Then Isaac wept in her embrace, in gratitude that the Lord at last had spoken to him, as he spoke to Abraham, and accepted him as the heir to Abraham’s covenant. “You believed when I did not.”

“You always believed in God,” said Rebekah. “It’s yourself you doubted, and I knew better, because I can see you.”

“And I can’t see anything,” said Isaac ruefully, for his eyes were getting old and he couldn’t see far-off things clearly. Worse, there were white patches in his eyes growing out over the pupils, cutting off part of his field of vision. But for now, he could see what he needed to—that the Lord had not abandoned him, but would lead him to safety.

Only Esau resisted the move. “I can’t hunt there in the plains,” he said. “It’s all farmland, orchards, tame.”

“You can hunt where you’ve always hunted,” said Isaac. “You’ll just have to go farther and work harder to get there.”

“You might try staying with the camp and helping us redig the wells near Gerar,” said Jacob.

“I’m not a well-digger,” said Esau contemptuously.

“We’ll all be well-diggers,” said Isaac, “until our flocks have the water they need.”

“Of course, Father. I was only teasing Jacob. As if he needed to teach me my duty!”

They went to the wells near Gerar and it all happened as the Lord had promised. It wasn’t exactly a miracle—the Lord didn’t force Abimelech to be generous where his father had been haughty back when Isaac first gave up the wells. What Rebekah gathered from the ladies of Gerar whom she visited with while Isaac negotiated with the king was that the crown rested very loosely on the head of this current Abimelech, whose mother had been only a concubine and whose people had actually preferred a different brother who had happened to be away from Gerar when the old king suddenly died. Having Isaac’s large camp and hundreds of servants in the hills overlooking the city changed the balance of power in the city, for Abimelech made a great show of his friendship with Isaac, implying that if anyone attempted to revolt against him, he’d be able to flee to the camp of his friend Isaac and bring down an army of Hebrews to subdue Gerar and restore Abimelech to power.

But the Lord had known the weakness of Abimelech’s position, and that’s why he sent Isaac there. The miracle was not that Abimelech exploited their presence and in exchange Isaac got water for his flocks during a drought. The miracle was that Isaac asked the Lord with faith that he would be answered—or at least with hope—and the Lord answered him, and for the first time in his life Isaac was happy in the confidence of the Lord.