Signs and Wonders by Bernard Evslin Page B

do so,” said Jacob.
    “God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful,” said Isaac. “May your seed multiply and inherit this land that was promised to Abraham.”
    Jacob mounted his camel and departed. Rebecca watched him ride away across the sandy plain. She watched until he disappeared. She did not weep; her face was like stone.
    Word came to Esau that his brother had gone north to find a wife among Rebecca’s kindred. Esau said to himself: “It is by my choice of wives that I have displeased my mother. Now I know how to please her. I, too, shall find a wife from among my kindred.”
    He went into the desert, to a wild place, to the tents of Ishmael, who was Isaac’s brother, Abraham’s son by Hagar. Ishmael was a warrior, a rider of swift horses, a raider of caravans. There was love between the outlaw, Ishmael, and the wild red Esau. And Esau took one of Ishmael’s daughters to be his wife. But his parents were displeased by this, also. Jacob went northward from Beersheba toward Haran. The sun was setting. There were no trees; it was a barren place. He chose a stone to be his pillow and lay down to sleep. He dreamed. A ladder of fire was flung across the blackness; it reached from earth to sky. Its sidepieces were fire, its rungs were bars of fire, and it was taller than a mountain. A throng of bright angels were on the ladder, going up and down.
    A voice spoke out of the sky: “I am the Lord, God of Abraham, and God of Isaac. The land you lie on I give to you and to your seed. And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south, and in you and in your seed all the families of earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you, and will go with you and guard your way. And I will bring you again into this land, and will not leave you until I have done what I have said.” Jacob awakened and was filled with fear. “Was it God’s own ladder, and God’s own voice, or all just a dream?” he said to himself. “How do I know? How can I tell?” And he muttered to himself, “This is a dreadful place. Can this be God’s own house? Are these the gates of heaven?”
    He took the stone he had used as a pillow and raised it upon its end, making it an altar. He poured oil on the altar stone.
    “I will call this place Beth-el, ‘the house of God,’ ” he said. “And perhaps it is. The voice in the night promised many things We shall see. If God will go with me and guard my way, and give me food to eat and clothes to wear; if He will bring me back to my father’s house in safety, then I will take this God as my God. I will come back to this place and build a temple where the stone now stands. And a tenth, yes, a tenth part of all that God gives me, I will give back to him.”
    Jacob mounted his camel and journeyed eastward into Haran.
    Laban’s Daughters
    Jacob rode eastward until he reached a grassy plain where cattle grazed. There was a well there; its mouth was covered by a large rock. Jacob spoke to the herdsmen: “Of what place are you?”
    “We are of Haran.”
    “Who is your master?”
    “Laban is his name. This is his herd, and we are his herdsmen.”
    “Does he not have sheep, as well?”
    “He has a flock. His daughter drives it. She brings it here each day at noon. Rachel is her name. And who are you, young stranger, who come with questions?”
    “I am Jacob, Laban’s kinsman from Canaan.”
    Jacob waited in the field for Rachel. At last he saw a mass of jostling sheep being driven by a tall maiden brandishing a staff, whistling to the dogs. His heart turned over. For she was tall like the daughters of Terah, tall and free-striding and beautiful as the old tales of Sarah, beautiful as his first memory of Rebecca. When she came closer he saw that her eyes were not black like Rebecca’s, but the color of the gem called chrysoprase, which is a strange green, a living green, its blue flecking with yellow lights as you