Caleb Vigilant

by Brian Godawa

  She looked out the window and saw an army of four thousand strong surrounding the city walls. She gasped.

  They were Israelites.

  She heard the sound of her own city’s battle horns announcing positions on the wall. The gate would be heavily fortified with double reinforcements and their pathetically few archers would ready themselves for launching their darts when the melee began.

  But a melee did not appear to be beginning. The Israelites marched quietly in line about five soldiers wide. They circled the city in some kind of ritual procession to the sound of constant ram’s horns creating a kind of marching order.

  Then she saw in the middle of the train a group of seven priestly looking men dressed in white garments. They blew the ram’s horns whose sound seemed to penetrate the city walls and into her very bones. Behind those seven were another four priests carrying a strange looking gold box on poles like a kingly carriage. And behind those were three monkish men who looked like they may be prophets.

  She could see the box’s golden surface glinting in the sun, and could only surmise that it was some kind of graven image of Yahweh, their deity—now, her deity.

  A shiver went down her spine. She had become so absorbed in the sight before her that she had forgotten her sister was still with her. When Yasha spoke, Rahab jumped with fright.

  “Who do you think they are? Are they bad men come to hurt us?”

  “No,” said Rahab. “They are not bad men, Yasha. Go get mother and father and your siblings. I am calling a family meeting in the tavern.”

  • • • • •

  Salmon and Caleb had reached the northern wall in their parade around the city. They saw the scarlet rope hanging from the window and looked at each other with foreboding. They did not need to speak to one another. They knew theirs would be a dangerous task to rescue the harlot and her family.

  Salmon could not help but remember the time he had spent with Rahab in her bedroom. She had brought him to such heights of pleasure he never thought possible. She was more than human. She was a goddess.

  Caleb was thinking of her as well. But his thoughts were of the heathen woman who had rejected her past with an open heart toward Yahweh. It had reminded him of his own spiritual awakening all those years ago. He was a member of an Edomite tribe of Kenizzites living in the Negeb when he first heard of Israel. He was from the lineage of Eliphaz, the eldest son of Esau. Stories of their forefather Abraham were passed down to them through the sages. But they were not hopeful stories.

  Esau and Jacob had been twins, but Yahweh favored Jacob the youngest over Esau the eldest. Through Jacob’s line Yahweh would bring forth his Seed of Promise. This was not the normal way of the world, where the eldest, as first-born, would inherit the birthright. It had made Esau bitter and he had mingled with the Canaanites in rebellion. There was a phrase that Caleb had heard that haunted him all his life. The sages whispered it but no one would speak openly of it. It was a phrase attributed to Yahweh himself.

  “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.”

  It marked their souls for all time and separated the brothers into two nations at enmity. But Jephunneh, Caleb’s father, was one of the patriarchal elders of the tribe, and he had convinced his people that Yahweh would undo the curse upon them if they converted and became a part of the Israelite tribes in the wilderness.

  Because Caleb had the talisman of Rahab, the whip sword handed down to him, he always felt like he did not belong with the Edomites. It had been used by Lamech, the father of Noah and passed to Abraham through Shem, Noah’s son. Caleb had always wanted to be an Israelite. So it was easy for him to embrace his tribe’s conversion when it happened.

  And now, here he was, an Israelite, the Right Hand of Joshua the leader of Israel, but he still did not feel like he was a true blooded Israelite. He still felt haunted by his past identity. He still felt like he had to have something to make him feel more secure. He hoped that owning the very land of his forefather Abraham’s burial would solve that. And that is what drove him on toward his goal.

  • • • • •

  Inside the city walls, Alyun-Yarikh, the commander of Jericho, was frantic. His Anakim bodyguard, five of them, guarded his war room outside. Jebir deliberated with Alyun and his two other counselors.

  “What does it mean? What does it all mean?”

  “I do not know, my lord,” said Jebir.

  Alyun kept talking as if he did not even hear Jebir’s response. “They march around the city, blowing horns, carrying their holy idol, and then they retire to their camp. Is it some sort of curse?”

  Jebir interjected, “We have our sorcerers and enchanters countering any curse with our own rituals. The astrologers have given us good reports from the stars.”

  One of the counselors added, “The gods favor us. Yarikh is a strong deliverer.”

  Alyun was not accepting any of the encouragement. “Are we sure of the walls? Will they hold? We have not paid for reinforcements in years.”

  “That is because the walls are impenetrable, sire,” said the other counselor, “We do not need reinforcements.”

  “What are they up to?” Alyun exclaimed.

  Then it came to him. His eyes lit up. “Bring me the harlot, Rahab.”

  • • • • •

  Rahab had gathered her family around her in the tavern room. Her mother and father sat on a chair, her brothers and sisters stood expectantly.

  “I did not tell you this before for fear of discovery should it slip out from any one of you. These Habiru who are about to attack the city have made a secret covenant with me.”

  The family members looked around in surprise at each other.

  “I cannot explain it all now. I just know that they will not enter this house to kill any of us. But you must stay in the house. If you stray outside, you will be killed. Stay together. Get a small sack of clothes or valuables, nothing more, and be ready to leave. Some Habiru will come to the house, not to kill us, but to save us and guide us safely out of the city.”

  A knock on the barricaded front door frightened them all. She said to the family. “Go, prepare! And not a word to anyone.”

  She went to the door as they left for their respective rooms.

  She lifted the bar on the door and opened it to see Jebir with two Anakim guards.

  “Rahab,” he said. “The king wants you.”

  When Rahab followed Jebir into the war room, Alyun was alone. She looked around seeing no others, and knew something was amiss.

  “My lord called for me?” said Rahab.

  “Rahab,” said Alyun. He looked disheveled, distraught. He had not slept in two days. “What do you know about these Habiru? What did the two men say who visited your inn?”

  “I told your Right Hand everything I knew, my lord. They did not say anything. I did not even know they were Habiru until Jebir told me.”

  Alyun looked at Jebir, who nodded.

  “They ate and drank—and paid for their pleasure. Just as all men do. They left out of the gate before it was closed for the night.”

  Alyun was dead serious. “You do know, Rahab, that harboring spies is punishable by death.”

  Rahab protested, “I did not know they were spies, Alyun.” She switched to more personal language as a way to throw him off her scent. “Surely, my love, if they said anything that endangered this city and with it, my family, I would have immediately contacted you.”

  “Hmmm, yes,” he agreed.

  She slipped up closer to him and brushed his hair aside with a soft caress. “You look very distressed and pent up. Do you need a release, my lord?”

  He turned from her. “No. What I need is intelligence on these Habiru.”

  “I will ask my servants and harlots,” she said. “Maybe they saw something I did not.”

  But then Jebir broke in, “I have heard that you have expressed an interest in the god of these Habiru, who is he, Yahwo, Yahwa?”

  He was trying to get her to say the name correc
tly and indict herself. But she did not take the bait.

  Instead, she said, “So now you are spying on me?”

  “No,” said Jebir. “It is no secret that you are one of the most gossiped about persons in the fort, Rahab. One cannot help but run into such tales.”

  Jebir did not have the balls to tell her he only found out about it because of his own obsession with stalking her just to watch her. He was still harboring the tiny little hope in his heart that if he could survive this battle, and maybe if Alyun would be killed, then he would rise to leadership and he might have a chance to finally have her all to himself.

  Alyun said, “But you do have interest in this god?”

  Rahab decided to tell as much of the truth as she could so that it would not sound like the lie it would be.

  “My lord, in all the years you have had me as your consort, have you ever asked me about my past?”

  Alyun hesitated. “No, I guess I have not.”

  “Well, if you had, you would have discovered that I have endured the greatest of hardships under a variety of deities that has caused me to have less than faithful trust in any gods.”

  Alyun’s face turned sorry. He had actually taken his mind off his own troubles as his heart turned toward Rahab’s painful reminiscences.

  “I was a hierodule for the goat demons of Banias.” She spoke the insulting word demons with spite while remembering Izbaxl. “Are you aware of the responsibilities of a nymph of satyrs?”

  Alyun and Jebir were both drawn into the story with empathy.

  “They serve the god Azazel, an antediluvian deity most known for his violent sexual appetite. And then there is the goddess Lilith who guards Gaia, the Mother Earth Goddess who cannibalizes her own worshippers. I escaped from there to Gilgal Rephaim, the Serpent Clan, who sought to use me as a womb for breeding Nephilim from the god Mastema.”

  Alyun and Jebir could not believe what they were hearing. Jebir was even tearing up.

  “While I was there, I was introduced to the gods Ba’al, the bully Ashtart, and Molech. Molech, as you know consumes little children, as he did my first brother and sister that I never told you about.”

  She never told him about them because it was not true. But they knew the violence of Ba’al, the extraordinary wickedness of Ashtart, and the lusts of Molech.

  Alyun broke in, “Rahab, I am so sorry you have had to experience all this. It has only been my desire to bring you comfort.”

  “And for that, I am grateful, Alyun. But as you can see, the gods have not done me well. My only interest in them is in protecting myself from their atrocious behavior and violations of my person. What benefit would another foreign male divinity of war be for me?”

  She did not give the answer that the benefit of that divinity was that he was out to destroy all the other divinities who had violated her. And that he was in fact a loving father and shepherd that Rahab had never experienced. Just the little she memorized about Yahweh from her couple scraps of poetry brought more truth and love into her soul than anything she had ever encountered. She could not wait to meet this god on the heap of carcasses of the soldiers in this fort.

  “Jebir,” said Alyun, “return Rahab to her inn.”

  Chapter 37

  By the sixth day of Israel’s siege of Jericho, the inhabitants had gone back to their normal daily lives, and soldier duty had reduced to minimal shifts of observation on the walls. Alyun had become convinced that these Habiru were completely ignorant of what was required for a siege. They built no siege towers, no battering rams. They did not even seem to build ladders for climbing the walls. He toyed with the possible notion that they may very well be the most ignorant foreigners he had ever encountered.

  The reason for this was that the Habiru did the same thing every day without change. They marched in procession around the walls with their golden idol on poles and blew their ram’s horns. After they completed one circuit, they would remove themselves to their camp a short distance away.

  The soldiers on the walls would laugh and make jokes at the Habiru, pulling up their battle skirts to flash their private parts and buttocks at the morons.

  It was ridiculous. What were they doing? They must surely have no idea what to do, so they walked around in circles like a mad child chanting delusions to themselves, thinking that their repetition would be the necessary magic to make Jericho surrender to them. Or maybe it was just their silly religious ritual of waiting for the city to run out of supplies.

  Let them try to wait this out, thought Alyun. We are rationing and we have enough supplies to last two years.

  Alyun thought they might just pick up their weapons and go home like a little child who cannot win at a game.

  • • • • •

  That night, Joshua and Caleb ate their meal with the Commanders. Even they were becoming a bit impatient and embarrassed with what they were doing. Commanders had asked Joshua how long they were going to do this, and what were his plans for besieging the city. He had told them they would get an answer tonight.

  Caleb took a bite of mutton and washed it down with some wine from his goatskin flask. He was sitting with Salmon and his brother Othniel at the commanders’ fires with the other commanders of thousands and of hundreds.

  Salmon was in midstride detailing in hushed tone his night with the harlot Rahab to those closest to him. He had their attention—and their imaginations.

  Joshua overheard him and cut him off, “Salmon, that is enough of your whispers. You should shame in your weakness, not glory in it.”

  The men would not argue. They knew he was right. And he was the Commander of the armies of Israel. But everyone also knew it was the one sin that most warriors turned a blind eye toward. It was the one sin that they did not treat very harshly because so many of them were guilty of it.

  Except for Joshua and Caleb.

  “But sir,” replied Salmon, “I want to marry Rahab. What I experienced that night was not mere fornication. It was love. I am in love with Rahab.”

  The commanders groaned teasingly.

  Suddenly, Othniel who had quietly listened this whole time burst out of his silence.

  “You are not in love, captain,” said Othniel. “You are in lust.”

  “What is the difference?” said Salmon, and everyone laughed. They were all men. They really did not know the difference.

  Othniel said, “Lust is gratification, love is sacrifice.”

  Caleb was amazed to hear his brother, a man who was too fearful of revealing his own interest in Caleb’s daughter Achsah, speak so eloquently of love. Perhaps he was maturing after all. Something Caleb dreaded.

  Salmon said, “I would sacrifice my life for Rahab. I do not lie. I am in love with her.”

  Joshua said, “You are a loyal warrior, Salmon, I will grant you that. But love without holiness creates lawlessness and chaos. God has made us to obey him, and when we do not, we sow the seeds of our own destruction.”

  Salmon and the commanders remained silent, chastised.

  Then Caleb finally spoke up, “And what does holiness without love create, Commander?”

  Caleb and Joshua had had this discussion many times in private. Of course Caleb did not condone sexual immorality. But he often felt that Joshua had lost his love when he lost Hasina. He had become hard and bitter. His dedication to discipline, rules, and order had become almost intolerable after his loss.

  Hasina had been an influence of grace on him. She had softened his rough edges and had calmed his cantankerous spirit. It was not that she made him soft or less of a warrior, but rather that she made him a whole human being. Without that influence, he had become a cruel taskmaster, a warrior who only knew force and judgment without persuasion and grace.

  Joshua ignored Caleb’s question and told them, “Tomorrow will be our victory.” He gave an angry look at Caleb and added, “But it will be a holy victory. For Yahweh has declared that the city and all that is within is herem, devoted to Yahweh for destruction.”


  The men gave each other somber looks. Joshua continued, “Only Rahab the harlot and all her family with her in her house shall be spared because she has helped Israel. All items of silver and gold, bronze, and iron are to be brought to the tabernacle. They shall be cleansed and placed in the treasury of Yahweh. But every living thing, men and women, young and old, as well as the oxen, sheep, and donkeys shall be put to the sword. There can be no compromise in this herem.

  It was a solemn moment. The commanders were silent. They had not understood how they were going to attack the city, but they could see in Joshua’s fiery eyes that he was certain of Yahweh’s course.

  Then Joshua said, “I want to tell you exactly what Yahweh has told us to do tomorrow.”

  Chapter 38

  Early the next day, the Israelites arose and circled the city again as they had been doing for the past six days. Their actions went almost unnoticed as they blew their ram’s horns and paraded around the city one more time.

  But today would be different. Today they circled the city seven times instead of one.

  It started to draw a crowd of onlookers on the walls around the fifth time. They jeered and yelled insults at the Habiru. They thought that the Israelites had truly gone insane.

  Even Alyun had mounted the inner wall to see what was going on. He stood with his five Anakim towering around him, and Jebir by his side.

  By the seventh time around, the Israelites stopped in their procession near the south walls of the city.

  The priests stopped blowing their horns.

  The priests toted the Ark away back to camp, followed by the prophets. The soldiers closed in the gap.

  Joshua then rode out on his horse and yelled at the top of his lungs, “SHOUT, FOR THE LORD HAS GIVEN YOU THE CITY!”

  With that, the sound of several thousand Israelites yelling a war cry reverberated all the way up to the Commander’s post. It was also accompanied by the ram’s horns again. But this time it was a long blow that lasted the length of the battle cry.