“If the Lord wanted you not to write, he would have taken you home. He hasn’t, so you’re still here, and as long as you’re here, you’re the only one who can write, or cause your words to be written down by another. Your words, Isaac. That’s what matters, not whose hand makes the actual letters on the parchment.”

He was silent for a moment. “You’ll write faithfully the words I say.”

“Of course.”

“But I don’t know how to say it.”

“Just tell what happened. Tell what the Lord said. You don’t have to write eloquently. You’re not giving a speech to an army, urging them to battle. You’re telling what the Lord did. Tonight in your sleep he came and spoke to you. That’s all you have to say.”

“To you it’s easy, because the responsibility isn’t yours. There won’t be copyists year after year, writing down the same ill-sorted words and thinking, ‘Isaac—his writing is nothing like his father’s.’”

“They won’t think such a foolish thing, and even if they did, would you let pride or shame stop you from writing? What do you care what they think of you, as long as they know of what the Lord has said and done?”

“I don’t care. I mean, I’d never let that stop me. But it’s all right for me to hate the fact that I’m no good at this.”

“The Lord will make you as good a speaker as you need to be, as long as you have the faith to speak in his name.”

“As good as I need to be,” said Isaac. “But never as good as I want to be. I’m ashamed that the Lord always has to make do with me. I’m an ordinary man who keeps the records between the great prophets, a place holder.”

“Place holders aren’t visited in the night by the Lord.”

“He visited me for my father’s sake.”

“But he didn’t visit Ishmael or any of the sons of Keturah, and they have the same father.”

“Enough,” said Isaac. “You’ve comforted me, now go back to sleep.”

What Rebekah didn’t understand was why a man who had just received a vision from God should even need comforting. But to Isaac, the vision only left him feeling more keenly aware of his unworthiness.

Perhaps that was why the Lord did not come to him more. Out of mercy, because it made him so miserable.

It was on the third day of working on the new well that Abimelech himself came out to them with a party of soldiers, bringing gifts to show that he wanted nothing but friendship to prevail between the people of Isaac and the citizens of Gerar.