Deborah Rising

by Avraham Azrieli

“The judge and his sons. Why do you think they took in the two girls? This water is more precious than gold.”

  Tugging at the ring on her finger, Deborah remembered that terrible day last summer, when the priest had dropped her parents’ corpses into the communal burial cave outside the walls of Emanuel. Afterward, Judge Zifron had decreed that the orphaned sisters would be brought into his household to work—Tamar in the flour mill and Deborah at the basket factory. His eldest son, Seesya, then betrothed Tamar with a copper ring.

  “They might chase us tonight.” Abinoam glanced back in the general direction of Emanuel. “Let’s get my tools and continue on our way.”

  Walking back to the house, Deborah noticed an old bucket on the ground. It had been discarded with the original rope still attached. She touched the rope. It was dry and brittle, disintegrating in her hand into thin strands, the same way her life had disintegrated when her parents died a year earlier, and again today, with Tamar’s execution.

  Deborah couldn’t comprehend it. When Tamar’s first female bleeding had come the previous week, they had been excited about soon becoming part of the judge’s family. As the law required, seven days after the bleeding stopped, Tamar immersed herself in purifying waters. Dressed in white, she was taken on a celebratory wedding procession up the main street to Judge Zifron’s house, where guests filled the courtyard. Obadiah of Levi slaughtered a goat and recited the words of the covenant between Yahweh and the Hebrew patriarch, Abraham: “If you keep my laws and do not stray after false gods, your seed will fill the earth like the sand upon the sea and the stars in the sky, and all your enemies will fall down before you.”

  After the priest left, a second goat was sacrificed—this time in front of the effigies of two Canaanite deities: Baal Ammon, the god of fertility, and its wife, Ashtoreth. Then, while the guests enjoyed food, drink, and music, Seesya took Tamar to his bed to possess her as his wife.

  The women of Emanuel had envied Tamar for becoming the first wife of the first son of Judge Zifron, who ruled over Emanuel and its vicinity. The young woman would not have to work very hard, would live in comfort with the other women of the house of Zifron, and her sons would become rich and powerful like their father and grandfather. Deborah, as a member of Judge Zifron’s family, was sure to win a good match in Emanuel and stay near her sister. A year after their parents’ death, the marriage made the future seem hopeful again.

  All that ended the morning after the wedding. For some reason, Yahweh had decided to toss them back into terrible misfortune.

  Inside her family’s abandoned house, Deborah sat on the dirt floor by the cold stove and tugged at the ring on her finger. She wanted to pull it off, but removing a ring of betrothal was a serious crime, punishable as harshly as thievery. She gathered a fistful of soil in her hand and sniffed it, craving the familiar smells of her mother’s cooking and the good days with her family.

  “You can’t stay here,” Abinoam said from the door, where he and Barac remained. “It’s not your home anymore.”

  Deborah let the soil pour out of her hand. “This is my only home.”

  “Look at it,” he said, waving his hand. “There’s nothing left here for you.”

  “My memories are here,” she said. “This stove always had a fire in it. Every evening, after a long day of hard work, my father would sit down to eat the food my mother had cooked. We sat by his side, my sister and I, and he told us stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes. He made everything seem so real. I could see the miracles Yahweh performed to free the Hebrews from Egypt and bring them to Canaan, which He gave us for all eternity—especially this place, Palm Homestead, where my family would live forever.”

  “You’re talking nonsense, girl.” Abinoam’s voice sharpened with impatience. “You need to go back to Emanuel now. You’ll never live here again.”

  “That’s up to Yahweh,” she said, closing her eyes and remembering an evening a couple of years earlier, when she’d sat at this very spot and listened to her father sing the words of an ancient hymn. When he finished, she asked whether he regretted that she was a girl and not a boy.

  After a long silence, her father said, “How could I regret it? Yahweh chose you to speak for Him to our people.”

  “But Father,” she said, “how could I possibly speak for God?”

  “Why not? When you grow up, you’ll become a prophet.”

  She laughed. “Girls don’t become prophets!”

  “Yahweh created the whole world. Don’t you think He can create a prophet out of a girl?”

  His argument made sense, but still, she thought the whole idea was outlandish. “Even if I receive a prophecy,” she said, “who would listen to a girl?”

  “To a special girl, they’ll listen. You’re a true Hebrew, the seed of glorious ancestors. One day, Yahweh will speak to you, and you will sit under your palm tree and deliver His message to the people—to us, the ancient Hebrews. I believe it with all my heart.” He smiled. “I pray that I’m still alive to witness it.”

  Deborah remembered hugging her father tightly, for she knew he truly loved her. Otherwise, why would he believe that she, a girl, could become a prophet?

  Fresh tears filled her eyes. How sweet her father’s words had been—and how bitter this night was. She wasn’t special at all. In fact, she was less than a common girl. She was an orphan, betrothed to a cruel man and disgraced by her sister’s stoning!

  The memory of Tamar’s violent execution hit Deborah again—the sound of each stone thumping Tamar’s skull, the bitter smell of blood spreading around the Pit of Shame. Deborah moaned and turned away from the imagined spectacle, covering her eyes. She pressed her forehead to the edge of the stone stove. Where was Yahweh now? Where was His message? How could He allow this terrible injustice to occur?

  “Deborah,” Barac said, “don’t despair. Yahweh will show you kindness again. He will.”

  “No,” she cried. “He won’t.”

  In the dark, her hand found a pair of stones by the stove. She recognized them without looking—her father’s fire-starters. One was a thin flint, about as long as a man’s forefinger. The other was a coarse, veiny quartz rock, almost as big as her fist. She remembered its color of rusted iron, but also, under the sun, its curious glistening. Her father had called it “fool’s gold,” because fools mistook it for the real thing. The two stones always rested by the stove, except when he needed to start a fire in the fields to burn off weeds or shrubs to clear an area for farming. He had taught her how to use the fire-starters by hitting them against each other at an angle, producing sparks that ignited the dry grass, and twigs he had prepared in advance, whether in the stove or outside.

  She held the fire-starters, one in each hand, and pressed them to her wet cheeks, imagining that the stones were her father’s warm hands, caressing her cheeks.

  “We have to go,” Abinoam said, hefting his sack of tools.

  Deborah slipped the stones into her pocket and got up. “Where will you go?”

  “South, far away from here.”

  She stepped out into the fresh night air and walked to the edge of the field. The wheat was dry, past its ripeness. She moved her hand back and forth between the shafts, bending them from side to side.

  “My mother’s village was in the south. Men from Edom destroyed it. Can’t you hide somewhere nearby in the Samariah Hills?”

  Abinoam shook his head. “We have to go south, as far as possible.”

  “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Yes, but I fear Seesya more, and the people around here fear him, too, enough to put us in shackles and hand us over to Judge Zifron and his black Mott.” Abinoam sighed. “Yahweh warned us about what would happen if we started to worship false gods and adopt the ways of the Canaanites.”

  “But isn’t the north safer?” she asked.

  “The Canaanites rule over our tribes in the north. They’re even worse than the Edomites. Beside, my wife, may she rest in peace, was from the Sim
eon tribe.”

  “Will they take you in?”

  “Everyone can use a good blacksmith.”

  “And a soldier, as well.” Barac pulled back his shoulders. “That’s what I’m going to be.”

  Abinoam adjusted the white cap over his son’s unruly curls. “You’ll become a blacksmith, like me and my father before me.”

  “Yes, Father, but in addition, I’ll learn to be a soldier and a great warrior so that I can fight Canaanites and Edomites until we restore the glory days of Joshua!”

  Abinoam chuckled.

  “Won’t you stay until morning?” Deborah gestured at the house.

  “It’s not safe.” Abinoam turned to go.

  “You should come with us,” Barac urged.

  She held up her hand, showing him the ring on her finger, which felt as heavy as a boulder.

  “You aren’t safe here,” Barac insisted. “It’s the first place Seesya will look for you.”

  “She can’t come with us,” Abinoam said. “She’s betrothed to a man.”

  “A bad man, Father. She’s in danger!”

  “She’s safe if she’s never been with another man.”

  He didn’t say this accusingly, but Deborah felt compelled to respond. “I haven’t been with a man,” she said. “And my sister hadn’t, either.”

  “You can’t be sure,” Abinoam said.

  Deborah was thankful for the darkness that hid her red face.

  “Please, Father,” Barac said. “We can’t leave her here alone.”

  “Too risky.” He pointed at the ring on her finger. “That means ownership. Taking this girl with us would be the same as taking a man’s milk cow, his good horse, or his sheep that’s ripe for shearing. And just as an owner will chase his stolen cow, horse, or sheep, Seesya would chase her.”

  “Your father is right,” Deborah said to Barac. “I must follow in my sister’s footsteps now. I have no father to defend me.”

  Abinoam passed his sack from one shoulder to the other. “Harutz of Ephraim was a good man, but even he couldn’t have helped your sister today. The facts were clear.”

  “Tamar tried to explain,” Deborah said. “Judge Zifron wouldn’t let her.”

  “I noticed that,” Barac said. “Why did the elders stay quiet?”

  “That’s our tradition,” Abinoam explained. “The wealthiest man among us becomes our judge, the ruler of the community. He defends us from enemies and punishes criminals. Elders assist the judge with their collective wisdom by deciding an accused person’s guilt or innocence, but the judge decides the punishment or issues a pardon. It’s up to him to deliver justice.”

  “Stoning Tamar wasn’t justice,” Deborah said, her voice breaking again.

  “When you’re older,” Abinoam said, “you’ll understand that a man deserves certainty that his firstborn son, who will carry his name and inherit his land, is of his seed, not another man’s.”

  Deborah pointed up at the dark sky. “Yahweh knows that Tamar was innocent. If I were a man, God would’ve helped me save my sister today. Oh, if I could turn into a man!”

  “Maybe you could,” Barac said.

  “How?”

  “I heard that the women of Edom turned into men and won a battle against the Egyptians.”

  “That’s a myth,” Abinoam said.

  “But Sallan told me that it really happened.”

  “Sallan? The judge’s Edomite slave?” Abinoam scoffed. “He’s a big talker.”

  Barac didn’t argue with his father, but he didn’t concede either.

  “You have no choice, girl,” Abinoam said. “You must accept who you are.”

  “Why?”

  “God created men in His image, and then He created women to serve us and bear us children.”

  “He is merciful,” she said. “He wouldn’t mind if I—”

  “There’s no choice in this matter. You’re a girl, and that’s it.” Abinoam looked up at the moon, trying to determine the time. “We must move on. Seesya is coming, I’m sure of it.”

  “Tell me more,” she said to Barac. “How did they do it?”

  “Sallan said that the king of Edom called in a potion-maker, who prepared a powerful elixir for the women to drink. It turned them into men, and they drove away the enemy.”

  “What was his name?”

  “King Esau the Eighteenth.”

  “Not the king. The man who made the elixir. What was his name?”

  “That’s enough.” Abinoam placed his hand across his son’s mouth. “We don’t speak of magic. God forbids it. Let’s go!”

  “She could follow us.” Barac’s brown eyes gleam in the darkness. “Stay a short distance behind us, hide if someone approached.”

  Deborah touched the wheat again. “I wish this was still my father’s homestead, so that I could stay here forever.”

  “Technically, half of it still belongs to your father,” Abinoam said. “When a man dies without a son, his land doesn’t pass until his daughters marry and their husbands becomes owners of the dead man’s land.”

  This was news to her. ““What does it mean?”

  “It means that Seesya became owner of half the land as soon as he possessed Tamar in his bed, and he’ll own the rest of it when he marries you.”

  “But if I refuse to marry him—”

  “Refuse?” Abinoam laughed. “Who do you think you are? With the ring he put on your finger, Seesya betrothed you to him. Only he can release you, and he’ll never do it because he and his father want this homestead. The ancient cistern alone is worth more than the whole town of Emanuel.”

  “Still, if I own half—”

  “You’ll be his wife soon, together with your inheritance.”

  “I’ll run away.”

  “Even if you ran all the way to Egypt, he’d chase you, find you, and possess you right there on the hot sand in the shade of the pyramids that our ancestors built. If you wish to live, go back to Emanuel and submit to Seesya. That’s your only choice, girl. Obey the law!”

  Deborah stepped back, shaken by his harsh words. “He’ll do to me,” she said quietly, “what he did to my sister.”

  “Don’t be afraid.” Abinoam’s tone softened. “Tell me the truth. Have you been possessed by another man?”

  Barac inhaled sharply and looked away.

  “No,” Deborah said. “I swear to you in the name of Yahweh. Never.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about,” Abinoam said. “Serve Seesya as a good wife would. Do whatever you can to please him. In time, you’ll find comfort in your children and in the company of the other wives he’ll marry.”

  “He has a dark heart.”

  “Even the most wretched young man grows up to love his children and respect his children’s mothers.”

  The faint sound of approaching horses startled them. Abinoam grabbed his son’s arm and pulled him to the bushes.

  Barac slipped out of his father’s grip. “Come with us,” he urged Deborah again. “I’ll protect you!”

  She shook her head.

  The horses were getting closer.

  Abinoam ran to hide, but Barac lingered. “I can’t leave you here.”

  “You can’t protect me, either. Quick, tell me the name of the Edomite who turned women to men!”

  The ground shook with the horses’ hooves, and voices of men could be heard over the crest of the hill.

  Abinoam hissed from the bushes.

  “The Elixirist,” Barac said, walking backward. “That’s what Sallan said. The Elixirist.”

  Deborah turned and ran toward the approaching horses, waving her arms. “The Elixirist,” she repeated quietly, committing it to memory. “The Elixirist.”

  Part Two

  The Impurity

  Chapter 3

  A burning torch in one hand, the reins in the other, Seesya rode at the head of six soldiers, all of them heavily armed and hot for the hunt. He almost ran Deborah over, swerving his horse at the last moment. He
handed the torch to one of the soldiers, leaned over, and pulled her up, planting her sideways on the saddle before him.

  “I knew you’d run to Palm Homestead.” He laughed. “Foolish girl!”

  He stank of sweat, and his breath smelled of garlic. She wriggled to get away, but he grabbed her neck in one big hand. “Do you want to live,” he asked, “or end up like your sister?”

  In her mind, she saw Tamar’s bloodied head sticking out of the ground.

  “Did you see Abinoam, the blacksmith?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He squeezed her neck harder. “Answer me, girl!”

  “Yes,” she managed to say. “I saw him.”

  “Where?”

  “Near the gates.” She struggled to breathe. “Running away from Emanuel.”

  “For a good reason,” Seesya said, laughing. “Which direction?”

  Deborah tried to jump off the horse. He held her for a moment, then let go. She dropped to the ground and run, but the soldiers rode around in a circle, fencing her in, hooting as if it was all a big joke. She tried to get through, but they were quick in repositioning, and she feared being crushed by the beasts. Finally she stood still.

  “That’s better.” Seesya pulled a short horsewhip. “Now tell me where that cursed blacksmith and his ugly son went, or I’ll flog you like a stray dog.”

  “North.” Deborah coughed, her throat constricted by the discomfort of telling a lie. “To the Galilee Mountains.”

  “Through the land of Manasseh and the Canaanites?” He raised the horsewhip over her. “You’re lying!”

  “It’s the truth.” She held up her arms to shield herself. “They might be afraid of the Canaanites, but they’re afraid of you even more.”

  “They’re too far by now,” one of the soldier said. “We won’t catch them tonight.”

  “We won’t,” Seesya said, “but you will. Ride north and find them.”

  “Me alone?” The soldier wasn’t happy. “The blacksmith is a big man.”

  “Tell him that Judge Zifron forgave him.”

  “Really?” Deborah was filled with hope. “Has he forgiven them?”