“And then sat there while his grandfather told Keturah’s boys about how it showed Esau was a born hunter. ‘If he can do that to a puppy when he’s five, what do you think he’ll do to a lion when he’s fifteen?’”

“Father’s greatest joy is to watch the boys.”

“To watch Esau.”

“He loves Jacob, too.”

“Your father said that the vision I had while they were in the womb was a true one. Well, part of that vision was that the elder boy would serve the younger.”

“Yes, I remember that well,” said Isaac.

“You treat Jacob as if he didn’t exist.”

“Oh, I’m quite aware that he exists. What you don’t seem to understand is that those words in your vision weren’t a commandment, they were a warning.”

“A warning!”

“To beware of the younger boy, or else the elder will end up serving him.”

“Look at the two boys!” cried Rebekah. “They’re both clever and quick, but Jacob is obedient whenever he understands what we expect of him, trying to be a good boy always, while Esau seems to look for ways to flout the rules we lay down for him and make us angry.”

“Esau is the elder son,” said Isaac. “And the heir.”

“Jacob is the son who might grow up to be as good a man as his father,” said Rebekah.

“As weak a man, you mean,” said Isaac. And, as usual, he cut off the argument at that point, refusing to hear for the hundredth time Rebekah’s protests about how Isaac was not weak at all.

What made Rebekah most furious, though, was when Abraham tried to get five-year-old Esau interested in the holy writings. At age five! When Rebekah was still barred from so much as looking at them, Esau was taken into his grandfather’s tent and shown them all and told that someday they’d be his. Predictably, of course, he became bored almost immediately, and this time, at least, Abraham did not appreciate his disobedience. It became a contest of wills between them, and on the third attempt, Esau ended the matter by tearing one of the fragile parchments on which one of the most ancient documents was written. Abraham’s roar could be heard all over the camp, and Isaac spent the next three days making ink and copying the document onto a fresh parchment while it could still be pieced together and read.

Yet not once did anyone suggest that Jacob should be taught to read.

“When your father had no son,” said Rebekah, “my father was trained to read so that he could preserve the birthright, if it happened to fall to him. Shouldn’t we train Jacob, too, in case something happens to Esau?”

“The Lord will protect him.”

“From himself? Yes, I trust the Lord to protect him from falling off a cliff, though sometimes I wonder if there are enough angels to watch out for him all the time. But can the Lord protect him from his own disobedient choices that make him unworthy of the birthright?”