Which opened her eyes to an aspect of her husband that Rebekah had not thought of before that day. Just as Ishmael had been raised in hatred and vengeance, so Isaac had been raised in fear of what Ishmael would one day do to him. Both mothers had poisoned their children in the effort to protect them and teach them their place in the world. And yet Isaac could still say, There’s no one you love like a brother.

Isaac loved Ishmael. Who could have guessed it? The great desert lord, the raider and wanderer, whose herds were rumored to cover the grassland from horizon to horizon when he was on the move, whose twelve sons were said to be so mighty with the sword that each one could lead an army, so that if a nation made war against Ishmael he could conquer twelve of their cities in a single day. And Isaac, the quiet herdsman and farmer, the man whose anger showed only in his silences, who led his people with wisdom and a willingness to listen to all—Isaac loved Ishmael.

As for the holy writings, Rebekah had few chances even to ask about them. She knew that Isaac went to Kirjath-arba often in order to study with his father the writings of the birthright, and when he returned he often told her stories from the records, or recounted revelations received by prophets in times past. He told her of the great flood in the days of Noah—a story she had heard since her childhood, but without ever knowing why the Lord caused the flood to destroy Noah’s people. He told her of the great prophet Enoch, who built the city of Zion and by the power of God hid it from his enemies. He told her of Adam and Eve, of Shem, Ham, and Japheth; of the great tower built by Nimrod in the middle of the plain-between-rivers, to imitate the mountains the prophets climbed to speak to God; of the way the Lord humbled Nimrod by confusing the languages of the people he had gathered to build Babel. And there were more recent stories, of Melchizedek the king of Salem, of Abraham himself and his trials and visions, of the first Pharaoh and his false claim to have the birthright, of the way every form of writing in the world was an attempt, like Pharaoh’s, to create holy writing in imitation of that which had been kept by the servants of God since Adam’s time.

Rebekah listened to everything, fascinated yet frustrated, for always Isaac told the stories in his own language, plain and simple, and Rebekah was sure that he was leaving things out in order to keep his wife from being confused. She wanted to shake him sometimes and say, Haven’t you known me long enough to realize that I’m not Keturah? That I don’t need everything simplified in order to comprehend it?