Source

by James A. Michener

  Then Meshab voiced the difference between himself and Hoopoe. “I live and die with Baal,” he said quietly, and it had been this intransigent answer thrown at King David after his capture in Moab that had prevented him from now being a Hebrew general.

  “Wait,” Hoopoe said, drawing the big man onto a rock from which they could see both Aecho and Makor in the moonlight. “My family used to be like you, contemptuous of the Hebrew god. For centuries out of mind we worshiped Baal. But gradually we came to see that the Hebrews …”

  “Aren’t you a Hebrew?”

  “I am now. But not long ago my people were Canaanites.”

  “How could that be?” Meshab’s own family had died rather than surrender their god.

  “We lived in Makor side by side with the Hebrews in an easy friendship,” Hoopoe explained. “One of my ancestors named Zibeon made believe he was a Hebrew, and once or twice he fell into trouble. But in the end the Hebrews discovered that they needed Baal and we found that we needed Yahweh. And we’ve all prospered ever since.”

  “How could you be false to your god?” Meshab asked suspiciously.

  Hoopoe looked down at the walled town of his ancestors, the scene of the struggle between the two great deities, and it was difficult for him to explain the power that Yahweh had come to exercise upon the minds of Canaanites who had sought the truth. “All I can tell you, Meshab, is the legend I learned as a boy. Our people lived in the town with Baal, and from the desert came the Hebrews on donkeys bearing their god El-Shaddai. They camped outside the walls and a great battle developed between the two gods for the possession of the mountaintop. Baal triumphed of course, so in revenge El-Shaddai burned the town and gave the ruins to the Hebrews. For many years El-Shaddai ruled down in the valleys and Baal ruled up here. But after some centuries an agreement was reached, and the Canaanites accepted the new god Yahweh and the Hebrews accepted the old god Baal, and we have lived in contentment ever since.”

  “You say that Yahweh is a new god?”

  “Yes. Another group of Hebrews went down into Egypt, where they were treated rather badly, and the god they had taken with them developed into a most powerful deity, capable of striking his enemies with terror. This new god, Yahweh, brought forth the man Moses, who led the Hebrews out of Egypt and guided them for forty years in the desert, where Yahweh became more and more powerful … unlike any god ever known before. Under Yahweh and Moses the Hebrews became a driving force …”

  “We knew Moses,” the Moabite interrupted. “He tried to enter our land, but we drove him off.”

  “We Canaanites were not able to do so,” Hoopoe said. “So now Yahweh rules us all.”

  With some accuracy Hoopoe’s legend reflected history. Centuries before old Zadok had brought his clan to Makor, other patriarchs had wandered into Egypt bearing with them an ordinary desert god little different from El-Shaddai, but during the vicissitudes suffered in Egypt and Sinai this god had matured into a supreme concept, notably superior to any deity developed by lesser groups of Hebrews who had stayed behind, so that when the tribes which had coalesced around Moses returned to Canaan, the superiority of their god Yahweh was manifest to all. This maturing of Yahweh was another instance in which a challenge had produced an illumination which an easy acceptance could not have. The complaisant town of Makor with its amiable gods could never have produced Yahweh; that transformation required the captivity in Egypt, the conflict with the Pharaohs, the exodus, the years of hunger and thirst in the desert, the longing for a settled home and the spiritual yearning for a known god … these were the things required for the forging of Yahweh.

  Yet even in his hour of triumph over the lesser gods of the Hebrew tribes, Yahweh remained only the god of those Hebrews. The time had not yet come, in these years of Saul and Solomon, when the people of Israel would openly propose that their god should rule universally; such extension would not take place for several centuries. But now in the time of David, Yahweh was acknowledged as the god of all the Hebrews, from north to south, and the various covenants which he had concluded with his chosen people from the time of Abraham were recognized as binding even in remote spots like Makor. The various Els—the Elohims, the Elyons and the El-Shaddais—were now happily merged into the great successor.

  But as Yahweh grew more powerful he also grew more remote, so that it was no longer possible to walk with him in the olive grove; it had been four hundred and fifty years since the last Hebrew of Makor had spoken with his god directly. That last conversation had involved General Epher after the destruction of Canaanite Makor. When the temptation to worship Baal had become too alluring, the red-headed general decided to move his Hebrews to some cleaner spot, but on the eve of departure El-Shaddai had appeared for the last time, saying, “Have I not brought you to this town and delivered it to you after manifold difficulties? Is it not your responsibility to accept it as it is and to make of it something good?” So Epher had built a new town upon the ruins of the old and it had prospered and influenced the countryside. Thus, in later years, when the unified Hebrews of Moses had come across the Jordan from the east, they had found in many obscure corners of Canaan little settlements like Makor prepared to accept Yahweh.

  But the remoteness of Yahweh, his stern invisibility, made it inevitable that many Hebrews would cling to lesser deities who provided them with the personal warmth that Yahweh no longer did. Baal still flourished throughout most of King David’s empire. Astarte was worshiped in many places and fire gods who consumed children were being revived; it sometimes seemed that across the land there were local altars under every verdant tree.

  As Hoopoe and the Moabite talked of these things, they saw in the moonlight two Hebrew women climbing the hill. They were coming to worship Baal and they did not see the men sitting off to one side, for the women were concerned with domestic worries which only Baal could solve. Climbing, out of breath, to the high point, the women prostrated themselves before the monolith and after a while Hoopoe heard one praying, in short gasps, “Baal … let my husband Jerubbaal come safely home from the sea … let the Phoenicians not molest him … in Aecho protect him … great Baal … bring my man home safely.”

  The two women prayed for some minutes, re-establishing their friendly relationship with the ancient god, and as they rose to place their frugal offerings before the monolith, one happened to see Meshab in the moonlight, and she screamed. Hoopoe ran to her, and when she recognized who he was she laughed nervously. “I saw that one,” she said, “and I thought the slave had come to kill me.”

  “He kills no one,” Hoopoe assured her.

  He recognized the women as Leah and Miriam, two housewives who depended upon Yahweh to guide them on essential matters but who also needed Baal to reassure them on family affairs.

  “Why are you praying, Miriam?” Hoopoe asked the second woman.

  “My son is going to Jerusalem, and I pray that King David will look upon him favorably and find a place for him in the army.”

  “He will,” Hoopoe promised, and she sighed, but when the women were gone back down the hill Hoopoe said to Meshab, “You shall sit here while I pray,” and he went alone to the ancient monolith and prostrated himself before Baal, bringing before that god the domestic problem from which he had retreated: “Dear Baal, my wife Kerith yearns to live in Jerusalem, there with the god of her father. My home is Makor, here with you. But let it be that I shall build my tunnel well and that King David shall see it and call me to Jerusalem to build the things he needs for the glory of Yahweh.” He pressed his face into his hands and with powerful fingertips tried to crush his own skull in a gesture of humility before his god. When the pain in his temples became acute he relaxed his fingers and ended: “Baal, it is not for myself that I ask this thing, for I am content to live with you. But my wife Kerith must go to Jerusalem. Her god is there. Her heart is there. Great Baal, send us to Jerusalem.”

  Never before had he dared to voice this confession, either to himself or to his wife, but n
ow he shared it with Baal, and saw nothing contradictory in what he was doing: praying to Baal that he might be summoned to Jerusalem, where he would build temples in honor of Yahweh. Meshab, the stern Moabite, could he have heard the contradictory prayer, would have been filled with disdain; a man should cling to his own god.

  For the next two weeks Hoopoe accomplished nothing in his scheme for digging a water system, and he was taxed to find other work for his slaves: the wall was done, the temple court was paved, and soon the silos would be dug. Unless he could think of something soon, his efficient team would be scattered through the kingdom, so he tried anew to enlist the governor’s interest in his shaft-and-tunnel idea, but that official remained unable to comprehend the possibilities and Hoopoe was overcome by gloom, which was not relieved when his wife chanced to question him about their future.

  It was a warm spring day, the kind that made the Galilee seem one vast flower garden, and she had gone into the olive grove to pick bouquets with which she adorned the house. Then, because she was tired from the work, she bathed and chose for her dress, by whim and not by design, the costume which her husband loved best: her gray woolen robe with yellow borders at hem and cuff, plus the amber pendant shining like the late afternoon sun. At the door she kissed Hoopoe and cried, “Look at the flowers!” And as he looked she said, for no apparent reason, “I’ll miss the Galilee when we’re gone.”

  He tensed, then asked, “Where are we going?” And before she spoke he knew the answer.

  “Your work’s done here. We’ll go where they need builders. Jerusalem.”

  He took her hands and drew her to him, kissing her again. “Desperately I want to take you there, Kerith. But I wonder …”

  “If they’d have you?” She laughed gaily at his fears and told him, “Jabaal, you’re the best builder in the empire. They know.” And for a moment they stood in silent hesitation at the threshold of a discussion which could have brought them understanding; but the stolid engineer was afraid to speak about his fears regarding Jerusalem, and Kerith had not yet formulated those profound moral and philosophical problems which had begun to haunt her. So the golden moment when the pollen of ideas was in the air vanished and she said prosaically, “Something will happen.” And that was all they said that day about Jerusalem.

  But in the middle of the month of Ziv, when wheat was in the grain and barley in the bag, Kerith was visiting the governor’s wife when she heard news that seemed to have been created especially for her. “General Amram is coming north to inspect Megiddo,” the governor said, “and he’s promised to visit Makor. Wants to see our new fortifications.”

  “Who is General Amram?” Kerith asked.

  “He’s in charge of fortifications for King David.”

  Kerith clenched her hands to keep from crying out with excitement, but through her being hammered a mighty drum thundering one word, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” Finally, when she had gained control, she asked the governor, “May I be excused?”

  “You want to tell Hoopoe? More holes for him to dig?” He flashed his head up and down, and Kerith knew she was supposed to smile.

  “If I may. Please.” And at the gate she asked the guards, “Have you seen Jabaal?”

  “Who?”

  “The Hoopoe.” She said this without showing her distaste for the name.

  “He’s at the slave camp.”

  And she crossed over to the olive grove from which she had recently picked flowers, but this time she passed through it and came to the walled compound where the slaves were kept, and even before she entered that noisome place she was revolted by the smell. She asked the guards, “Where is Jabaal?” and when they did not know she had to explain with some embarrassment, “The one you call Hoopoe.”

  “Follow me,” and without noticing what he was leading Kerith into, the guard walked nonchalantly through the filthy outer circle of hovels: rats ran in the road and sunlight fell on piles of straw so rancid that each had its colonies of bugs and lice. The water standing in clay jars was covered with scum, and in the few spots where some slave had tried to beautify the place where he would die, the neatness looked obscene. “Almighty Yahweh!” Kerith whispered. “You let men live here?”

  But then the guard opened the inner gate and led her to the walled section where dangerous prisoners were kept, and here not even the sun was allowed: dismal huts with floors still muddy from the rains of spring were marked with piles of rotting straw and shreds of cloth. Broken bowls and food pots gray with filth stood in corners, while the section reserved for the privy was unspeakable. A slave captured on some desert raid, now too old to work, shuffled by unable to stand erect, while young men who would have been tall in their homeland orchards north of Tyre moved glassy-eyed to their death.

  “Yahweh, Yahweh!” she whispered, and the thought that this hell existed in the same land with Jerusalem was almost more than she could bear and she felt faint. And then she passed into the meanest hovel of all, and there she saw her husband talking with a man she had not noticed before, the slave Meshab, and something in his controlled, resourceful manner as he bent over the hide filled with drawings gave the place a dignity she could not have believed.

  After nodding to the slave she said, “Husband, General Amram is coming to inspect your walls.”

  The effect of this information upon the two men was striking. Hoopoe leaped to his feet, not afraid to show his pleasure. “At last we’ll have a man who understands.” But Meshab drew back toward a corner, not through fear, Kerith thought, but in response to some instinctive prudence; and it was obvious that he had known General Amram before, perhaps on a battlefield, for to the Moabites the Hebrew generals had brought much destruction and Kerith could see that Meshab had no desire to meet this particular general again.

  However, when Hoopoe in his enthusiasm turned to the slave for confirmation of his feelings, Meshab said, “Amram is one who will understand.”

  Kerith now suggested that Hoopoe come home with her to discuss other aspects of this exciting news, so with some reluctance the builder accompanied his wife back through the filth, after which they climbed the ramp to Makor. But at the gate Kerith turned to look at the slave camp and asked, “How can you allow men, humans like yourself, to live down there?”

  “They live as long as they do only because of what Pm able to do for them.”

  Inside the gates Kerith said softly, “Oh, Jabaal, General Amram is bringing us our freedom.”

  “I hope he likes the walls.”

  “And if he does,” she suggested shyly, “don’t be afraid to let him know that you were the one who made the decisions.”

  As if they did not want to reach home, where the basic reasons for their excitement might have to be explored, they loitered before the wine shop opposite the temple, and there Kerith said hesitantly, “Above all, Jabaal, you must mention Jerusalem.” The little engineer said nothing. “You must ask him to take you to Jerusalem. Now.”

  In the spring sunlight Hoopoe swallowed, shifted his feet and said, “No, Kerith. What I must do is explain to him my water system.”

  Kerith gave a little cry, as if she had been wounded, then looked about to see if any loungers at the wine shop had heard her. “Dear Jabaal,” she whispered. “Have you lost all reason?” Then seeking to be fair she asked, “If he did approve your tunnel? How long would it take?”

  “About three years.”

  She bit her knuckles. Three years! Three years more in exile from Jerusalem! Then, giving her husband a smile of love and compassion, she said, “All right. If that’s your dream, I’ll wait three years.” But the prospect, stated in her own words, was frightening and she caught his hands. “What if your tunnel fails?”

  “It’s my job to see it doesn’t fail,” he said.

  And then she said a word of great significance, not ushered forth by her own will but by her longing: “You’re being a fool.” Never before had she used this word, for she loved her husband and appreciated the tenderness h
e showed her; but gradually she had been forced to admit that the substantial men of the town, like the governor, had come to look upon her husband as merely an amusing person, running about the streets and poking his sharp nose into cisterns and silos like a true hoopoe bird. Indeed, he was a foolish man. But this sense of disappointment she could have tolerated, like any average woman approaching thirty who saw her husband as he was destined to be for the remainder of their lives together, except that in her case a special dimension had intruded: the holy city of Jerusalem. It had been as a girl in mourning that she had first seen the hilltop fortress recently captured by King David from the Jebusites and her emotions that day were so entangled as to have produced an everlasting effect. It was in the winter that her mother died, and her father had gone up to Jerusalem to pray, and as they climbed out of the flat lands they saw upon a crest of hills a city covered with snow, as pure and white as a stork in spring, and involuntarily she had cried, “Oh, the City of David!” By that name it was known to Hebrews, but in Makor the old Canaanite name of Jerusalem persisted, which was proper, since the city had been Hebrew for only a few years. As Kerith and her father stood looking up through the cold air she had intuitively known that Jerusalem would become famous not for its growth or its fortress walls, but because of the fact that here Yahweh would take his spiritual residence; and from the first moment she saw Jerusalem she longed to be a part of it, to grow with it into its new functions and to share the radiance which was certain to envelop it. From this city the nature of Hebrew life would be determined.

  Her father had sensed this when he said, as they continued to stare at the snowy battlements, “Before I die we shall see the temple at Makor abandoned, for in Jerusalem will stand the everlasting temple of Yahweh.” She asked him if he would feel regret at the passing of their little temple, and he replied without hesitation, “Just as our bodies must climb to reach Jerusalem, so will our souls have to climb their spiritual hills to reach Yahweh. It’s time we started.” But he had died before he could lead his people to the new understanding of religion as symbolized by Jerusalem, and the Makor priests who had succeeded him had lacked his vision and had clung jealously to their trivial prerogatives. It was therefore partly in furtherance of her father’s vision that Kerith longed to make her permanent ascent to Jerusalem; but if she had been asked for one simple reason why she yearned for the royal city she would have said honestly, “Because there Yahweh will make himself known.”