27

Jacob stared at his father-in-law, his nemesis, barely holding his anger in check. He took two steps forward, aware of Tariq and his brothers’ subtle movement closer to their father. He didn’t care. Let them try to come after him! Laban’s search of his goods was humiliating and uncalled-for! He pointed a finger straight at Laban.

“What is my crime? What sin have I committed that you hunt me down?” He stepped closer until his breath nearly touched Laban’s cheeks. “Now that you have searched through all of my goods, what have you found that belongs to your household? Put it here in front of your relatives and mine, and let them judge between the two of us.”

Laban lifted his hands to ward off a blow and took a step backward, saying nothing. His silence raised Jacob’s ire, his heart beating fast, his mind whirling with pent-up words. “I have been with you for twenty years now,” he said, his voice rising in pitch. “Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks. I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night. This was my situation: The heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes.” How well he remembered! “It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times.” The injustice, the sheer audacity of the man looking back at him now with such an impassive look, heated his blood. He clenched his hands, his nails digging into his palms.

Jacob drew a breath, willing his anger to still. It would do no good to strike the man, despite the urgent, pleading need to do so. Tariq and his brothers would retaliate, and the end would only bring harm to his family.

“If the God of my father,” he said, dragging his emotions under control, “Elohim of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But Elohim has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night He rebuked you.” Jacob took a step back, further distancing himself from Laban, and crossed his arms, a barrier between them. He glanced from Laban to his sons and back again.

Laban’s look held unease, but a moment later he straightened, lifted his chin. “The women are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks. All you see is mine.” He spread his hands wide.

Jacob’s grip tightened on his arms to force a calm he did not feel. He stared, incredulous. The man would claim all Jacob had worked for? He blinked, slowly looking from Laban to his sons, for the first time sensing a hint of unease from his brothers-in-law. Perhaps even they could see the falsehood in their father’s words. Perhaps they were not quite so unaware of just how deceived Laban really was.

Laban laughed, a rueful sound, as though he could somehow lighten the mood. He pointed in the direction of Rachel’s and Leah’s tents. “Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine or about the children they have borne?” He met Jacob’s gaze again, extending a hand. “Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us.”

Jacob studied Laban’s dark eyes, noticed the streaks of white lining his beard, saw the slight lift of his mouth in the familiar way he smirked when he was at his most congenial, when he was trying to coax a man to see things his way. He still thought himself in control of the situation, and yet God had protected Jacob even through Laban’s accusations.

Jacob stood straighter, breathing a silent prayer of gratitude. He nodded, then walked without a word to the edge of the camp where an outcropping of rocks protected them from the elements. He lifted a large stone, carried it to the place Laban stood, and set it up as a pillar.

“Gather some stones,” he said to his oldest sons as well as to his brothers-in-law. They moved quickly to do his bidding, brought the stones to the spot Jacob had picked, and piled them in a heap.

“The place shall be called Jegar Sahadutha,” Laban said.

“And we shall call it Galeed.” Both meant “witness heap,” but even in this, Jacob broke from Laban’s hold. He would keep to the language of his fathers, not his uncle. His fathers’ heritage, not Laban’s.

“This heap is a witness between you and me today.” Laban raised his hands as if in benediction and blessing. “May Adonai keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other. If you mistreat my daughters or if you take any wives besides my daughters, even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me.”

Laban turned briefly to face his sons, then looked back at Jacob, acknowledging Jacob’s sons with a nod. “Here is this heap, and here is this pillar I have set up between you and me. This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me. May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.”

“May Elohim of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac judge between us,” Jacob said, again reminding his sons and wives who were listening that they had broken loyalty to Laban and his gods to be wholly devoted to the God of his fathers. “Let us offer a sacrifice to complete the agreement.”

Rachel spent the night confined to her tent, feigning illness during the feasting, still afraid to leave her father’s gods even to share in the evening meal. The weight they had brought to her heart since she had lifted them from their stand in her father’s house had become like a millstone tied to her neck. How she longed to be rid of them! And she would be, the first chance she got to bury them away from her tent.

The jangle of camels’ bells woke her before dawn, and she was half surprised to find her father and brothers already preparing to leave. She cast about for a place to hide the camel cushion, quickly placing it behind another pair of sacks that still held clothes and some of the weaving equipment she had yet to remove. Satisfied that things did not look out of place, she donned her robe and clutched it tight about her to still the sudden trembling. Perhaps she truly was ill.

She moved to the other side of the partition to wake Joseph, helped him dress, and then met the other women and children in the center of the camp, where Jacob was already speaking to her father and brothers. She shivered, glad for the morning chill that might make the others think her cold rather than reveal the nervousness that now gripped her middle. Joseph sidled closer to her, still groggy, and she pulled him in front of her, her shield, and she his protector.

Her father’s laughter jarred the birds’ happy morning calls, as if even the land where they were standing would be glad to be rid of him. She braced herself as he stepped toward her.

“Ah, my daughter. Feeling better at last, I hope?”

She nodded, swallowed hard. “A little.”

He leaned close and kissed each of her cheeks, then bent before Joseph and did the same. Joseph clung to his grandfather in return and kissed his peppered beard. “I will miss you, Sabba Laban.” Tears clung to her father’s lashes when Joseph released him, and Rachel felt the sudden loss of him as well.

She longed to fall into his embrace and hold him close, to feel his protective arms around her. But he had long ago given up that privilege when he treated her future with such contempt. She reminded herself of the things he had done, even the pilfering of their goods, searching for what she would not give him. Still, despite everything, he was her father and she loved him.

“I will miss you too, Father,” she said, pulling Joseph against her again. “May God go before you and watch between us.”

“While we are absent from one another,” her father finished the benediction. “Bear many more sons, my daughter.” He looked for a moment like he would say more, and she wished belatedly that she could have offered him some comfort. But he had ruined the bond they had shared in her childhood by his own choices. It took all of her strength to remember that fact.

“Farewell, Father.” She gave him a soft smile and an affirming nod before he turned to Leah and his other grandsons. When at last the goodbyes were said, Laban mounted his camel, and her brothers did the same.

She watched them go with an aching heart until the last camel disappeared into the distance. Joseph ran off to find his half brothers, and sometime later when all were fed and the men were busy with daily tasks, Rachel took the camel bag with her father’s images, walked a safe distance to a tree in the woods, and buried the gods deep in the earth.