“Your people are industrious,” Uriel said, eager to draw back from the ugly confrontation that had developed.
“Of all the land we saw,” Zadok continued, “this is the best. We hope to stay here for many generations.”
It was a gesture of true conciliation, and Uriel responded with the classic words of compromise: “I am sure that between us something can be worked out.”
On the surface he was right. Canaanites and Hebrews had started their national histories sharing the same god, El, who represented an unseen power, but even in the first moments of sharing they had treated El in contrasting ways, for the Canaanites had consistently diminished his universal qualities. Being townspeople, they captured El and made him a prisoner inside their walls; they fragmented him into Baal and Astarte and a host of lesser gods. They seemed determined to drag him down to their level, where they could know him personally and give him specific jobs to do until he dissipated his force. The Hebrews, on the other hand, beginning with the same god having the same attributes, had freed him of limiting characteristics, launching a process that would ultimately transform him into an infinite god of infinite power. Each modification the Hebrews introduced in the desert years intensified the abstract powers of El. They called him Elohim, all the gods; or Ely on, the most high; or El-Shaddai, the god almighty. And soon they would end by dropping the El altogether and calling him by no name at all, representing him only by the mysterious, unpronounceable letters YHWH, whereupon his transformation would be complete. But later generations would back away from the austere Hebrew apotheosis and would once more give him a name: God.
Thus it was the tragedy of Canaan that it encountered the Hebrews when the two peoples were at a mighty crossroads: the Canaanites were degrading the concept of god while the Hebrews were elevating it. The conflict between these two philosophies would continue for more than a thousand years and there would be many times when it would seem that Baal of the Canaanites had triumphed.
Zadok accepted Governor Uriel’s gesture of compromise. “We will respect Baal,” he agreed, “but you must warn your temple prostitutes not to welcome our people again.”
“I will tell them,” Uriel promised, “but you must remember that this is a custom which has produced the prosperity you see down there. When your men understand farming a little better they’ll appreciate the priestesses and insist upon worshiping with them.”
There was the serpent! There was the wound that would not heal—this constant encroachment of the town upon the ways of the desert. Since Uriel the Canaanite was a man devoted to the town, when he looked down at Makor he saw clearly that most of man’s progress up to now had come when he lived in towns and worshiped gods that had developed from towns. Only inside a wall would men dare to build a temple, only within that safety could a library accumulate texts written on clay. In a thousand years men who roamed deserts had accomplished nothing: they built no roads, invented no new method of erecting homes; they had discovered neither pottery wheels nor silos for conserving grain. Only in a town like Makor could men prosper and make those material advances which when added together would be termed civilization. The history of this mound below us, Governor Uriel thought, is the history of men learning to live together in a town, faithful to the gods of town life, and that is the only history in the world that matters.
Zadok the Hebrew looked down upon the town and weighed it in different scales. As a free man of the desert he could not escape viewing Makor as the breeding place of contamination. In the desert a lusty man might rape a nubile woman and this was understandable. Zadok himself had taken his second wife in this manner, but when the rape was completed a strict code required the pair to marry and lend dignity to the process. In the desert a system of sacred prostitution would be impossible. The cleanliness of the rocks would fight against it, for prostitution of this sort could only be a product of the town. In open country a woman like Jael might prove unfaithful to her husband, but to this there was a sudden, blinding solution—death; it took the town to recognize such a woman as a heroine and to offer her sanctuary. The town was filled with men who had never worked in open areas tending sheep and discovering for themselves the actuality of their god; these men sat cramped before a wheel making pottery. They wrote on clay which they did not dig and sold wine which they had not pressed. Their values were warped and their gods were of a trivial dimension. As Zadok looked at the frightening town he remembered the instructive history of two former members of his clan and he could hear his father Zebul telling their story: “Your ancestor Cain was a man of the town and when he brought his gift to El-Shaddai, the god despised it, but your ancestor Abel lived in the open as we do, and when he brought his gift El-Shaddai was pleased, for our god has always preferred honest people who live outdoors above crafty ones who live in towns. This rejection angered Cain and he slew Abel, and from that time there has been enmity between town and desert.” But to Zadok the critical matter was still the uncertainty that had kept him in the desert for six full years after El-Shaddai himself had told the Hebrews to move into the town: he still wondered if men could live in a contaminating place like Makor and yet know their god as his Hebrews had known him in the desert. But as he drew back, afraid of the days ahead, he remembered the reassuring words of El-Shaddai: “Inside the walls it will not be easy for me to speak with you, but I shall be there.” He looked at the townsman who stood beside him and thought: If we can co-operate with any Canaanite it must be with Governor Uriel, for he is a man of integrity.
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 Hebr
ews 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 Leah’s brother across the lips. Stone knives flashed and the 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 hotheaded 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.
&nb
sp; 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.
The Source: A Novel Page 26
