The Sons of Isaac

by Roberta Kells Dorr

  * * *

  When the day of his wedding feast actually came, Jacob could hardly endure the slow, dragging necessities. He went as in a trance with the sons of Laban to the bath and endured their crude jokes and lively banter. He sat at the feast without noticing the food or that it was Laban who sat beside him instead of his veiled bride. “You are one of us,” Laban said, “my own sister’s son. We do not need such formalities.”

  Laban was so jovial and complimentary that Jacob relaxed. He knew that the best wine had been brought out for the occasion, and he didn’t question his uncle’s motive when he filled his goblet again and again. He also didn’t notice that Laban was nervous and kept having whispered conversations with several servants.

  At last when the moon had disappeared and the torches gave off only a dim glow, Laban himself escorted Jacob to the marriage chamber. “These old women have seen that the chamber is ready,” Laban said. “You’ll find my daughter already inside waiting for you.” Laban opened the door and nudged Jacob into the dark room, then closed the door.

  Laban stood listening for a few moments, and when he heard no unusual outcry, he went out into the courtyard and up to the roof. He sat alone in his usual seat under the grape arbor. He could not help remembering his own marriage to the daughter of Nazzim so long ago. He had not seen her, but he knew very well what he was getting. It was Nazzim’s influence and money he cared about, so it didn’t matter what she looked like in the morning when the veil was removed. The bargain had been a good one. She had given him one son and eventually Nazzim’s wealth.

  In the bright light of day, Jacob would also know the truth, if not before then. Laban had to admit that Jacob was being badly tricked. Laban shuddered to think of facing him in the morning. He would, of course, have the goat-man to blame. He would insist it was the old goat-man idol that gave him the idea. “You have to marry the eldest first,” he would insist the idol had advised. “Then if he still wants the other sister, you can give her to him after a week, but only after making sure that he agrees to work another seven years.”

  The cunning of the goat-man was unequaled. Laban knew these thoughts came from him because they were so brilliant. “I have never been that clever,” he muttered to himself.

  He sighed as he rose and headed for the stairs. In the morning he would not only have to face Jacob but also Rachel. Since his first wife was now living in her own rooms apart from the rest of the family, he had taken Rachel to her for safekeeping. With Barida’s consent he had locked them both in her rooms and wouldn’t let them out until morning.

  Barida was now old and bitter since Laban had taken many other wives. She especially hated the mother of Rachel and was ready to do anything that would cause her or her daughters distress. Her eyes glinted with an evil, crafty look as Laban left Rachel with her to be dressed for her wedding night. She winked at him as she handed him the key, and he felt twinges of guilt that he should please her so at Rachel’s expense.

  * * *

  The next morning it was even worse than Laban had anticipated. To his surprise Jacob blamed Leah for deceiving him and hurting her sister. As Laban found out later, Jacob had discovered the trick with the first light of day. Instantly he had yanked Leah’s arms from around his neck and flung her from him in disgust. “How could you do this!” he demanded.

  Leah pulled the covering from the bed and fled, wrapping it around her in big clumsy bunches. She was so distraught that she ran to Laban’s room and wept bitterly. “I don’t understand,” she cried. “He did love me, and passionately, until he saw that it was me and not Rachel.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll have to understand,” he said. “The eldest must marry before the younger; everyone knows that.”

  “But I thought Jacob had agreed that it should be that way,” she cried.

  “No, no,” he said, “we didn’t need to tell him something everyone knows.”

  “You tricked him into marrying me,” she charged bitterly.

  “You wanted to marry him, and there was no other way. Now you’ve had your wish and you must work out the difficulties.”

  The look she gave him was hard, cold, and sorrowful all at once.

  “You must understand,” Laban said, “this was not my idea at all. It was the old goat-man under the stairs that hatched this plot.” Without waiting she pulled away from him and ran to the door under the stairs. Flinging the door open, she stared at the ugly little idol. “So,” she said, “it’s you who’ve worked this out. Now you must make him love me.” Somehow she felt this would not be so easy.

  * * *

  Laban found Jacob pacing the floor of the small bridal chamber. Unbeknownst to Laban, Jacob’s wild anger and frustration were tempered only by the guilty thought that this was how Esau must have felt when he had tricked him out of the blessing. So, Jacob reasoned, I deserve this, but how can I live without Rachel?

  “Now I see that you think I have played a cruel trick on you,” Laban said. “Actually I should have told you from the start that we must always marry the eldest daughter before the younger. There was nothing else I could do.”

  He waited for Jacob to give some angry response, but when he simply sat and stared at the wall and said nothing, Laban went on. “I’m not as cruel as you might think,” he continued, studying Jacob’s strange lack of response. “You can have Rachel at the end of the week if you’ll promise to work seven more years for her.”

  Jacob wanted to cry out at the unfairness of it all. He wanted to shout at his crafty uncle, telling him that he had already worked seven years for Rachel. He wanted to say that he would never, never have worked one day to marry Leah. However, he was so overwhelmed with the feeling that he was somehow being paid back for cheating his brother that he said nothing.

  Laban took his silence as acceptance and promptly went and told Rachel all that had happened. Rachel had been crying and suspected that Leah had somehow planned all of this. “No, no,” Laban told her, “don’t blame your sister. Blame the old goat-man idol. He’s the one that put the idea in my head. Actually, you will find it is for the best. I’ve arranged for Jacob to have you at the end of this week, but he’ll have to stay and work seven more years.”

  Rebekah said sulkily, “You always blame the old goat-man for any crafty thing you want to do. I know that Leah has wanted Jacob. She thinks he’ll love her but he won’t. He loves me and she’ll live to regret this trick she’s been a part of.”

  For the first time Laban began to worry about what he had done. He loved his daughters. What if, he wondered, by trying to manage things, he had actually made it very difficult for them to ever find happiness?

  At the end of the week of feasting, Laban kept his word and gave Rachel to Jacob. When it came time for Jacob to claim his bride, he found himself in the same bridal chamber, only this time everything was different. A small oil lamp cast shadows on the whitewashed walls. As was the custom, Rachel sat on the colorful, straw-filled mat among many cushions. He could hardly recognize her. The gleam of a golden headpiece nested squarely in her dark curls, and a dancing waterfall of gold cascaded from each ear. Around her neck was a spiral of gold latticework interspersed with carnelian beads.

  She sat with her eyes cast down and her hands, lying on her knees, were upturned. Jacob realized at once that while Leah had been forced by the circumstance to come to him very much as one of the local harlots, Rachel came as a true bride. It was unnerving. Somewhere in all the bridal array was his little shepherdess, and it was his duty to coax her out of hiding.

  Here was the crux of the mystery that women spent endless time whispering about and men grew silent remembering. It had obviously been designed from ancient times as a challenge to the groom’s ingenuity. He must win her or she had every right to reject him and flee back to the safety of her family. The wise, confident bride did not give in too easily. Their whole future relationship depended on this moment’s going well. The bride must feel totally accepted and adored, while the groom
must take pride in having won, with difficulty, a worthy prize.

  Jacob sat on the mat beside Rachel and took her hand in both of his. His heart was bursting with the joy of finally getting to sit beside her and actually hold her hand. It was small and soft, and the perfume of her garments was subtle and hypnotic. There was the hint of spring flowers and he realized her wedding dress had undoubtedly been packed in sprigs of lavender.

  He struggled to find words that suited the occasion and expressed his feelings. He had worked so hard and waited so long for this moment; he must not spoil it in any way.

  He glanced at her and found to his surprise that she was looking at him. He was relieved to see that her face and lips hadn’t been painted in the customary masklike rigidity. Her eyes were rimmed with dark kohl and her lips were touched with crimson, but it was still the dear, familiar face he’d grown to love. She smiled at him, then giggled, and finally fell back among the cushions laughing. Her cap of silver fell off and her bracelets jangled as she tried to fit it back in place. “I have frightened you,” she said as she dabbed at her eyes lest the black kohl streak down her face.

  “Of course you frightened me,” Jacob said, laughing.

  “I love the fuss and bother of being a bride,” she said, holding out her arms and admiring the jingle of her bracelets and the sparkle of her rings. “Don’t you find me much more interesting this way?”

  Jacob reached for the small, jeweled hand and slowly began to remove the ornate rings. “There,” he said when they were lying in a pile beside her, “it’s you I have loved from the moment I first saw you. Whether you are dressed in worn homespun wool out with your sheep or in the elegance befitting a princess makes no difference.”

  “Are you angry that you have already worked seven years for me and now have to work seven more?” She was serious now. Her eyes studied his face to catch any hint of unhappiness.

  Jacob took both her hands in his and smiled. “I am a man who knows real value, and I assure you that I am the one who has won the prize in this bargain.”

  * * *

  The next afternoon Jacob called his second servant to him. “Go back to my family in Beersheba and tell my parents I must work seven more years. Tell my mother she was right about her brother, but in this bargain I have won. He has given me both Leah and Rachel, and with Rachel I will be unbelievably happy.”

  Rebekah was delighted when the first seven years were up and she knew Jacob would at last be coming home. She had been terribly upset that her brother had made him work seven years to pay for his daughter. She was glad she had warned Jacob to watch out for her brother’s greed and craftiness. She should have known that going to get a bride without the bridal price gave Laban too tempting an opportunity to cut a sharp bargain.

  She blamed herself for his having to leave home so quickly and going so unprepared. He should have gone to her brother loaded with gifts, but there had been no time. Esau was probably still angry. She would have to test the situation carefully, even now, to be sure Esau would not harm Jacob.

  The opportunity came the next evening when she saw Esau near the tents. “Your brother will be home soon,” she told him.

  Esau’s body tensed and his face clouded. “What does he want from us?”

  “He doesn’t want anything,” she said. “He’s just soon to be married. The seven years are up and he’ll be coming home with his bride.”

  “I suppose he’s expecting to benefit from all my hard work.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s been gone seven years,” he said, “while I’ve been here tending the sheep and building up a big flock.”

  “And you think he’ll come and claim the two-thirds as his birthright.”

  “Of course, I can see it all now. It’s just like him to come and reap the benefit while I’ve had to do the work.” He paced angrily back and forth, then with a great curse strode out of the tent. Once outside, he turned abruptly, and clutching the tent flap, leaned in to confront his mother. His face was red and distorted with hatred. “I said I’d kill him before and my threat still stands,” he said, biting off the words in sharp, forceful thrusts.

  With that he was gone, leaving Rebekah in tears. “My poor, poor boys,” she cried. “Esau’s whole life is colored by this anger. He hates me as much as he hates his brother. And Jacob, what will become of him, armed only with his wits and muscle to get a bride?”

  As she sat alone in her tent trying to face the ugly facts and find a way to welcome Jacob in spite of Esau’s threat, Deborah arrived. “Rebekah,” she said. “There’s bad news from Haran.”

  “Not more bad news.” Rebekah’s hand went to her trembling lips. “I can’t imagine more bad news than I have already received, but tell me. What’s happened?”

  “There’s a caravan that’s just arrived.”

  “Is Jacob on his way home as he told us?”

  “No, there’s been a second caravan with more recent news from Jacob.”

  “Oh, pray God he’s not dead.”

  “No, no,” Deborah said. “He’s not dead, but neither can he come home.”

  It took awhile for Rebekah to understand all that the young messenger had to say. When she finally understood that her brother had actually tricked Jacob into marrying his elder daughter and only agreed for him to marry the younger after Jacob had promised to work seven more years, she burst into hysterics. “When will we ever be through with cheating and tricks, cruel tricks?” she said at last.

  It was far into the night before she realized that all was not lost. Things had evened out. This was not the time for Jacob to come home when he would have to face Esau’s anger and hatred. “But seven years,” she kept saying. “Even in seven years, will Esau be ready to accept his brother?”

  “We won’t know until the time is up,” Deborah said.

  “Then it’ll be fourteen years since I last saw my favorite son,” Rebekah said. “He’ll have children I’ve not seen and wives I won’t know. Isaac may not even be alive in seven years.”

  “But,” Deborah said, “he’s at last married to the one he loves and she is of your own family. One must be thankful for whatever good one can find.”

  Rebekah choked back the tears. “You’re right. Jacob’s still alive and Esau has not been guilty of murder.”

  * * *

  In Haran things were not going well with Jacob’s wives. Despite the fact that Jacob, by custom, had to spend equal time with each wife, he could not bring himself to spend the required time with Leah. She was so eager to please him and wept so bitterly whenever she realized he preferred to be with Rachel. He tried to tell her that he couldn’t help loving Rachel. He didn’t intend any slight to her, but she wept all the more.

  No matter how often he tried to explain that her sulking and demanding attention only made matters worse, she could not change. “You have to love me; I’m your wife and I love you.”

  Finally he confronted her with her part in the deception. “You knew I loved Rachel and you went along with your father to trick me. How can you expect me to love you?”

  “I didn’t really understand …” she started to explain.

  “When in the night I called you Rachel, you didn’t correct me,” he argued.

  “But I did it because I loved you. I love you more than Rachel does. I am always thinking of things to please you. How can you not love me?”

  Then there was the matter of the children. Right away Leah became pregnant and produced a son she named Reuben, meaning “God has noticed my trouble.”

  “Don’t bring God into this,” Jacob roared in real frustration. He resented the fact that she didn’t follow the custom of letting the father name the son. She was too intent on making a point she could constantly dangle before his face.

  When she saw that this got his attention, she could not resist naming her next son Simeon, meaning “God heard.”

  Again Jacob complained. “Why have you not waited for me to name my son?” he d
emanded.

  “You were too busy. You didn’t come until after he was rubbed with salt water and wrapped in his swaddling clothes, so I named him.”

  “And what are you trying to tell me by this name?”

  “It’s quite simple. It seems that even your God has heard that I am unloved and has given me another son.”

  * * *

  Now it became a source of great irritation to Rachel that Leah should get pregnant so easily while she herself had no children. To make matters worse, Leah had started to provoke her sister with snide remarks. “Jacob loves me the best,” she would say. “I wouldn’t be having all these children if it weren’t true.” Then just to torment her sister, she named her next son Levi, meaning “attachment.” “It’s children that bind a man to a woman,” she said with a bitter twist to her mouth.

  This sounded logical to Rachel. Surely if Jacob loved her as he said, he would also give her the children she wanted so badly. “Give me children or I’ll die,” she began to plead.

  Jacob felt so trapped and frustrated that he finally lashed out. “Am I God?” he roared. “It’s Elohim who gives children. He’s the one responsible for your problem.”

  Leah, of course, heard of the encounter and rejoiced. Now she felt that she was surely triumphing over her sister. This certainly meant that she had found favor with the God of Jacob. To her great delight, she again became pregnant and this time she called the little boy Judah, meaning “praise.” She had now attained a new status. She was the mother of four sons, and more than that, it was obvious she had found favor with Jacob’s God.

  When the sisters married, Laban had given each of them a serving girl. To Leah he had given Zilpah and to Rachel, Bilhah. Now in desperation Rachel begged Jacob to sleep with her serving girl. “Bilhah will give me any child that is born,” she told Jacob. When he saw how eager she was, he reluctantly agreed.