She tried to prove her worthiness to have the full account by asking questions of such detail that he would eventually give up and say, Read it yourself! But all he said was, “Please don’t frustrate yourself trying to understand what’s out of reach. When God wants his children to know more, he tells them; but until he tells us, we have to be content with what we have.”

Then she decided to show him that she could read and write. Of course, there was a danger in it, too—after all, many years had passed between the time Father learned to write and the time he taught the letters to Laban and Rebekah, and he admitted at the time that he wasn’t sure he had all the marks correct. Nor could she remember which marks were the ones Father had doubted. So she might show nothing more than her ignorance. Still, if she could show that her writing was mostly correct, wouldn’t that convince Isaac to show her the mistakes and prepare her to read the holy writings?

She left him notes scratched in the dirt near his tent door, where he would have to see them. Later, the notes would be swept away, and he would know the information she told him, but he said nothing about the fact that she could write until finally she could stand his reticence no longer and asked him outright whether her writing was correct.

Being Isaac, he said nothing.

“You must tell me,” she said. “You seem to understand my writing. But Father was never sure he had all the letters right.”

“They’re good enough,” said Isaac, “for writing to a deaf man. But I’m not deaf.”

“I know you’re not deaf, Isaac, I just wanted you to help me learn to do it correctly.”

“You want me to make Father furious when he finds out I’ve been preparing you to receive the birthright.”

Rebekah was appalled. “I don’t want the birthright, I just want to read the writings myself!”

Isaac looked at her as if she had just mooed like a cow. “What do you think the birthright is?” he asked.

“To have the writings, not just to read them!”

“How do you think we protect them, except by keeping them out of other people’s hands?”

“I don’t want them in my hands,” she said. “I want them in my head.”

“And I’ve been putting them there,” said Isaac. “Story by story. I know you hunger for the words of God, and I honor you for it. I think that’s why God chose you to be the mother of my heir. But don’t reach for things that haven’t been given to you by God.”

“And how do you know the ability to read and write wasn’t given to me by God?”

“Because it was given to you by your father.”