And Rebekah’s mother and her brother said, “This is the Lord’s doing. Take Rebekah, and let her be the wife of Isaac.”
Then Eliezer opened his treasures and took out jewels of gold and jewels of silver, and beautiful embroidered things to wear, and gave them to Rebekah and her mother. After that he sat down at the table, and they all had supper, and were very happy.
The next day, Eliezer said, “Let me go back now, with Rebekah, to my master.” But they urged him to stay. “Oh, let Rebekah wait,” they said, “a little while till we can get her ready. In a week or ten days, she may go.” But he said, “We ought to go at once.”
And they called Rebekah and said, “How shall it be? Will you go with this man to-day?” She said, “I will go.” So they bade her good-by, with many prayers and blessings, and sent her maids along to wait upon her; and her old nurse, Deborah, went with her.
Thus they rode away on camels, and they journeyed and they journeyed, till one day they saw in the distance a man walking in the fields, and he was coming to meet them. And Rebekah said, “Who is this man walking across the fields to meet us?” And Eliezer replied, “That is my young master, Isaac.” So Rebekah took a veil and covered herself, for that was the custom of the country. And Isaac brought her into his mother’s tent, and she became his wife. And he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
V
THE MESS OF POTTAGE
SAAC and Rebekah had two sons. The elder was a red-headed lad, called Esau. The younger was named Jacob. The two boys were quite different. Esau was very fond of hunting. He loved to get away into the deep woods and to climb the steep hills. For days at a time he would roam about, with his bow and arrows, and when he came home he always had something in his hand, some bird or beast which he had shot. Sometimes he brought back a deer, and he knew how to cook the venison just as his father liked it. And this pleased Isaac. Jacob was a home boy, who preferred to stay about the house. He worked in the garden, and took care of the sheep and cows, and helped his mother. And that pleased Rebekah. So Isaac’s favorite son was Esau, and Rebekah’s favorite son was Jacob. But Esau, being the elder, had the birthright. That is, he was the one to be the head of the family after the death of his father.
But one day, Esau came home from hunting, very tired and hungry. And he found Jacob cooking something over the fire. The fire was blazing, and the kettle was boiling away at a great rate, and the most appetizing odors were coming out of it, and in the kettle was a mess of pottage, which was made of lentils, and was something like peas, and something like beans, and something like chicken broth, and very nice to eat.
So Esau said, “Give me some of your pottage.”