality.

It was Esau’s custom to return from a hunting trip exhausted and hungry. If he arrived before supper was ready, he became angry if he wasn’t allowed to eat until everyone came in for the meal; if he came home after supper was finished, he was furious if food hadn’t been saved for him. So Jacob had taken to keeping a pot of soup or stew simmering by the fire from midafternoon on, whenever Esau was out on an expedition. Rebekah saw this and approved. It not only kept peace in the camp, it was also, or so she saw it, a chance for the brothers to become close.

Well into Midian’s second year with them, he came to Rebekah as she read to Isaac in the doorway of his tent. “Jacob asked me if the two of you would be willing to come to the tent near the cookfire.”

“What for?”

“He has something for you to hear.”

“Well, let him come and tell us himself,” said Rebekah. Isaac didn’t like to walk around the camp too much—it reminded everyone of his infirmity, to see how he had to be led wherever he went.

“It’s not something to tell, it’s something to
hear.
And it won’t work unless you’re quiet. Nobody should know you’re there.”

“No,” said Isaac. “It sounds like some kind of game and I’ve got better things to do.”

“It
is
a game, I guess,” said Midian. “Or a joke. A surprise, anyway.”

“A joke on whom?” asked Rebekah.

“That’s the surprise. But it’s not on either of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Rebekah sighed. “It’s not as if Jacob asks us to do this all the time.”

“He’s a grown man, he shouldn’t be playing games.”

“You know that when he and Midian get in one of their moods, they become twelve-year-olds again.”

“Jacob was never twelve,” said Midian. “He was born thirty.”

“Believe me,” said Rebekah, “if
that
were true, I’d’ve remembered it.”

They ended up coming down the gentle slope to the storage shed near the cookfire. It was hotter there, and even though Jacob and Midian had cleared enough space in the shed for them to sit comfortably, the fact remained that it was poorly ventilated and soon both Isaac and Rebekah were sweating profusely.

“This is foolish,” said Isaac. “We’ve waited here long enough.”

“I agree,” said Rebekah. “There are limits to how much we should have to put up with for children who have beards.”

“If you can call them beards.”

Before they could leave, however, they heard a loud conversation going on behind the shed, near the cookfire. Voices were raised. And one voice was loudest of all.

“Esau’s home,” said Isaac.

Rebekah was suddenly filled with foreboding. Esau was home. Esau always went straight to the cookfire. And Jacob had arranged for his father and mother to be sitting inside the shed where they could hear but could not be seen. What could it be, except that Jacob had finally figured out a way to force his father to see just how unworthy of the birthright Esau was?

Esau was angry, and when Rebekah and Isaac were seated again, listening, it became clear that Jacob was demanding something from him.

“You don’t ever bring
me
any meat from these hunting trips, but you come here and expect to eat pottage I made, from lentils I grew.”

“I haven’t eaten in two days,” Esau said. “And you have food there that nobody’s going to eat at this hour of the day!”

“And it’s yours, if you pay.”

“All right, then, what is it you want? You’re the one who knows all the sheep—”

“By name,” said Nebajoth, and he laughed nastily.

“I don’t want sheep from you,” said Jacob. “In fact, what I want is something you don’t even care about.”

“What’s that?”

“The birthright.”

Inside the shed, Isaac immediately became angry. “I’m going to put a stop to this at once.”

But he was whispering. Which meant he didn’t want to be heard.

“Let’s stay,” said Rebekah. “Don’t you think it will be interesting to hear what Esau says?”

Esau was laughing. “Sell you the birthright? Why not! It’s yours! Now dish up the soup!”

Isaac whispered to Rebekah. “Of course he’ll agree. He knows the birthright is mine to give, and I’d never transfer it to Jacob because he bought it with pottage.”

“First put your seal on this parchment,” said Jacob.

“What’s that?” Esau asked.

“Read it.”

“Just tell me.”

Once again, Rebekah wondered if Esau remembered how to read, or even what all the marks of the alphabet were.

Jacob was answering Esau. “It says what you just agreed to. That in exchange for as much of my pottage as you want to eat, you relinquish all claim to the birthright and give it to me.”

“This is a joke,” said Esau. “You know Father will never stand for it.”

“Even if he did allow it, what difference does it make to you?” said Jacob. “You don’t care about the holy writings.”

“I care about them.”

“Not about reading them. Not about copying them.”

“I’ll always have women like you who can do that for me, Jacob. In fact, after Father’s dead I think I’ll make you my steward, and you can spend all day copying the holy writings over and over till you go as blind as Father.”

Isaac was not happy with the direction the conversation was going. “He’s leading Esau to say things that he doesn’t mean, because he doesn’t know I can hear.”

“I don’t know, Isaac. Aren’t we more likely to hear things Esau
does
mean,
because
he thinks we won’t hear of it?”

Outside by the cookfire, Jacob was dishing up pottage. Esau must have signed the parchment, then.

“Well, thank you, Esau,” said Jacob. “I’ll take good care of the parchments and make sure there are good copies to pass on to the next generation.”

Esau’s mouth was full, but he still laughed.

“Come on, Esau, you’re spitting all over me,” said Nebajoth.

“I spit on your parchment,” said Esau, apparently to Jacob. “Do you think it means anything?”

“It will when Father finds out you signed away the birthright for a mess of pottage.”

“He won’t care. He doesn’t care what I do. I’m the firstborn, in case you didn’t notice it, you little heel-grasping bloodsucker.”

“The birthright goes to the oldest
worthy
son,” said Jacob. “Grandfather Abraham was not Terah’s firstborn son.”

“Oh, I don’t care if Father bestows it on you,” said Esau. “You won’t be able to keep it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I can have anything you own, whenever I want it.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea.
Steal
the birthright.”

“Why not?
You
tried to get it by withholding food from a starving man.”

“Rough trip, I guess. Didn’t catch anything, I take it.”

“We don’t
catch
them, you halfwit, we
kill
 them.”

“Looks like you didn’t do either.”

Nobody but Jacob laughed.

“As I said, Jacob, my dear brother, you can’t possibly keep those records away from me, if I decide I want them.”

“What are you threatening?”

“I’m not threatening anything, Jacob. I’m just giving you fair warning. Once Father is dead, I’ll have anything of yours I want. Have some flocks and herds? They’re mine if I want them. Marry a pretty girl? She’s mine if I want her. Because you don’t have the strength or the courage to stand up to me for five minutes.”

“So when Father dies, you’ll take away whatever gifts he might have given me.”

“If I feel like it, yes, they’re all mine. Including the birthright.”

Rebekah felt a chill shudder through her. “Are you hearing this, Isaac?”

“To my disgust, yes,” said Isaac.

Outside, Esau was laughing uproariously, joined by Nebajoth. The sound faded. He was moving away to eat his pottage, apparently.

Midian appeared in the doorway of the shed. “That was it,” he said.

“Get away from me,” said Isaac, his voice full of loathing. “You’re going home to your mother.”

“What?” Midian was confused. “What did I do?”

“We’ll talk later,” said Rebekah.

Isaac was getting up from his rug. “Take me back to my tent,” he said.

Midian thought he was being addressed and took Isaac by the arm, but Isaac recoiled as if he were a leper. “Don’t touch me. I want you out of here come morning. Clearly you stayed too long.”

“I didn’t do anything,” said Midian.

“You didn’t stop Jacob from this vile plot of his.”

“Jacob!” said Rebekah. “All he did was show you what—”

“He showed me that he thought the birthright could be purchased.”

“He thought nothing of the kind,” said Rebekah.

“Oh, so you plotted this with him?”

“I found out about it when you did,” said Rebekah.

“Let’s not have this discussion in front of Midian.”

“He’s gone. Back to Jacob, I imagine, to tell him that his father is deaf as well as blind.”

Isaac said nothing, but pulled his arm away from Rebekah.

“Isaac, what are you doing?”

He stumbled on ahead of her, the uneven ground causing him to lurch this way and that as he quickly became headed in the wrong direction.

“You’re heading for the orchard,” said Rebekah.

Isaac adjusted his course but also hurried his pace. He fell. Obviously in pain, he got back up and began to walk again. Rebekah was able to catch up with him and took him firmly by the arm. “No matter what you think of me, you need me to guide your steps.”

“How lucky your father was,” said Isaac. “I would rather be deaf than hear what I heard today.”

“I have no idea what you heard,” said Rebekah, “because if you had heard what I did, you wouldn’t be sending Midian away.”

“Are you really proud of Jacob, setting a trap for his brother like that?”

“It was a test that Esau could easily have passed. All he had to do was say he’d rather go hungry a few minutes longer than to sign away the birthright.”

“Esau is young and foolish, and I’m not surprised at his attitude. It takes time to understand the value of the holy writings.”

“Did it take
you
so much time? He’s a grown man. When do you think he’s going to understand? And it wasn’t just the selling of the birthright. It was his threats against Jacob.”

“I have a few threats against Jacob myself,” said Isaac.

“Well, Esau was certainly right when he said ‘Father doesn’t care what I do, I’m the firstborn.’”

“I care about everything my children do. Including lying.”

“Jacob didn’t lie.”

“He didn’t tell Esau he had his parents hidden in the kitchen shed, listening.”

“He didn’t tell him that we
weren’t
there, and Esau wasn’t speaking quietly anyway. We might have heard him simply by chance.”

“But it wasn’t by chance. Jacob laid a trap.”

“A trap which Esau could not have fallen into if he had had even the tiniest shred of respect for the birthright.”

“So you defend your precious Jacob even now.”

“He did nothing that needs defending. But Esau’s attitude—if you give the birthright to someone who thinks and talks like that, how long do you think it will last? If he’d sell it for pottage, he’d sell it for gold, or even more readily for the favor of a king.”

“He didn’t
sell
it at all. He signed a meaningless piece of parchment in order to get his brother to give him some food when he was hungry. Esau doesn’t
own
the birthright, so it isn’t his to sell.”