Father remained master of his household, but there was no more ranging out in the hills to oversee the herds. There was too much danger to a man who could not hear a shouted warning, or the roar of a lion, or the cries of marauders. Instead, Father had no choice but to trust his servants to oversee his flocks and herds. It embarrassed him to have to ask people to repeat everything, to talk slowly, to pronounce their words carefully so he could try to read their lips. He did not have to tell Rebekah that she could not stay with him all the time that he was in camp, as she had used to. She could see that he did not want her there, partly because he was ashamed to show his weakness in front of her, and partly because, when she spoke to him, she saw how much it hurt him that he could not hear her anymore.

“Why don’t you go with your father?” Deborah asked her. “He likes you beside him. He used to carry you when you were little. You’re too big now.”

Rebekah had to explain it to her several times. “Father is deaf now. That means he can’t hear. So I can’t talk to him anymore. He doesn’t hear me.”

And after a little while, Deborah understood and remembered. Indeed, she took to informing Rebekah. “You mustn’t go to your father today. He’s deaf, you know. He can’t hear you when you talk to him.” Rebekah didn’t have the heart to rebuke Deborah for the frequent reminders. Instead, she would ask Deborah to sing her a song as she plaited Rebekah’s hair or spun thread beside her or walked through the camp, looking at the work of the women and children and old men. Everyone looked up when Deborah came singing, and gave her a smile. And they smiled at Rebekah, too, and answered her questions, until she understood everything she saw going on, all the work of Father’s household.

Rebekah was ten years old when Father lost his hearing, and her brother Laban was twelve. It was just as hard on him as it was on her, for as she had been Father’s constant companion in the camp, Laban had been his shadow on almost every trip to visit distant flocks and herds where they grazed.

To Laban it was like a prison, always to be in camp because his father rarely traveled. And Rebekah was no happier. Once she would have rejoiced to have Father always near the home tents, but he was short-tempered now, and bellowed often for no good reason.