by Lynn Austin
“The blood of man is sacred,” he mumbled. “Life is in the blood.”
Zerah gripped his arm to hold him in place. “Remember Cain and Abel, Your Majesty?”
“Of course I do!”
“Then surely you recall God’s words to Cain after He rejected Cain’s offering: ‘If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?’ What happened next, Your Majesty?”
Manasseh pried Zerah’s fingers from his arm, angry with him for this childish grilling. It reminded him of his Torah teacher. “Cain took his brother out to the field and killed him!”
“Yes, Cain shed Abel’s blood on the ground as a sacrifice, just as these priests are doing.”
“Then why did God curse him?”
“Because he shed Abel’s blood instead of his own.”
“Well, I’ve seen enough of this. Get me something to wipe off all this blood.”
“No, leave it, Your Majesty. It is holy. You must wear the mark of it as you talk to the spirits.” He led Manasseh across the courtyard to the altar of divination. Dozens of white-robed priests followed, gathering in a circle around them. A woman stood beside the altar, wearing priestly robes and making circular motions with her hands as she wafted the burning fragrance of incense to her nostrils. The thick, cloying smell, along with all the wine he’d drunk, made Manasseh’s stomach roll.
“A woman priest?” he asked.
“She’s not a priest in the usual sense. She wears the robes because tonight, like the other priests, she will act as a mediator between man and God.”
“You mean she’s a medium?”
“That’s right.”
Manasseh looked around for his cupbearer and drank a few more gulps of wine to silence the alarms of his conscience. Zerah would have a logical answer to his concerns, he told himself. He always did. Hadn’t King Saul consulted a medium, conjuring up Samuel from the dead?
This woman didn’t look particularly threatening. She was small-boned, as Manasseh’s own mother had been, and only about ten years older than himself. She wore no covering on her head, and her black, wavy hair, with one startling swath of gray, reached nearly to her waist. Her eyes were closed, and she chanted in a soft voice as she swayed to an unsung rhythm.
Suddenly her body went limp and she fell backward as if she had fainted. Manasseh moved to catch her, but Zerah stopped him. “Just watch.”
She appeared to be asleep, except that, as Manasseh watched, the expression on her face slowly changed to one of deep concentration. Then her features began to twitch as if unseen insects crawled across her face. The movement increased, faster and faster, until her face transformed before his eyes into a different face. It was no longer soft and feminine but angular and hard—a man’s face. She sprang to her feet, and even her stance was a man’s: defiant, proud, her body controlled by a masculine spirit.
Manasseh stared, fascinated and terrified at the same time. He wanted to run but found he couldn’t move, as if an invisible hand held him in place. When she spoke, the unearthly voice chilled Manasseh, like the sound of grinding stone when a tomb is opened.
“You seek to know what transpires in the heavenly council, King Manasseh?”
He tried to answer but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes . . . yes, I do.”
“Your devotion and good works have not escaped the heavenly council’s notice. The changes you have made during your reign have earned divine favor and, with it, divine power to succeed in all that you do. The spirit of your firstborn son, which you released from its earthly prison, stands present with the gods to intercede on your behalf. Your son’s message to you is this: Beware—more than one enemy wishes to destroy you. If you make full use of your spiritual powers, you will prevail. But first you must break free from the chains of fear, forged in your past. They still bind you.”
Her face twisted again as her body went rigid. Then she collapsed to the ground, convulsing wildly. Manasseh shrank back, his eyes riveted on the repulsive sight, certain that she writhed in her death throes. At last she went still.
“Is she dead?” he whispered.
“No. The spirit guide has left her, that’s all.”
Manasseh stared at her crumpled body for a few more moments before turning to Zerah. When he did, the intensity of Zerah’s gaze as he stared into the king’s eyes, the unchecked passion of his emotions, made Manasseh’s heart pound. The familiar knife of fear twisted through him. “What’s wrong?”
Zerah lunged at him, and before Manasseh could respond, he gripped both of the king’s wrists in his hands. “Shackled!” he cried.
“What are you doing to me?” The warmth of Zerah’s hands seemed to burn Manasseh’s flesh. Zerah’s eyes, beneath his startling brows, danced like the flames of the altar fire.
“The taboos of your past still shackle you, my lord. But tonight, on this holiest of nights, power is available if you wish to break free.” Zerah’s hands slid from Manasseh’s wrists to his hands, but his gaze never wavered as he entwined the king’s fingers in his own. “Are you ready to move to a higher level of spirituality?”
Manasseh knew what Zerah wanted. He could only nod.
“Then come with me.”
Joshua cried out in his sleep as the nightmare jolted him awake. Evil engulfed him like deep water, pulling him under, choking off his life. He sat up, gasping for air, his heart pounding against his ribs. He searched the darkness for the evil presence he sensed, but it slithered out of sight, eluding him. Just a dream, he told himself. A dream. But he couldn’t stop shaking. His fire had burned out, and his cloak was insufficient against the desert’s bitter cold. But the moon had already set and the night was too dark, the terrain too treacherous for Joshua to stumble around searching for more sticks. He curled into a tight ball and wrapped his cloak over his head, shivering as he tried to warm his body. There was little he could do for the rest of the night but pray, keeping fear and the elusive shadow of evil at bay.
When the sun finally began to rise and it was light enough to gather wood, Joshua felt no closer to God than he had the night before. He built a fire, then unrolled Isaiah’s scroll and began to read.
“In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem . . . Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator . . . went out to him. . . . Then Eliakim, son of Hilkiah . . . went to Hezekiah with clothes torn . . . Hezekiah sent Eliakim . . . to the prophet Isaiah.”
Joshua read, fascinated, as Isaiah retold the story of the Assyrian invasion. Joshua read his grandfather’s name with pride and pictured his father boldly confronting the Assyrians face-to-face. Both men had faithfully played the part God had given them.
When he finished that passage, Joshua scrolled backward, skimming the words, until he found a prophecy that halted him. In it Isaiah predicted Shebna’s fall from power: “He will roll you up tightly like a ball and throw you into a large country. There you will die.” Joshua recalled Hadad’s story and shuddered at the accuracy of Isaiah’s words. Then he read the familiar prophecy of his own father’s rise to power: “In that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah . . . I will drive him like a peg into a firm place . . . All the glory of his family will hang on him: its offspring and offshoots.” Joshua himself was one of those offshoots, resting on the weight of his father’s glory.
But the words that came next stunned Joshua: “‘In that day,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘the peg driven into the firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down.’ The Lord has spoken.”
The utter finality of Yahweh’s decree astounded him. Yahweh had known that Abba would die! He had known that Joshua would fall, as well. Yahweh had willed it! Joshua dropped the scroll and fell prostrate before God in the desert sand as if stunned by a blow.
He moaned aloud as he struggled to reconcile Yahweh’s will with his own image of what God was like: Yahweh rewarded righteousness; He punished evil; He blessed those who served Him. Yet the Lord had spoken and his father had died.
“Yahweh had to destroy your limited image of Him,” Rabbi Gershom had told him, “so you would worship Him as the sovereign God.” Joshua’s body trembled as he tried to dislodge his idol from its throne.
In Moab he had seen the superstitious pagans bringing endless offerings to their idols in order to stay in their gods’ favor, to guarantee good crops and prosperous lives. Like them, Joshua had also obeyed all of God’s laws, fulfilled all the sacred obligations, in order to continue his life of wealth and privilege. He had worshiped an idol, trying to bend his god to do his will through sacrifices and good deeds. Suddenly Joshua understood the difference between idolatry and true worship, and his unanswered questions vanished like stars at the sun’s rising. True believers like his father and grandfather didn’t try to bargain with Yahweh; instead, they were willing to bend to His sovereign will.
And now Joshua heard Yahweh asking him a question: Was he willing to do the same? Would he submit to God’s will whether or not he understood it?
The sun climbed higher, and soon the desert heat rivaled the bitter cold of the night before, bearing down on Joshua like a blast from a furnace. He imagined it melting all the golden images and idols he had formed and worshiped, turning them to ashes at his feet. Joshua shed his robe and draped it over a spindly broom tree, then took shelter beneath its canopy. His stomach ached with hunger, just as his spirit ached to discover the answer to a new question: If his father and grandfather had died for a reason, then what was the reason that Joshua himself had been spared?
He lifted Isaiah’s scroll from the dirt where he had dropped it and began to read every word from the beginning.
18
Eight days after he left the caravan to go into the desert, Joshua knocked on the door of Rabbi Gershom’s house shortly after sunset. All afternoon, as he had climbed the steep road to Jerusalem, he had worried about how he would get inside without revealing who he was; now he breathed a sigh of relief when Yael’s brother Asher opened the door.
“Joshua! You came back?”
Joshua glanced around, hoping no one in the street had heard Asher speak his name. “May I come in?” Asher stood aside as Joshua touched his fingers to the mezuzah on the doorpost and entered the darkened passageway. He heard the mumble of men’s voices in prayer, coming from the main room and the sound of women weeping in the distant part of the house. “Who else is here?” he asked.
“The rabbi’s three sons, a few of the other Levites—”
“I don’t want them to know I’m here.”
Anger flared in Asher’s eyes. “Why not? Don’t you trust us?”
“I don’t trust anyone! Manasseh was my best friend, and he turned against me for no reason. Why should I trust strangers?”
“Because our lives are in as much danger as yours. One wrong word at the Temple, one stupid mistake, and Manasseh has threatened to slaughter all of us—and our families, as well. He has already filled the streets of Jerusalem with innocent blood. We hate him as much as you do.”
A tall, burly man suddenly appeared in the doorway from the main room. “Asher? Who was at the—?” He glared at Joshua. “What does this Moabite want?”
Joshua recognized Rabbi Gershom’s oldest son. He returned the Levite’s stare for several moments before deciding to answer. “I’m Joshua ben Eliakim. I need to speak with your father.”
The Levite’s brows arched in surprise. “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you. My father said you would return. He was convinced that God would allow him to live until you did. Come in.” He turned and led the way to Rabbi Gershom’s bedchamber, then paused again at the door. “My father slipped into a coma this morning. It’s only a matter of time now.”
Joshua nodded and moved into the cramped room. Overheated by the blazing charcoal brazier, the stuffy air reeked of sickness and death. The rabbi lay beneath a pile of covers with his shriveled hands folded, corpselike, on his chest. Joshua would have thought him dead except for the whisper of his labored breaths and the occasional twitching of his limbs. A knot of grief and anger swelled in Joshua’s throat. Don’t take him yet, Yahweh. I need him. I need to know if I’ve really heard your voice.
Gershom’s two younger sons sat on either side of the bed. They glared at Joshua as they would at any stranger who entered their father’s bedroom, especially one who was a Moabite. “I’m Joshua, Lord Eliakim’s son,” he told them. “May I have a moment alone with your father?” They studied his face with curiosity and awe as they rose and left the room.
“Rabbi Gershom?” Joshua’s hoarse voice sounded dull in the small room. “Rabbi, I need to talk to you.”
He stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, praying that the rabbi’s eyes would open, praying that he would sit up and roar in his booming voice, “Stop dawdling, Joshua, and get on with it! Tell me what God said to you!” But Gershom never stirred. Joshua pulled Isaiah’s scroll from the leather bag on his shoulder and sat down with it beside the rabbi’s bed.
“Yahweh answered some of my questions, Rabbi. Some . . . but not all.” Joshua found the prophecy he wanted and began to read: “‘The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.’”
Joshua’s voice choked and he had to stop. He watched the rabbi’s face but saw no sign that he had heard. Please, Yahweh. I need him. He cleared his throat.
“Rabbi, I asked God ‘Why?’ over and over again. And when He finally answered, He simply said, ‘Because. Because I Am.’ He is a sovereign God. I understand that now. Isaiah worded it better than I can: ‘”For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”’”
“After I read all of Isaiah’s prophecies I saw that God’s eternal plan is so much greater than I ever imagined, yet each of us—you, me, my father—we each have a part to play in His plan. We’re here to serve Him, not the other way around. So I stopped asking ‘Why?’ and I began to ask ‘What?’—what did Yahweh want from me? How do I fit into what He’s doing?
“I remembered all of the things you taught me, Rabbi. I remembered who I was—part of His chosen people, redeemed from slavery, joined to Him by His covenant. I remembered my duty as His servant—to live in obedience to His laws, even in this fallen world, in order to help establish His kingdom on earth, until He redeems all of creation. Isaiah talks about that day, too: ‘The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.’”
Joshua stopped and gazed at the rabbi’s pale face. He saw no change, no flicker of awareness. “Please, I need to know if I really heard—that I understand God’s plan for my life. Isaiah says God is going to punish our nation for its wickedness, but that a remnant will cling to the truth. They will carry out God’s plan by preserving the true path to salvation and to God. He says, ‘Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand by the sea, only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed, overwhelming and righteous.’ And He also says, ‘Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by.’”
Joshua knelt beside the bed and took the rabbi’s lifeless hand in his. It felt cold and stiff, as if carved from wax. “Please, Rabbi. Is God asking me to lead that remnant?”
Rabbi Gershom drew a ragged breath, as if he was about to speak. He held it for a moment before exhaling with a long sigh. Then a deep stillness filled the room as the rabbi’s spirit left his body. It was a holy moment, filled with Yahweh’
s presence, as if a curtain had parted and Joshua could watch the rabbi enter the eternal world of rest and peace. Joshua closed his eyes and bowed his head.
“‘Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations . . .’” he recited. “‘From everlasting to everlasting you are God. You turn men back to dust . . . For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. . . .’”
When he opened his eyes again and looked at Gershom, Joshua knew that the lifeless body he saw wasn’t the rabbi but rather a fragile husk that had once borne his spirit. Grief for Gershom swelled inside Joshua and also a twinge of envy. He knew in that moment that his father and grandfather had passed through the same curtain, that they also lived in God’s holy presence. “‘Teach us to number our days aright,’” Joshua murmured, “‘that we may gain a heart of wisdom. . . . Establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.’”
Joshua released Gershom’s hand and rose to his feet. When he walked into the main room, the gathered Levites fell silent, staring at him. “The rabbi is dead,” he said quietly. Gershom’s oldest son moaned and tore his robes. The other men stirred from their places as they rose to go to his bedside.
“Wait,” Joshua said. “The rabbi’s death provides us with an excuse to gather all the priests and Levites together without arousing the king’s suspicion. So before you prepare him for burial and begin the days of mourning, hear what I have to say.”
Joshua was well aware that he was the youngest man in the room. The others had no reason to listen to him or to follow his leadership. He was also aware that any one of them could be a traitor who might betray him to the king for a price. But the enormous peace and certainty he had experienced at the moment of Gershom’s death still surrounded him, canceling his fears. He studied their doubtful faces, unwavering in his conviction.
“I’m Joshua son of Eliakim, son of Hilkiah. I’ve come back to help you escape from Jerusalem—all of you, and your families, as well. We’re going to rebuild a community of faithful believers outside of Judah and preserve the true faith. We must worship God and raise our families away from Manasseh’s perversions and idolatry in order to remain obedient to His laws and to His covenant.”
