by Brian Godawa
It suddenly dawned on Mary why Jesus was going to Galilee up north to meet them. Beyond Galilee was the cosmic mountain of assembly for the gods of the nations. His resurrection gave him the power and authority to take back their inheritance as his own.
“You are going to Mount Hermon, aren’t you?”
He didn’t respond. But she could see it in his eyes.
• • • • •
Demas walked through the southern gates of the lower city of Jerusalem. He kept his hood up around his face in order to avoid being noticed. It was only days ago he was crucified before the world next to Jesus. Someone might recognize him. Someone who had been there to observe the spectacle of pain.
He soon discovered his efforts at discretion were wasted. He saw a large gathering around a market square at the Temple.
Four men stood on the steps near the Huldah Gate at the southeast entrance to the Temple. Hundreds had gathered around. One of them was speaking. He was an old man, but delivered his address with amazing strength of voice.
Demas recognized him from the underworld introduction. It was Moses.
“People of Israel, do you not know? I wrote these very words in the Second Book of the Law. For the Lord said to me, ‘I will raise up a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.’ That prophet was Jesus of Nazareth, whom you released to Pilate and had him crucified!”
The crowd’s booing drowned Moses out. He waited until they died down. Demas recognized the three others with him. Joshua, Caleb and Othniel, Caleb’s brother. They looked younger and stronger than their visages in Hades. They no longer looked as old as they were when they had died. Demas figured that their resurrection involved a return to their former selves at the height of their service to Yahweh. He felt it too within his bones. They had resurrection glory.
One heckler yelled out, “If you are Moses, why don’t you part this crowd of people like you parted the Red Sea!” People laughed.
A man next to Demas grumbled to him, “These mad men claim to be our forefathers risen from the dead. Ridiculous fools.” Then he turned back to the front of the crowd and yelled out, “Where is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to validate your witness!”
More laughs through the crowd.
“Right here,” said a voice behind the grumbler.
Demas turned to see a hearty, vigorous Abraham and his resurrected descendants, Isaac and Jacob standing with arms crossed, glaring at him. The grumbler backed up, frightened that these crazy people may do something dangerous. He turned and ran to safety down the street.
Abraham smiled at Demas, who quipped, “I guess even resurrection from the dead won’t persuade these hard-hearted idiots.”
Abraham said, “They have the Scriptures. If they will not listen to them, They will not listen to God.”
A young and strapping David stepped out from behind Abraham and said, “Jesus was right. They are sons of those who murdered the prophets.”
His bodyguard, the loyal and sturdy-built Benaiah said, “Sons of Belial.”
Demas said, “My lords, I need your help to find the rest of the risen ones in the city. We have to hurry. The Lord wants to meet us up north.”
Abraham asked, “What is he planning?”
David said, “Well, he raised my thirty best mighty men, so I think it’s clear. We’re going to war.”
Chapter 34
It took the resurrected saints just over three days on horseback to make the hundred mile trek up north from Jerusalem to Bashan. They had taken the Jordan Valley all the way, and camped a half mile outside the city of Caesarea Philippi.
There were over fifty of them. Patriarchs, warriors, kings and princes. Yet, they were led by the humble penitent criminal, Demas Samaras. They all knew it was Yahweh’s way of using the least as the greatest. Many of them had started in life as the youngest, or smallest, or rejected of men. But Yahweh had often chosen the weak of the world to shame the strong, and the lesser to inherit the greater. David was the least of seven brothers in an insignificant family. Caleb was a Canaanite convert who became Joshua’s right hand. Ittai the Gittite was a Philistine who became the most faithful of King David’s warriors. Demas, was a lowly entertaining bestiarius who joined Jesus’ side in Hades. Most amazing of all was the giant, Eleazar, the ten and a half foot Rephaim who had been redeemed by the very hand of Jesus.
How satisfying, thought Demas. A seed of the Serpent redeemed and resurrected to fight against the Serpent. How God does have a sense of irony.
But now, they were all being called upon for a final mighty act of giant-toppling faith. So they practiced with their weapons and fighting techniques in preparation.
David and his beefy bodyguard watched David’s general, Joab and his brother Abishai lead his thirty mighty men in exercises. They were as youthful as they had been at the height of their service in David’s kingdom.
Joab, David’s gritty, ruthless general, yelled to the synchronized warriors in formation, “Pick it up, gibborim! These are more than giants we’re about to face!” He glanced at the giant Eleazar by his side. “No offense, friend.”
“Just glad I am not your foe,” said Eleazar with a smile.
David stretched his sword arm and said, “We had best join them, Benaiah. We are after all, a thousand years out of practice.”
Benaiah grinned and they joined the others in the battle exercises.
Caleb and Joshua practiced with their weapons together in a forest clearing, as they had always done when they were alive. Caleb was bald, rugged and as strong as the commander of the armies of the Lord, twenty years his junior. He had been eighty years old at the peak of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. But he moved with the fluidity and grace of an immortal angel. He spun, flipped and dodged Joshua’s thrusts and hacks with his sword.
Joshua strained for breath.
Caleb said breathlessly, “My lord, have you forgotten all I taught you?”
Joshua said, “I am only warming up.” Then he yelled, “Battle axes!”
They dropped their swords and picked up battle axes, in a continuous flow of battle form.
Joshua swung his ax in mighty arcs that would fell a giant. Caleb moved with his opponent’s flow and evaded every one.
Joshua burned red with frustration. “Javelins!”
They dropped their battle axes and picked up javelins and shields. In the heat of battle, everything could change in a moment, and one would have to adjust immediately. Their workouts had empowered them with the skills to clear the land of the mighty Anakim giants who had infested it in the days of Moses. But Joshua and Caleb had always been at odds with their fighting styles. Joshua overcame with brute force and ruthlessness. Caleb moved with faith, not force. He used the enemy’s momentum against him and had always told Joshua what he reminded him of now.
“Remember, a small amount of faith can move a mountain.”
At that very moment, Joshua danced and spun with a Karabu movement that took Caleb by surprise. He disarmed his partner of his javelin. Caleb moved fast to retrieve his weapon, but Joshua had bested him for that moment.
Joshua said with a smile, “When outweighed by skill, one must save their small amount of faith for just the right moment.”
“Well done, my general.”
A voice came from the forest edge. “Let us see how much faith the both of you have together.”
Joshua and Caleb turned to see a hooded monk at the edge of the clearing. They didn’t recognize him. They drew together protectively.
The monk took down his hood. He glimmered with the radiance of a Son of God. He had been in the presence of Yahweh Elohim in the heavenlies.
“I am Enoch ben Jared.”
Joshua and Caleb looked at each other with wonder and curiosity. They of course knew of their ancient forefather who had walked with Yahweh.
But they had never met him in Hades because he had never died. He had been taken into heaven.
Enoch said, “This is my son, Methuselah and his wife, Edna.”
A hearty young Methuselah stepped into the clearing, accompanied by a heart-stopping woman that seemed to Caleb as beautiful as his beloved Rahab had been, which was almost impossible to believe. But this gorgeous one carried a sword and shield.
Her loveliness distracted Joshua as well. They may be resurrected heavenly saints, but they were still earthy men of flesh and blood.
Enoch said, “Let us see how warriors from the days of Moses do against warriors from the days of Noah—The original Karabu giant killers.”
Joshua said, “A woman?”
Methuselah quipped, “Go easy on her and you’ll be sorry.”
Edna added with a smile, “Antediluvian beauty can be deceiving.”
Caleb said to Joshua, “Let’s show these primeval cave-dwellers how to fight, general.”
The four of them engaged in battle.
Methuselah took on Caleb, Edna went after Joshua. Two teams of warriors moved with martial elegance, flowing in and out, working in tandem with one another. It was more a ballet than a battle. And it was beautiful Karabu at its finest.
Methuselah and Caleb were equals. They seemed to defy terra firma’s grip, like dancing dragonflies.
Caleb shouted out, “If you were older like me, I’d have you by now.”
Methuselah retorted, “Young man, I was killing Nephilim hordes at nine hundred.”
Methuselah was his younger age now, but he had become famous in primordial days for being the oldest recorded age in the Scriptures at nine hundred and sixty-nine years.
Joshua had trouble keeping up with Edna. She was lighter and more nimble. He was beginning to regret his previous boastful words.
“Not bad for a woman, eh, general?” said Edna. Her graceful moves almost made Joshua dizzy.
But her strikes were not driven by Joshua’s kind of strength. He struck her sword with such force, it flew out of her hand.
Joshua said, “I apologize for my condescension.” But then he added, “So now I can stop going easy on you.”
He launched on a series of blows so hard and so fast that Edna’s arms shuddered with pain beneath her shield.
She backed up against a tree. Her shield cracked under the force of Joshua’s strength. She tossed it aside.
Joshua smiled with sword raised at her. “Not bad for a woman.” This time, he meant it with respect.
Methuselah kicked her blade up into the air at her. She caught it with ease. She released her own volley upon Joshua that surprised him, backing him up.
“Now I can stop going easy on you,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
Suddenly, the four fighters heard the sound of applause all around them. They looked around the clearing to see that they had drawn a crowd of all the resurrected warriors. The company watched their battle sparring like a gladiatorial game.
Joshua looked at Enoch and saw him smiling ear to ear.
Methuselah, ever the showman, gave a courtly sarcastic bow. Caleb followed suit.
Methuselah muttered to Caleb, “Not bad for an old man.” Then he added, “But the truth is, you would have beat me when I was your age.”
Caleb retorted, “I suspect our wives would be as equal in a competition of beauty.”
Methuselah muttered, “I remember Rahab when we were below. I won’t contest you there.”
Joshua dropped his sword and walked over to Edna with open arms. They hugged, as the applause increased. He whispered to her, “I am happy to have you at my side, my sister in faith and battle.”
She whispered back, “It is an honor, my brother.”
“But under my command,” he said with a teasing smirk.
“Under your command, general,” she submitted with a smile in return.
And then she hit Methuselah in his arm while whispering, “Staring at Rahab in Sheol were you?”
Methuselah changed the subject, shouting out, “I don’t know about the rest of you warriors, but this resurrection evidently didn’t take away my earthly hunger. I’m famished, let us eat!”
The men and women laughed and made their way back to camp.
Enoch shook his head. Methuselah so enjoyed the earthly senses. It was something the two of them had fought about in antediluvian days.
But not anymore.
Betenos, Lamech’s wife, yelled to the men, “Everyone, dinner is served!”
The warriors made their camp alongside the Pharpar river, a mile outside Panias. Enoch had explained to them that he had been sent from heaven to gather the resurrected saints in Mesopotamia and bring them up the Euphrates river, where they marched across Syria and took the Pharpar down to this location. He introduced them to the saints of Israel in the Levant. Noah and his wife Emzara; The parents of Noah, Lamech and Betenos; Noah’s sons, Shem and Japheth; Ham was noticeably absent; but not the burly metalworker Tubal-cain, and the brothers Jubal the shepherd, and Jabal the musician. In all, there were about twenty of them from the “land between the two rivers,” making a total of about seventy righteous warriors ready to face the seventy unrighteous gods of the nations.
The group sat down to fill their stomachs with mutton and wine. They spun their tales of exploits in days of old. Someone asked who had killed the biggest giant. Caleb, never the shy one, launched in on his story of facing the mighty fifteen foot tall Ahiman, Son of Arba, Son of Anak, outside the walls of Kiriath-Arba. He had accepted the challenge of champions to decide the fate of their war with the city. They had faced each other, one on one, in hand-to-hand combat.
“So there I was, staring up at this big oaf, with his long Anakim neck swaggering about like a taunting cobra.” Caleb swayed his neck to show them. It was a bit funny, so the men around the fire laughed.
Caleb saw Eleazar and said, “No offense, Eleazar.”
Eleazar chuckled, “We Rephaim never liked those scrawny-necked Anakim either.”
More laughs.
Caleb said, “You laugh, but let me tell you, I was not laughing. I peed my battle kilt.” Everyone broke out in more laughter.
“You all know what I am talking about. And I wager you’ve done the same.” Humbled murmurs of agreement ran through the group.
“So there he is, looking like a fifteen foot tower of stone, taunting me with his blasphemies about Yahweh. And I am just boiling with zeal for Yahweh’s holiness. Then he makes his second mistake. He says what he is going to do with my wife after he kills me. My wife, the incomparably beautiful, unsurpassingly gorgeous Rahab, the nearest thing to a goddess.”
The men all teased him with envious sighs.
Edna watched Methuselah who played dumb.
Caleb interjected, “My apologies to you gorgeous women here.”
Edna and Betenos smiled.
“So I say to him, ‘You have blasphemed my beloved and my god for the last time!’ Keep in mind, the entire time I am praying my heart out to Yahweh to help me, because my words are far more cocksure than my actual abilities.” More chuckles. Caleb was too modest about his skills.
“So I roll out Rahab. I take some chunks of flesh off of him. Just getting started. But wouldn’t you know it? I wrap the blade around his arm and was about to cut it off, when the big old elephant yanks it out of my hands, flings it fifty feet away out of my reach. I’m flat on my back, without a weapon. He lunges in the air to crush me. I roll moments before I became flatbread.” The men laughed again.
“And how do I defeat the gargantuan? With the heavenly whip sword I had become expert with? No. I kill him with a tiny dagger in the back of the skull. The tiny dagger my wonderful wife Rahab had given me.”
The campfire was alive with gestures and words of affirmation.
Ittai barked out, “You did better with the whip sword than I. I lost her to the giant Ishbi ben Ob in the Valley of the Rephaim.” Teasing taunts peppered the crowd.
&n
bsp; When they quieted down. David spoke up. “It is not merely size of the giant that makes the defeat grand, but the disadvantage of the warrior.”
Caleb said, “Of course, my lord. Your defeat of the Philistine champion in your youth was of far more import than any one of our battles.”
“Oh, I am not talking about me,” said David. “I am talking about Jonathan the Hawk’s defeat of Argaz.”
David’s mighty men around the fire agreed with fervor.
Caleb looked over at the small, four foot, ten inch bowman. He was the smallest of them all. He turned red with shyness. He didn’t like the attention.
“Jonathan the Mouse, as I used to call him,” continued David, “became Jonathan the Hawk when he vanquished the fifteen foot tall Rephaim with a flurry of arrows.”
Jonathan demurred, “They were like toothpicks in a cushion.”
“But perfectly placed toothpicks,” corrected David, “that bled out all his major organs. You should have seen that monstrosity. He was one ugly rock badger. His skin was burned over his entire body, from some past fire injury. His face almost looked like a skull. And our little Jonathan bested us all that day by cutting off the head of Argaz the Terrible.”
Murmurs of agreement were outdone by Ittai shouting, “Argaz the Mouse versus Jonathan the Hawk!” More laughs.
Caleb noticed that Demas had left the fire and returned with something in his hands. When Demas approached him, he recognized what it was.
Demas handed it to him.
It was Rahab in her sheath.
Caleb’s eyes went wide. He unfurled it like a loving father with his long lost child. “Oh, boys. You will never know the sweetness of harnessing this little serpent’s bite. I had to rename her when I got her, because she had the same name as my wife. That would not go well.”
Some men chuckled and gave cat calls.
Then Lamech, Abishai and Ittai got up, to stand by Caleb, asking to pass around their old weapon once more.
