“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 demanded.
“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.”