Rebekah looked up at the stars for several nights after that, wondering at the thought that the world she knew was only one of many hundreds, even thousands, each possessed of its own star. Do they see our sun shining in their sky? Do they know we live?

God knew, whether anyone else did or not. God saw her world, God saw her, and cared enough about her to choose her to be the mother of the next generation of the birthright. There was nothing so large that God could not see it all, and nothing so small that God would not notice it. For the first time she began to realize why people clung to their idols. A god you could touch, one you made with your own hands, was somehow safer, closer. You could talk to a god that you had right in your house, or in the temple or the grove, and hope that it might hear you.

Yet it did not matter whether you could see your god, if your god could not see you. And those real, tangible, safe, close gods were as blind and deaf and dead as the stones or stumps they were carved from. While the living God, faraway as he was, could reach into the heart of anyone who prayed to him and listened for his answers and obeyed him when the answers came.

They wound their way farther south into rougher country, and here there were no villages being built or cities visible in the distance. The closest sea was not the Great Sea to the west, but rather the Sea of Salt to the east, and instead of the great wheeling fisherbirds, the most common flying things were locusts skimming over the ground from bush to bush. The men also grew more vigilant than ever, keeping watch all night. They lit no fires now, but lived on unleavened bread, cheese, and the wine they carried with them. “This won’t go on for long,” said Eliezer to the girls when they complained. “We’re nearly there.”

“But why does Abraham choose to live in such a forbidding land?”

“It’s not quite as bad at Kirjath-arba, where my master keeps his camp. And among these hills there are springs and wells, and plenty of grass. Still, you’re right, it seems a miracle that a great herding family could become wealthy in this land—but then, it is a miracle, for God blesses my master to prosper in a place where anyone else would starve. Here he is left alone—he doesn’t have to send his men out to war the way Ezbaal and Ishmael and others who live in more desirable lands have to do. My master has had his times of war, but now is a time of peace, for him and his son.”

“And Isaac—is he also a man of peace?”