by Cliff Graham
Caleb sighed. He reached over and picked up some of the dried meat near the fire. He held it up for Othniel. “The smell, the lack of fresh meat. I remember those. I will never take fresh meat for granted again.”
Othniel waited for anything else, but Caleb did not seem interested in expanding on this. He had a look of apprehension on his face.
“We can be done now,” Othniel said again.
And again Caleb refused him. “No, we must press on. Keep reading.”
So, clearing his throat, Othniel turned back to the scroll. “Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on people and animals throughout the land.’
“So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on people and animals. The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and on all the Egyptians. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses.”
Caleb chuckled. “As you can see, there was a pattern.” He raised his arms up close to Othniel. “Do you see these?”
His arms were covered with pockmarks and scars. Othniel nodded. He had seen his uncle’s arms before but assumed the scars all came from battle.
“Some are from battle,” Caleb said, anticipating his nephew’s thoughts, “but most are from those boils.”
Othniel recoiled. “Were they all over you?”
“Every speck of flesh. Boils grew on top of boils. They were in our throats. I had one on my right eye, but Yahweh in his mercy allowed it to heal.”
“What did they look like?”
Caleb put his thumb on his forearm. “They were about as big as my fingernail, and they grew next to each other until you could barely tell that a person was human. Yahweh be praised, they were awful. I keep saying how painful these experiences were. Perhaps that one was the most miserable for bodily harm.”
Othniel waited. Caleb seemed to be finished with describing the boils.
“The fire storm is next, is it not?”
Othniel nodded.
Caleb took a long breath and closed his eyes. He inclined his head, gesturing for Othniel to resume reading.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go. Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now. Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every person and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die.’
“Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the Lord hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside. But those who ignored the word of the Lord left their slaves and livestock in the field.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that hail will fall all over Egypt, on people and animals and on everything growing in the fields of Egypt.’ When Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt; hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields, both people and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree. The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.
“Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. ‘This time I have sinned,’ he said to them. ‘The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don’t have to stay any longer.’
“Moses replied, ‘When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord. The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s. But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the Lord God.’
“Moses left Pharaoh and went out of the city. He spread out his hands toward the Lord; the thunder and hail stopped, and the rain no longer poured down on the land. When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts. So Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses.”
When Othniel finished, Caleb opened his eyes. “I did not experience pain with that plague. Only fright.”
Othniel silently prayed that Caleb would elaborate on this.
As if in answer to this prayer, Caleb sat up and pointed to the sky. “Do you hear how hard this rain has been falling? How savagely it has been pounding against us? Keeping us confined to the camps?”
“It has been terrible, yes.”
“It is a baby’s whisper compared to that storm. The sky slit open like someone had rent it with a sword. Flames descended. Flames on ice. That does not make any sense. It is impossible. And yet I saw it with these two eyes.”
“I do not understand ‘flames on ice.’”
“It was hail, but it sparked when it hit the ground, like someone was striking flint. Then the water from it set on fire like oil.”
Othniel searched his mind for any hint of understanding as to what that could have looked like.
Caleb was laughing now, which was odd.
“Imagine! The terror on my face! The fright of mighty Caleb, son of Jephunneh, winner of the Gold of Honor as he cowered beneath the stone roof of a cave in the desert! For that is where I fled, Othniel. I fled like a coward out into the desert when I saw the sky open, and I hid in a cave I had known existed.” His eyes gleamed.
Othniel smiled at his uncle but still was unsure of what to think at this display of emotion.
Caleb went on, “I walked to the edge of my cave and looked out on the city, and I saw the waterfalls of fire coming from the skies. I sat down and held my knees and screamed. That was how powerless I was.” He was panting now. “Continue! Continue!” He laughed again. “See what Yahweh did to them! And to me!”
Othniel tore his eyes away from the old man and blinked at the scroll. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.’
“So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country, and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land. And they shall eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field, and they shall fill your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.’ Then they turned and went out from Pharaoh.
“Pharaoh’s servants said to him, ‘How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they
may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?’ So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, ‘Go, serve the Lord your God. But which ones are to go?’ Moses said, ‘We will go with our young and our old. We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for we must hold a feast to the Lord.’ But Pharaoh said to them, ‘The Lord be with you, if ever I let you and your little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind. No! Go, the men among you, and serve the Lord, for that is what you are asking.’ And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.’ So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again. They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt.
“Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, ‘I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now therefore forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.’ They went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord. And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.”
Caleb hobbled to his feet. His eyes were wild. “Yes, the locusts! Oh, they ate everything! I emerged from my cave in the desert and returned to the palace after the fire storm passed, and it wasn’t long before the foulest creatures of all accosted us. They ate our food. They even ate our dead corpses that we had to bury with stomachs full of them, because they were all we had to eat. We had to eat the things that were eating us. Have you ever had locust? Of course you have; it is the food of the war campaign when food is scarce, but it is very different when you have to eat it for days, when everything that was good and life-giving was stripped from us.”
Caleb stood still. His panting was deep, his eyes searching in the dark for something.
Othniel reached out and touched the hem of his garment. Caleb blinked, becoming aware of himself again.
“Forgive me, nephew,” Caleb said tiredly. His countenance returned to that of a reserved old man. “I told you. These have become the songs of victory for our people. But they came at a cost.”
Othniel was unsure how to feel. He was a bit revolted by the display his dignified uncle had just put on. Yet as he thought about it, perhaps he had just been given a glimpse of the madness the people of Egypt must have suffered. If a strong man like Caleb, the strongest of all, had suffered so greatly that his mind went dark after too many memories were brought up, what had been the fate of the common Egyptian?
“We must take a break,” Caleb said, sitting down. “It is time for the evening meal. Send for the record keeper.”
Othniel went out into the tempestuous weather and wandered from tent to tent until he found the record keeper, the man who kept track of the counts of people and provision. He brought the record keeper back to Caleb, then set out to find food. When he returned, the record keeper had a scroll spread out before Caleb. Othniel brought Caleb his bowl of stewed lamb as Caleb listened to the report.
“We will not have a full count of the women and children until the storm breaks,” the record keeper was saying. “It settled on us before we could number them, and many are still trapped in the lowlands. But we know at least three divisions of men are here. Almost forty thousand under arms.”
Caleb nodded and tilted the bowl of soup into his mouth. He took a long drink, letting everyone wait for him to finish in silence. “We can take the city with forty thousand,” he finally replied, “but we will not be able to feed that many for long unless we can secure the trade road back to the Way of the Sea. Have one division post along the route and serve as our reserve while protecting our Elah and Rephaim passages.”
The record keeper stared at him blankly.
Othniel cleared his throat. “Uncle, he is not a general. I don’t believe he would know how to . . .”
Caleb squinted at him, looked at Othniel, then back at the record keeper. He started laughing hoarsely. “Maybe it’s time for Sheol to take me after all, for my mind is going.”
Othniel laughed with him. “If you can recall every detail of what happened forty-five years ago, there is not fear of Sheol coming for you just yet.”
Caleb dismissed the record keeper and wrapped himself tighter in his blanket. He picked up his stew again and sipped from it. The old man’s thick shoulders and back had not weakened much; Othniel could see muscles that still bulged through the blanket. He was struck again at how odd it was for him to be looking at Caleb, even now. Out of the hundreds of thousands of Israelites that covered the land, only Caleb and Joshua had reached their ninth decade. No one else was even close yet. The rest of their generation had all died in the wilderness before crossing the Jordan.
Othniel had believed that age brought frailty and complaint, an attitude of resigned defeat as the earth stirred beneath one’s feet to eventually swallow a man into his grave, and that the man who was being swallowed year by year would be fatally resigned to it, seeking only to bide his time with comfort as his bones moved ever closer to rotting in the soil.
But Joshua and Caleb, the only two old men Othniel had ever seen apart from a few Canaanites who did indeed look like they were waiting for the grave to be opened for them soon, had lost none of their appearance of power and strength. Their knotted strength from years of pulling bowstrings and lifting training rocks and swinging heavy bronze weapons had not left them. Perhaps they moved slower and walked with a staff once in a while, but they had not given way to frailty whatsoever.
“You wish for me to read what came next?” Othniel prodded after a while. “What Yahweh did to the Egyptians next.”
Caleb set down his bowl of stew and nodded his thanks, then stared quietly at the fire. “No. I will tell you of those myself. I remember them very well. Two more terrors Yahweh sent to the Egyptians. Two more gods to destroy and humiliate.”
“Which gods?”
“The sun god Ra . . . and Pharaoh himself.”
Othniel realized what was coming and drew a short breath. Were they at this point already?
“This will be the last time I ever speak of these events,” Caleb said, emphasizing the point once more. “I will happily tell you of what came later, after we left Egypt, but I wish to be done with this part of my life for good. When I have concluded, do not ever ask me about the plagues again. I wish them to be recorded and remembered, yes. I wish for our people to know the power of our God and remember it. But do not ask me to relive it again.”
“I will not ask you again, Uncle,” Othniel reaffirmed.
Caleb nodded and then continued.
17
The Endless Black
By now, yes, I recognized that these were the events of my nightmare on the river of blood that I had dreamed for so many years. As they came, I knew them. But the remaining terrors in my dream were still unfathomable to me.
With the last of the locusts gone, I thought perhaps Pharaoh would finally relent and allow the Israelites to go. What else could be sent to us? Our land was nothing but waste now, burned by fire and bitten by insect. What else would our god-king need to see to realize he was dealing with a power utterly foreign to us, a wild desert god of endless power that was intent on destroying our beautiful valley? My very soul ached.
<
br /> A man needs an allegiance. He must have a cause and an identity that lays claim over him and compels him to pick up a plow to cultivate it or a sword to defend it.
The morning after the locusts had been swept away by the wind, as I sat in my quarters and watched the thick, hazy sunrise that would bring another suffocating day, wondering what would befall us next, I realized that I no longer had such an allegiance.
My eyes wandered to the Gold of Honor that hung near my door, ready to be donned every time I left my room and sought the praise of men. It was the symbol of my earthly pleasure, the token of everything I had ever wanted or known.
When I wore it, men and women in the streets would part the way before me, speak respectfully to me, and offer me opportunities for commerce or pleasure that no one else in the kingdom could hope to have in a lifetime.
Now it glowed dully in the morning light, and it had no power to drive away a locust or heal a boil. It could not grant me passage in the afterlife, not when a god such as the Hebrews had prowled the earth.
And I thought of Maia and my boy, and I was heavy with grief for them, but grateful they had not been alive to suffer the terrors.
I finally rose from my bed and washed my face in the water basin, remembering when it had produced frogs from nowhere. I wrapped on my white linen kilt and slipped into my sandals, then walked back to the window and looked out again.
Burned ships crumbled at the docks on the river, while emaciated men were still checking nets for snags so that they would be ready for casting, as though any fish were actually left in the water. Vendors pulled burned carts through the soot and ash-filled streets and set up whatever goods that remained to sell. Tradesmen wandered about the streets below with their tools, going to work sites that may or may not be open anymore, much less have the food to provide them their midday meal.
