The Source

by James A. Michener

  So the two leaders started their descent from the high place, sharing a clear understanding and honest intentions. They would go down to the plains, one to his town, the other to his open fields, and each would do his best to keep the diverse peoples at peace. Each was certain that the task could be accomplished, for each was dedicated to conciliation. That evening the first test came, for Jael’s Hebrew husband lingered inside the walls when the gates were closed and when night came he rushed to the house where his wife was living and murdered her. Before he could escape over the wall, the guard was aroused and killed him.

  It was nearly midnight when Governor Uriel and Zadok met, but it was easy for them to prove to their people that the two deaths had canceled each other: an adultress had been slain, which ought to satisfy the Hebrews; and an invader had been killed by guards in uniform, which ought to pacify the Canaanites. The populace recognized the wisdom of this judgment, and an incident that could have led to inflammation was disposed of. The two leaders hoped that this was an augury for the future.

  But then began the pressures upon Uriel and Zadok that would never diminish. When the governor returned home from the parley his wife Rahab asked why he had permitted the Hebrews to insult the town. “A stranger hides himself inside our walls and kills a woman to whom you yourself offered sanctuary. Don’t words mean anything these days?” She kept hammering, reminding Uriel of how her father when he was governor had reacted to similar insults. Uriel asked what he ought to do, and his wife replied, “What my father did when the Hittites attacked the farmers outside the walls. He captured the lot and made them slaves, and today their sons are the best soldiers you have.” Uriel asked if she thought he ought to march out and destroy the Hebrews, and she said, “You should have yesterday. You blind yourself to how serious their threat is. Go forth and kill half of them and you’ll settle the matter now, while you can. Wait, and you’ll face terrible consequences.”

  That night Governor Uriel walked for long hours through his town, inspecting the richness he had brought to Makor: the industry, the silos filled with grain, the sixty additional houses tucked in here and there. It was a town of affluence and peace, one that must not be imperiled because of vacillation on his part. He argued with himself: I suppose I ought to march out and destroy the Hebrews, but then he remembered the conciliation offered by Zadok and concluded: To attack such people would be criminal. At the secret place along the north wall he asked his Hittites, “Could we defeat the Hebrews tomorrow?”

  “Easily,” they assured him. At home he asked Zibeon if he thought the Hebrews could be defeated, and the young man said, “Easily, but each day they watch our ways and grow stronger.”

  When dawn came Uriel temporized. He went to the secret building and ordered his Hittites to mount the horses kept inside and to deploy along the Damascus road, presenting a show of force to the Hebrews, who were unaccustomed to these powerful beasts; and not long after sunrise the gates opened and the horsemen rode forth, galloping some miles east of town, brandishing their bronze spears and then returning to the town.

  The lesson was not lost on Zadok’s sons. Epher and Ibsha, from a vantage point among the olive trees, watched the horses sweep down the road and studied them carefully on their return. The beasts were impressive, and the ease with which the mounted soldiers handled their long spears spoke one clear message. As soon as the dusty horses had disappeared, the young men ran to Zadok and said, “The Canaanites mean to destroy us. Since there is bound to be war, we think you should give the signal now.” They sat with the old man and explained with diagrams in the dust how they had scouted the town, using women who went to the well, and had devised a complex strategy for puncturing the waterwall and taking possession of the well. “We can subdue them with thirst.”

  “They surely have cisterns,” Zadok said.

  “We can wait,” the boys replied, but he forbade them to discuss such matters and they said no more to him. However, they borrowed dresses from their sister Leah, and going as women to the well they accumulated the solid intelligence that they would need if war came. And they spoke to all the younger men, warning them of Canaanite intentions.

  In the middle of this summer of uneasiness Leah went often into the town for water, passing through the main gate and along the crowded street whose shops were so enticing. Like other girls of good breeding she stayed away from the temple of the prostitutes and each day kept her eyes lowered as she went through the postern gate and into the long, gloomy waterwall leading to the well. She was a beautiful girl, seventeen years old, with the supple loveliness of one who had walked to many a well carrying her water jar on her head. Many Canaanite men had noticed her with approval, stopping their work to smile as she went past.

  It was Zadok’s intention to marry Leah to a young man who had already shown promise of becoming a leader, perhaps even a judge, but as she walked each day through the town she began to see, lounging in the corner of the gate or sitting on the governor’s three-legged stool, the handsome young man Zibeon, and although she did not smile at him, both became aware that their meetings came oftener than chance would dictate. Zibeon was at the gate. He was at the postern. He rode along the olive groves on a horse. And once he met her at the door of the shop where clay goddesses were sold. He had an ingratiating smile and a generous manner, which Leah appreciated after the rough customs she had known in the desert.

  One morning as Leah entered the town, hoping to see Zibeon, he disappointed her, and it was with regret that she left the sunlight and entered the long, dark waterwall, but as she reached the first guardhouse, empty that summer, for men were at work in the fields, she was seized so forcibly that her water jar toppled from her head and crashed to the ground, while she was whisked into the guardhouse and kissed many times. At first she was terrified, for no man had touched her so before, but when she discovered that the man was Zibeon she lost her fear, for he was gentle with her and that day they did no more than kiss passionately, and after a long time she was still loath to leave. He whispered that she would need a new water jar, and he left her in the guardhouse while he ran back to purchase a replacement, warning her that if anyone asked about the strange jar she should say, “I must have picked the wrong one at the well.” That day the substitution was not detected, and during the hot days of summer Leah went often to the well, always hoping that Zibeon would reach for her as she passed the guardhouse. And they went far beyond kissing.

  One day Epher chanced to notice that her water jar was unlike those carried by the other girls and he asked her how she had come by it, and she blushed deeply, saying, “I must have picked the wrong one at the well,” but this he did not believe. He asked an older woman who carried water to watch his sister and in due course the spy reported that Leah and the governor’s son were meeting in the guardhouse.

  “The guardhouse!” Epher repeated, for those two projections from the waterwall formed focal points in his plan for assaulting Makor. He was both fascinated by the knowledge that the guardhouses were unattended and repelled by the thought that his sister should be spending time there with a Canaanite, for his experience had been with the temple prostitute. He thought first of advising his father, but decided not to do so because the old man was busy establishing the routines required in settled life. Epher consulted with his brother Ibsha and these two began keeping watch upon their sister.

  Before long they were convinced that she was behaving strangely, and one afternoon they lingered near the main gate to overhear her saying good-bye to her lover, and as soon as she was outside the range of the guards they grabbed her and started running with her to Zadok’s tent. But the governor’s son had gone up to the tower to watch her cross the fields; without summoning assistance he ran after the three, catching up with them inside the Hebrew camp.

  “She’s been whoring with the Canaanites!” Epher shouted to his father.

  Zibeon, running up from behind, struck Lean’s brother across the lips. Stone knives flashed and th
e Hebrews would have killed the young man had not old Zadok intervened. “What have you done?” he asked his daughter.

  “Hiding in the dark with a Canaanite,” Epher broke in,

  Again Zibeon leaped for the young Hebrew, but Zadok intervened and waited for Leah’s reply. She said that she loved the governor’s son and that if their fathers could arrange it, they wished to marry.

  “They have married already,” Epher warned, and Leah flushed as the men of her family felt her body and satisfied themselves that she was pregnant.

  “Let us stone them now!” Epher demanded, but Zadok sent his hot-headed son away and interrogated young Zibeon for some time. Like many of the Canaanites he was circumcised. He was willing to accept El-Shaddai as the one god. He would not force Leah to worship either Baal or Astarte. And he seemed an attractive, honest young man whom Leah obviously cherished.

  Satisfied on these points, Zadok handed Zibeon over to the protection of his older sons and withdrew to the tabernacle before which he had prayed for so many years. “El-Shaddai, what is your intention in this matter? Are we to accept a Canaanite into our family? Are we to submerge their gods in you?” No answer came, but at least the great god of the clan of Zadok did not object to the union, so the patriarch returned to his sons, saying, “If Governor Uriel approves, your sister will marry his son.” Further argument he would not permit, and in silence he led a delegation back to the zigzag gate, where an excited crowd lined the walls and where the Hebrews confronted Uriel and his wife Rahab.

  “Our children wish to marry,” the patriarch announced, and the good will that marked the two leaders was put to the test. Uriel signified his acceptance of the marriage, for this was the kind of development he had hoped for. He was surprised that his own son was involved, but it was a merging of the two groups that should be encouraged.

  His wife took a different view. “Zibeon should marry inside the walls,” she said. “One day he will be governor …”

  “This is a good marriage,” her temporizing husband said.

  “Baal will not approve,” Rahab warned. “Astarte will not bless our fields.”

  “Your son will not marry under Baal and Astarte,” Zadok pointed out.

  “Have you agreed to join their god?” Rahab asked her son. When he nodded, Governor Uriel was startled, but he remained hopeful that peace of some kind could be maintained.

  “It’s possible to worship Baal and El-Shaddai both,” the governor said.

  It was a difficult moment, one which could destroy the Canaanite-Hebrew relationship, and Zadok made a generous concession: “Governor Uriel is right. His son can worship both gods.”

  Uriel sighed. He appreciated Zadok’s desire to avoid trouble and he knew how close the two groups had been to an open rupture. He started to discuss ceremonies, hoping that contentious problems were past, but his clear-seeing wife said bluntly, “Such a union of gods will not work. This marriage must not take place.”

  Red-headed Epher elbowed his way forward and said sternly, “Leah is with child.”

  Rahab tried not to speak harshly. “I am sorry,” she said, “but my son is to rule this town one day, and he must have a proper wife.”

  “Your son has contaminated my sister,” Epher cried, and there would have been fighting if Uriel and Zadok had not pacified their adherents. The governor went to Leah and asked if she was pregnant, and when she nodded, the black-bearded Canaanite said, “They shall marry.” But Rahab and Epher, appreciating the dangers of such a union, maintained their opposition.

  With great force of character Uriel and Zadok worked to evolve a plan whereby the marriage could go forward, and thanks to their determination, Canaanite and Hebrew began to show signs of being able to live together in some kind of harmony. Zadok’s only demand was that the couple be married under the auspices of El-Shaddai, and this was granted. Uriel insisted that in all other respects Leah must become a Canaanite, must live within the walls and must rear her forthcoming child as a Canaanite. To these demands Zadok surprisingly agreed, reminding his rebellious sons, “The wife should follow the husband.” He furthermore astonished both the Canaanites and the Hebrews by volunteering to send with his daughter six fat sheep.

  So the marriage was solemnized before the small red tent of the Hebrews, and a kind of peace, engineered solely by the good will of the leaders, settled over Makor. But Leah had lived in the town only two weeks when one of the Hebrew women reported that they had seen her and her husband in the public square praying openly to Astarte. There was protest in the Hebrew camp, but Zadok silenced it by reminding his people that he himself had given the young man permission to continue worshiping his old gods so long as he acknowledged that El-Shaddai was superior. But two days later other Hebrew water carriers saw Zibeon patronizing the temple prostitutes and word of this also reached Zadok. Again he explained to his people that the young man was entitled to worship his gods in the accustomed manner, but he was apprehensive about what might happen next.

  And then his attention was taken away from his daughter, for Epher and Ibsha asked him to go with them to the top of the mountain, and as he reached the high place of Baal he saw that stubborn Hebrews had rescued their monolith to El-Shaddai and had hauled it back to the crest of the mountain, where once more it stood close to Baal. Father and sons tried to dislodge the evil thing, but they could not, and Epher spat upon it many times, crying, “Father, your laxity has encouraged this,” and a bitterness grew up between them.

  Now Zadok was alone. His daughter was surrounded by gods of the basest sort. His Hebrews were worshiping stone idols. His brilliant son, Epher, was drifting away from him, and he felt contamination oozing out of the town, but he did not know what to do. At the foot of the mountain he walked alone for many hours, calling upon El-Shaddai for guidance.

  “What shall I do with my stiff-necked people?” he pleaded. “I have told them of you. I have instructed them in your ways and I have thrown down their heathen altars, but they have gone whoring after false gods. What can I do?”

  In the rocky fields he found no answer, and in the plowed fields near the oak trees there was no reply. At the tabernacle there was no voice, and among the tents no echo. “What shall I do?” the old man begged. He muttered, “I’ll lead my clan to some other spot,” but he knew that if this was required El-Shaddai would have advised him. Furthermore, would not the next location contain the same kinds of temptation? Was it, perhaps, intended that the Hebrews be submerged into the corruption of Makor? “El-Shaddai, what shall I do?”

  For several days no answer came. Then, as the critical period of the growing season approached, when the collaboration of the gods was essential—and this even Zadok acknowledged, for in the portentous days he prayed repeatedly to El-Shaddai for good crops—three of his water-women came running into camp, their eyes wide in wonder and horror, to tell him of the other god that Makor worshiped. “He is fiery,” they gasped, “and has a mouth of flame into which little children are thrown while men and women dance naked.”

  “Children?” Zadok asked, his hands trembling. Once when his people were traveling to the north he had heard of this god.

  “And at the end of the dance women like us run to embrace the male prostitutes while their husbands go into darkened rooms with the female whores.”

  Zadok staggered back, and the water-women concluded, “Many of the Hebrews are there now, sacrificing to the strange gods.”

  “Abomination!” Zadok cried, uttering again the fearful word that condemned, the ultimate charge that could not be withdrawn once it had been invoked. He left his tent and wandered for many hours till night fell, and from the town walls he heard the sounds of revelry and the beat of drums. He saw the smoky fires. But after midnight, as he stumbled exhausted through the olive grove, he became aware of a presence speaking to him from behind an olive tree, and softly an admonishing voice said, “It was you who uttered the word, Zadok. That town is an abomination.”

  “What shall I do?�
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  “It was your word. It is your responsibility.”

  “But what must I do?”

  “The abominations must perish.”