Rebekah: Women of Genesis (7 page)

“If you love your husband,” said Deborah, “then you won’t care if it’s a tent or a house. That’s what they all say.”

“
If
I love him.”

“Why wouldn’t you, if he gives you babies?” asked Deborah.

“Not every husband is good,” said Rebekah. “It’s not just about babies. You’ve heard the stories the women tell.”

Tales of the kind of master who beat everyone, not just the servants, but his own children, his own wife. Who could stop such a man? Or the man who was insatiable, constantly bringing new women into the household and casting his seed about in strange beds and strange places, so that his wife could never be sure that there would not be dozens of would-be heirs ready to contest the right of her own children to inherit. And when a husband had a new favorite among his women, there were tales of wives persecuted, mocked, even driven from their homes as the husband who had sworn to care for her looked on indifferently.

“
Your
husband would never treat you badly,” said Deborah. “Uncle Bethuel would never let him.”

“Father won’t have any say about it, once I marry a man.”

Deborah laughed. “If Uncle Bethuel hears that your husband treats you wrong, how long do you think he’ll wait to come get you back?”

“How would he hear?” asked Rebekah.

Deborah thought about that. “I forgot. He’s deaf.” Then: “You could write to him?”

“And who would carry the letter?”

“I would.”

“And how would you do it if my evil husband forbade you?”

“I’d go anyway.”

“And what if he caught you and beat you?”

“Then as soon as he was through beating me, I’d go again.”

Rebekah believed her. “No, don’t say that,” she said. “I’d never let you suffer like that for me.”

“I’d never let
you
suffer from a bad husband. I’d tell Uncle Bethuel no matter what.”

Only then did it occur to Rebekah that Deborah assumed she would go with her when she married. And of course she was right. What else would Deborah do? It was the only job she was trained for, to care for Rebekah. And Rebekah would never have the heart to refuse to take her along. Yet in a new household, would the other servants be kind to her? Understand her slowness of speech and thought, her intermittent memory? No, Deborah would be taunted and teased, and Rebekah, being new, wouldn’t have the power to stop them. If she tried, they’d only tease Deborah more mercilessly behind her back.

One more reason, as if she needed one, for Rebekah not to marry anybody. Not unless God chose him.

In all her anticipation of troubles to come, she did not think of the hardest problem until it actually faced her.

His name was Ezbaal. He was a youngish man, no more than thirty, who had inherited his wealth when his father was killed by thieves in the streets of a town where he had gone to trade. Ezbaal had been only eighteen at the time, but he already had the respect of his father’s men, so they followed him in seeking vengeance on the city that had failed to keep the old man safe. Ezbaal took the town by stealth and forbore to slaughter all the inhabitants only when they produced a huge treasure as blood-price, along with the heads and hands of the thieves who had slain his father.

Yet, though his manhood had begun in bloody justice, along with that tale it was said that he ruled his household with wisdom and mercy and patience beyond what anyone could expect from a man so young. It was with admiration that Ezbaal’s name was spoken in all the desert camps, and even though, for obvious reasons, Ezbaal shunned settled life, he had good relations with most of the great desert families and shared water rights in so many wells that it was said he could travel from Elam to Egypt, from Sheba to Hurria, without having to fight for water or go thirsty for a day.

Ezbaal had called upon Father before, when Rebekah was seven or eight years old, and she remembered seeing him from a distance, this man of legend who seemed so young compared to Father, but who strode with purpose and greeted all without fear or boasting, as if he counted himself the equal of any man, yet took all men to be his equal in return.

Now he came again, but not with his great household to share water for a season in the nearby hills. No, this time he came with only a small entourage, enough men to make robbers think twice before attacking them on the road, and, surprisingly enough, three women. The camels they had with them were not enough to be a serious trading caravan; the cattle were not enough to be a herd. They could only be gifts for Bethuel.

He might have come like this if he needed Bethuel’s help in war, but there was no rumor of war, and he would not have brought women. Ezbaal had come with marriage in mind.

The whispers flew through camp like swarms of summer flies, buzzing everywhere so there was no escape. “Bethuel can’t say no to
him.
” “Rebekah has to fall in love with him at once!” “They say he married years ago but she died in bearing her first child, who died as well, and the poor man has been grieving ever since.” “He’s so rich he doesn’t need to marry for a dowry, he can marry for beauty, he can marry for love.”

Gossip also centered around the women who came with Ezbaal. One of them, it was agreed, was almost certainly his mother, and as the afternoon wore on, the other two were rumored to include the mother of Ezbaal’s dead first wife, Ezbaal’s sisters, his aunts, his great-grandmother, or the high priestess of Asherah from any of several famous cities, who was coming along to test Rebekah’s purity and bless any marriage that might ensue. Of course the three women actually with Ezbaal could not be
all
these things; Rebekah could not think of why he would have brought them along at all.

Rebekah was not one to wait for rumors, however. Soon after Ezbaal’s party had been seen and a messenger sent, who ran back with word that Ezbaal begged hospitality and that his company included fourteen men and three women, Rebekah took Laban aside and asked him who the women were and why they had come.

“They’re here,” Laban said dryly, “to look behind the veil, you dolt.”

Ah. Of course. Father would not display her to Ezbaal like a cow, but a man like Ezbaal would not marry a mere rumor or mystery. Rebekah’s face would have to be seen by someone that he trusted. And if it was a woman—or three women—willing to view her face in privacy, she could have no possible reason for objecting.

She felt a thrill of fear at that. After all, just because a servant boy and her own father and brother had declared her to be pretty did not mean that she would be beautiful in the eyes of a man who had wandered half the world and seen all there was to see. She could imagine his mother or aunts or whatever-they-weres coming back to him and saying, “You might as well marry the veil, because you’ll be wanting to leave it on her through the whole marriage,” or, “She’s pretty enough, for a girl of the desert, but in a world where true beauty can be found, why should you settle for this?” And he would leave without asking for her hand in marriage, and then she could take off the veil, for no one would think her truly beautiful again. “She might have been beautiful as a girl, but womanhood did her no favors,” that’s what they’d say of her.

And after all these years of vanity—for what was this business with the veil, she realized now, except the sheer vanity of thinking no man could look upon her face without being driven mad with love?—it was exactly what she deserved, to have mystery replaced with pity. And Father would be teased when he visited the towns, about how he always did better business when he kept his goods in a sack than when he put them on display. Perhaps they would have to strike the tents and move far away, to a land where the shame of Rebekah’s exposure would not have made them figures of ridicule.

“You do still have a face under that thing, don’t you?” Laban asked, though of course he had seen her face many times. She did not wear the veil inside her father’s tent, because she knew it offended him and, at least with Father and Laban and the oldest, most trusted servants, there was no fear of her beauty—her
reputed
beauty—causing disturbance.

“All but the nose,” she said. “It kept snagging on things and I finally cut it off.”

“You’ll be all the prettier, I’m sure,” said Laban. “I understand they’re growing their women without noses in the cities of the coast. They don’t cook as well because they can’t smell the food, but it’s better for kissing. You don’t have to turn your head.”

He was rewarded by being hit on the shoulder with a spoon, at which he retreated, laughing.

Despite her fears, Rebekah couldn’t help getting caught up in the excitement in the camp. Though she thought of marriage only with dread, she also knew that it would come, sooner rather than later, and to have Ezbaal ask for her hand would be about as high an honor as she could aspire to. If he came with the offer of a bridegift instead of a demand for a dowry, that would be a sign of true favor from God, for such a thing happened only to great women, like Sarai, who was a king’s daughter when Abram darkened the whole plain around Ur-of-the-North with the vast herds he brought to her father when he married her.

It was foolish to compare herself to the incomparable Sarah, for she was a woman of legend. Yet could she not also hope, in some secret place in her heart, that she, too, might be part of a legend, even if it was only a small one?

To be the wife of Ezbaal. . . . All would envy her. All would honor her. And he was a just man, fair in all his dealings, so she would have nothing to fear at his hand, and her children would be well treated. Her sons would be raised to excel in herding, husbandry, and war; her daughters she could raise with grace and skillful hands and willing hearts, and see them placed in good homes with good men, because they would be well dowered. All her future looked dazzling, if he asked for her hand, if Father said yes.

So what was it that made her feel a sick dread inside at the thought of going away with him? Was it nothing more than the excitement and nervousness any girl should feel at the coming of a husband and lord—her suitor and lover? The fear of rejection when the women saw her face?

No. She had those feelings also, and knew them for what they were.

Not until she wrote his name in the dirt with a stick did she understand what made her sick with dread to have him come. It was the last two syllables of his name. Ba’al. The word only meant “lord,” and there were many who still said that it was just another name for the God of Abraham. But Rebekah knew that Ba’al had long since ceased to be another name for God. Instead he wore the face of a hundred graven images in cities and villages throughout the land, and it was to these images that the people prayed. And the priests were not priests of God, but rather priests for hire, telling people, not how to live clean from sin, but rather that doing whatever they wanted was no sin at all, as long as they made their sacrifices to Ba’al.

Was Ezbaal’s name the one given him by his parents, or did he choose it himself? If he chose it, then it meant he was a pious man in the worship of the false god; and if his parents chose it, it suggested
they
had been pious, and would he not also show respect to them by worshiping the god they named him for?

How could she marry a man who did not serve the God of Abraham?

She could not go to Father, for from the moment Ezbaal arrived, Father was with his noble visitor. And because Laban was at Father’s side almost constantly, writing for him so the conversation with Ezbaal could go smoothly forward, she could not talk to her brother, either. It would do no good to discuss this with Deborah—what would she know? What could she do?

So Rebekah went to Pillel.

It was not a thing lightly done. Pillel was unfailingly courteous with her, but she always sensed in him a coldness, something held back, as if he had not decided yet whether to like her or not. And since she had taken to wearing the veil, he had virtually stopped talking to her at all, except where the business of the camp required that he speak to the chief of the women. But now, at the very least, she had to get a message discreetly delivered to Father, and who else could do that?

Pillel was, as always, in the midst of work, supervising the slaughter of two calves and four lambs for the feast that night. Already drained, cleaned, and skinned, the carcasses were disjointed and quartered before being spitted, since there wasn’t time to roast them whole. Rebekah, too, had been busy, preparing four disused firepits that were only brought back into service when a large company visited or in time of drought, when unusual numbers of animals had to be slaughtered and their meat preserved. But she left her women tending the fires and came to stand beside Pillel with her head downcast, saying nothing but by her presence demanding attention.

He turned at once from the man he was speaking to. Indeed, he turned so abruptly he left his own sentence unfinished. Rebekah knew this was as strong a rebuke as Pillel could give her—by treating her visit with exaggerated importance, he was demanding that her business be important enough to be worth so much bother.

Well, annoyed you may be, Pillel, but this message must be delivered.

“I need to speak with you privately,” said Rebekah.