Zechariah extends his hand toward me. “Rebekah has brought us the cup of our Lord’s last supper.”
I had forgotten the cup, and look down, now, almost surprised to see it there, nestled in my hand. I bring it to Zechariah. He passes it to a man who fills it with wine. Then Zechariah reaches into a basket near his feet, pulls out a large round loaf of flat-bread, and tears off a piece.
“In this way his body was broken for us.” He lifts the piece into the air. “Jesus said to do this in remembrance of Him. I remember, Lord. I remember what you did, how you suffered, how your body was broken. I remember how you were beaten and pierced. All for me. I remember.” With that he puts the piece of bread in his mouth and passes the loaf to the woman next to him. She breaks a piece, eats it, then passes the loaf to another. This is done over and over again. More than once Zechariah has to pluck a fresh loaf from his basket before everyone has broken their piece.
At last, he takes the cup of wine from the hand of the man who’s been holding it all this time, and lifts it into the air. “Jesus also took a cup, and he told the twelve it was the cup of the new covenant, a covenant of blood, His blood which is shed for the forgiveness of sins. Oh, dear ones, let us remember that Jesus became the lamb, our Passover lamb, and shed his blood so we can apply it to the doorposts and lintels of our hearts, and pass from death into life.” He’s almost weeping now. “I remember, Lord,” he says sipping from the cup.
We all take our turn, sipping the wine then passing the cup. Moments after I’ve taken my sip there’s a stir among the crowd. People’s heads press together as they whisper. Then the whispers grow louder, until finally someone shouts, “A miracle! It’s a miracle!”
“Praise be to our Lord and Savior,” someone else yells. And then everyone seems to shout at once.
“The Lord is in our midst! The Lord is among us!”
“Forgive us oh, Lord, for our unbelief.”
“Have mercy on us sinners.”
“How great is Messiah, Son of the living God!”
What is happening? I stand on tiptoes but still can’t determine the reason for the excitement. People are bent over the litter, obscuring Simon from view. Finally, I reach into the crowd and pull on Mary’s tunic. “What is it? What’s going on?”
She turns. She’s crying and laughing all at once. “It’s Simon, my husband. The Lord has healed him. He . . . his skin . . . his skin is as soft and pink as little Joshua’s here.” She points to the infant in Tirzah’s arms.
And so our beleaguered community experienced its first miracle.
The next time we gather at Zechariah’s house, two more believers are healed; the widow, Leah, of a cut she gave herself when cooking—I think her eyes are failing. But it shows how God cares even about the little things. Then Ira, who broke his leg falling off a roof. I saw it with my own eyes—the bone sticking through his skin, the leg swollen and purple. All during the time we prayed, he cried and screamed with pain. And then, after Ira drank from the cup, his leg . . . it mended, just like that. The bone disappeared, the skin closed over. He even stood on it, gently at first. After a moment or two, when he realized he had no pain, he began to walk. He walked all around the outside of Zechariah’s house. Round and around and around. It made me dizzy. Then he jumped up and down. I thought he’d never stop. But we all cried and laughed and shouted praises to God.
Everyone says it’s the cup. But I don’t believe it. Jesus drank from hundreds of cups, and ate from just as many bowls. Do these things heal? When I tell people, “no, it’s not the cup,” they argue that Peter’s shadow alone could heal. They remind me of Paul the Apostle’s handkerchiefs that healed, too.
Zechariah says the Spirit of God has fallen afresh on us. People are beginning to feel more hopeful. Their spirits are rising. They’re beginning to believe it’s possible to make a good life here. They’re beginning to see that God has not abandoned them.
Still, I’m troubled by it all. Too many of our number are looking at a stone cup instead of the Lord. And the Gentiles? News of what’s happening here has reached their ears. Argos incites them against us. Anger is rising, and fear, too, fear of what they don’t understand. Violence increases. Only yesterday, Ira’s winepress was destroyed, and the day before that Caleb, a young shepherd boy, was badly beaten. Everyone knows that both were the work of Argos and his cult. I worry that if this doesn’t stop soon, someone will die.
JERUSALEM 70 A.D.
CHAPTER 4
Jerusalem, the Holy City, the Navel of the Earth, will soon be under siege—attacked from the north. It’s only logical since our other three sides are protected by deep ravines. Foolish to mention the obvious to the men near me, but I do, more to break the silence than anything else. They seem grateful, for at once they nod and voice their agreement.
“Titus will be thorough,” adds Eleazar, who stands to my right. “And why not? He can afford to be. Our spies tell me there’s no limit to his supplies—leather tents, weaponry, bedding, food. The Romans dig trench-and-berm fortifications by day, then play knucklebones and dice, and gorge themselves by night.” He curses under his breath. “Look there. Already their campfires glow in the distance. Soon they’ll gather for meals of fresh bread, vegetables, meat.”
His statement hangs in the air like an accusation. Had John and Simon not burned our grain, the city would not be so desperate, and people wouldn’t be breaking into homes stealing bread or fighting in the streets over chunks of moldy cheese and a handful of raisins.
“I ask you, how are we supposed to keep our men fit for battle when they have so little to eat?” Eleazar absently pulls his beard.
Both John and Simon stand nearby, along with their generals, but no one answers. We are staring down from the Phasael, the tower named for Herod the Great’s brother, and built on the western ridge of the city near Herod’s palace. We can see for miles. It’s the largest of the three protective towers Herod built by his palace; and is complete with bulwarks and parapets. It’s also honeycombed with lavish quarters. Herod was nothing if not extravagant. Even the other two towers—Hippicus, a water reserve, and Mariamme were laced with opulent apartments.
We are a glum lot. Titus has moved his camp northwest, only eight hundred cubits from our wall. The 15th Apollinaris, the 5th Macedonica, and the 12th—the Fulminata from Syria, which has only recently arrived—share the new campsite. The 10th remains on the Mount of Olives facing our eastern wall.
Four legions are now poised against us.
Titus’s move began after he leveled the land. Everything is gone. Even the gullies and caves have been filled. A flat barren wasteland now sits between us. Not one green leaf—not one bush or vine or tree—can be seen. Our spies claim no trees remain standing for ten miles in any direction. All have been cut for Roman siege-works or to heat Roman food or for making the crosses they use to hang us rebels.
And though I grieve this devastation, I also take perverse pleasure in knowing that the Romans are even now reaping what they have sown. A cloud of dust hovers over their large sprawling camp. It swirls in the wind like an army of gnats. It coats their leather tents, their supply wagons and horses, their mules; clings to their hair and bodies, armor and weapons; grits their food. For days I’ve watched them, eating, breathing, choking on it, but still they worked their pickaxes and mattocks. They’ve filled baskets by the hundreds with earth, then used the earth to build one massive wall around their camp, another around our city. Their tenacity in the face of such trying conditions is irksome, inspiring and terrifying all at once.
“Titus will try cutting off our supplies,” John of Gischala finally says, his eyes riveted on the activities below. “He’ll attempt to starve us out.”
“He’ll try,” I say. “But he won’t wait for famine to kill us.” My hand rests on the hilt of the sword strapped to my waist. “His siege walls are too long. Defending them means spreading his legions too thin. It means making his men easy targets for our raiding parties. He’s
too good of a general for that. He’s also impatient for victory. Already his engineers have heaved lead and line from one of their platforms to measure the distance to our walls for their archers. And look . . . he has started a ramp.” Even from here it’s clear that the swarming men who keep darting behind screens and sheds and into leather covered passageways are building a ramp.
“Ethan’s right. Titus won’t wait. He’ll bring the fight to us,” Eleazar says. “His battering rams are finished, and his wooden towers, too. From them he’ll pummel us with stones, arrows, spears.”
I glance at the Roman towers. They are covered with hides and iron plates, and sit on massive wooden wheels by which they will be rolled to our walls when the ramp is finished.
Time was running out.
“Yes . . . I believe you’re right,” John of Gischala says, almost reluctantly. “It does appear that Titus will strike soon. But where? What part of the north wall will he hit?” His question is directed to all the generals, but he looks at me.
“Near the tomb of John the High Priest,” I answer quickly. “The ground there is flat, and the wall low and poorly joined. It’s our weakest point. If I were Titus, that’s where I’d go.”
John nods. “Then that’s where we’ll put the Benjaminite archers.”
“Food will be the problem,” Eleazar says, “or rather the lack of it.”
Food again.
“We must continue the raiding parties to gather all we can while the southern end of the city is still open,” Eleazar continues. “Every day, Titus tightens his siege wall around Jerusalem. It will not be much longer before he seals us in.”
Before John can answer, a voice shouts from outside the wall, “It is foolish to fight the mighty Roman army! Come, open the gates and Titus will show you mercy!”
I look down and see a man on horseback, galloping toward us. He wears Roman armor and carries a white flag tied to a spear. Two men ride behind him.
“I’ve come in peace,” he shouts, riding so close one of our archers could easily strike him down. “Allow me to speak.”
Jeers and hoots are hurled from our walls, along with a large stone, but it drops harmlessly onto the dirt. John sends one of his generals to quiet the men and allow the rider to approach.
“Perhaps Titus wishes to surrender,” he says, laughingly, when his general disappears.
But I don’t laugh. Titus has not gone to all the trouble of moving his camp to surrender now. It’s more likely he wishes to extend the terms of our surrender.
When the rider closes in, someone shouts, “Josephus! It’s that traitor Josephus!”
My chest tightens with shame. Josephus is a relative, an aristocrat, a Hasmonaean priest, a descendant of the Maccabees, a man who fought for his people in Galilee then switched sides after his capture by the Romans. It is said he predicted Vespasian would become emperor. It is also said he predicts the downfall of Jerusalem. I curse him now, under my breath.
“You miserable fools,” he cries, “Why do you insist on fighting Rome? Don’t you know God has ordained that everything is to be brought under their rule? Imperium orbis terrae. Will you fight against your God? Submit now, and Legate Titus will be merciful. There will be no loss of life, no destruction of the city, no desecration of the Holy Temple. For your sakes, for your wives’ and children’s sakes, make an end to this rebellion, and all will be well.”
The walls erupt with shouts and hoots and curses. Our men are angry wolves desperate to tear the royal eagle and humiliate Titus; desperate to draw Roman blood and avenge all of Judea. I look into Eleazar’s troubled eyes and see that which he wishes to hide: his willingness to open the gates to Titus. And I know it’s only because he fears for the safety of the Temple. And when John orders one of the bowmen to fire an arrow into the ground near Josephus to show his contempt for Titus’s offer, I hear Eleazar sigh, and understand his disappointment, for I feel it too. We both know the ancient law. Once Titus’s battering ram strikes its first blow, surrender will be unconditional.
“The New City has fallen! Bezetha—the New City, has fallen!” people shout as they run past me. Men, women, children—half starved and in rags, pour from the New City, fleeing the advancing Roman army, their eyes wide with terror; tears streaking their dust caked faces. Wounded rebels, limping and groaning and covered with blood, are carried along by the crowd, all trying to escape the slaughter behind them. Even now, anguished shrieks and cries float from Bezetha, along with plumes of smoke and circling birds of prey.
I knew it was coming. We all did. The Romans have been battering our northwestern wall for days while raining arrows and stones upon our heads from their huge iron-clad towers. Not even our firebrands could stop them. The few who dared suggest we surrender have been murdered by John’s men. I have said nothing. For my part I’m happy to die for Jerusalem. But something strange has happened. I’ve been seized by a fear so fierce it sets my teeth on edge. And it came upon me the minute my son, Aaron, was wounded while trying to save Esther’s husband, Daniel, who fell early this morning. I’ve always understood the possibility of losing one of my sons, perhaps all. They are, after all, soldiers, and soldiers die in battle. But I’ve suddenly learned that knowing something in your head and reconciling it in your heart is a gulf as wide as the Valley of Jezreel.
Even now my insides quiver with this fear, and so I grab Aaron’s arm before he can run toward the New City. “Stay here and help the wounded,” I bark.
Aaron, holding an oval spiked-boss shield in one hand and a dagger in the other, pulls against my clasp. The bloody cloth wrapped around his head and left eye is loose and ready to fall off. I resist the urge to secure it.
“We cannot let the Romans breach the wall of the Second Quarter,” he says. With a fierce jerk he frees himself and pushes through the sea of fleeing people.
“You’re needed here,” I shout, trying to catch up. How swift he is! Even with his grievous wound. “Come back!” But he pays no heed. The space between us widens. “You’ll lose your eye if you continue,” I blurt, exposing my fear. I’m running now, and lunging forward I’m able to catch his blood-stained tunic. “You must allow time for it to heal.”
The cloth around his head conceals the gash on his forehead and injured left eye. But his right eye looks at me sharply and I see his shock. “You speak like a father.”
“I am a father!”
“In another lifetime, yes,” Aaron says, pulling me to him with his shielded arm. For a brief moment we linger in this tender embrace, his bleeding forehead pressed against mine. “But now you are a soldier,” he says backing away. “And so am I.”
With that we both run toward the shrieks and cries and billowing smoke of Bezetha to join the rebels that remain there, among them— my other sons.
Titus has once again moved his camp; this time into Bezetha, the New City. It was here that King Sennacherib’s Assyrian army set up their camp nearly seven hundred years ago when they came to conquer Jerusalem.
Titus has destroyed homes, leveled more ground. Those who escaped have brought tales of slaughter and looting. All who did not heed the command of our generals to evacuate before Titus’s largest battering ram broke through the wall—the ram called “Victor” by our men—have fallen by the sword. Men, women, children, all were slaughtered without mercy. For more than a day, the Romans slashed, looted and burned without restraint. Scores of fresh crosses appeared outside our walls, testifying to the fate of those rebels caught alive. Their corpses are rotted now. Most have fallen away from their crosses and lay in stinking heaps upon the ground. The air reeks from them, and the sky is so full of flies and birds of prey it appears that dark clouds hover overhead.
The Romans are employed in other tasks now. They have already cleared the approach to our wall that surrounds the Second Quarter, and are busily constructing new siege works in addition to repairing their towers and battering rams. They’ve nearly finished the trench-and-berm perimeter around their new camp. Soon Ti
tus will attempt to breach our wall. If successful, he’ll set his sights on the Antonia, and from there . . . the Temple, for the Antonia has direct access to the Temple porticos.
But we have been busy, too. Using the city’s underground tunnels and sewers, our raiding parties continue to penetrate Titus’s lines, striking work parties and supply columns and carrying off the spoils. It has kept us in food and fresh weaponry. But the cost has been high. Those caught are crucified. But these days, rebels are not the only ones crucified. Ordinary citizens who are found sneaking from the city at night in search of food also meet this fate; at least the men. Women are spared crucifixion but are mistreated in other shameful ways. It makes me grateful that Rebekah and Esther are no longer here. I pray to Hashem for their safety.
But as crucifixions increase, so does our resolve. Titus hopes to demoralize us by placing the crosses so near our wall. He thinks it will make us lose heart. But he’s wrong. It makes us more resolute than ever. We’re all determined to die as men, as soldiers in battle.
But Hashem has been merciful. My sons and I still live. And only Aaron has been wounded. His wound, which has been sealed by fire, is nearly healed, but he has lost the sight of his left eye. Still, Aaron is strong and says he’s ready to take up arms. I hold my tongue and say nothing. But my gnawing fear persists.
The eerie calm that has hovered uneasily over us this past hour is suddenly broken by Roman trumpet blasts and the banging of drums. All morning we have waited for the legionaries to attack, but they haven’t. Only that traitor, Josephus, ventured out and spouted new terms of surrender, shouting out Titus’s promise of leniency, which no one believed, at least not the rebels. But that was earlier, and nothing has happened, until now. In numb silence I watch from my place in one of the Antonia towers. The earth rumbles and quakes as thousands upon thousands of feet kick up dirt, forcing clouds of dust to plume overhead. Titus’s men march in flawless lines, and according to rank. It takes a minute for me to realize they do not move in battle formation.
Rebekah's Treasure Page 7
