The words were simple enough, but Rebekah knew that Father would understand all that they meant. That she believed this man’s sign was indeed from God, that she would marry Isaac, and there was no reason to pretend to negotiate. This was the wedding she had waited for.

“My master is old,” said Eliezer. “He cannot travel. Nor will he allow Isaac to leave his side, for there are enemies of God who would seek out the young man to kill him in order to try to thwart the will of the Lord.”

Rebekah wondered if those enemies included Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn, the son of a concubine, who had been expelled from Abraham’s camp as a boy nearly at the age of manhood because of the threat he posed to the baby Isaac. But surely one brother would not threaten another, no matter how angry or jealous he might be.

Father looked intently at Rebekah, and then at Laban and Mother. He had nods from all of them before he answered. “This comes from God. What does it matter what we think, good or bad?” Father shook his head, but then he gestured toward Rebekah. “Look, there she is before you, my daughter Rebekah. Take her, go, let her be the wife of your master’s son. The Lord has made his choice. Her son will have the birthright.”

Rebekah felt a thrill go through her. The thing was done. So quickly, so simply, after all these months—no, years since the suitors had started coming. This was the reason she could not say yes to Ezbaal. Even that proud desert lord would understand a woman’s refusing him in order to marry the heir of Abraham.

Eliezer knelt up and then bowed himself down to the earth, right across the place where they had been writing. His right hand stretched across the place where Laban had written Eliezer’s words, and his left hand touched Rebekah’s own writing, though whether he planned it or it was simple chance, she did not know.

“O God, Master of my master, Father of all fathers, Lord of all lords, for thy sake this great family offers up their brightest jewel to adorn thee in thy glory, and thou hast chosen to bind this gift into a setting of the purest gold of my master’s house.”

It was a very poetic thing to say, and the words might have thrilled her if Rebekah was to be won with words. But since she was already won by her faith in God, she only admired the words and then wondered idly if Eliezer had thought them up in advance, composing them during the journey north from Canaan, or if the words simply fell unplanned from his lips.