Items related to Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis (Forge))
From bestselling author Orson Scott Card comes another riveting novel exploring the relationships, the settings, and the stories of the Old Testament. In this volume, Rebekah leaves her father's house to marry Isaac, the studious young son of the storied Sarah and Abraham, only to find herself caught up in a series of painful rivalries, first between her husband and his brother, Ishmael, and later between her sons, Jacob and Esau. Through it all she finds her own relationship with God and does her best to serve His cause in the lives of those she loves.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win these two top prizes in consecutive years. There are seven other novels to date in The Ender Universe series. Card has also written fantasy: The Tales of Alvin Maker is a series of fantasy novels set in frontier America; his most recent novel, The Lost Gate, is a contemporary magical fantasy. Card has written many other stand-alone sf and fantasy novels, as well as movie tie-ins and games, and publishes an internet-based science fiction and fantasy magazine, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. Card was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, Card directs plays and teaches writing and literature at Southern Virginia University. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, and youngest daughter, Zina Margaret.
CHAPTER 1
Rebekah's mother died a few days after she was born, but she never thought of this as something that happened in her childhood. Since she had never known her mother, she had never felt the loss, or at least had not felt it as a change in her life. It was simply the way things were. Other children had mothers to take care of them and scold them and dress them and whack them and tell them stories; Rebekah had her nurse, her cousin Deborah, fifteen years older than her.
Deborah never yelled at Rebekah or spanked her, but that was because of Deborah's native cheerfulness, not because Rebekah never needed scolding. By the time Rebekah was five, she came to understand that Deborah was simple. She did not understand many of the things that happened around her, could not grasp many of Rebekah's questions and explanations. Rebekah did not love her any the less; indeed, she appreciated all the more how hard Deborah worked to learn all the tasks she did for her. For answers and understanding, she would talk to her father, or to her older brother Laban. For comfort and kindness she could always count on Deborah.
Rebekah no longer played pranks or hid or teased Deborah, because she could not bear seeing her nurse's confusion when a prank was discovered. Rebekah soon made her brother Laban stop teasing Deborah. "It's not fair to fool her," said Rebekah, which made little impression on Laban. What convinced him was when Rebekah said, "It's what a coward does, to mock someone who can't fight back." As usual, when she finally found the right words to say, Rebekah was able to prevail over her older brother.
The real change in her life, the one that transformed Rebekah's childhood, was when her father, Bethuel, went deaf. He had not been a young man when she was born, but he was strong enough to carry her everywhere on his shoulders when she was little, letting her listen in on conversations with the men and women of his household, shepherds and farmers and craftsmen, cooks and spinners and weavers. Riding on his shoulders as she did, his voice became far more than words to her. It was a vibration through her whole body; she felt sometimes as though she could hear his voice in her knees and elbows, and when he shouted she felt as if it were her own voice, coming from her own chest, deep, manly tones pouring out of her own throat. Sometimes she resented the fact that in order to say her own words, she had only her small high voice, which sounded silly and inconsequential even to her.
But when she spoke, Father heard her, and since he was the most important man in the whole world, however weak her voice might be, it was strong enough. Even after she grew too big to ride his shoulders, she was at his side as much as possible, listening to everything, understanding or trying to understand every aspect of the life of the camp, the work and workings of the household. He, in turn, called her his conscience. The little voice always at his side, never intruding, but asking him wise questions whenever they were alone together.
And then, trying to keep a cart from sliding down a muddy bank into the cold water of a brook in spring flood, Father slipped himself and fell into the water, the cart tumbling after him. The men swore later that it was a gift of God that Bethuel was not killed, for the cart was held up by the spokes of its own broken wheel just enough that he was able to keep his mouth above water and breathe while the men hurriedly unloaded the cart enough that they could lift it off him. He seemed at first to be no worse the wear for the hour he spent in the cold water, but that night he awoke shivering and fevered, and for two weeks he came back and forth between fever and chills as if the icy water still had a place in him.
When he rose at last from his pallet, the world had gone silent for him. He shouted everything he said, and heard no one's answer, and when Rebekah ran to him and covered her ears and cried, "Father, why are you angry with me?" he bent down to her and shouted for her to speak up, speak up, he couldn't hear her. Louder and louder she spoke until she was red-faced with screaming and Father gathered her into his arms and wept. "Of all the sounds that I shall never hear again," he murmured into her hair, "the voice of my sweet girl is the one I will miss most of all."
Father remained master of his household, but there was no more ranging out in the hills to oversee the herds. There was too much danger to a man who could not hear a shouted warning, or the roar of a lion, or the cries of marauders. Instead, Father had no choice but to trust his servants to oversee his flocks and herds. It embarrassed him to have to ask people to repeat everything, to talk slowly, to pronounce their words carefully so he could try to read their lips. He did not have to tell Rebekah that she could not stay with him all the time that he was in camp, as she had used to. She could see that he did not want her there, partly because he was ashamed to show his weakness in front of her, and partly because, when she spoke to him, she saw how much it hurt him that he could not hear her anymore.
"Why don't you go with your father?" Deborah asked her. "He likes you beside him. He used to carry you when you were little. You're too big now."
Rebekah had to explain it to her several times. "Father is deaf now. That means he can't hear. So I can't talk to him anymore. He doesn't hear me."
And after a little while, Deborah understood and remembered. Indeed, she took to informing Rebekah. "You mustn't go to your father today. He's deaf, you know. He can't hear you when you talk to him." Rebekah didn't have the heart to rebuke Deborah for the frequent reminders. Instead, she would ask Deborah to sing her a song as she plaited Rebekah's hair or spun thread beside her or walked through the camp, looking at the work of the women and children and old men. Everyone looked up when Deborah came singing, and gave her a smile. And they smiled at Rebekah, too, and answered her questions, until she understood everything she saw going on, all the work of Father's household.
Rebekah was ten years old when Father lost his hearing, and her brother Laban was twelve. It was just as hard on him as it was on her, for as she had been Father's constant companion in the camp, Laban had been his shadow on almost every trip to visit distant flocks and herds where they grazed.
To Laban it was like a prison, always to be in camp because his father rarely traveled. And Rebekah was no happier. Once she would have rejoiced to have Father always near the home tents, but he was short-tempered now, and bellowed often for no good reason.
Everyone was ill at ease. But the work of the household went on, day after day, week after week. People get used to anything, if it just goes on. Rebekah didn't like the way things were, but she expected this new order to go on unchanged.
Until, a year after her father's deafness began, she happened to come up behind several of the servant women boiling rags, and overheard them talking about Father.
"He's an old lion, with all that roaring."
"A lion with no teeth."
And they started to laugh until one of them noticed Rebekah and shushed the others.
Rebekah told this to Laban, and at first he was all for telling Father. But Rebekah clutched at Laban and held him back. "How will you even tell him? And if you make him understand, then what? Should he beat the woman for saying it? Or the others for laughing? Will that make them love him better?"
Laban looked at her. "We can't let them laugh at Father behind his back. Soon they'll laugh in his face, and then they'll do what they want. Already the servants don't even try to tell Father half the things that happen. Pillel makes decisions all by himself that he used to never make, and Father knows it but what can he do?"
"We can pray to God for him to hear again," said Rebekah.
"And what if God answers us the way he answered Abram and Sarai when they prayed for a son? Can Father wait ten years? Twenty? Thirty?"
They knew well the tales of their father's uncle Abraham, the great lord of the desert, the prophet that Pharaoh could not kill, and how his wife Sarah bore him a baby in her old age.
"But what else can we do?" said Rebekah. "Only God can let Father hear again."
"We can be his ears," said Laban. " We have time to explain things to him. Let the men tell us, and we'll tell Father."
Rebekah had her doubts about this. She had tried talking to Father many times, speaking slowly so he could read her lips, and at first he had tried to understand her, but most of the time he failed, or got it only partly right, and the resignation in his eyes when he looked away from her and refused to try anymore made her so sad she couldn't even cry. "What, you'll press your mouth into his ear and scream?"
Laban rolled his eyes as if she were a hopeless simpleton. "Writing."
"That's a thing for city priests."
"Uncle Abraham writes."
"Uncle Abraham is far away and very old and spends all his time talking to God," said Rebekah.
"If the priests in the city can write, and Uncle Abraham can write, then why can't Father and I learn to write?"
"Then I can, too," said Rebekah, daring him to argue with her.
"Of course you can," said Laban. "You have to. Because as soon as I can, I'll be out with the men, and you'll have to be able to talk to Father, too."
For three days, Laban and Rebekah spent every spare moment together, working out a set of pictures they could draw with a stick in the dirt. Some of the words were easy--each of the animals could be drawn quickly, as could crops, articles of clothing, pots, baskets. Day and night were easy enough, too--the sun was round, the moon a crescent. Water was a bit more of a challenge, but they ended up with a drawing of a well.
"What if you want to say 'well'?" asked Rebekah.
"Then I'll draw a well," said Laban.
"What if you want to say, 'There's no water in the well'?" asked Rebekah.
"Then I'll draw a well, point to it, and then rub it out!" Laban was beginn...
Rebekah's mother died a few days after she was born, but she never thought of this as something that happened in her childhood. Since she had never known her mother, she had never felt the loss, or at least had not felt it as a change in her life. It was simply the way things were. Other children had mothers to take care of them and scold them and dress them and whack them and tell them stories; Rebekah had her nurse, her cousin Deborah, fifteen years older than her.
Deborah never yelled at Rebekah or spanked her, but that was because of Deborah's native cheerfulness, not because Rebekah never needed scolding. By the time Rebekah was five, she came to understand that Deborah was simple. She did not understand many of the things that happened around her, could not grasp many of Rebekah's questions and explanations. Rebekah did not love her any the less; indeed, she appreciated all the more how hard Deborah worked to learn all the tasks she did for her. For answers and understanding, she would talk to her father, or to her older brother Laban. For comfort and kindness she could always count on Deborah.
Rebekah no longer played pranks or hid or teased Deborah, because she could not bear seeing her nurse's confusion when a prank was discovered. Rebekah soon made her brother Laban stop teasing Deborah. "It's not fair to fool her," said Rebekah, which made little impression on Laban. What convinced him was when Rebekah said, "It's what a coward does, to mock someone who can't fight back." As usual, when she finally found the right words to say, Rebekah was able to prevail over her older brother.
The real change in her life, the one that transformed Rebekah's childhood, was when her father, Bethuel, went deaf. He had not been a young man when she was born, but he was strong enough to carry her everywhere on his shoulders when she was little, letting her listen in on conversations with the men and women of his household, shepherds and farmers and craftsmen, cooks and spinners and weavers. Riding on his shoulders as she did, his voice became far more than words to her. It was a vibration through her whole body; she felt sometimes as though she could hear his voice in her knees and elbows, and when he shouted she felt as if it were her own voice, coming from her own chest, deep, manly tones pouring out of her own throat. Sometimes she resented the fact that in order to say her own words, she had only her small high voice, which sounded silly and inconsequential even to her.
But when she spoke, Father heard her, and since he was the most important man in the whole world, however weak her voice might be, it was strong enough. Even after she grew too big to ride his shoulders, she was at his side as much as possible, listening to everything, understanding or trying to understand every aspect of the life of the camp, the work and workings of the household. He, in turn, called her his conscience. The little voice always at his side, never intruding, but asking him wise questions whenever they were alone together.
And then, trying to keep a cart from sliding down a muddy bank into the cold water of a brook in spring flood, Father slipped himself and fell into the water, the cart tumbling after him. The men swore later that it was a gift of God that Bethuel was not killed, for the cart was held up by the spokes of its own broken wheel just enough that he was able to keep his mouth above water and breathe while the men hurriedly unloaded the cart enough that they could lift it off him. He seemed at first to be no worse the wear for the hour he spent in the cold water, but that night he awoke shivering and fevered, and for two weeks he came back and forth between fever and chills as if the icy water still had a place in him.
When he rose at last from his pallet, the world had gone silent for him. He shouted everything he said, and heard no one's answer, and when Rebekah ran to him and covered her ears and cried, "Father, why are you angry with me?" he bent down to her and shouted for her to speak up, speak up, he couldn't hear her. Louder and louder she spoke until she was red-faced with screaming and Father gathered her into his arms and wept. "Of all the sounds that I shall never hear again," he murmured into her hair, "the voice of my sweet girl is the one I will miss most of all."
Father remained master of his household, but there was no more ranging out in the hills to oversee the herds. There was too much danger to a man who could not hear a shouted warning, or the roar of a lion, or the cries of marauders. Instead, Father had no choice but to trust his servants to oversee his flocks and herds. It embarrassed him to have to ask people to repeat everything, to talk slowly, to pronounce their words carefully so he could try to read their lips. He did not have to tell Rebekah that she could not stay with him all the time that he was in camp, as she had used to. She could see that he did not want her there, partly because he was ashamed to show his weakness in front of her, and partly because, when she spoke to him, she saw how much it hurt him that he could not hear her anymore.
"Why don't you go with your father?" Deborah asked her. "He likes you beside him. He used to carry you when you were little. You're too big now."
Rebekah had to explain it to her several times. "Father is deaf now. That means he can't hear. So I can't talk to him anymore. He doesn't hear me."
And after a little while, Deborah understood and remembered. Indeed, she took to informing Rebekah. "You mustn't go to your father today. He's deaf, you know. He can't hear you when you talk to him." Rebekah didn't have the heart to rebuke Deborah for the frequent reminders. Instead, she would ask Deborah to sing her a song as she plaited Rebekah's hair or spun thread beside her or walked through the camp, looking at the work of the women and children and old men. Everyone looked up when Deborah came singing, and gave her a smile. And they smiled at Rebekah, too, and answered her questions, until she understood everything she saw going on, all the work of Father's household.
Rebekah was ten years old when Father lost his hearing, and her brother Laban was twelve. It was just as hard on him as it was on her, for as she had been Father's constant companion in the camp, Laban had been his shadow on almost every trip to visit distant flocks and herds where they grazed.
To Laban it was like a prison, always to be in camp because his father rarely traveled. And Rebekah was no happier. Once she would have rejoiced to have Father always near the home tents, but he was short-tempered now, and bellowed often for no good reason.
Everyone was ill at ease. But the work of the household went on, day after day, week after week. People get used to anything, if it just goes on. Rebekah didn't like the way things were, but she expected this new order to go on unchanged.
Until, a year after her father's deafness began, she happened to come up behind several of the servant women boiling rags, and overheard them talking about Father.
"He's an old lion, with all that roaring."
"A lion with no teeth."
And they started to laugh until one of them noticed Rebekah and shushed the others.
Rebekah told this to Laban, and at first he was all for telling Father. But Rebekah clutched at Laban and held him back. "How will you even tell him? And if you make him understand, then what? Should he beat the woman for saying it? Or the others for laughing? Will that make them love him better?"
Laban looked at her. "We can't let them laugh at Father behind his back. Soon they'll laugh in his face, and then they'll do what they want. Already the servants don't even try to tell Father half the things that happen. Pillel makes decisions all by himself that he used to never make, and Father knows it but what can he do?"
"We can pray to God for him to hear again," said Rebekah.
"And what if God answers us the way he answered Abram and Sarai when they prayed for a son? Can Father wait ten years? Twenty? Thirty?"
They knew well the tales of their father's uncle Abraham, the great lord of the desert, the prophet that Pharaoh could not kill, and how his wife Sarah bore him a baby in her old age.
"But what else can we do?" said Rebekah. "Only God can let Father hear again."
"We can be his ears," said Laban. " We have time to explain things to him. Let the men tell us, and we'll tell Father."
Rebekah had her doubts about this. She had tried talking to Father many times, speaking slowly so he could read her lips, and at first he had tried to understand her, but most of the time he failed, or got it only partly right, and the resignation in his eyes when he looked away from her and refused to try anymore made her so sad she couldn't even cry. "What, you'll press your mouth into his ear and scream?"
Laban rolled his eyes as if she were a hopeless simpleton. "Writing."
"That's a thing for city priests."
"Uncle Abraham writes."
"Uncle Abraham is far away and very old and spends all his time talking to God," said Rebekah.
"If the priests in the city can write, and Uncle Abraham can write, then why can't Father and I learn to write?"
"Then I can, too," said Rebekah, daring him to argue with her.
"Of course you can," said Laban. "You have to. Because as soon as I can, I'll be out with the men, and you'll have to be able to talk to Father, too."
For three days, Laban and Rebekah spent every spare moment together, working out a set of pictures they could draw with a stick in the dirt. Some of the words were easy--each of the animals could be drawn quickly, as could crops, articles of clothing, pots, baskets. Day and night were easy enough, too--the sun was round, the moon a crescent. Water was a bit more of a challenge, but they ended up with a drawing of a well.
"What if you want to say 'well'?" asked Rebekah.
"Then I'll draw a well," said Laban.
"What if you want to say, 'There's no water in the well'?" asked Rebekah.
"Then I'll draw a well, point to it, and then rub it out!" Laban was beginn...
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherShadow Mountain
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 1570089957
- ISBN 13 9781570089954
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages413
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 25.38
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis (Forge))
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk1570089957xvz189zvxnew
Buy New
US$ 25.38
Convert currency
Stock Image
Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis (Forge))
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-1570089957-new
Buy New
US$ 25.38
Convert currency
Stock Image
Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis (Forge))
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_1570089957
Buy New
US$ 21.39
Convert currency
Stock Image
Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis (Forge)) [Hardcover] Card, Orson Scott
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # TEAT-01056-04-22-2023
Buy New
US$ 20.99
Convert currency
Stock Image
Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis (Forge))
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover1570089957
Buy New
US$ 28.90
Convert currency
Stock Image
Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis, 2)
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Brand New. 400 pages. 9.50x6.25x1.75 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # 1570089957
Buy New
US$ 37.62
Convert currency
Stock Image
Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis (Forge))
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard1570089957
Buy New
US$ 54.59
Convert currency
Stock Image
Rebekah: Women of Genesis (Women of Genesis (Forge))
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think1570089957
Buy New
US$ 55.57
Convert currency
Stock Image
REBEKAH: WOMEN OF GENESIS (WOMEN
Published by
Shadow Mountain
(2001)
ISBN 10: 1570089957
ISBN 13: 9781570089954
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 1.62. Seller Inventory # Q-1570089957
Buy New
US$ 58.11
Convert currency