“I said, If I am to have a husband, let him be a man like Abraham. And since there’s nobody much around here, if I’m going to have a husband like Abraham, God will have to bring him to me, however far the journey is.”

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Father hated the veil she wore, and for the first few weeks it was a struggle between them. But when he forbade her to wear it, she refused to leave her tent. When he commanded her to leave the tent—without the veil—she covered her face with her hands. When he commanded her to take her hands from her face, she sank to the ground and wept into the hem of her skirt, with Deborah bending over her, doubling the noise of her weeping with her own.

Finally he gave in, but not without a sermon about how it was an affront to God to reject the beauty he had seen fit to bestow on her.

Laban, though he ridiculed her veil, soon became her ally in the struggle with Father. It was Laban who finally persuaded Father that it was not worth the struggle, that in fact the veil would create an air of mystery.

“It will make people think we have something to hide,” said Father. “Some disfiguring disease. Leprosy. Scars. Pockmarks. A steady drool.”

In reply Laban wrote, “It will show she is modest and will not flaunt her beauty.”

“It will show she is disobedient and self-willed.”

“Only if you continue to forbid the veil. And how beautiful will she be, perpetually in tears?”

“Tears dry up,” said Bethuel. “Even my tears for your mother.”

“But sullenness and frowning only become hardened into the face,” wrote Laban. “Like Pillel.”

Perhaps it was the thought of Rebekah coming to look like Pillel that finally tipped the scale. In any event, Father laughed and told Laban to tell Rebekah that she could wear her veil, though perhaps she could substitute one of looser weave so she could see well enough to sew a straight stitch.

It wasn’t long before some of the servant women began to dress their daughters with veils. Laban wanted to ask Father to forbid it. “They’re mocking you, Rebekah.”

“Perhaps they’ve learned that it’s good not to tempt men to wicked thoughts,” said Rebekah.

“Or else their mothers simply want people to think their girls are as beautiful as you.”

Rebekah wanted to ask, Are they? Am I the most beautiful? But she recognized this as pure vanity and left the words unspoken. “I don’t mind if people think they’re more beautiful,” she said, praying silently for God to help her make this statement true.