Rebekah Read online

  © 2013 by Jill Eileen Smith

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-4058-3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

  This is a work of historical reconstruction; the appearance of certain historical figures is therefore inevitable. All other characters, however, are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, Wendy Lawton, Central Valley Office, P.O. Box 1227, Hilmar, CA 95324, [email protected]

  The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

  To Jill Stengl, whose encouragement in this project kept me sane, whose faith gave me hope when I was certain there was no story to tell, and who believed in me despite my doubts that I could complete the work.

  Thank you, dear friend, for the many hours you listened to my worries over Skype and for your many prayers on my behalf. This book would not be what it is without you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part 1

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  Part 2

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  Part 3

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Jill Eileen Smith

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  Some time later Abraham was told, “Milcah is also a mother; she has borne sons to your brother Nahor: Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel (the father of Aram), Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel.” Bethuel became the father of Rebekah.

  Genesis 22:20–23

  Now Rebekah had a brother named Laban.

  Genesis 24:29

  1

  HARRAN, 1969 BC

  Light flickered from clay oil lamps in every corner of Bethuel’s bedchamber, the effort valiant but feeble, useless to dispel the gloom. Attendants hurried in and out, the hum of their whispers mixing with the sounds of their movements as they refilled a water jar here, wrung out a cool cloth there, and adjusted blankets, fussing, fearing . . .

  Rebekah stood to the side, unable to take her eyes from the form of her father lying prone on the raised wooden bed, his head engulfed in soft cushions and layered with cloths meant to bring his fever down. But his clear moments had been few, his words strained as though he were speaking through stretched and cracking parchment.

  Tears filled her eyes, and she pulled the cloak tighter about her, desperate to subdue the shaking. Not now, Abba. Please, do not leave me.

  She heard voices in the hall outside the room and swiped at the unwanted tears. Though the time for mourning was almost upon them, she did not want her grief put on public display. Not yet. Not while there was still a chance her father might recover.

  Shadows danced over the tiled floor, and servants moved quickly to leave the chamber as her brother Laban and her mother, Nuriah, moved in. Laban carried a scroll and seal and walked with assurance to kneel at his father’s side.

  “You called for me, Father?” Laban spoke softly, but his words carried to Rebekah. She leaned closer to better hear him, catching Laban’s glance and look of silent censure.

  “Bethuel? Is that you?” Her father’s eyes fluttered as he spoke. “Let me behold my namesake, my firstborn, that I might bless him.”

  Laban touched his father’s arm even as a determined glint filled his dark eyes. “I am here, Father.”

  Rebekah’s heart skipped a beat, and a certain dread filled her. What was he doing? She opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind and turned to rush out and find Bethuel, but before she could move or utter a sound, her mother hurried to her side and clutched her arm with clawlike strength.

  “Keep silent,” her mother hissed into her ear, and though she leaned away from Rebekah, her grip did not slacken, her intent strikingly clear.

  “I have brought the scrolls, Father. You need only to dip your seal in the wax and all will be well.” Laban unrolled the parchment, took the small clay bowl, and poured the already heated wax onto the bottom of the scroll.

  A rustling of robes filled her ear, and Rebekah turned, seeing two of her father’s servants enter—two who had always favored Laban.

  “Bring me Bethuel. I must bless my son.” Her father’s voice stumbled over the words, each one coming out painfully slow.

  Nuriah stepped forward and touched her husband’s chest. “You must do as Laban requests, my husband. He is the one whom you must bless.”

  Her father’s breath grew labored, and Rebekah’s own breath hitched as she watched him wince, as though her mother’s words caused pain. Everyone knew her brother Bethuel was not quick-witted as Laban was, that his words and actions were slow, lumbering, and that he did not have the skill to run the estate the way her mother or Laban would want. But her father had always preferred him, and Rebekah knew that if nothing else, her brother would look out for her, would be fair and kind, unlike Laban.

  “Mother, please.” Rebekah’s whispered words were met with a look like hardened stone. She clamped her mouth shut.

  Laban took the seal and curled his father’s fingers around it, pressing it into the wax.

  Rebekah’s stomach tightened as she recognized the scroll as the one her father kept secure in an urn buried in the dirt beneath the floor, the deed to all that he owned. The deed that should have been passed to his firstborn, to Bethuel. She glanced toward the door. Where was he? Why did he not stop this? Had Laban done something to her brother? But no, Bethuel was big and far stronger than Laban. He could break Laban’s neck in his two hands, though he would not do so. Not for any reason.

  She turned at the sound of rustling sheets. Her nurse, Deborah, was helping her father to sit straighter. Laban blew on the wax, waiting for the seal to dry, while her mother took her husband’s hand in hers.

  “Please, my husband, say the words you know you must say.”

  Rebekah’s stomach twisted into knots at the pained expression on her father’s dear face. No, Abba. Do not listen to her. But it would be useless to fight her mother and brother when they had obviously conspired together in this. Somehow
they would have convinced Bethuel to stay away, to let them work things out as they had planned. And he was too kind and gentle to demand anything against them.

  “Please, my husband.” Nuriah’s insistent tone made heat rise to Rebekah’s cheeks. Her arm still felt the nails her mother had dug into the skin moments before. There was no reasoning with the woman when she was siding with her favorite son, no matter what the cost to anyone else. Sometimes Rebekah wondered if her mother loved Laban more than she did her own husband. Surely she favored him above her other children or grandchildren. The thought brought a bitter taste to her mouth.

  “May Adonai bless you, my son.”

  Rebekah leaned forward, listening, her father’s words no more than a breath.

  “May your mother’s sons serve you, and may you prosper all the days of your life.” He fell back among the cushions, his body spent.

  Deborah lifted the thin sheet closer to his neck, and he closed his eyes. Rebekah watched closely, begging the God of Shem to let her see his chest rise and fall.

  “Thank you, Father.” Laban leaned close and kissed their father’s sunken cheek, then gathered the scroll and seal and moved quickly from the room.

  Her mother gripped Rebekah’s arm once more. “See to it you say nothing of this to anyone. Your brother has done what he must. It is all for the best.” She lifted a veined hand toward her husband’s frail form. “He has always favored you and our weak-willed firstborn. But he was wrong.” She wrapped her robe more tightly about her thin frame and hurried after Laban.

  Rebekah stared after her, her heart thudding hard against her chest, a sense of betrayal and fury filling her. “He is not weak-willed.” She spoke the words out of earshot of her mother. She knew better than anyone that her brother Bethuel was a gentle man—anyone watching could see the way he tended the lambs in his care, treating them with greater kindness than her mother had treated anyone in her life. Better than Laban did his own wife and children.

  But it was Laban who had the sense for business and the wherewithal to command a household. Laban could charm the feistiest merchant and work his way into the most uncompromising heart. She was weary of his deceit and the way he controlled those around him. In the past, she could run to her father for aid. But now . . . what would she do without her abba? She looked again at his frail form, watching Deborah replace the cool cloths across his forehead and about his chest.

  “Is he suffering?”

  Deborah lifted a shoulder in a shrug, but a hint of worry filled her eyes. “I do not know, mistress. I do not think so. Not very much.”

  A sigh escaped her, and Rebekah stepped closer, kneeling at his side. She took his hand, clasped it between both of her own, and lowered her head to kiss it.

  He rallied and cradled her cheek in his palm. “My dear Rebekah.”

  She strained to hear the words, leaning close so as not to tax his strength any further. “Abba, you must rest so that you can get well. We need you.” Tears made her voice waver, and she could not stop them from freely flowing over her cheeks. “I need you.”

  A faint smile formed at the edges of his beard. “My Rebekah. My strong one.” He paused, and she counted his breaths, silently begging him to continue, yet not wanting to press him.

  O God of Shem, please do not take him now!

  He opened his eyes once more, his look infinitely loving and sad. “Your mother knows best, dear one. She will find you a husband and all will be well. Do not fear.”

  “But I don’t want to lose you.”

  She waited, but he did not respond.

  Deborah came near and placed a hand on her arm. “He is sleeping, mistress. He will not likely speak again. He has spent his last words.”

  Rebekah gently squeezed her father’s limp hand and laid it beneath the covers, watching the slow beat of his heart barely lift the sheet that was meant to warm him. She faced her nurse and fell weeping into her outstretched arms.

  “My mother does not know best.” The words came out broken and soft, though she knew Deborah could hear her.

  “There, there, now. Obviously, your father does not agree. Perhaps he has already passed on his wishes to your mother. Soon you will live in the home of your husband and all will be well.” She lifted Rebekah’s chin in her sturdy hand. “Trust Adonai and wait and see.”

  Rebekah wiped the tears from beneath her eyes and willed her emotions under control. She glanced once more at her father, her regret and anger and hurt mingling with every labored beat of his heart. “All will not be well,” she whispered, hoping he could not hear. She turned and held Deborah’s sympathetic gaze. “I will have no say in the matter, and my father will not be there to defend me.”

  She was no match for her mother, but she would not cow to Laban’s rule without a fight. She was not her father’s daughter for nothing.

  Hours passed, and the sun sank low on the horizon outside her father’s bedroom window when the telltale sound of rattling in her father’s throat jolted Rebekah. Deborah sprang to his side, but Rebekah stared, unable to move, watching as he strained to take first one breath, then another, until at last no more breaths would come. The sheet stopped moving, and his pinched expression softened in the unmistakable mask of death.

  “Your father rests in Sheol now,” Deborah said, her words barely registering at the fringes of Rebekah’s heart. “He does not suffer any longer, dear one.”

  Rebekah nodded numbly as servants rushed into the room, and loud keening sounds burst from the waiting mourners’ lips.

  She staggered from the room into the hall where her brother Bethuel stood looking lost and forlorn. Their father had called for him, but the message had not been conveyed soon enough to bring him in from the fields, not soon enough to thwart Laban’s plans. Anger flared once more at her mother and Laban and their callous indifference to this brother who had never hurt a soul in all of his life.

  She touched his arm and looked up into his sober eyes. “He loved you. He wanted to bless you and would have. You must believe that.”

  He nodded but did not speak.

  “I don’t care what Ima and Laban have done. I need you, Bethuel.”

  He placed his large hand on her shoulder and patted it awkwardly. “I will take care of you, Bekah.”

  She reached both arms around his waist, relieved to feel his arms come around her. But as her mother’s voice sounded in the distance, giving orders to the servants to prepare her father for burial, she felt little comfort from his reassuring hold.

  Laban’s and her mother’s actions had changed her future. Nothing would be the same again.

  2

  The city gates loomed in the distance early the next morning. Laban cinched his cloak closer against the dawn’s first chill, his nerves on edge with every step. There would be no problem convincing the elders the documents were real. His father’s seal on the parchments would act as proof enough, and as long as Bethuel kept his tongue . . . He cinched his cloak again, glancing behind him at his father’s steward—his steward now. The man would support him. All of the servants favored his leadership over that of his brother. There could be no doubt that his father’s namesake was slow. Not exactly witless, but a clumsy oaf whose only skills lay in caring for the sheep.

  Still, Laban tucked the pouch of parchments tighter beneath his arm as though holding them close would protect his assets. They would believe what he told them. Of course they would.

  He shivered as a line of young maidens glided past him carrying jars on their shoulders, headed to the well outside of the city. He spotted Rebekah among them with her maid Selima, relieved when she did not stop or attempt to engage him in another confrontation. She alone had insisted that the firstborn Bethuel should carry the birthright of their father’s blessing and had tried to convince both Bethuel and him that she was right. Thankfully, she’d stopped short of threatening to expose him to the elders. Her fate rested in his hands, and she knew it.

  Lifting his shoulders in a shrug, he
tried to brush the conversation aside, but the tension would not abate. The weight of guilt pressed in on him. It was ridiculous, of course. He had done nothing wrong. In fact, he had done the most prudent thing to protect his family.

  He watched Rebekah’s graceful form move beneath the gates toward the well as he approached the gate himself. Her beauty surpassed that of every maiden in Harran, and already he had received requests from several men willing to pay for the privilege of marrying her. He smiled, glad their father had not given in to the potter’s request for his son Naveed. Rebekah’s beauty belonged in kings’ palaces.

  But plans for his sister must wait for another day. He sighed, glanced at his steward, and entered the gate to meet the elders.

  “Greetings, Laban, son of Bethuel. Have you come prepared to take your father’s seat among us?” The chief governor of the palace motioned to the seat his father used to occupy as head of the merchants’ guild.

  “I am ready, Kenan.” He handed the documents to the leader of the elders and took the seat offered him. “You will find everything in order there.” He leaned back, confident that the documents his brother had signed along with his father’s seal looked authentic even to the discerning eye.

  The governor studied the parchments, running his fingers over the seal at the bottom. Laban waited, forcing himself to remain calm, to breathe normally, lest he show his anxiety. If he was caught deceiving these people, he could end up losing his place of honor and, even worse, be imprisoned for fraud. But they need not know the full truth. Any one of them would have done the same.

  “Everything seems to be in order,” the man said at last. He rolled the parchments up again and placed them back into the pouch.

  Laban handed the pouch to his steward, relieved. He settled back, listening as the day’s order of business commenced.

  As the morning waned and the sun rose higher in the sky, the meeting at last came to an end, and the men left, most to attend business elsewhere. Laban moved toward the stairs leading to the streets below the city gate. At a touch on his arm, he turned.

  “Laban, son of Bethuel.” One of the elders approached.