That night while Isaac was sitting with his father and the men around the fire, Deborah called Rebekah into the tent. “Look,” she said. “See what one of the old women brought me this afternoon.” To Rebekah’s astonishment, Deborah reached into one of the baskets and pulled out something carefully wrapped in sheepskin. With her eyes dancing and her fingers flying excitedly, she unwrapped the bundle and exhibited a perfectly shaped mandrake. “See,” she said, “now you will be with child. The old woman said these are not hard to find here in the desert.”
Rebekah had heard of the strange magic of the mandrake but had never seen one. Its dull leaves and whitish-purple blossoms were wilted, but the forked root was strong and healthy. “See,” Deborah said, “it does look like a little person.”
Rebekah picked it up and held it at arm’s length. “It’s an ugly old thing. What am I to do with it?”
“Be sure to keep it in a safe place and sleep with it under your sleeping mat every night,” Deborah said. “You won’t have to worry anymore about getting pregnant. This is the very strongest magic there is.”
“I have often heard the surest magic was to keep one of old Terah’s small fertility images under the sleeping mat. It’s too bad I didn’t bring one with me.”
Deborah didn’t answer right away. She had thought of bringing out the small image Rebekah’s mother had given her, but she was afraid it would not be welcomed by either Isaac or Abraham. It was better, she thought, to use the more natural herbs and potions. Surely with the mandrake, Rebekah would be pregnant within the fortnight.
When the fortnight had passed, Rebekah was still not pregnant, and when three more months had passed, it was whispered that Keturah was again pregnant, but Rebekah was still barren.
Abraham had now turned all the business of raising their vast herds to Isaac who was fast mastering the art of making a profit, as well as making decisions for his family.
When the rainy season came, Isaac announced that they would be moving to Gerar. “You will like it in the city,” he said to Rebekah. “Short visits can be pleasant; to stay longer means getting involved with their feast days and temple celebrations.”
Moving to Gerar was not very complicated. They left the tents as they were and moved into the large stone house that was kept ready for their return by servants. Once they were settled, Rebekah and her maidens spent most of their days in a leisurely fashion while Isaac and some of his men still rode out to inspect his vast herds.
The women spent much time in the mornings at the public bath. Here they met many of the women of Gerar and took pleasure in hearing gossip from places as far away as Egypt. Even more exciting were the visits to be made in the afternoon to the homes of women of wealth and leisure.
It was on a cold, cloudy morning that something happened to spoil not only the trips to the bath but the whole visit to Gerar. On this morning Rebekah and her maidens had especially looked forward to relaxing in the warm fragrance of the steam rooms and pools. The maids had just finished spreading out her sponges and pots of cream and were heating olive oil over a little fire pot when there was a great commotion at the door. Women began to whisper and gather their food and toilet articles into their baskets and then slipped quietly out a side door.
Rebekah sent Deborah to find out what was causing the commotion. Within moments she was back and urging everyone to gather up their things and follow the others out the door.
“Leave?” said Rebekah. “Why should we leave?”
“It appears that one of the king’s sisters is coming with her women and children. The women say they always leave so she can use the whole bath.”
Rebekah laughed. “How silly. There should be room for both of us.”
“That’s not the matter. There’s room but the princess must not bathe in a room with …”
Rebekah laughed. “She must be very old and ugly to want to be alone.”
“Old and ugly, who are you saying is old and ugly?” The princess stood in the doorway holding what appeared to be a small boy while two little girls clung to her skirt.
Rebekah stood looking at the woman but could not speak. She was taken aback by her regal demeanor and her haughty manner. She wanted to apologize, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Who are you and what is your name?” the princess demanded, setting the little boy down by her side.
“I am Rebekah the wife of Isaac, the son of a great desert prince named Abraham,” Rebekah said.
At her words the whole demeanor of the princess changed. A look of cunning came across her face, her eyes narrowed, and she stood shamelessly studying Rebekah. “So you are the bride of Isaac,” she said. “You have come from Haran. I’ve heard of you.”
“You honor me,” Rebekah said, avoiding the woman’s piercing stare.
“Where are your children?” she asked. “I’ve heard much of the promises made to this ‘prince,’ as you call him, by his God.”
Rebekah felt the drops of sweat run down her face while her hands and feet felt suddenly clammy and cold. Her stomach twisted and churned and a terrible nausea came over her. She shook her head but no words came.
The princess tossed her head in the air and smirked. “I would guess that you have none. It’s too bad. Your husband will have to do like his father and get another wife.”
“You’re right,” Rebekah said at last as she regained her composure and looked at the princess without flinching. “I have no children but I have promises.”
“Promises?” the princess asked. “Who has given you promises?”
“The God of my father-in-law Abraham, Elohim, He has promised.”
The princess laughed a hard, harsh laugh. “You’ll eventually learn, it’s only the earth goddess that makes a woman fertile and can give her children. What proof do you have that this God of your people has ever given anyone a child?”
“Sarah, the mother of my husband, trusted Elohim and she was given a child even in her old age.”
The princess grimaced and tossed her head arrogantly. “In her old age and only one child. Look, I have three children and am expecting another before the barley harvest. This is what my goddess can do.”
Rebekah burst into tears and turned away. Deborah put her arms around her and tried to comfort her. At that the princess motioned to her serving girls. “We are not staying,” she said. “This woman no doubt has her bellyful of demons. She will destroy everything she touches.”
With that she picked up the little boy and started toward the door. Suddenly she hesitated and came back to where Rebekah stood. “Tell your husband that you met a princess named Anatah today who has three children and is expecting her fourth. He will understand.”
As the sound of her footsteps died away, Rebekah ordered her handmaidens to gather up everything; then, leading the way, she hurried out the door and down the familiar, narrow lane to their house.
Isaac had just returned and was disturbed to see his dear Rebekah so distraught. “I won’t stay here another night.” Rebekah sobbed. “I want to go home, back to the tents.”
It was only after they were back in their own familiar tent beside the Besor that Rebekah was able to tell him what had happened. When she told him the name of the princess, his face grew grave and troubled. “She says one must pray to the earth goddess for children,” Rebekah told him.
Isaac said nothing, but he wondered at the ways of Elohim that He let this goddess get the best of Him in this way.
Deborah had been so sure the herbs, potions, and mandrake would bring about Rebekah’s pregnancy that she had kept Terah’s little goddess hidden away. Now she felt the little image was Rebekah’s last hope. She knew that Abraham and Isaac would frown upon resorting to such desperate means. She herself viewed the little image as something that ought to concern only the women. The men would not understand that without the help of the goddess, Rebekah would never become pregnant.
In the darkness she felt under her sleeping mat and pulled out the soft, woven
cloth given her by Rebekah’s mother. With slow, careful movements, she unwound it and at last held the small image in her palm. She could feel its cool smoothness, the rounded stomach, and the straight, almost rigid legs. The nose was sharp and the head small. She wanted to look at it. The moon was full, and so without waking the other serving girls, she crept out of the tent into the bright moonlight.
Sitting with her back to the tent, she held the little figure in the light so she could get a better look. She’s ugly, she thought with surprise. I would have thought she would be beautiful. Everything about her is so carefully chiseled but the head and face are almost carelessly done. The eyes were two slits and the mouth another slit, while the nose seemed to have been pinched into shape.
It seemed rather strange to Deborah that the carefully rounded stomach and the prominent V where the legs came together were the only parts well done. It’s as if the head is unimportant and only the childbearing parts are to be valued, she thought. She had to admit to herself that to most men, a woman was worse than useless if she could not bear a child.
The next morning when the other women had gone about their chores and she was alone with Rebekah, she brought out the carefully wrapped packet. “You have wanted an image of the goddess from Ur and here it is,” she said as she carefully unwrapped the packet and handed her the small figure. “It was given to me by your mother before we left Haran.”
“My mother gave you this?” Rebekah asked as she turned the little figure around and looked at her from every angle.
“She wanted to be sure you had all the help you might need.”
Rebekah was so moved she couldn’t speak. Two tears dropped on the small goddess and she impulsively kissed the ugly face. “It must be one of the images my great-grandfather, Terah, made before he left Ur,” she said.
“It was one of your family’s most treasured possessions. Only your mother’s great love for you could have persuaded her to part with such a prize.”
Rebekah smiled through her tears. “Now I know I will have a child. This is a sign, a good omen.”
“I should have given it to you years ago, but I knew that Isaac and his father would not approve.”
“Of course, they are men,” Rebekah said. “They don’t understand such things. Their God is for men and now I know, it is only a goddess that can give a child.”
Rebekah studied every feature of the small image, then kissed it again and tied it into the soft folds of her mantle. “And what is this cloth it came wrapped in?” she asked.
“Those are swaddling clothes for the baby. She wove them herself of the finest threads.”
With eyes shining and hands trembling, she carefully folded the soft, white cloth. “It’s my mother’s own weaving,” she said.
From that time on, Rebekah depended on the little image from Ur and gave up all hope of any help from the God of Isaac and Abraham. She asked two things of the little idol, first to give her a child and second to keep her husband from taking another wife as his father had done.
Surely now she would have a child.
Ten years had passed since the fateful visit to Gerar, and since that time Rebekah refused to go near the town. Even though Keturah and her children went often with Abraham, still Rebekah would not go. “I can deal with my problems better in familiar surroundings,” she said.
She meant that the people in Abraham’s camp were all very supportive and many of them secretly brought her special herbs, potions, and charms that were to be a sure cure. She accepted all advice and welcomed all concoctions no matter how disagreeable they might be. She secretly felt that in time, after she had suffered enough, the goddess would take pity on her and give her the child she so desperately yearned for.
As time passed with no results, she began to beg Isaac to take one of her handmaidens as his mother, Sarah, had given Hagar to Abraham. “This will give us a child,” she said wistfully.
Isaac rejected all of her suggestions. He stood firm in his belief: at the right time Elohim would grant them the child that had been promised. He was so sure of the promises given to his father that he never doubted that Rebekah would soon be with child.
Then something happened that caused even Isaac to doubt and begin to question everything he had taken for granted. His half brother Ishmael came riding into their camp with regal pomp, splendor, and show of wealth. His twelve sons rode on each side of him while his wives and their servants stretched out into the distance behind him.
With a great flourish of filial deference, Ishmael bowed low before Abraham, then raised the hem of his father’s garment and kissed it. As he rose and stood aside, each of his sons came forward and did the same. Abraham was deeply moved. Ishmael was tall and handsome and his sons were strong and agile. More than that, Ishmael had brought gifts from the rich coffers of Egypt: rare perfumes, ornate jewelry, robes woven with intricate designs, incense, casks of unguents and fragrant oils.
“I have come to see my father,” Ishmael said.
Though Abraham and Isaac ordered guest tents to be set up, Ishmael insisted on raising his own tent for himself. It was not woven of dark goat hair but was of skins sewn together and lined with fragrant drapery of Egyptian make.
Everything he owned seemed to be made with the very finest craftsmanship. His clothes were of Egypt’s most costly linen and he wore a pectoral of precious stones set in polished brass. His sandals were gilded leather and his cloak was fringed.
Abraham ordered a great feast and the men sat long into the night around the fire discussing all that had happened to them and remembering the past. When it grew very late on the last night and everyone had drifted off, leaving only Isaac and Ishmael alone, the discussion took a more personal turn. “I was jealous of you,” Ishmael said at last. “You were to have the blessing and were to be given the birthright.”
Isaac grew very still and pensive. When he spoke it was with an air of real sympathy and understanding. “I didn’t understand at first but now I do. For thirteen years you had been my father’s firstborn and the delight of my mother. When I was born, everything changed for you, didn’t it?”
“Yes. I never had known that Hagar was my mother until then. It was a terrible blow.”
“And then my mother sent you away. That must have hurt the most.”
There was a long silence and then Ishmael spoke in a low, tense but controlled voice. “No, the greatest hurt came in knowing I was not to have the blessing of the firstborn or the birthright.”
“And I suppose you are still pained.”
Ishmael laughed a hard, forced laugh. He broke in half the small stick he had been absentmindedly holding and threw the pieces into the fire. “No, no, I am not pained anymore,” he said.
Isaac was surprised. “You no longer want the blessing or the birthright?”
Ishmael laughed again. “Look at me. I have more flocks and herds than my father, my sons own towns and live in stone castles, my coffers are full of gold and silver. I want for nothing. What greater blessing can my father give me?”
Isaac reached out and filled Ishmael’s cup with more wine. “And,” he said, “you have not mentioned your twelve strong, handsome sons or that I have none. If anyone is going to be the father of nations, it seems obvious; it will be you.”
Ishmael toyed with the fringe on his cloak and smiled. “I wasn’t going to say it, but it does seem rather obvious who has the blessing and the birthright.”
“It has been almost twenty years since I married Rebekah, and in all this time we have not been blessed with even one child.”
“Can you still be expecting Elohim to give you a child?”
“Yes,” Isaac said slowly. “He is our only hope and He has promised.”
Ishmael’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. “You believe then. All that our father has spoken, you really believe.”
“Yes,” he said as a look of intense pain crossed his face.
They remained silent for a few minutes listening to the snappin
g of the thorns in the fire and the whirring of bats above their heads. Finally Ishmael roused himself to go and then, being reminded of something, sat back down. Impulsively he leaned over to look more closely at his brother and said in an almost kindly manner, “You could get another wife, you know.”
“No,” Isaac said with surprising force. “Elohim has promised and I will hold Him to His promise.”
Ishmael was startled. He didn’t answer for a few minutes but he was puzzled. “What makes you so sure you can trust this Elohim of our father?” he asked at last.
“I have learned through painful experiences that He can be trusted. However, one may have to wait until all hope is gone.”
“I don’t understand,” Ishmael said.
Several minutes passed. Isaac seemed to be struggling within himself, not wanting to share something so personal. “You must have forgotten,” he began finally. “I am the son of a mother who was ninety years old when I was born. She and my father had given up all hope. She laughed at the angels who told my father she would conceive.”
“But you weren’t there. You’ve just heard about it. You’ve had no personal experience with this Elohim.”
Isaac stood and helped Ishmael to his feet. He placed his hand on his brother’s arm and seemed about to say “good night,” then he hesitated. “It’s true, I was not there, but when the bigger challenge was given, I was very much there.”
“You mean the sacrifice. I didn’t understand that either. If you were Elohim’s chosen, how could He take such a chance? You could have been killed.”
There was now a long pause as Isaac seemed to be reliving the whole episode. When he spoke his voice was low and his words measured. “I was actually tied as an animal is tied for sacrifice. He placed me on the altar.” He did not look at Ishmael but off into the distance as though he was seeing all that happened. “Our father actually raised the knife.”
The Sons of Isaac Page 11
