Caleb Vigilant

by Brian Godawa

  Caleb stepped in, “We will pay plenty.”

  Rahab decided to try for the old one. The ruddy one she already had. This one was a challenge. She always wondered if she could turn a Sodomite.

  She stepped uncomfortably close to Caleb, and dragged her hand across his hair. He was very nervous and would not look her in the eye.

  “Well, you know,” she said, “You two are not very good spies.”

  Caleb and Salmon looked at each other. Was it that obvious? Caleb was particularly discouraged because he had earlier chosen the young Salmon for his skilled espionage against the city of Edrei in the Transjordan. Salmon was able to gather intelligence on the city and its army of giants that enabled their victory over Og of Bashan. How was he able to get away when he was now such a poorly disguised spy?

  Rahab whispered to Caleb as if she had read his mind, “Actually it is you who is the obvious one. But if you want to do this right, you have to play the game or everyone is going to know why you are here. So, let us go up to my room and give the impression to everyone that you really are just a couple of oblivious lustful—reprobates.”

  She smiled at them.

  They had stopped breathing.

  She was sexuality incarnate.

  Caleb turned away again. She took his chin and pulled him back to look into her eyes.

  When he did, she shuddered. It was like looking into pools of intense purity. And she suddenly felt very dirty. She had never seen a soul like that before. This one was strangely attractive to her, and strong, even though he was old enough to be her grandfather.

  She pulled away from them, grabbing Caleb’s hand and leading them both up the stairs into her loft.

  They followed her awkwardly, and the patrons of the bar that night were all envious of these two foreigners who were about to discover just how lucky they were to be with Rahab the harlot.

  One of those patrons was in disguise that evening in the other corner of the tavern. It was Jebir, the Chief Commander’s Right Hand. He watched them closely. He was not sure if he should trust his instincts about them. Or maybe he was just extra sensitive because of his own envy of their privilege of company with the woman to whom he could never reveal that he was secretly in love.

  He decided to trust his instincts, and left immediately.

  Caleb and Salmon examined Rahab’s room. It was on the very roof of the inn with a window on the outer wall of the city as well as access to the rooftop. She had a large beautiful bed with satin sheets and a mirror on the ceiling and on the wall at its head.

  She sat on those satin sheets like a goddess. Salmon was practically drooling.

  But she stared at Caleb.

  Salmon said, “How old are you?”

  She said, “Are all you Habiru so vulgar? You do not ask a woman such things.”

  She was only twenty-nine, but her experience made her an old soul far beyond her years.

  Caleb could see it behind her ravishing eyes.

  She kept staring at Caleb. “Well, what is it you want to know? And how much are you willing to pay?”

  Caleb reached in his cloak without a word and tossed a pouch onto her bed with a twinge of disgust.

  She opened it and looked inside. Her brows rose with great interest. There was gold in the pouch. A lot of gold.

  “You must want me to remain very quiet indeed,” she said and gave a flirty glance at Salmon who could not take his eyes off her breasts barely covered by her flowing dress.

  “But before I tell you anything, you never answered my question. Are you Israelite Habiru?”

  They looked at each other again to decide if they should tell her.

  “Yes,” said Caleb. “We come from across the Jordan.”

  Caleb could see that Rahab’s countenance changed almost instantly. She smiled like an excited child.

  Salmon kept staring at Rahab’s breasts.

  Caleb continued, attempting to be discreet about his true intentions, “We want to know about the land and the people here. What is the governance; independent cities or territorial warlords? Would there be a hostile reaction to new settlers?”

  She butted in, “This is a military post. We only have a thousand soldiers. The Chief Commander of the fort is Alyun-Yarikh. He relies too much on infantry and does not value his archers enough. And we are not due for reinforcements or replacements for another few months. Unfortunately, our walls are strong, and I am not aware of any weaknesses in its defense.”

  Caleb realized his description as “new settlers” was an obvious deception to her. Their intentions were also transparent.

  “Are there any giants?” he asked. “Anakim?”

  “Alyun has a bodyguard of five Anakim. Those are the only giants I know of.”

  Rahab got up and carried the pouch over to Caleb. Salmon watched her behind and its lovely swaying curves. Only because he could no longer see her breasts. He almost moaned.

  Rahab got right up into Caleb’s face and handed him the pouch back with an air kiss.

  “I do not want your money.”

  Caleb was confused.

  Rahab turned and faced Salmon who finally looked into her eyes instead of every other body part.

  She began to recite the words of the secret Habiru poem that she had memorized. She said the words with a loving passionate caress. She even started to sing the words with a slight harmony, “I will sing to Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

  Yahweh is my strength and my song,

  and he has become my salvation;

  this is my god, and I will praise him, my father’s god, and I will exalt him.

  Then Rahab turned back and faced Caleb again, and recited,

  Yahweh is a man of war;

  Yahweh is his name.”

  The men were stunned. They stared at this woman of ill repute—considered unclean by holiness standards—a Canaanite singing the praises of Yahweh.

  Salmon blurted out, “That is the Song of Moses. How did you…?”

  She continued, “Amorite traders across the Jordan. I know that Yahweh has given you this land and the fear of Yahweh has fallen upon Canaan. I have read how Yahweh brought you out of Egypt and dried up the Red Sea before you. I have heard of how you defeated the Amorite kings of the Transjordan, Og of Bashan and Sihon of Heshbon. How you devoted them to destruction. As soon as I heard this, my heart melted within me. Your god Yahweh is god of the heavens and the earth and I want to join you. I want to become an Israelite.”

  Caleb was no longer surprised with her bluntness. “We cannot take you with us. It would be too dangerous.”

  “I do not need to go with you. Just swear to me by Yahweh that as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal kindly with me and will not put me to the sword.”

  Caleb said, “I swear it.”

  Rahab said, “And my family as well.”

  Caleb nodded.

  “My mother and father, and sisters and brothers.”

  Caleb raised his brow.

  “And all that belong to them. Promise me.”

  Caleb repeated, “And all that belong to them.”

  “Oh, and that you will not rape us or put us into slavery.”

  Caleb was about to respond.

  “Or leave us in the desert to die.”

  “Rahab,” said Caleb, trying to interrupt.

  “And also if you change your mind, or fail to fulfill your vow, that Yahweh would curse you.”

  “Rahab, I am the Right Hand of the Commander of Israel. I promise you on my life that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.”

  “Good,” said Rahab, “Then you are the perfect person to sign this.”

  She walked over to a trunk and pulled out a piece of parchment. She brought it over to Caleb and handed it to him.

  He looked at it. “What is this, a treaty?”

  “I made it, hoping for this very day. I have been planning for a long time.”

  Caleb
read some of it. He looked up at her, impressed with her determination and thoroughness.

  She said, “I am the owner of a business.”

  Caleb shook his head and said, “Let me look this over in my room. Salmon?”

  “Uh, I will stay here,” said Salmon with a guilty look.

  Caleb turned and glared at his compatriot. “Salmon, your weakness is unbecoming a soldier of Yahweh.”

  “She is not a temple prostitute,” said Salmon. He was referring to the fact that the Law of Moses proscribed a penalty for temple prostitution, but not for profane prostitution.

  Caleb said, “Just because there is no legal penalty does not mean it is not sin.”

  “I am sorry, Caleb, but we cannot all be paragons of holiness like you and Joshua.”

  Caleb rolled his eyes and sighed. He said with contempt, “suffer your own consequences,” and left them.

  It was one of those sins that the men of Israel too often and unjustly turned a blind eye toward.

  Rahab watched Caleb leave, offended at his condescension. She had never met a man who could turn away from her like Caleb did. She was not going to capture that one after all. But she knew she had better increase her chances of favor by endearing herself to Salmon.

  He was the better-looking one anyway.

  She turned and gave him a seductive dreamy look. “Well, Salmon, what do you suggest we do with our time while we wait for your commander?”

  Chapter 31

  Mastema strode pompously before the divine council of holy ones. In the heavenly court he was called the satan, which meant “adversary.” It was his duty to prosecute legal accusations against Yahweh Elohim and his people. He would go to and fro amidst the earth seeking ways to challenge the Law of God or manipulate it to unjust ends.

  One of those unjust ends was currently in process. The satan had filed a temporary restraining order against Israel to keep them from entering the land of Canaan. And he was following through on a class action lawsuit on behalf of the people and gods of Canaan. He now stood before the court presenting his evidence that Yahweh had made an illegitimate claim of eminent domain on Canaan, and that Israel was engaged in war crimes against humanity.

  Behind him were the divine claimants, the gods of Canaan, represented by Ba’al, Chemosh, Molech, Dagon, and Asherah. Of course, in the divine council, their real names would be used: The Watchers Gadreel, Zaqiel, Neqael, Kestarel, and Turiel. Ashtart, or Azazel the Watcher, would not be involved in this covenant lawsuit as she was currently indisposed—had her hands tied—in the depths of Tartarus under the watch of the Rephaim of Sheol.

  Ten thousands of the heavenly host surrounded the throne chariot of Yahweh Elohim with the burning brilliance of ten million lamps. The sphinxlike Cherubim held his chariot below and the serpentine Seraphim guarded his holiness from above. A flame of fire was at his right hand, and a stream of fire poured out before his throne.

  The defense team included the Son of Man and Enoch ben Methuselah, who stood by the other defendant Mikael, the representative prince of Israel. Enoch was the righteous one who had been translated in antediluvian days before he could see death. He too shined with the luminescence of his heavenly habitation.

  Enoch had been here before. In the days leading up to the Deluge, the satan had filed another class action lawsuit against Yahweh Elohim in order to distract his heavenly host from being available to defend against a surprise attack on the Garden of Eden. He had charged Yahweh Elohim with breach of covenant against Adam and Eve and the human race. Enoch had become one of the defense lawyers but did not have the experience to face his adversary, as he would have preferred. Yahweh liked to use weak vessels. Yahweh liked irony.

  However, the Son of Man was primary counsel and would determine who would present what and when. He was an enigmatic presence whose identity Enoch could not quite get his mind wrapped around. He was not particularly striking, had no form or majesty that anyone would give him a second look, and no handsomeness that anyone would desire. He was extraordinarily plain looking, considering the position he held before the presence of Yahweh Elohim. And yet, he exuded the very presence of Yahweh Elohim. He was an embodiment of Yahweh himself, a second power in heaven.

  Mikael was angered at having to be present at this circus trial. The satan loved class action lawsuits because they were a way of exploiting a multitude of others for his own despicable purposes. As if he cared one whit for the lives of these Canaanites he enslaved to demons. The Israelites were on the threshold of entering the Promised Land to take possession, and this slippery little serpent could derail it all with his diabolical mastery of legal loopholes and technicalities.

  It was forensic protocol for the two disputants to stand before the Judge and present their cases, whereupon the Judge would render his declaration of righteousness unto one of the disputants. This was called justification.

  Enoch stood in the bar and listened to the satan, that master of theatrical oration, pace back and forth delivering his scathing legal attack on the Creator. His lanky features and less than impressive voice hid his intellectual brilliance—and his spiritual malevolence. He was a seraph with bright burnished bronze skin of subtle scales, and serpentine eyes.

  “Regarding my first charge against Yahweh Elohim, I consider his command for this—this moral atrocity he calls “dispossession” of the Canaanites—to be the most wanton act of tyranny and imperialism in the history of the creation.”

  The satan huffed and continued. “I bring into evidence, Yahweh Elohim’s own covenant, agreed to by him, under blood oath, with the Bene Elohim, his own Sons of God. And I quote, ‘El Elyon the Most High gives to the nations their inheritance, at the division of mankind with the confusion of tongues. He fixes the borders of the peoples according to the number of the Sons of God. But Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.’”

  He paused. “Is there any need for cross examination or for this trial to even continue? It is right there—in blood. And we were all there, all of us, at the Tower of Babel division. And we were all called as witnesses to the covenant of inheritance.”

  He pointed to the tens of thousands around the throne who were those very witnesses.

  “Yahweh has allotted the seventy nations and their land under the authority of those of us on earth.” He pointed to the Watchers on his side. “And now he seeks to take it away as if he has the right. That is not eminent domain, that is colonialism! All these poor innocent Canaanites will be slaughtered in mass ethnic cleansing, and their cities burned to the ground in a holocaust of flames to make room for the expansionist policies of a greedy land-grabbing god who claims ‘divine exceptionalism’ as justification for genocide.”

  The satan then raised his hands in mocking worship.

  “‘The incomparability of Yahweh.’ Well, let me just say right now, all the gods consider themselves exceptional. He is not the only one. But I would say, he is surely the most angry, bitter, and wrathful one that I have ever seen. What kind of a loving god would be so cruel as to kill non-combatants and cast them into Sheol? Not only that, but also every last woman and child, as they are declared as herem, or devoted to destruction. I ask, who would want to worship a god like that, a god who gets his jollies punishing innocent human beings forever with eternal torture?”

  Enoch rolled his eyes. Here he went again with his “what kind of a god” hateful ad hominem attacks. He made plenty of them back in the Eden lawsuit, and he would never stop reaching for an opportunity to unfairly impugn Yahweh’s character.

  Enoch burst out, “I object. These are ad hominem attacks without material force.”

  “I beg to differ, counsel,” said the satan. “They are quite material as to the credibility of the accused to fulfill his covenants.”

  “Overruled,” said Yahweh Elohim to Enoch.

  The satan grinned with pride. “May I also remind the court that this is exactly what I predicted in the Eden trial. And now I say the chickens are
coming home to roost.”

  Enoch thought the satan looked like a chicken strutting around with his chin thrust out and his nose in the air.

  “Now, regarding those innocent and peaceful indigenous peoples, the Canaanites—who were in the land first—long before Israel ever got here. I would also like to charge the Israelites as well as Yahweh with racial discrimination against a protected minority. They are singling out Canaanites from all the races on the earth as the victims of their hate crimes. These racists and their xenophobic religion foster an ‘Us versus Them’ mentality that lashes out in fear and violence against ‘the Other.’ Why should these innocent Canaanites be targeted with such violence and wrath? They were simply victims of their birth and geography. They were born and raised in Canaan, and they were taught the religion of Canaan. If they were born in Babylon, they would believe Babylonian religion, if in Egypt, Egyptian religion. What kind of a god would punish and destroy a people for an accident of birth? And why should these foreign Habiru be considered ‘chosen ones’ when they are no better than the Canaanites? You have seen for yourself how they played the harlot with Ba’al, Chemosh, and Molech when they got the chance.”

  Those three named Watcher gods felt offended by the reference, but they knew it was all just rhetoric to try to use Yahweh’s own religious morals against him.

  The satan wound it up, “The Israelites are simply not a righteous people and therefore have no right to ‘dispossess’ the Canaanites from their land just because they are the putzes of Yahweh.”

  He used the word putz as a blasphemous slur against the covenant of circumcision Yahweh had with his people. He wasted no opportunity to attack his human enemies with verbal arson. The fact was, the satan would like to burn all of the Israelites in the flaming ovens of Molech if he got the chance.

  He gave his concluding statement, “I warn you, if you follow through with these Yahweh Wars, as you call them, you will be giving permission to every religion known to man, from now until the end of history, to do the same thing in the name of their god. And all the innocent blood of those hundreds of millions of victims will be on your hands. I rest my case.”