This Scarlet Cord (35 page)

Mattan rounded on her. “You call me a fool? You think these two Israelites will be able to protect us from an entire army? It’s the walls that will protect us, my sister, not these”—he waved his hand disdainfully toward Nahshon and Sala—“
merchants
.”

Shemu’s “Don’t speak to our sister that way,” clashed with Sala’s hot reply, “No walls in the world will protect you from the will of Yahweh!”

“Yahweh,” Mattan muttered and shook his head in disgust.

Mepu said with all the authority of the patriarch, “It is my wish that every member of the family stay close to this house until the confrontation is over. I want to hear no more discussion on this matter.”

Silence greeted his pronouncement.

“Good,” Mepu said. “All we can do now is wait and see what happens next.”

What happened next confounded the entire population of Jericho. The following dawn they were awakened by the cacophony of horns being blown more loudly than anyone believed possible. The sound came from outside the walls and Mepu’s immediate conclusion was that the Israelites were attacking. He forbade anyone to leave the house and the men crowded into the upstairs bedroom where the window from which Rahab had lowered the spies would give them a view.

Mepu and Shemu stationed themselves at the window and for a long time had nothing to report. The noise of the horns was obviously coming closer but it wasn’t until the first of the lines of Israelite soldiers came around the bend and began to follow the city’s north wall that they were able to see anything.

“What—” Mepu put his hand on his son’s arm. “What are they doing?”

“Wait,” Shemu said.

The room was filled with a silence so tense it seemed almost palpable. Then Shemu said, “The Israelite army seems to be circling the city!”

“Let me see.” Mattan crowded Shemu out of the way. “Why are they doing this?” he demanded as he looked out.

As they spoke, the din of the horns grew even louder. Shemu took back his spot from Mattan, and he and his father remained at the window as the noise of the horns grew nearer and nearer. When the blasts had reached a level that was almost deafening, Mepu turned to his son and shouted, “What are they doing now?”

Shemu turned and yelled to Sala, who was out in the hall with Rahab, “Sala, get in here and take a look!”

Everyone made way for Sala and Lord Nahshon, who was right behind his son. The two Israelites exchanged places with Shemu and Mepu and leaned out the window to have a look.

When Sala saw the procession making its way around the walls, his breath caught and a chill ran up and down his spine. Carried by priests, the ark of the covenant was just going past under their window. Seven priests processed before it, blowing on huge ram’s horns. In front of the priests, a short distance away, Sala could see a seeming endless phalanx of marching warriors.

He glanced at his father and saw that Lord Nahshon’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. They remained where they were, ignoring the questions that were raining on them from behind, until they saw the massed men of the rear guard marching at a distance behind the ark. Then they turned to face the family gathered in the room.

The eeriest thing about the whole procession was the silence. None of the marching men spoke to each other, or even called out a taunt to the guards on the walls. Only the blasts of the horns disturbed the early morning air.

“Well, what is happening?” It was Mepu’s voice sounding both irritated and frightened.

Sala looked to his father as the proper person to answer Mepu’s question.

Lord Nahshon said with calm certainty, “This procession is a statement by Yahweh that He is the one true God and that the walls of this city will fall before Him.”

The family members shuffled their feet and looked at one another with a mixture of fear and disbelief. Then Mepu said, “What is that thing they are carrying?”

Lord Nahshon explained to everyone about the ark of the covenant.

Silence greeted his account of the tablets brought down the mountain by Moses.

Then Mattan swung around to glare at Rahab, who had come into the room in the wake of Sala. “You believe in this god who gives stone tablets to his people? And you had the audacity to call
me
foolish?”

Rahab looked back at her brother, then she let her eyes move slowly from face to face around the room. When she had gathered up everyone’s attention, she said, “The tablets contain laws for the people of Yahweh to live by. Does not a God who cares that His people live their lives in goodness sound more real than a god who fights with other gods and expects a woman to sleep with a horrid old king because it is supposed to make the crops grow?” Her voice grew more heated as she said these last words. “The crops will grow because when Yahweh created the world, He put it into their nature that they should grow. I think the Israelites will win because Yahweh wants them to have this land and live their lives in the goodness that He expects of them.”

Sala stared at Rahab, his heart glowing with pride. Moses himself could not have answered better, he thought. He glanced at his father and found him regarding Rahab also, and for the first time Sala saw respect in his father’s eyes.

Lord Nahshon said, “We must wait and see what will happen next.” He touched the scarlet cord hanging in the window. “We have put this here to show our army that this house is not to be touched. Stay within these walls and wait.”

The Israelites processed once around the city each day for the next five days, following the exact pattern as on the first day. The rams’ head horns were the only sound that came from the mass of warriors, who were parading just far enough from the walls for the guards to be unable to reach them with arrows. Some of the guards wanted to try slingshots, but Akiz, the military commander, forbade it. He, along with the king and his council, thought it would be a better strategy to show no sign that the strange processions had concerned them.

On the night of the sixth day, Sala told Mepu that he should gather the family next door into his house. “The number seven has great significance for my people,” he told Rahab’s father. “I think whatever is going to happen will happen tomorrow.”

Mepu, like most of the citizens in Jericho, had been made increasingly anxious, even frightened, by the silent processions. He agreed and went to tell his brother and his brother’s family to pack up some basic belongings and come next door.

Rahab and Sala may have been living in the same house, but over the past week they had had little chance to speak to each other and no chance to be alone. Rahab had found their imposed distance hard, but she comforted herself with the thought that at least she could see his face and know he was safe. For now it was a blessing just to meet his eyes across a crowd of people and see their warmth and know that he loved her.

The only people who got any sleep the night before the seventh day of the processions were the children. There was scarcely room for the adults to stretch out and, even if they could, everyone was in a state of high anxiety. When the first light of dawn stained the sky, the men crowded into the third-floor bedroom and Mepu and Shemu once more took up their stations at the window.

The sound of the rams’ horns floated to their ears at the usual time, growing louder and louder as the procession came closer to the north side of the city. As the gathered families waited, the front guard of warriors, the priests, the ark of the covenant, and the rear guard of warriors marched as they had for the past six days—in silence, with only the sound of the horns breaking the quiet of the morning.

Lord Nahshon and Sala had been standing behind Mepu and Shemu as this was happening and, when the last of the Israelite army had passed them by, the two Canaanites turned to confront Sala.

“I thought you said something would happen today,” Mepu said. “You have gotten us all into a panic and nothing is different!”

Sala knew he couldn’t explain his feeling to Mepu. He couldn’t even explain it to himself. He just
knew
that this was the day the Israelites would attack.

“Wait,” he said softly to Mepu. “Give it some time.”

They waited, listening to the blowing of the horns as the procession marched along the eastern wall toward the gate in the south. On past days the Israelite procession had turned at the gate and proceeded back to its camp, making not a single warlike gesture toward the city.

An hour passed and the men in the room realized that something was indeed different from the previous six days. The sound of the horns had not stopped. In fact, they were coming closer.

Mepu and Shemu looked out the window again and were stunned to see the front guard of Israelite warriors approaching once more.

The Israelites marched around the city twice. Then three times. Then four.

The marching and the silence were terrifying. What was happening? What were they planning to do? What kind of battle plan was this?

No one knew. The king met with his council, and they did not know. The military commander met with his chief officers and they did not know. Finally Akiz decided to post even more men on top of the walls. Something was going to happen this day, and the commander was determined to have his men in position to counter whatever attack the enemy might be planning.

Seven times did the Israelites process around the city, and on the seventh time the parade passed under Mepu’s window, Sala removed the scarlet cord from the window and told his father that one of them should stand by the window and wave it while the other should take up a position by the front door.

Lord Nahshon agreed and volunteered to take the post by the door.

“Get away from the window,” Sala told Mepu and Shemu. “If men should break into the room, I must be the first one they see.”

“All right,” Shemu agreed and he put his hand on his father’s elbow to lead him away.

“Will you send Rahab to me?” Sala asked. “If Gideon and Isaac are the ones to come into the house, they should see her also.”

Shemu hesitated, then nodded. “All right. I’ll send her.”

They went out the door and Sala could hear Mepu asking, “Who are Gideon and Isaac?”

Rahab had just joined Sala at the window when a terrifying shout issued from the throats of all the Israelites in the procession, a shout so thunderous it seemed to be roaring out of the sky above. Rahab couldn’t help herself, she clutched Sala’s arm in terror.

It was when the shout was at its loudest that Yahweh made Himself known. The ground under the city began to rumble. Rahab felt the floor under her feet rock and she saw the walls of the room begin to ripple. Sala grabbed her, flung her to the floor, and covered her body with his.

For as long as she lived, Rahab would never forget what happened next. The noise was louder than the worst thunder she could ever imagine. Then came a cracking noise, as if something huge was shattering. The whole house shook, and then there was a rumbling, sliding sound, and the back wall of the house, the wall which formed the north wall of the city, began to come apart.

Rahab lay on the trembling floor with Sala’s protective body over her and prayed to Yahweh to save them and to save her family. She had no doubt that this was the work of Yahweh. He was making the walls of Jericho fall down.