When the twins were old enough that they began to reach the stature of men, and beards first began to grow on their faces—heavily on Esau’s face, lightly on Jacob’s—Abraham began to grow not just frail, but unwell, with pains that kept him from rising from his bed more and more hours of each day, until it was clear to everyone that he was dying. One by one he called his sons and grandsons to him and blessed them—beginning with Ishmael and his sons, and then Keturah’s sons and the grandsons who were old enough to sit still under Abraham’s hands. Each of Keturah’s sons was given a substantial gift of breeding stock that would bring them prosperity if they cared for them properly, along with a few good servants to help them with the labor and protection of their household. Keturah herself was given a household, and her sons were charged with helping maintain her all the rest of her life with the flocks and herds that Abraham settled upon her.

So blessed was Abraham with flocks and herds, lands and servants, that when he had given gifts to all his sons and to his last wife, and they had all moved away to their own places of settlement, it hardly seemed that the wealth that would be inherited by Isaac was diminished at all.

Abraham blessed Esau and Jacob, charging them especially with a solemn obligation not to take wives from among the daughters of the Canaanites, “or your children will grow up to hate God and love the idols of Canaan.” Both boys vowed to obey him in this, and to serve God all their lives.

Then, to Rebekah’s surprise, he called her in. He did not lay hands on her head, but he talked to her for a while, and his words were gentle. “I think I looked for you to be Sarah,” said Abraham, “and in some ways you have been—in your strength and boldness and . . . your desire to serve God. Maybe in that you’re even fiercer than Sarah was.”

Rebekah blushed at the thought that in Abraham’s eyes she might have surpassed Sarah in anything at all. And she found that she liked the word “fierce” when applied to her faith.

“But there are ways that you aren’t like Sarah, and ways that I didn’t want you to be like her because I thought she and I had made mistakes together with our sons,” said Abraham.

That again, thought Rebekah. But on his deathbed she would not argue.

“Especially . . .”

Oh, please, don’t show disrespect to my husband now!

“ . . . Ishmael.”

Rebekah was glad she had held her tongue.