But of course it did not have as much water in it as the previous wells had had, and they needed yet another. Isaac rode a camel that was led in front of the others, following a winding path among hills pocked with outcroppings of rock and covered with sun-browned grass. Finally Isaac told the boy leading him to stop. The spot seemed to Rebekah to be no more inviting than any other, but Isaac said, “Tomorrow we’ll begin to dig here.”

Such was their respect for him that none of the servants said, This is just the sort of place a blind man would choose. But they had to be thinking it.

That night, sleeping in the same traveling tent with Isaac, Rebekah awoke to hear him mumbling in his sleep. It seemed not to be a nightmare, and so she did not waken him, but lay there and listened. The words surfaced in isolation and meant nothing to her. Finally he grew still, and she realized from the way he was breathing that he was no longer asleep.

“What was your dream?” she asked him.

“The Lord came to me,” said Isaac.

She became more alert, and leaned over him. In the darkness she saw nothing, yet his voice told her that he was filled with emotion. She glided her hand along his chest to his neck, then up to his cheeks. Sure enough, tears had flowed from his eyes across his temples and into his beard.

“What did he say?” asked Rebekah.

“He said he was the God of my father, and told me not to be afraid, because he’s with me. He said he would bless me and multiply my seed for Abraham’s sake, because he was such a good servant.”

Rebekah knew that even in the midst of this vision, Isaac would hear only that it was Abraham’s worthiness, not his own, that the Lord was honoring.

“Tomorrow we’ll write the Lord’s words,” said Rebekah. “I’ll be your hand, and we’ll write an account of your vision in the book of Isaac.”

“There is no book of Isaac,” he said.

“Didn’t you write about the Lord telling you to go to Gerar instead of Egypt?”

“It didn’t seem important. Not like the visions my father had.”

“If the Lord thinks it’s important enough to speak to you, how can you say that it isn’t important enough to write it down?”

“I can’t write anything. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m blind.”

“But you have my hands, or Jacob’s hands, if you think it has to be a man. You’ve had the vision you wanted all your life, and you have to write it down so your children and their children will know of it.”

“If the Lord wanted me to write, he wouldn’t have made me blind.”