The Sons of Isaac(109)

Jacob gave her a startled glance. “No, you mustn’t think that …”

Deborah patted his arm. “When I am gone,” she said, “I would like to be buried under this tree.”

Jacob could not bring himself to speak. He was too emotionally moved, but he nodded and reached out to press her fragile, long fingers.

During the weeks that followed, Jacob, his wives, and his children became better acquainted with this wise old woman. She told them many stories of their grandmother Rebekah. Their favorite was always the story of how she came from Haran to marry Abraham’s son Isaac. “Isaac loved her the moment he saw her,” she would say, “and she thought he was more handsome than she had even imagined.”

She would usually end her stories by telling them, “Isaac was the son chosen by Elohim and his father for the birthright and the blessing. Isaac always thought Rebekah was his blessing, and he never fretted over the providence that gave them only two sons, your father and his twin brother, Esau. He has lived longer than his father, and in all this time he has had only the one wife and the two sons.”

It never failed that one of Jacob’s sons would look around at his brothers and then ask, “And who has the blessing now?”

Deborah would lean back and study them with a piercing, searching gaze as though she were trying to search out which one of them might inherit the blessing. “Now your father has both the birthright and the blessing,” she would say.

* * *

Some weeks passed as Jacob prepared his family to ride down the ridge to meet his father, who was camped under the great oaks of Mamre. This period of preparation was a happy time of expectation and celebration. Jacob and Rachel were looking forward to the birth of the new baby; Leah was once again busy seeing that all the practical matters of their family went smoothly. Dinah was silent and withdrawn but found some sense of peace in helping her mother. All was going so well, and then once again tragedy struck and the happy times came to an abrupt halt.

The first of the hardships was the death of Deborah. Even though they had expected it, they were all surprised at how much she meant to them. As was the custom, they wrapped her in a covering of woven reeds and buried her that evening beneath the oak tree she had grown to love.

Jacob grieved openly with his wives and their children joining him. Until this time no one in their family had died, and so they wept not only for their loss but in the sudden realization of life’s frailty. “We will call this the oak of weeping,” Jacob said as they were all packed and ready to move on.

With the death of Deborah, a nagging fear settled over Jacob. Rachel’s pregnancy was not going smoothly. She was in a great deal of pain. What would I do, how could I live if Rachel should be taken from me? She never complains. She wants this child so badly.

It hurt him to think that part of her wanting was tangled with her constant need to compete with her sister for his love and approval. It was all so nebulous. So unreachable. He had loved her and only her from the moment he first saw her.

He watched her closely now and saw how pale and weak she was. At times she clung to him as though she were afraid of something. Often at night she would wake up in a cold sweat and cling to him. “Jacob, you must promise me,” she would say, “when I am gone you must protect my son. Leah’s sons are jealous of him. They are capable of great cruelty.”

Jacob was startled by her choice of words, not “if” but “when,” she had said. Jacob would hold her and reassure her that he would watch out for Joseph. “But nothing can harm our son,” he would tell her. “Elohim will watch over him and preserve him from evil.”

“But sometimes even if we pray, things go wrong,” she said.

Jacob had often had the same thought. However, his own experience had taught him that though at times everything seemed to be going wrong, if one just waited and withheld judgment, things eventually would come out right again. What had seemed so hopelessly tangled could even become a blessing when left in Elohim’s care.

He tried to find words to comfort her, but there seemed to be nothing that would ease her pain or bring her peace. If we could just get to the town of Ephrath where there would be proper houses and midwives who could help her, he kept thinking as the camels plodded on and no village was in sight.





The road leading around the small city of Jerusalem was rough and stony. It bordered a brook called the Kidron. Jacob, with his large family, came along this road and, seeing a pleasant grove of olive and myrtle trees, decided to stop so Rachel could rest. He was troubled by her obvious discomfort and, at times, real pain.