The Sons of Isaac

by Roberta Kells Dorr

  Rebekah was ready to give a quick retort and then thought better of it. The suggestion was good even though the snide remark was not. In this simple way it came about that Jacob was chosen to spend time with his grandfather and to minister to his needs.

  Several days before Keturah was to leave, Jacob was brought to his grandfather’s tent. Abraham had only been told that one of the twins would stay with him and would take care of any needs he might have. He had obviously assumed it would be Esau. He had muttered something about having envisioned “feasting on some of the boy’s venison.” More than that, it was obvious that he had looked forward to spending time making sure Esau was grounded in the basic beliefs and history of their family.

  When Jacob appeared, Abraham could not help but show his disappointment. He even spoke to Isaac about it, but nothing could be done. Esau was not only absent on hunting trips but had begun to spend time courting a young Hittite maiden who lived in the city of Kiriath-arba (also called Hebron). “We are not pleased that he is so interested in a Hittite, but there is no one else for our sons here,” Isaac explained.

  Before Keturah left, she took Jacob and showed him all that he would be responsible for in caring for his grandfather. She was concerned that Abraham not only have the proper food but that it be cut in pieces easy to chew; the sauces for dipping his bread should be seasoned with mint and basil; while for his stomach’s sake he must have cardamom in warm camel’s milk. At night Jacob must warm a stone to put at his feet.

  The instructions went on endlessly until Jacob was afraid he could not remember everything and begged to be released from the responsibility. He went first to Rebekah, who was preparing some birds for their dinner. He begged her to make some other arrangement. “No, no,” she said. “This is a good time for you to learn everything you must know if you are to have the birthright and the blessing.”

  “But Esau said …” he began.

  “We are not listening to Esau or anyone else,” his mother retorted. “It was Elohim Himself who spoke and told me the younger was to rule the older. That should be enough for you. Don’t listen to all these people who didn’t hear the voice.”

  “But my father …” Jacob said.

  Now Rebekah stood up. The bird she had been plucking dangled from one hand, and with the back of the other, she pushed away a stray curl that had crept from the tightly wound head cloth. For a moment she just stood looking at Jacob, and then she frowned. “I’m going to tell you something you must never forget,” she said. “You are the chosen one. You are the one who will receive the blessing and the birthright. I don’t know how it will come about or when, but that’s what’s going to happen.”

  She pulled off a few more feathers, then handed the bird to one of the serving girls. “Come,” she said. “I, myself, am taking you to your grandfather. You must listen to all he has to say. You must remember everything. He’ll not live long and these things he knows must not be forgotten.”

  “But,” Jacob objected, “we have been told these things many times.”

  She held out her hands for one of the serving girls to pour water from the pitcher over them, then wiped them on the end of her mantle. “Come now,” she said. “When your father dies you must be the one to carry on the wisdom and the meaning of your grandfather’s belief. This is just the training you’ll need.”

  When they came to Abraham’s large tent, she confidently raised the flap and pushed Jacob before her into the tent. “Here, my father,” she said, “is Jacob, the lad who will take care of you. He’s very clever and so will want to hear all that you can tell him of our family and our God.”

  She stood smiling and confident while Abraham raised his head and looked at them with a steady, piercing gaze that frightened Jacob. Jacob hung back until his mother again pushed him toward his grandfather. “Here’s your grandson who will serve you, and you in turn must teach him.”

  With that she gave Jacob another push, raised the tent flap, and left the two alone together.

  Abraham cleared his throat and looked at the boy. He had always noticed Esau, and this was the first time he had ever seriously considered Jacob. “Boy,” he said, rather kindly, “come sit here beside me and we’ll get acquainted.”

  Jacob hurried forward, and bending over his grandfather’s hand, he raised it to his forehead in respect, then quickly he edged onto a leather cushion that was far to one side of his grandfather.

  “No, no, boy, come sit here where I can see you,” Abraham said, thumping a cushion at his side. “First, you will tell me something important about yourself and then you may ask me anything that puzzles you.”

  Jacob told him that he was not a hunter like his brother nor was he as strong and handsome as his brother. “I have no talent for anything, it seems, but cooking like a woman,” he said.

  To his surprise Abraham laughed. “To learn to cook is a good thing. If I could cook I would not be dependent on anyone.”

  Jacob relaxed. He had always seen his grandfather as large and impressive. Men listened when he talked, bowed over his hand in respect, and at times even kissed the hem of his robe. They always seemed to be eager for his advice.

  In the past, when he had been invited to the large tent, he had been lost among the sons of Keturah and the many visitors. He had stood back and watched his grandfather with awed amazement but had let Esau and his father do all the talking. He always hoped he would not be noticed.

  Now there was a strained silence as the two studied each other. Jacob knew from experience that his grandfather was looking for some family resemblance. That’s what everyone in the family did. He was always compared to some relative who still lived in Haran.

  Abraham stroked his beard and frowned. “And now it’s your turn,” he said. “Is there some question you would like to ask of me?” His voice was deep and formal, but his eyes under the gray, feathered brows were kind.

  Jacob squirmed. He did have a question he had wanted to ask but was afraid it would seem silly. He looked around the tent and back at his grandfather. He wished he could think of something that would impress him. He had many questions, but he could only remember one at this moment. “Why did our family leave Ur of the Chaldees?” he asked finally.

  To his surprise his grandfather’s face lit up with delight. He smiled and looked over at Jacob with growing pleasure. Jacob remembered his saying that curiosity about the right things was a sign of teachableness and intelligence.

  “To answer properly will take some time, but leaving Ur was the start of everything,” Abraham said. And then he was off, weaving an amazing story of the family history.

  In the days that followed, Jacob learned many things, but most of all he developed a growing understanding of the importance of the birthright and the blessing. He didn’t tell his grandfather that his mother insisted that Elohim had told her that he, not Esau, was the one to receive the blessing.

  Gradually the questions he asked his grandfather were about the meaning of the birthright and the blessing. The birthright was easy; it had to do with inheritance. But the blessing was something both wonderful and mysterious. A man with such a blessing would never feel inferior. He could not help but succeed at anything he attempted. Without his even trying, things would bend in his favor.

  The more he thought about it, the more he wanted it. It became the thing he thought about in the daytime and dreamed of at night. It seemed to hang in the very air before him, elusive and yet somehow promised to him if he could believe his mother.

  He was bright enough to realize that he could not just go to his father and reason with him. If his mother hadn’t succeeded in convincing him, nothing would. His father never deviated from the rules. It was traditional for the firstborn to receive both the birthright and the blessing, and so Isaac never questioned the rightness of it.

  Esau would have to die or renounce the whole thing before it could logically come to him. That Esau would die was impossible. He could even wrestle wild animals and never get a
scratch. To imagine that he would willingly give up such a prize was unthinkable.

  * * *

  It was near the end of the summer that Abraham grew so weak he had to be carried to the door of his tent to greet the many dignitaries who came to visit. News had spread that he was not going to be with them much longer, and they wanted to see him, talk to him, get some last words of advice and wisdom. He welcomed everyone and patiently listened to their stories, but at the last it was Isaac he wanted to see. “I will not be here much longer,” he said. “I’ve taught Jacob much that is important of our God and our people but Esau …”

  Isaac nodded. “Esau is not like us. He doesn’t spend time pondering the nature of our world or why we are here. He takes everything for granted. He’s the practical one; he isn’t disturbed by the things that disturb us. I’ve always admired this in him.”

  Abraham was silent and Isaac felt disapproval in his silence. When he spoke it was with a tinge of sadness in his voice. “I leave you, my son, to teach him all that he must know of our people and our God. If he is not taught, he will have to start all over again learning the truth about our God and what He wants from His people. He will find it easy to blend in with the people around him. It will be easier to join in the lewd rites of fertility with their sacrifices of sons and daughters to appease the gods of the rain. He will bow down out of fear to the snake and the bull.”

  Isaac shifted uneasily. He realized that Esau had little time for learning their family heritage and the ways of his father’s God. He felt remiss in not teaching him all that his father had taught him. Time had gone so fast. He had not realized the boys were so old or that his father could actually be leaving them. “I will start this very day to teach him all that you have taught me,” he said with a catch in his voice.

  It was not as easy as he had imagined. Esau was much more interested in the ways of the quail in the spring and the gazelle at the salt licks. He eagerly listened to the rough shepherds as they sat around their fires in the evening discussing old superstitions and charms to fend off the evil eye. He seemed more a part of the earth than of the airy realm of debate and introspection. I will have to find a way to interest him in more serious things, Isaac thought with a twinge of alarm.

  * * *

  Abraham lived through the cold winter months with the chilling rain and dark skies, but when spring came he took a turn for the worse and on a bright sunny day in the month of Nisan he died. His death was peaceful. One moment he was holding the morning’s gourd of honeyed camel’s milk and the next his hand had relaxed. The gourd fell to the mat and the white mixture spread out over the bright folds of his robe. He slumped back. For a moment his face had a look of pleasure. His hand upraised briefly as though in greeting and then he was gone.

  Isaac had just come into the tent. He knelt beside his father, and frantically called his name, rubbed his limp hand, and tried to get some response. Jacob stood beside him, stunned and afraid. “Go,” his father ordered, “get Eleazar, find your mother. Esau must be found and told.”

  Jacob found Eleazar first. He was sitting with some of the merchants from Gerar who had come to bargain for lambs for their spring festivals. When he heard the news, he quickly excused himself and rushed to Abraham’s tent. On the way he told others, and within a short time the whole camp had gathered around the tent or crowded inside. Esau came pushing through the crowd and stood still holding his throwing stick as he looked at the frantic scene. He knelt beside his father and took one of his grandfather’s hands in his and wept. “I didn’t know,” he sobbed. “He was so strong. How can he be gone so soon?”

  Jacob found Rebekah sitting at her loom. She was not surprised. She had anticipated this for some months. She stood up and clung to him for a few moments and then stiffened. She seemed to be contemplating something. “My son,” she said, “this will not be easy. I will give you the winding cloth Sarah wove long ago for his burial. You will take it to your father, then prepare yourself for the walk to the cave of Machpelah.”

  * * *

  The long procession wound up through the waddis and then climbed to the higher ground crested by the small village of Kiriath-arba. As it went along, people from great distances heard the news of the strident, urgent blowing of the shofar and came to join the procession. Abimelech, the king of Gerar, sent mourners dressed in sackcloth, with their faces streaked with ashes, their bare feet moving in patterns timed to the dull beat of the drums of death and their wails of practiced grief. Children ran along beside the procession, while old women and young mothers holding babies or clutching a young child by the hand lined the path to watch them go by.

  Isaac and his sons led the procession while his men took turns doing the honor of shouldering the slab on which lay the wrapped body of their patriarch. Isaac for the first time carried the staff that had belonged to his father and wore the ring that bore the family emblem.

  When they reached the caves that Abraham had bought so long ago to bury Sarah, they found Ishmael and his sons waiting, and coming within the hour were the sons of Keturah.

  At the mouth of the cave, after the great stone had been rolled away, Isaac called Esau to him and said, “Today the mantle of my father falls on my shoulders. His staff is in my hand and his ring on my finger, and with it his blessing and the birthright. Let it be known that when I go to my fathers, my son Esau will, by right of the firstborn, inherit the birthright and the blessing of my father, Abraham, and all his people.”

  Jacob did not wait to hear more but pushed his way through the crowd, hot tears almost blinding his eyes and a heavy pall of utter rejection crushing down upon him. He went a short distance and climbed up on a rocky projection where he could see the whole thing. He expected someone to miss him, to call out for him when the sons all went with his father behind the bier into the darkness of the cave, but no one did. He jumped down from the rock and stood to one side, almost swallowed up by the crowd and ignored.

  He did not linger but slipped away unnoticed down a back path that led back down to the Negev. Once out of sight he began to run, not caring where he went. When at last he was totally exhausted, he found a cleft in one of the rocks, wedged himself into it, and hunched down out of sight and out of the glare of the afternoon sun.

  At first he felt only the riot of emotion that rose up in his throat like gall and pounded in his temples. He was beyond tears. He ached with a terrible grief, a feeling of bereavement that went beyond the pain he felt at the loss of his grandfather. His grandfather had loved him, and his feeling of loss was intensified by the realization that his father hardly noticed him in his love for Esau. Hot tears stung his eyes as he remembered all the times his father had reached out to Esau with pride and acceptance and didn’t even notice him.

  He couldn’t bear to think of telling his mother that he had left the crowd. She would be so disappointed. “You have to be strong,” she would say. “Don’t hang back. You have to make things happen the way you want them.” Esau took things for granted. He just assumed he was to be the chosen one.

  In the end he didn’t tell his mother. He waited to return home until he could join the mourners and arrive unnoticed. She assumed he had been a part of the whole event until she questioned Esau. “I didn’t see him,” Esau confessed. “He must have left early.”

  Then there was no escape. “Why were you not with your father?” she asked with a suspicious look he had grown to dread.

  He tried not to answer but she reached out and held him by his cloak. “You know I’ve told you that you’re the one to have the birthright and the blessing. You have to believe it, act like it.”

  He pulled away and stood struggling to control a whirl of emotions. He could not endure her knowing how much he cared. It was better she think he was a brash and careless fellow who didn’t value the birthright or the blessing, who didn’t notice his father’s rejection. He winced, expecting the usual lecture but instead he only heard her sobs—angry, frustrated sobs. He lunged for the te
nt door and fled out into the moonlight.

  * * *

  It was several days later that Jacob collected some garlic, onions, and lentils, borrowed his mother’s fire pot, and proceeded to make a succulent stew. He was never impatient but took the time to let the flavors blend and mingle, the steam rise with the familiar, inviting odor. He enjoyed the whole activity. He could do some of his best thinking waiting for a pot to boil.

  Now he squatted beside the pot and idly stirred the stew with a wooden stick he had specially carved for this purpose. As usual he let his mind wander. Esau was out hunting. If he brought down an antelope, there would be a big celebration with plenty to eat when the animal had been cleaned and set to roast over the fire. Jacob frowned, remembering many such feasts. He much preferred the delicately flavored stew to the torn flesh, soured milk, and bread of such meals.

  These days his thoughts were often on his bitter feelings toward his brother. He knew that among some people twins were viewed as bad luck. They never let both of them live. He would have been the one left to die. Esau was strong from the start and the firstborn. However, in some places it was the firstborn who was sacrificed. He thought about that for a while. He mulled over the possibility that his father might sacrifice Esau as Abraham had set out to sacrifice him. But Abraham had decreed that their God did not want humans sacrificed. Abraham had made this plain in all of his teaching.

  This was one of the astonishing things about his grandfather. Abraham really wanted to please Elohim. He didn’t depend on custom or what people expected; he spent his whole life doing only what Elohim wanted. It was like this strange, unseen God was really his friend; he depended on Him like a brother.

  Just as his grandfather wasn’t like other grandfathers, so, also, his mother wasn’t like most women. She insisted it was his father’s prayer that had moved God to give them the twins, but it was her prayer that had brought the strange answer, “The younger will rule the elder.” She believed this. She couldn’t understand why no one would listen to her. Isaac had told her to go question Elohim, and when she did and came back with the answer, he obviously didn’t take it seriously.