Among the Gods (27 page)

Appalled, the elders quickly stood and tried to drag him to his feet. “Joshua, don’t beg. Stand up…. Don’t do this….”

He shook them off as tears streamed down his face. “I’m begging for mercy. I’m begging for forgiveness. ‘As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.’ Please have mercy on my son.”

The elders gave up their attempts to get him to his feet and decided to gather in a huddle to discuss a verdict. “Give us a minute, Joshua.”

He heard only the mumble of voices as they turned their backs to him and left him kneeling, alone. In his mind he could imagine Nathan turning his back, as well, heading out into the world alone. In spite of all the pain his son had caused him, Joshua knew that he couldn’t bear to lose him. How could he live the rest of his life never knowing what had become of him? He struggled to draw a breath, and in his pain he was suddenly aware that God had answered his prayer. For more than ten years he had prayed for a father’s love for Nathan, prayed to love him as if he were his own flesh and blood. Now he knew that God had answered. The grief he felt was a father’s grief for his beloved son. He was about to lose Nathan—his son—and he couldn’t bear it.

He was still slumped on his knees when the elders returned with their verdict. He heard their words as if they stood at a great distance.

“When someone sins repeatedly then claims to repent, only a change in his actions will prove that his repentance is genuine. Has Nathan truly turned away from his sin and turned toward God? He will have six months to convince us. But this will be his final chance.”

Joshua looked up at Nathan and saw tears falling down his bruised face. Then Joshua covered his own face and wept.

20

M
IRIAM STRUGGLED TO BE BRAVE,
to hold back her tears as she limped into Jerusha’s darkened bedchamber. The unthinkable was happening: Mama Jerusha lay dying. The physicians had all said it was so. Now she had asked to speak with Miriam alone.

“What am I going to do without you, Mama?” Miriam asked as she took her mother-in-law’s hand in her own. “I need your advice to know how to live, how to be a good wife. I need your wisdom.”

Jerusha smiled faintly. “I don’t have any special knowledge, my daughter. Wisdom comes from God. He’ll give you all that you need to guide this family for me.”

“For you? But I could never take your place.”

“You’re taking your own place, Miriam, continuing the role God gave you years ago when He brought you into our lives. You kept us all alive and moving forward through our grief back then. And I know you’ll do the same after I’m gone.”

“But what about your daughters? Tirza is the oldest, surely she—”

“I love all of my daughters, but you’re the one who’s the most like me. Tirza and Dinah were raised in luxury and spoiled shamelessly by their father….” Jerusha smiled the way she always did whenever she remembered Eliakim. “I know my children think of me as a nobleman’s wife, but in my heart I’ll always be a poor farmer’s daughter. You and I are simple, practical women. And that’s what this family needs to hold everyone together. You’re the strongest one, Miriam. I’m leaving my family in good hands.”

Miriam could no longer halt her tears. Jerusha had said that she was the strongest one, but Miriam knew it was only because she was the weakest. She bent to hold Mama Jerusha in her arms one last time.

“You taught me so much about Yahweh and about living by faith…. Whom will I turn to?”

“Turn to God,” Jerusha whispered.

Two days later Miriam stood with her husband beside Jerusha’s grave, unable to comprehend that she was gone. Joel recited the prayers for the dead, and as Miriam listened, she studied each of Jerusha’s children, gathered to mourn her. They were her legacy, so different from one another, yet so much alike. Jerimoth, the successful merchant, stood with his enormous brood of offspring. Tirza cradled the newest of her five priestly sons in her arms. Dinah, who was pregnant with another child of royal blood, clung to her husband, weeping softly. Joshua, the architect and leader, clasped Miriam’s hand so tightly it ached, as he battled his own grief. As Jerusha had so often reminded her, they had their tasks to do for God, and Miriam had hers.

When the service ended, Joshua released Miriam’s hand and bent to toss a handful of dirt onto Jerusha’s grave. The other family members did the same. Miriam was grateful that her crippled body prevented her from bending. She couldn’t bring herself to bury Jerusha, even in a symbolic gesture. While everyone else said their farewells and left for home, she and Joshua lingered beside the grave. Miriam saw by the slump of her husband’s shoulders, the lines of sorrow around his eyes, that she needed to lay aside her own grief for a while to comfort him.

“I’m so glad Mama is buried beside our baby,” she said. “It helps me remember that they’re together now.”

“She should be buried beside my father. I don’t even know where he was buried—or if he was buried.”

She recognized the old bitterness trying to draw him into his private darkness, and she leaned against him to keep him from slipping away. “What difference does it make, Joshua? Your mother isn’t inside that discarded body anymore. She and your father are together, resting in Abraham’s bosom.”

“I wish you could have known Abba.”

“But I do know him. He was part of you and part of Jerusha, part of your whole family. His love helped make you the people that you are. He’s as real to me as your mother is.”

He took her hand again and held it tightly in his. “Why don’t you ever doubt or question God? Don’t you ever wonder why your legs never got stronger? Why our child is lying here in this grave? Why Mama is? You’re always helping others, always giving, and now here’s another loss, something more God has taken from you.”

“Do you remember what your mother always used to say? ‘I will thank Him for all that He has given me, not curse Him for all that I’ve lost.’ She taught me that God doesn’t always give us what we want, but He always gives us what we need.” She looked up at his solemn, handsome face and watched as he rubbed his hand across his eyes, then smoothed the patch into place again. “Sometimes I wonder what you see in me, Joshua. My mind is so different from yours, with your deep thoughts and probing questions. I’m just a simple woman. And my prayers and my faith are simple, too.”

“But that’s exactly what I love about you. In spite of all my years of Torah study, I think your faith is much stronger than mine in the end.”

“Why? Because you ask questions and I don’t? It takes a very strong faith to ask hard questions of God.”

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to get into another wrestling match with God over Mama’s death, and yet … and yet I can’t pretend that I accept it. I know how much you loved Mama, too. What’s going through your mind now that she’s been taken from us?”

“I loved her. I miss her already. But I accept that Mama’s death was God’s will even if I can’t see what the reason is. And you will, too, just as you learned to accept your father’s death.” A tear rolled down Miriam’s cheek, but she didn’t wipe it away. “I know that with all of the reading and studying you’ve done, you see God’s hand shaping the nations. But sometimes you forget that He also cares about you and me. Everything that happens in our life is under His control and serves His purpose. Your mother taught me that. She always said that even when she was captured by the Assyrians it served His purpose. And she used to say that someday we would understand why we’ve had to struggle so with Nathan.”

“But what can possibly be the purpose in Mama’s death? Why now? Why so suddenly?”

“See how very different we are?” she said, gazing up at him. “I don’t need to know the reason; I simply trust that there is one. But I’ll pray that God will show you why.”

He searched her eyes as if he might read the secret of her faith in them, and she saw the heaviness of his grief. Then he wrapped his arm tightly around her, supporting her as they began the slow walk home.

King Manasseh paced in his private chambers, waiting for Zerah and his bodyguards to arrive, waiting for the daily round of court business to begin. His officials would already be filing into the throne room to await his entrance. Zerah needed to brief him on today’s court business and give him the morning agenda, but Zerah was late. When he finally did arrive, he entered the room alone and quietly closed the door behind him. He was unable to disguise his apprehension.

“What’s wrong?” Manasseh asked.

“You’d better read this, Your Majesty. It arrived this morning.”

Manasseh recognized the letter Zerah handed him as an official communiqué from Assyria. His fear soared. “What do they want?”

“The Assyrians are marching this way. They’re expanding their empire again, and they intend to conquer Egypt. They need more tribute from us to help pay for it.”

Manasseh read the message, then tossed it to the floor in anger. “Cancel my court for the day. Send everyone home.”

“What about your advisors?”

“I don’t need them. I don’t trust them. You and I will handle this by ourselves.” When Zerah didn’t move, Manasseh grabbed him by the tunic and pulled him close, whispering urgently in his ear. “If word leaks out that the Assyrians are marching, it could start more riots like the ones we had a few years ago when we first signed the treaty with them, remember?”

“But we executed everyone who opposed the Assyrian alliance.”

“We executed the ones we discovered—what if there are others? I’m not taking a chance that it will happen all over again.” He shuddered when he remembered the violent anti-Assyrian protests and the fear under which he’d lived until all of the protesters had been rooted out in a purge. For months, blood had flowed ankle deep in the streets and in his execution pits. The ranks of his nobility had been decimated before his army had finally restored law and order.

“I won’t go through that again, Zerah. You and I will figure out a way to meet these tribute demands ourselves. And this time we will seek omens first and learn which days are favorable for us before we act.”

When court had been canceled and everyone sent home, Manasseh met with Zerah in the inner chamber of his suite, far from prying eyes and listening ears. It was the only place he felt safe enough to voice his fears and concerns. Zerah sank into a seat, but Manasseh restlessly walked the floor as he confessed his alarm. “Our nation can’t afford to pay these extra taxes to fund the Assyrian war machine. They will ruin us.”

“With over half a million men marching, we can be grateful that the Assyrians aren’t mobilizing for war against us, Your Majesty.”

“They may as well be. The cost is nearly as great.”

“At least we’re still a free country.”

“Yes, but we’re paying a terrible price for our freedom. Look at this.” Manasseh waved the list of demands in Zerah’s face. “They’re demanding everything: rations of wheat, barley, oil, wine; iron and bronze for weapons; countless cattle and sheep; gold and silver payments. And we have no choice but to pay. I wouldn’t blame the people for rebelling. They just harvested their crops and now everything will be going into Assyrian stomachs. Are we supposed to live on scraps until the next harvest just so Emperor Esarhaddon can conquer Egypt?”

“Be practical, Your Majesty. No matter how much they demand, it’s still better than captivity and ruin.”

“Our nation will be destitute. We’ll have nothing to export or trade.”

“Don’t panic—”

“I’m not panicking!” But Manasseh knew how guilty he still felt about reversing his father’s courageous stand against the Assyrians and serving as their vassals. His failure had haunted him ever since he had signed the treaty, and he could no longer bear to look down from his palace window and see the Kidron Valley, where the Assyrian army had been slain. All of his life Manasseh had feared not living up to his father’s stature, and now that he knew how far short he had fallen, he couldn’t admit to Zerah or anyone else how ashamed he felt. He turned away from the window, away from the view of the valley where the miracle had occurred, and grabbed a skin of fermented wine. As he poured himself a cupful, much of it sloshed on his shaking hand. He quickly drained the glass.

“There’s really only one answer.” Zerah’s voice, so practical and down-to-earth, brought Manasseh back from the edge. “We’ll divide the nation into territories and assign overseers to be in charge of taxation and forced labor.”

“That’s not going to be popular with the people.”

“We’ll tell them to think of these payments as a loan. When the Assyrians defeat Egypt—and they surely will—all of Pharaoh’s wealth will pour back into the empire, with added profits for nations like ours who helped fund his victory.”

But Zerah’s cheery prediction did nothing to lift Manasseh’s gloom. “I thought we still had our freedom, Zerah, but we’re Assyria’s servants. We’ll be enslaved to them forever.”

Three weeks later he and Zerah met in secret once again after they received a report that one of their new overseers had been murdered. “This is what I feared,” Manasseh said. “The riots are going to start all over again.”

Zerah rested his hand on Manasseh’s shoulder to comfort him. “There won’t be any riots if we act swiftly and send out the troops. We can stop the rebellion before it spreads.”

“Do you think Joshua is behind it?”

“Oh, come on!” Zerah gave him a look of disgust as he drew back. “Don’t start worrying about him again! It’s been years since he last surfaced. Surely you can forget about him by now. He’s obviously forgotten about you. In fact, he’s probably dead—we put enough curses on him, he should have died of something by now.”

“Hadad said they were living on an island in Egypt. He has the ark, my brother, my army general, and all my priests. What do you suppose he’s waiting for?”

“I’m not going to humor your idiotic fantasies about Joshua ben Eliakim. We need to appoint a new overseer.”

“I need an heir,” Manasseh said suddenly. Zerah stared at him as if he’d proposed something utterly ridiculous. “Don’t look at me like that! It’s only a matter of time before my enemies stop attacking my overseers and come after me.”

“Now you’re being paranoid.”

“If they kill me, there’s no son of David to take my place. I need an heir, Zerah.”

“You need someone you can trust by your side, not a faithless woman who will stab you in the gut when you least expect it.”

“I’ll make sure she comes from a loyal family, one that is beyond suspicion.” But Manasseh saw by Zerah’s flushed face and tight frown that he was growing upset. “Listen, there’s no need for you to be jealous….”

“I’m not jealous!”

“She would simply be a means to an end. The woman would mean nothing to me.”

“Why now?” Zerah asked angrily. “What’s your hurry after all these years?”