Biblical Women Unbound: Counter-Tales

Rebekah and Isaac: AMarriage Made in Heaven

Rebekah and Isaac: A Marriage Made in Heaven ..... • After the excitement at the well, drawing water for the messenger, his camels; after gifts of gold, arm-bangle, noseringi after Isaac's lovemaking in his mother's tent, Sarah, who had died, I began to look about, amazed, at marriage. I asked my maids to tell about this bridegroom-the truth, whether IUked it or not-who was so nervous, something always on his mind. What could it be, what had they heard? They thought it safe to tell me then, like it or not: the knife at Isaac's neck, rods beneath him ready for flame, poor Yitzhak trussed for burning. uNightsweats, heart-sinks, black mopes! That's the fun your husband had in life. Feel sorry for him," they said. uHe had a dreadful youth. Went out with Abraham one day and saw his father prepare to kill him. And would have-you know Abrahaml-lf there'd been no ram! Since that unfathomed day, sudden death is Isaac's fear. So at the mere approach of you, my dear (maybe he's got to finish things as quick as can!), well-need we spell it out? Because of that .68. Rebekah and Isaac: A Marriage Made in Heaven you won't conceive, a sin the family expects you'll take upon yourself. And we must call you barren woman." They said I'd learn to live with it, like it or not. Sorry for me but no stopping now. What's kept tn comes out, and always that way, andent or modem. UNo one bothered to tell you the family troubles. Now you know Abraham tried to kill Isaac at God's command. And what a comedy of errors killed Isaac's mother! Fitting, really, since at God's announcement of her pregnancy, Sarah laughed. Then, when the messenger came with newsI Abraham lifted his knife to slay your son, but Isaac is spared from death!'-she heard only the first part and dropped dead before clause two. Because of that you never met your mother-in-law. Though what sort of relative could Sarah be to you-Iate-in-life mother, overprotective, yet in the end unable to save her son? "Don't you know that you were chosen?" my women asked. "You're married to a survivor, like it or not, imprinted deeper with our destiny than most." They gossiped on, aU secrets out, and whispered of a banished brother whose name itself was sibilant as secrets. "Ish-sh-sh·mael!" Adaring, forthright man. The kind, they said, I must have dreamed I'd marry, led on camelback toward Isaac by the gold-bestowing messenger. "No man of course takes concubines for pleasurel" They broadly winked among themselves. "So Abraham in piety took Hagar, since barrenness was Sarah's portion. Strictly for conception-and at Sarah's urgel-for piOUS reasons only.· Rebekah Hagar might conceive a child, and did. Ishmael-it's IshmaeU" "WhydoesGodwithhold from us?" Iasked my husband. "You call this ZO-year trifle a withholding? My mother had to wait till 90, my father till 100 years to have me!" IIAre we like them?" I asked. "When we traveled through the desert once, do you remember how I claimed you were my sister? Abraham did that with my mother, too. I had to see if God would speak with miracles, close for me the wombs of Pharaoh's women as he did for Abraham, should anyone dare touch you. God gave me answer. Unstained! You were unstained!" I shuddered in remembrance of that journey. Answers felt like lifeordeath tome. IIAreweUke Abraham andSarah?" I pray I'm like my father," Isaac said, "yet dread it. I wait to see if God will strike me as he struck at Abraham. Sometimes I think God's mercy stops your bearing because ofwhat I, too, would have tobear. The call to Mount Moriah! Once sacrificed, to be the sacrificer would be jeopardy of agonizing doubleness. Yet dreams already lead me there. I mount the path. My son's beside me. I feel again how all my bones tum liquid. When Abraham bound me! All but pierced my throat ..• I" Hlsaac, don't relive that nightmare time! You'resafe, and in my arms!" Dread fell on me. But Isaac, like so many who stay silent, when confession's mode is on him, can't rest until...