A toothless old man pointed to Governor Jeremoth and said, “He did.” And the soldiers embraced the governor and assured him that he had done right, and at the height of the celebration Jeremoth stood under a flare and announced, “Old men and women built the walls. Young men shall defend them.”
Most of the soldiers, like Rimmon, went home with their wives, and some, like Azareel, wandered to the temple of Astarte, where they enjoyed themselves with the priestesses, and some like Mattan the Phoenician, who had never expected to see Makor again, climbed the mountain to offer sacrifice to Baal, and a few were so lost in a mixture of joy and sorrow that they went from house to house to comfort the widows whose men would not return and to assure them that their husbands had died bravely.
And when the sun was up, old Gomer descended the shaft with a new water jug and went to the well, but as she was about to lower the bucket the water fell away many cubits until the well was dry: at the bottom a fire burned and incense filled the air and a voice thundered from the depths and terrified her so that she dropped her new jug and broke it: “Gomer, widow of Israel, for the last time I command you. Speak the words I send you. Israel has gone whoring after false gods and must be destroyed. Makor has built walls of vanity upon foundations of sand and they shall be thrown down. Your people worship Baal and lust after naked goddesses and in captivity they shall suffer. Tell your son to remember not Babylon but Jerusalem. Gomer, speak these things.”
“Thank you, Yahweh, for returning my son.”
“He shall stay but a little while,” the voice said, and as the fire died down the water returned. And there was silence.
This time Gomer showed no petty concern over her broken water jug, for at last she understood that it was Israel that was broken and that only the tremendous fires of defeat and exile could recast the shattered pieces. Like a moon-mad woman she climbed the upward stairs, not caring where she placed her feet, but because she had been assigned a providential purpose her life was preserved. Walking past her house she heard Mikal calling, “Mother! Mother! Did you break the water jug again?” and she replied in a voice that was hardly her own, “It is Israel that is shattered. Israel is no more.”
Like a disembodied spirit she continued to the wall where Governor Jeremoth was directing refinements to the fortifications, and pointing to them as she had at the doomed Egyptians, she cried in a harsh and penetrating wail, “O men of vanity, throw down these useless walls. For it is written that Babylon shall capture Israel. And you shall see the hills and valleys of Galilee no more.”
Her words were clearly demonic and Governor Jeremoth did not feel it necessary to reply. He merely stared at her, but his men stopped their work and stepped aside as she strode along the walls and came to face him, staring down at him as if she were his mentor. In this unexpected manner they started the confrontation that would mark these last days of Makor, and it was a most uneven conflict upon which they were engaged. At fifty-three Governor Jeremoth was a tested man, a toughened warrior. He was clever and was supported by the principal family in town. He was determined to save Makor, and both the women who had rebuilt the walls and the soldiers who had returned to man them trusted him, for his personal courage gave him a power of leadership that words alone could not have done. She was fifty-nine, a confused old woman at the end of her life, with barely enough to live on and no capacity for either leadership or logic. Even to her neighbors she was a woman of no importance, yet Yahweh had chosen her as his spokesman during these critical months, and as such she would determine what transpired in Makor.
Now she cried, “Tear down the walls and open the gates, for it is the fate of Israel to be dragged into captivity.” There was silence. The woman was speaking treason but Governor Jeremoth refrained from arresting her, for she was the mother of the captain upon whom the defenses rested.
“Did I not tell you that the Egyptians would be humbled?” she wailed. “And their generals led away as slaves? Do I not speak the truth as you know it to be in your hearts?” Still Governor Jeremoth made no response.
Now Gomer went into a kind of spasm; her right shoulder hitched upward and her elbow trembled as she intoned, “On that mountain the statue of Baal must be torn down. In that temple the priests and priestesses must be driven out. In all of this town the abominations must cease.” There was silence, and in a powerful wail of lamentation she cried, “Today these things must be done.”
Guided by a force outside herself she did three symbolic things: she went to the wall and threw down one stone; she went to Governor Jeremoth, grabbed a staff he was carrying and broke it, and she went to the temple of Astarte where with curses she drove one of the prostitutes out of her booth. She then went home, where her son and daughter were ignorant of her performance, for they had gone into the tunnel to satisfy themselves that she had again broken her water jug—“She is too old to carry such a burden,” they had decided—and when she faced Mikal, Yahweh directed her to deliver a fourth symbol of her new identity; but when she looked at her daughter-in-law, that generous young woman who had saved her life during the time of starvation, what Yahweh required her to do was too horrible to perform, and she ran from the house sobbing in her human voice, “Almighty Yahweh, I cannot!”
That day her children could not find her. She had fled to a stable near the wall, where she huddled in the straw, fleeing the intolerable duty that had been placed upon her. She prayed, seeking release, but found none. She remained hidden in the stable, unable to muster strength for the final obligation that Yahweh had put upon her; when evening came she felt stronger and started to rise, but when she did so she saw ahead the task that awaited her, and in fear she collapsed in the straw, weeping in agony and praying, “This last command, Almighty Yahweh, take from me.”
All that night she remained hidden under the straw, as if in this way she could escape her god, and in the morning she went to a neighbor’s house and borrowed a water jug, saying, “I will fetch your water for you,” and she went into the tunnel and on the way back from the well she prayed, “Merciful Yahweh, do not break this jug, for it is Rachel’s and she is a needy woman. But let me speak with you.” And she was not thrown to the ground, but the light shone and for the last time the voice addressed her, using tones of deep compassion.
“Gomer, faithful widow of Jathan, I have heard your plea but there is no escape.”
She sobbed. “The monolith, the temple, the wall, these things I can tear down. But the final thing, Yahweh, I cannot do.”
“I am striving for the salvation of a people,” the voice said. “Do you suppose I find joy in ordering these things?”
She spoke not as a prophet, but as a woman pleading with her god: “When I was dying Mikal saved me. Like a slave she worked in the fields. She is my blood, the eyes of my face, the tongue of my heart, and her I refuse to hurt.”
“It is required.”
“No!” In fury Gomer dashed the water jug to the floor, breaking it into many pieces in the presence of Yahweh. “I will not.”
There was silence. Then patiently the voice said, “Gomer, that was the jug of a poor woman and it is needed,” and at her feet the water jug was made whole again and filled itself with sweet water. “If I consider the jug of this needful woman to make it whole again, do I not consider the people of Israel, to make them whole again? You shall do the things I command and you shall speak of Jerusalem to your son, that he may remember. For in every generation we seek that remnant who know Jerusalem, and in Makor it is to you and your son that remembrance is given.” The light failed and never again did the voice speak to Gomer, but through her it would accomplish the fearful tasks that had to be completed if in this generation Israel were to be saved.
In a trance Gomer picked up the water jug and lugged it back to Rachel, where she set it down without speaking. She then crossed the street and presented herself before Rimmon and Mikal. There was straw in her hair, betraying where she had spent the night, and deep lines in her face. When sh
e saw that Mikal was wearing the white dress, she tried to run from the house, but she could not. Her finger pointed. Her voice grew harsh, and facing her daughter-in-law as she nursed the boy Ishbaal, she cried, “All the daughters of Canaan shall be cast out. Yea, all the sons of Israel who have whored after the daughters of Canaan shall cast them away.”
Mikal fell back with a painful gasp. Hiding her bosom as if she were defiled she whispered, “Gomer? What have you done?”
“Out!” the old woman shrieked. “You are no more! You and the child. Out!” Like a fury hounding the condemned she pressed down upon the stricken girl, screaming at her, “Whore! Corrupt! Daughter of Baal!” And she forced the gentle girl from the house and into the street. For a moment Rimmon tried to intervene, but his mother interposed herself between husband and wife and in the end Mikal had to run sobbing down the Water Street to her father’s house, taking her son with her.
When she was gone Gomer imprisoned Rimmon in their little home and said, in words that of herself she could not have invoked, “Remember Jerusalem, how it lay nestling in the mists, with the temple of Yahweh within its arms, and you climbed through the slanting sunbeams, whispering praises to the noble city. O let Jerusalem live in your heart, let it be the breath of your life, the kiss of your beloved.”
Rimmon was appalled at what was happening. His mother had become insane, and he could do nothing to help her. She had humiliated his wife and banished his child, and he was disgusted with himself for even having stayed behind to reason with her, and he made as if to leave, but what she said next transfixed him, and when he heard, he was able for the first time in his life to see the years stretching out before him; even when he had been working in the slave pits of Babylon he had supposed that it would prove temporary, and it had. But now his mother spoke in apocalyptic tones: “You shall suffer in Babylon, O Israel. In Babylon shall you groan in the sweat of slavery. You shall be tempted, yea, you shall be tempted sorely and your strength will fail. You shall curse me, and other gods will offer promises that must seem sweet to you. But among you there will be those who remember Jerusalem, who heard the fall of my foot along the sacred ways, who knew the temple, who saw the fair girls dancing in the moonlight, who saw the pillars Jachin and Boaz, who sang the sweet psalms of David and Gershom. Remember Jerusalem, you who have forgotten so much, and redemption will be upon you.”
Gomer fell back. Neither she nor her son spoke, and after a while she left the house without him and went into the market place, where she cried in a loud voice, “You children of Israel who wish to prepare yourselves for the long captivity ahead, come with me to the mountain that we may destroy the god Baal, forever and ever from this day forth.” And she led a small group of men and women devoted to Yahweh toward the sacred place. But Governor Jeremoth, knowing that he must not start the defense of Makor with Baal destroyed, dispatched guards to halt the fanatics, and there was struggling, and only Gomer and one old man named Zadok reached the top of the hill, and they were clearly quite inadequate for the knocking down of so great a monolith, deeply rooted in the earth, but when they put their shoulders against the stone, their loose hair flowing in the wind, they toppled it and sent it crashing down the mountainside, where it broke into many pieces. And Baal would not go into captivity with them.
With the loss of the local god a sense of gloom began to settle over Makor, and those who revered Baal began to mumble against Gomer, and Jeremoth fell into a rage and ordered the old woman to be arrested. She was put into a jail, but people of the town, wherever they were within the walls, heard her piercing voice as she warned them, “Israel will be destroyed, for you have abandoned Yahweh. You, all of you who hear me this day will die in Babylon, using the salt of your tears to savor your food. You are doomed. Surrender to Nebuchadrezzar before he storms your gates. Go out and bend your necks before him, because he serves as the scourge of Yahweh, who commands this servitude upon you. Miserable, miserable men of Makor, you who have whored after Astarte, you are lost forever. Your town, your pretensions are no more.”
Her dreadful wailing disturbed the night, and when Governor Jeremoth, beset by many problems relating to the defenses, summoned Rimmon and asked him what to do about his mother, the young captain was outside the spell of her incantation and he said, “Her misery has driven her mad and she is speaking treason. We had better silence her.”
Governor Jeremoth sighed with relief and said, “I’m glad you see it as I do. I was afraid you might …”
“About Mikal. What my mother did was horrible, and I’ll explain to your daughter.” He volunteered to accompany the governor home, but as he started to do so Gomer, who could not possibly have seen him, screamed from the jail, “Sons of Israel! Do not go back to the evil women of Canaan! Take no foreign women with you to Babylon. Take only the daughters of Israel! If you fail to heed these words, Yahweh will strike you with boils, with plagues, with leprosy. My son Rimmon! Do not slide back to the whore of Canaan!”
The words hung in the night like a brazen curse, etched from metal and burning into the consciousness of the Hebrews. They had found the daughters of Canaan attractive, and they had married them and many had slipped into the ways of Baal. They were perplexed about the future, and here came this dire voice reminding them that they had done evil in turning their backs on Yahweh and neglecting the daughters of Israel.
Rimmon was especially struck by the malediction, for of all the Canaanite girls he had picked the fairest, a wife so good that she brought dignity to the term, a girl who was more faithful to the precepts of Yahweh than many of the Hebrew girls he had known. Now he was told to abandon her in preparation for the exile ahead, and he could make no sense of such instruction. But he and Governor Jeremoth were not to worry about this problem tonight, for they had scarcely reached the governor’s home, where Mikal waited, when they were called to the temple area, where a fire was blazing. As if she had the power of Samson, Gomer had broken out of jail and had led a group of her followers to the Astarte temple, and there she had driven away the prostitutes and set fire to the holy place. A small wind kept the flames roaring, and before long the temple lay in ashes.
This was more than Governor Jeremoth could tolerate, and he caused the insane woman to be chained and led to the bottom of the shaft, where bolts were hammered into the wall and where she was kept prisoner during the critical period required for finishing the defenses. But from the well she cried her message to those who passed and to those who gathered at the lip: “Gird your hearts for the tragedy ahead. Say farewell to the olive groves, to the sweet wine presses, to the children of your neighbors, to the well where you drew the sweet waters. All is desolation. Israel is condemned to wander across the face of the earth. You have been faithless. You have been evil. You have been obstinate and unfaithful to our covenant. O Israel, who will have mercy upon your afflictions? How terrible are the scenes you shall witness with blinded eyes. How you shall choke upon food that is denied you. Desolation, desolation. You shall wander across the earth because you have betrayed me.”
In his mean quarters by the town gate, Governor Jeremoth finished his plans for the defense of Makor, and as he was doing so a messenger appeared to confirm the anticipated news that Nebuchadrezzar himself was descending upon all the territories formerly held by Egypt. “Riblah has fallen and mighty Damascus. Sidon is raided and Tyre is under siege. He will be upon you within three days.” And the haggard man had staggered on to Megiddo and Ashkelon, which were also doomed.
Now Jeremoth displayed his fortitude. Placing scouts upon the walls he went personally to every man in Makor and swore him to defend the town till death crashed down upon him. He called the women together and said, “Your men have seen the slave pits of Babylon. They know. In this town we shall fight together, and if need be, die supporting our brothers. This is the honorable way to behave. May Baal protect us.”
Each day he walked upon the walls, in knee-length battledress and bearing a shield of hides, assuring his me
n that the town was safe. He pointed often to the water system, reminding them, “In three hundred and fifty years no enemy has forced these walls. Nebuchadrezzar cannot do it either, and when he discovers that fact we shall make a peace with him that will protect us for years.” He assembled his own family—uncles, brothers, five daughters and their husbands—and gave each a task which kept him visible to the ordinary people. To Mikal he said, “Forget what the crazy old woman shouted. Rimmon is a good husband, and when this is over you’ll have many children.”
“I shall have another soon,” she revealed.
“Does Rimmon know?”
“Yes.”
Then the iron-hearted warrior went to his own command position atop that part of the wall that was most often attacked in the first days of a siege, and here he tested his sword and looked down the fateful road that had brought so many armies from Damascus, and he saw to the south the olive trees that his family had owned for thousands of years. “How sweet this town is,” he muttered to himself. “How worthy it is of our defense.” Then he looked with apprehension at the mountaintop from which Baal had been tumbled, and he wished that the mad old woman had not done that thing, and over the murmurs of the town he heard the cry from the bottom of the shaft, “A few days, a few more hours, O Israel! Then the long torment begins. It is the will of Yahweh that you march forth with yokes upon your necks. Surrender now to Babylon. Go to your destiny and work as slaves through the years of your agony …”
“Gag her!” Jeremoth ordered, pressing his head in regret that he should have to do such a thing to a poor old woman, but when men started down the steps Rimmon took away the cloths and said, “I will silence my mother,” and when he stood before her in the shadows she looked at him as if she were again his mother—as if she were merely an aging pauper who had lost her head for a while—and she said, “In a few hours the testing will begin. But the battle is unimportant. Yahweh asks only that you remember Jerusalem. It was in there,” and she indicated the place within the tunnel where the theophanies had occurred, “that he told me to take you to Jerusalem. He wanted you to see and to remember.”
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