Rising Darkness

by D. Brian Shafer

  Michael himself had escorted the two angels to this place, promising them that this was no ordinary assignment. But a woman crying alone in a room seemed fairly typical to Dheer. He continued studying the woman who was to become his charge. He watched her stand up slowly as if in just a bit of discomfort, and move over to the little cooking area, where a piece of meat was slowly roasting.

  She picked up a small pitcher of water and brought it over to a table. She then put a piece of bread on the table along with some fruit, and sat down to await her husband. There was something about her eyes that struck Dheer—teary from anguish and yet with an air of determination—almost a defiant sort of faith that would not relent.

  “Manoah?” she called out. “Is that you?”

  The angels watched as the woman looked toward the doorway from where she thought she had heard something. Nobody was there.

  “Now you will see that yours is no ordinary assignment, my brother,” said Michael.

  “Manoah?”

  She stood to investigate the noise she was certain she had heard.

  Suddenly a man stepped through the darkened doorway into the room. The woman was so shaken she could not even scream. She fell to her knees and began to plead for her life. But the man only stood where he was.

  “The Lord’s Angel,” said Dheer in astonishment. “Here!”

  Michael indicated for him to stop talking and listen.

  Overcoming her initial fright the woman looked up at the man who towered over her little frame. In an instant she knew—somehow knew—that the man intended her no harm. He was dressed in a white cloak that was strange to Zorah. His face was obscured by the darkness of the room, the only light of which was a small oil lamp in the corner. Finally the woman summoned the courage to look up, but could not ask the man who he was and what he wanted. Suddenly the man began to speak, saying:

  “Do not be afraid, for the Lord Most High has heard your prayers. And though you are barren and can have no children, yet shall you soon bear a son! And he shall be a Nazarite from his birth and shall deliver his people from the Philistines.”

  And just as suddenly as he had appeared in the doorway, he disappeared. Recovering from the visit, she leapt up to pursue the man, and ran into her husband, Manoah, as he was coming into the house.

  “Woman, are you out of your mind?” he demanded.

  Dheer and Michael smiled at the comical event. Dheer then turned to Michael and asked him, “Am I assigned to the woman, or to her child?”

  “You are assigned to both,” said Michael. “The enemy will certainly want to destroy the child before he can fulfill the task of delivering his people.”

  The two angels watched as the woman explained to her husband all that had happened. Manoah was completely baffled; he wondered if perhaps the woman had gone mad or had been drinking some of the local wine.

  “No, I am not drunk,” she said. “I tell you the man came and said we were to have a son! And he shall be a Nazarite and…”

  “Please!” he said. “Let me think this through.”

  He sat for a moment in silence and then, looking at his wife incredulously, got onto his knees and began pleading with the Lord to send the man to him so that he might understand what was going on. Dheer watched as the man prayed and prayed and…nothing happened. Frustrated, Manoah rose from his knees and sat silently at the table, gnawing on the bread that his wife set before him.

  “It seems that the Angel of the Lord will not come again this evening,” said Michael. He grinned. “Poor Manoah!”

  “What a wonderful promise!” said Dheer excitedly.

  “And an important assignment,” said Michael. “I told you that something remarkable was happening in Zorah!”

  Far above them, hanging silently over the little town, a dark angel named Shawa was watching the entire episode unfolding. As one of Kara’s spies, he had been following Michael’s movements ever since he had entered the area, and had witnessed the whole affair.

  He smiled and said quietly to himself, “You are right, Archangel. Something remarkable is indeed happening in Zorah!”

  “I should think that Michael would have sent a more important angel to Zorah if there was indeed something of importance happening there,” said Kara, musing over the recent developments in Dan. He looked at Pellecus for a response.

  Pellecus quelled the anger he felt rising in him toward Kara, who he thought was a posturing fool at times. For his part, Kara thoroughly enjoyed his role as interpreter of the information brought to him by his spies on the field. He believed that this made him not only powerful in his own right, but a valuable asset to Lucifer.

  “The fact that Michael was in Zorah with Dheer is of little importance,” said Pellecus, who had been given explicit instructions by Lucifer to work with Kara in keeping abreast of any movement by the Lord in Canaan. “However, the fact that the Angel of the Lord was involved is quite telling and therefore the promise of another deliverer must be taken seriously.”

  Kara looked at Pellecus and nodded in agreement with the angel in whom he had little trust but with whom he must now cooperate.

  “I quite agree, Pellecus,” he finally said. “We need more intelligence on this.”

  Kara smiled a knowing smile. “Have no fear, Pellecus,” he said. “I have ordered Shawa to remain close to the family of Manoah and report on whatever transpires.”

  “I hope you have ordered him to stay clear of Dheer,” said Pellecus. “He may not be competent but he is no fool!”

  “Do you really believe that the deliverer is about to be born?” asked Kara.

  Pellecus smirked at Kara.

  “He must be born one day,” he surmised. “If not this time, then some day. But the Angel of the Lord said he was to deliver his people from the Philistines. The Lord’s Angel does not appear to humans without purpose. Remember Hagar? And Gideon?”

  “Of course,” said Kara. “And Gideon delivered his people from the Midianites. That cowering fool! It seems the Lord will use simply anyone—especially if they are incompetent or untrained!”

  “That is part of His brilliance,” came a voice. It was Lucifer.

  “My lord, we were just discussing the situation at Zorah,” stammered Kara. “I have ordered Shawa to keep an eye on the events there. We expect word at any moment.”

  Lucifer ignored Kara’s usual pandering and walked up the ruined stone stairs of what had been a Canaanite noble’s house, before it was destroyed in one of Joshua’s campaigns years earlier.

  “Joshua certainly made short work of this place, did he not?” said Lucifer, noting the charred stones that had tumbled upon one another. “Yes, Kara, I am aware of the Angel’s visit to Zorah.”

  “It represents a disturbing pattern, my lord,” said Pellecus. “This raising up of leaders who deliver the people from the snares that we encourage among them through their enemies. I see it as a rehearsal of sorts for the True Deliverer who will one day arrive in this land.”

  Lucifer looked sharply at Pellecus.

  “A rehearsal?” asked Kara derisively. “For the Seed?” He began laughing. “Surely the Most High doesn’t need to practice for His invasion.”

  “You miss the point, Kara,” snapped Pellecus. “I am saying that the Lord is a God of order and system. I believe He is establishing such a pattern to demonstrate to His people that in the end He will come to their rescue.”

  “But only if they repent, Kara,” said Lucifer. “There is always a price to pay for the Lord’s favor.” He indicated the ruined city around him. “Or disfavor.”

  “So what is He teaching them by coming to their rescue?” asked Kara.

  “His price,” said Lucifer. “The price of the Lord’s favor is repentance. And that is why we shall win this war ultimately.”

  Lucifer led the two angels through the abandoned streets of the burned-out city. Little was left except ruined hulls of what had been homes facing the street and sections of wall that had not yet collapsed.
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  “Look at this city—or what is left of it,” Lucifer began. “At one point it was a thriving community of humans. Then war came and their way of life was finished. For now, Israel enjoys the Lord’s protection. But humans being what they are, I assure you that one day they will turn from the Lord completely, and He shall turn His back on them. Remember that He almost destroyed them in the desert? Had not Moses interceded for them, they would not have survived to this day. For now they resist the Baals. But one day they shall rejoice in them!”

  An angel swept in from the north and came to stand in front of Kara. It was Shawa. He looked about and was surprised, as well as terrified, to see Lucifer standing nearby.

  “Go on,” said Kara casually. “Report.”

  Shawa looked once more in the direction of Lucifer and then, collecting his thoughts, began reporting that the Angel of the Lord had appeared again to the wife of Manoah—this time in a field near her house.

  “He addressed the woman as before, my lords, and this time she ran and fetched her husband so that he might inquire of the visitor. He asked the Angel about the coming child, how they were to raise him. The Angel of the Lord repeated to the man that the child would be holy to the Lord—a Nazarite who could drink no strong drink and whose hair must not be cut.”

  “Interesting,” said Lucifer, who strolled over to where Kara stood listening to Shawa. “A Nazarite vow to be taken by the child. He will be special indeed.”

  “The man Manoah asked the Angel his name, not knowing that he stood before the Angel of the Lord.”

  “Really,” asked Pellecus, most interested. “And what answer did He give the man?”

  “None. The Angel simply said that He would accept from the man an offering of meat. But when the fire began to consume the lamb, the Angel stood within its midst and disappeared up into the sky! At that point the man and wife knew they had been visited by the Lord and they fell to the ground and worshiped.”

  Shawa awaited a response or reaction from the three angels to whom he had reported. Lucifer contemplated in silence the report that Shawa had brought. Kara and Pellecus also awaited Lucifer’s response. Finally Lucifer spoke to the higher-ranking angels.

  “How I envy the Lord’s ability to make humans truly worship Him,” he said.

  “My lord, most of the world worships you,” said Kara. “In one form or another people bow down to you through images and incantations and…”

  “Snakes! Crude statues! Beasts of the field! Those are the objects of worship that we have managed to build into the minds of men,” said Lucifer. “I enjoy the worship of minds twisted by sin. Only the Most High God truly enjoys worship in its purest sense.”

  Shawa stepped back as Lucifer’s purplish aura began to manifest in his anger. As his rage subsided, so did the aura. He looked at the others and sighed…and then smiled a half smile.

  “Ah, my brothers, we shall never be worshiped in purity,” he said, much calmer now, even cordial. “But we can enjoy the fruits of corruption. We may not truly know what it is to capture the hearts of men—but we can have the satisfaction of capturing their minds. Thus we might prevent their worship of the Most High.”

  Shawa looked first to Lucifer and then to Kara as if to ask what his instructions were. Kara understood and then proposed that Shawa maintain a close watch on the family. Lucifer agreed.

  “The child shall be born,” said Lucifer. “Of that there can be no doubt. So we shall keep a close watch on him. In the meantime we continue pressing in from the Baals and that filthy god of the Philistines.”

  “Ah, Dagon,” mused Pellecus snidely. “Very crude deity indeed.”

  “Sponsored by a very capable angel,” said Kara defensively.

  “Berenius runs Dagon, does he not?” asked Lucifer.

  “Yes, my prince,” answered Kara, looking at Pellecus with hate-filled eyes. “Berenius is one of our most devoted and capable angels. When he was given the principality over the Philistines, he began the cult of Dagon and has prospered with it.”

  “It seems there is about to be a revival in the land,” said Lucifer sullenly. “For when this child has come of age he will wage war on us.”

  Kara and Pellecus nodded in agreement.

  “Kara, I suggest that Dagon begin to impress himself on the Israelites—especially the Danites from whose tribe this child shall come.”

  “Yes, my prince,” said Kara. “I will see to it.”

  “The Angel of the Lord is not the only prophet on earth,” said Lucifer. “This planet is filled with prophets. I prophesy that the priests of Dagon will be inspired this year through all manner of signs and wonders and dreams. Make certain that Berenius begins this religious zeal immediately.”

  “It shall be done,” said Kara.

  “The Philisitine rulers shall thus become emboldened, and by the time this Danite deliverer is born, the oppression from the five cities shall be so great that the spirit of Israel shall be crushed!”

  “And the deliverer?” asked Pellecus delicately. “Suppose he turns out to be another Moses?”

  “Even deliverers are corruptible,” said Lucifer. “Moses was a murderer and we used that to great effect.” He thought about it a moment. “Shawa! You will make it your task to discover the weakness of this man—his peculiar passion—so that we might one day exploit it.”

  “I shall do so,” said Shawa, proud of the important role he would now take on.

  “And even should the child of Manoah manage to live to his maturity, and be greater than Moses, the fight shall already have been taken out of Israel. He shall be a deliverer of a stillborn people.”

  Chronicles of the Host

  Samson

  So it was that Manoah’s wife gave birth to Samson—future scourge of the Philistines and deliverer to his people. The Spirit of the Lord was upon Samson. Unlike the other judges, Samson grew into a man possessing superhuman strength, with which he became a legend among both the Danites and the Philistines.

  True to his dark heart, Lucifer and his angels pressed hard upon Israel, elevating Dagon among the people and oppressing the children of God with greater and greater hardship. Finally, the people of God began once more to call upon their Lord and repent of their wickedness, unaware that among them was one who had been born for such a time.

  Shawa, ever desperate to please his master, did his dark work with great efficiency. He observed Samson closely, watching for an opening, waiting for a slip, hoping for a point of weakness. As long as Samson kept pure his Nazarite vow, the Spirit of God remained upon him. And though many holy angels were assigned to Samson to counter any movement by the enemy, not one could stop him from the foolishness that was starting to overtake him….

  The warm air felt good on Samson’s face. He had been traveling between Zorah and Eshtaol, lost in deep thought about his life. For some reason a brooding, almost melancholy spirit had been emerging. He knew that God had prepared something special for him. Many times his mother and father had related the story about the Angel of the Lord appearing to them. But when? And what?

  He brushed back his long black hair as he thought about the Nazarite vow he had made—or rather that had been made for him by the circumstances of his birth. Truly it was a marvelous thing to be called of the Lord. But what did it mean? Of course he had heard of the great men and women before him—men like Ehud who, declaring that he had “a message from God,” killed the king of Moab and rescued Israel from that nation’s grip. He recalled Deborah, who stepped in with Barak to war against the Canaanites. But who was he? A Danite from a nothing little town called Zorah.

  As he continued down the road near Mahaneh Dan, a small caravan of Philistines on donkeys came up from the distance—some of the local tax gatherers making their usual call. Samson hated how this godless nation made prey of his people. He watched the men approaching, escorted by several chariots, the pride of the Philistine army, which had swept much of Israel before them.

  As they passed by, a coup
le of the Philistine charioteers cursed Samson for being in their way. They would have run right over him had he not jumped to the side. Behind the first chariots came the tax collectors, lolling about under a large umbrella, fat with gold and graft, and hardly batting an eye as they passed by Samson.

  “How long, O Lord, must we endure these dogs?” he asked aloud after they had passed. “I have taken a vow to You. And my mother told me that one day I was to deliver the people. But what good is a vow kept that is not also paid?”

  As he finished speaking the wind around him began to pick up, kicking some dust into the air. Turning once more toward the Philistines, he watched as they disappeared over the top of a hill. They seemed unaffected by the wind. In fact, the only place that the wind seemed to be gusting about was right around Samson!

  A sudden realization overtook him. Stirred by the Spirit of God, and falling to his knees, Samson called out to the Lord, praising the Most High and singing the hymns of Israel to Him. He then fell face first onto the ground, crying out to God as the Spirit of the Lord stirred and spoke to him the things that he must do.

  Dheer, who accompanied Samson everywhere he went, was overjoyed at this anointing of the Spirit of God upon him. He had followed Samson’s life from childhood until now, longing for the day when God would confirm upon him the seal of His Presence. Now the man Samson had become Samson, judge of Israel!

  Samson stood up, filled with a new sense of who he was. He felt so many things—as if he had been given a whole new life. His heart felt as if it were on fire, and his mind had never been sharper. But the greatest change of all in him was his strength. He suddenly felt that he could lift ten men.

  Samson looked once more in the direction of the Philisitines who had passed him by. A crooked smile crossed his lips. He suddenly dashed up the road, from the direction he had just come. Dheer realized what he was about to do and stayed with him, wondering if perhaps he should call upon more angels.