Isaac just stood there, shaking his head.

“Then explain it to me!” Rebekah pleaded.

“Maybe the best reason for us to come to Kirjath-arba is for you to see who my father really is.”

“Maybe I’ll see who he is about the same time he sees who you are.”

“He sees me,” said Isaac. “You don’t. But I’m glad you don’t. It feels good to have your love and respect, even though the fact that I don’t deserve it turns it to ashes sometimes in my mouth.”

She would have answered that, but he kissed her to silence her and then Esau started complaining and Rebekah had no choice but to let Isaac leave.

As the boys learned to walk and talk, toddling about the camp, the differences between them became clear to everyone. If there was something to climb, Esau climbed it; something to get stuck in, Esau was stuck in it. Rebekah assigned two of her handmaidens to take turns watching Esau even when he was sleeping—it took him only a few moments after waking up to be in a place where he might fall into a crevice or tumble onto a fire, or where a scorpion or a serpent or even a prowling lion might find him. It did no good to tell Esau what to do—he was deaf whenever he was being told what he may not do.

Jacob, on the other hand, while he was every bit as curious, was also obedient. When Rebekah told him not to follow his brother into danger, he heard her, and while he might protest, he stayed close by. And he was more predictable. Once he got interested in something, he would stay at it for hours. Not that what he did was always good. He once dug up an entire row of onions just to see if they all had those little bulbs growing among their roots under the soil, and he once endangered the whole camp by systematically dropping rocks down the well to hear them splash, running the risk of filling it higher than the water level. Jacob seemed oblivious to the rebukes of the servants until Rebekah explained to him why it was bad to fill the well with rocks. “That’s something an enemy might do,” said Rebekah. “We protect our own wells and keep the water clear so we and all the animals can have plenty to drink.” When he understood that he might have deprived the flocks of their water, he began to cry, and he never threw anything down a well again.

Esau and Jacob were both fascinated by animals, but again, in different ways. The only time Esau showed patience was in stalking some hapless creature—an insect, a bird, a spider, a cat. He could move so slowly and imperceptibly until the moment that he pounced that he caught mice with his bare hands, and once Rebekah saw him come within a handsbreadth of catching a quail.