Rebekah: Women of Genesis Read Online Free PDF Page A

Could it be that this was what everyone thought in the whole camp?
     
    Rebekah did not speak of these things to Father or even to Laban. Nor did she rub out the offending words, lest someone take satisfaction from knowing it bothered her. Still, it was not as if she could keep them secret from Father. After all, he was not confined to his tent, and now that so many people could write messages to him, he was out and about the camp more than he had been in many months. This was a blessing, the greatest blessing of all, Rebekah thought, because people could see that he was still the ruler of this house, the master of all things. But it also meant that he was bound to see the cruel words about Rebekah, too.
     
    One day Rebekah found out just how seriously he had taken it when she heard someone crying out in pain and ran from the kitchen fires to see what was happening. Deborah met her, frantic with worry. “He’s beating people! Make him stop, Rebekah!”
     
    “Who?”
     
    “Uncle Bethuel! Don’t let him beat me, Rebekah. I’ve been very good!”
     
    Deborah wrung her hands as Rebekah led her toward the cries. “Deborah, Father won’t beat you.” Deborah always took other people’s beatings as if they were only a prelude to her own, though Father had never beaten Deborah and, in fact, rarely beat anyone. Whatever had happened must have been terrible.
     
    A servant boy named Belbai lay naked and writhing on the ground as Father towered over him, thwacking him so harshly with his staff that each blow drew blood and Rebekah was certain that some bone was bound to break, if it hadn’t already. “Father, what are you doing!” she cried. But of course he didn’t hear her. So she ran to him and caught at his arm and clung so he could not strike again . . . clung until Father stood there, his chest heaving with anger and exertion, as she wrote her question into the dirt. “What did he do? You never beat children.”
     
    “ You tell her what you did!” Father roared at Belbai.
     
    Belbai, who was panting and sobbing in pain, could not speak.
     
    Rebekah saw Khaneah, Belbai’s mother, standing helplessly nearby. She dared not interfere with her son’s punishment, and yet clearly it was unbearable for her not to be able to go to the boy. So Rebekah beckoned to her, and stopped Father when he raised his staff to drive her off. In a moment the woman was on her knees, cradling her son’s head and shoulders in her lap.
     
    Rebekah wrote in the dirt: “Will you kill him? Break his bones?”
     
    “Yes!” cried Father. But even as he said the words, he stepped back, showing that he would not kill him, would not break his body.
     
    “Forgive me,” Belbai whimpered. “I never meant it.”
     
    “Never meant what?” asked Rebekah.
     
    “Don’t you speak to him!” roared Bethuel. “I won’t have you speak to him! I’ll tear off his ears before I let him hear your voice!”
     
    That was when Laban arrived at a run from the bean fields, having been told of the commotion by one of the children. He demanded to know the cause, and Belbai, encouraged by the way his mother’s arms enfolded him, finally said, “I was the one writing against Rebekah.”
     
    It was Belbai? Why him, of all people?
     
    “You!” cried Laban. He seemed to explode with fury, and he stomped hard on the boy’s ribs.
     
    Belbai cried out and Khaneah shrieked, but no one raised a hand to stop him. Except Rebekah. “It was nothing but words,” she cried. “He’s been punished more than enough for words. ”
     
    “I should have known it was him,” Laban said. And he started to gush out an explanation, but Father stopped him and made him write it. Laban spoke slowly, writing each word as he said it.
     
    “Last summer he saw Rebekah walk by and he said, ‘A rich man is going to pay a lot to get that pretty one in bed.’”
     
    Bethuel’s eyes grew wide with rage, but it was not his anger that made Laban hesitate—it was