Rachel (36 page)

She watched them go with an aching heart until the last camel disappeared into the distance. Joseph ran off to find his half brothers, and sometime later when all were fed and the men were busy with daily tasks, Rachel took the camel bag with her father’s images, walked a safe distance to a tree in the woods, and buried the gods deep in the earth.

Part
4

Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God!” So he named that place Mahanaim.

Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

Genesis 32:1–3

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak . . .

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Genesis 32:24, 27–28

28

Jacob stood on an outcropping of rocks, staff in hand, looking to the west where the hills of Gilead dipped to lush valleys and the Jabbok River rushed to the Jordan on its way to the Dead Sea, in the area where his uncle Lot once lived. Oak and pear and pine flocked the hillsides, while a sea of pink oleander covered the slopes all the way to the fertile plains. They’d traveled for days since leaving the camp at Mizpah after Laban’s departure, the covenant and the pillars they had set up reminders of the goodwill that now rested between them.

Yet Jacob’s heart beat heavy with the memories and dread of the future. Would he find acceptance in the house of his father? Did Esau still hold hatred against him? The fears were never far from his thoughts.

Up ahead, almost too far for his eye to clearly see, his servants drove his flocks—first goats, then ewes, then rams, followed by herds of camels, cows, bulls, and donkeys. The God of his fathers had surely blessed him, as He had promised when he first left his father’s house with only the staff he carried now.

The sound of children’s voices drifted to him on the rise, and he looked down to where his wives and sons and daughter passed before him toward the place where they would make camp. Satisfied that all was well, he walked to his waiting camel
and mounted, tucking the staff into a sling at its side. The camel took the downward slope at a careful pace, then snorted its pleasure when they touched even ground and ran at Jacob’s beckoning toward the women and children. He paused as his beast aligned with Rachel’s.

“All is well, my lord?” The smile in her eyes was all he could see beneath the veil that blocked the sun and wind from her beautiful face.

He smiled and nodded. “All is well. We will make camp soon. I am going up ahead to secure the location.”

She acquiesced with a silent tilt of her head while Joseph waved and bounced, obviously eager to get down. Jacob laughed, the lighthearted feeling boosting his spirits.

He coaxed the camel forward, passing the herds as he went. As he neared the goats, he noticed the shadows had lengthened and the servants kept the animals in their respective groups apart from each other. Jacob glanced at his chief shepherd and waved, calling out orders to stop for the night. As he took the camel’s reins to return to the women, he spotted men walking toward him, their bearing tall and distinguished, their clothes bright as noonday.

He halted and commanded the camel to kneel, then took his staff and slowly walked toward them. To wait for his steward or a few of his servants would have been wise, but the men approaching seemed familiar in a way that made the hairs on his skin tingle. He had met them before. And they were not as normal men.

Memories of Bethel the night he’d fled his brother surfaced. He had encountered God on that trip, in the dream of the ziggurat and the angels of God walking up and down the stairs.

His knees weakened beneath him, and he leaned more heavily on the staff as he approached. “This is the camp of God,” he said, though none could hear.

He planted his staff in the dirt and waited. Angels as numerous as they had been the night of his dream approached and
circled him, moving forward and back, floating just above the surface of the earth. A sense of assurance and peace filled him. God was in this place. He gazed on the messengers who surrounded him but did not speak. And yet his heart heard the music of their silence and recalled Elohim’s words all those years ago.

I am Yahweh, the Elohim of your father
Abraham and the Elohim of Isaac. I will give you
and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth,
and you will spread out to the west and to
the east, to the north and to the south. All
peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your
offspring. I am with you and will watch over you
wherever you go, and I will bring you back to
this land. I will not leave you until I have
done what I have promised you.

Until.
Elohim would not leave him until He had fulfilled His promise. Jacob was standing on the cusp of that promise, his family behind him, the land before him. God had not forgotten him.

“This place shall be Mahanaim, Elohim’s camp and my camp, for Elohim has met me here,” he said, his voice sure despite the tremor that passed through him.

The angels left him then, disappearing from his sight. The sun had not moved from its place in the sky despite the time it had seemed to take for the angels to approach and move around him. He turned, shaken, the sense of awe he had known at Bethel as tangible as the beat of his heart. He closed his eyes, trying to get his bearings, and looked up at the sound of camels approaching. He would make camp in this place and stay for a time, then cross the Jabbok and head to the Jordan before making the long trek south to his father at Hebron.

Rachel settled Joseph in her tent for the night, then wrapped a cloak about her and stepped into the moonlight, searching
the campground for some sign of Jacob. He had spoken little during the evening meal, and she sensed something had happened on their way to the camp. But her attempt to get him to speak in the company of the others had failed, and now her sense of exhaustion nearly outweighed her need to know what troubled him. She looked with longing at the mat beside Joseph and almost gave in and curled up beside him. She could question Jacob another time. If he didn’t want to tell her, then she should sleep while she could.

But a deeper need to see him, to comfort him, pulled her from her tent. She found him near the fire, speaking with his steward. She slowly strode closer and stood where he could catch her eye without being interrupted. He smiled her way and bid his steward good night, then walked toward her.

He took her hand and squeezed. “Walk with me.”

She intertwined her fingers with his and smiled when he looked down at her. “What happened to you today?” They moved from the circle of tents to the edge of the forest, where the night breezes rustled the oak leaves above them.

His grip tightened, and he led her farther to a place near the edge of the camp where they could sit on some upturned rocks. “God met me in this place,” he said, settling beside her. He tilted his head, and she followed his gaze heavenward, longing to see what it was that put the edge of awe in his voice. “Before you arrived, his angels came from that spot.” He pointed to a place in the field just beyond them. “It was almost like the time I met Him at Bethel, on my journey to your father’s house. Now we have come full circle back to the land He has promised to me and my descendants, and He met me again.”

She searched his face, drawn by the light in his dark eyes. “What did He say to you?”

Jacob stroked his beard with his free hand. “He did not speak this time.” He glanced beyond her in the direction the angels had come as though hoping to see them again, then looked
back at her. “But I sensed His words from the time before. And I sensed His pleasure in me.” His crooked smile reminded her of Joseph, and she knew how much such pleasure meant to him. Despite the blessing Jacob had won, his own father had favored his brother.

“I am happy for you, Jacob.” She leaned close and kissed his cheek, touching the other cheek with her palm, stroking his beard. “You are the favored of Adonai. You will surely be blessed from this day forward.” A feeling of pride filled her that she could share in such blessing, that her son would one day rule at his father’s right hand. “Will we go directly to see your father and mother in Hebron then?” He had talked so often of the anticipated reunion that she fully expected him to take over for his father as soon as they could return.

He nodded. “This is my hope. We will stay here for a week to give the animals time to feed and the children a chance to rest. But then we will continue south to my father.” He stood, pulling her to him, and lifted her in his arms, twirling her in a joyous dance. “We shall be home at last, beloved. Ima and my father will love you.” He kissed her then, a slow, gentle kiss that made her knees weak.

“Perhaps we should continue this in your tent.” She whispered the words against his ear, and he laughed, filling her with joy she had not known since Joseph’s birth.

“Perhaps we should.” He slipped his arm around her waist and guided her back the way they had come, continuing the kiss as the tent flap closed them in.