It didn’t take long, once they got to the camp, to meet Ishmael. He was a bold, loud man—much more like Father, Rebekah thought, than like Ezbaal—and nothing like Isaac or Abraham. He hailed Isaac from several rods off and strode briskly toward them, calling out Isaac’s name and opening his arms for a hearty embrace. Isaac greeted him with seeming cheerfulness and matched his energy in the hug. Of the two of them, Isaac was the taller, so it shouldn’t have seemed that Isaac was getting swallowed up by Ishmael, but that was how it looked. There was something large about Ishmael, something in the way he carried himself, as if all the air for six spans around him turned when he turned, and moved with him when he walked.

Then it was time for introductions, and Ishmael did indeed have three of his sons with him—the second oldest, Nebajoth, who was a grown man, and the two youngest, Naphish and Kedemah, who looked to be in their middle teens, with only boys’ beards. “I didn’t really plan to bring them, but then I didn’t plan to come, either,” said Ishmael, his voice carrying, Rebekah was sure, into every corner of the camp and probably throughout the surrounding hills. “But these lads were with me across Jordan visiting with cousin Moab when the runner came with word that Father had yet another son, and all of a sudden I realized—here’s Father having more sons, when Malchuth and I have had all that we’re going to have and feeling content with them. And I said, ‘Let’s go visit Father and beg him to stop before he passes me up and I have to take another wife just to stay ahead!’”

Oh, how he laughed at his own joke—and so contagious was his laughter that so did everyone else, including Isaac. Including Rebekah, though she stopped at once when she realized what she was laughing at. For Ishmael had, indeed, managed to make the first thing he said to Isaac a barely-disguised sneer at the man who was not even in this supposed competition to see who could have the most sons.

Rebekah wanted to say, We’ll have a son in the Lord’s good time, and unlike your sons, our son will have the birthright and the covenant of Abraham. But that, of course, would be a vile thing to say, so she kept it to herself, trusting that anyone with any sense would think it anyway.

Apparently Ishmael had not brought his wife or any of his daughters, or if he had, they were not out and about. And Keturah was still in confinement, so that Rebekah was spared the personal humiliation of having to be compared to women who had borne children—for she knew Ishmael would not shrink from using her barrenness as another reproach to his brother.