The Sons of Isaac(56)
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.”