Rebekah wanted to say something brutally honest about what friendship with Abimelech was worth, but of course she said nothing, merely listening as Isaac spoke to Abimelech as if they were good friends. Isaac had Jacob give Abimelech gifts of twice the value, and sent him on his way with firm assurances of what mattered most to Abimelech—that Isaac wasn’t angry and wouldn’t seek vengeance against him or his city, even though the orchards and fields Isaac had planted were now in the possession of the people of Gerar.

“Poor Abimelech,” said Rebekah after he was gone. “He doesn’t understand that fields that produced a hundredfold for the servant of God will be ordinary soil for the servants of Molech.”

By the time Abimelech was gone, it was nearly time to stop work on well-digging for the day, and Jacob had gone to tell the men that, when he suddenly returned at a run. “Water!” he cried. “They’ve struck water!”

“Impossible,” said Isaac. “They haven’t dug deep enough yet.”

“It’s close to the surface here,” said Jacob. “There’ll be plenty of water.”

“Then this is where we’ll stay,” said Isaac. “Call the place the Well of Shebah. Beersheba. This is our camping place now.”

“Who can doubt that the Lord loves the house of Isaac?” said Rebekah.

“No one doubts it,” said Isaac. “And may they never doubt that the house of Isaac loves the Lord.”

Then he had her lead him to where the workmen were celebrating, so he could commend them and then give a prayer of thanks and a burnt offering to the Lord for having blessed them yet one more time.

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

From Beersheba, wild mountain country was never far away, and Esau had found he had a taste for testing himself against the rocks and the sun and the animals that dwelt among the crags and canyons. Rebekah worried about him every time he went, but since there was no stopping him, she learned to stop begging him not to go, and instead prayed for his safety and kept her mind on the work that surrounded her in Beersheba.

Much of the burden of the camp now fell on their shoulders, since Isaac could no longer inspect the animals or oversee any tasks. He still made the decisions and heard everyone’s reports, and except for a tendency to be a little impatient with people whose storytelling style meandered too much, he showed remarkable patience with his affliction. Still, what he lived for were the hours he spent listening to Jacob or Rebekah read aloud from the scriptures as they copied them. As a result, they not only made one new copy of everything, but by the end of the third year of Isaac’s blindness they had made a second complete set.