Judah's Wife Page 19

  “How long, do you think, until the armies arrive?” I asked.

  Simon frowned. “If the rider took five days to bring this letter, and the army was about to depart . . .” The thin line of his mouth stretched tight, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “An army travels more slowly than a single rider, so perhaps three days. Or four. Or five, I don’t know.” His face went grim. “This is serious, Judah. They are bringing a huge—”

  “I heard the numbers—and you must not repeat them, not to anyone. I will not allow the men to be frightened by mere numbers.”

  I gave him the baby and took the parchments from him, not wanting word to get out before I could prepare the army. The naysayers who lacked faith in HaShem could spread discouragement like a disease, and I would not have it.

  Not this time, not ever.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Leah

  So you are going back to your wilderness camp, even though you have chased the enemy from Judea.”

  My husband looked at me as though I were a strong-willed child. “I have explained this—the enemy is returning and we have no time to spare. We’re not going to the wilderness camp; we’re going to meet at Mizpah, which is closer.”

  “So you’re saying good-bye to your pregnant wife, knowing that enemy soldiers will soon be in the area.”

  Judah’s answering smile held a touch of sadness. “Trust me, wife. Better that I leave you for a little while than to be caught unaware by the Seleucids.”

  He picked up his bundle and went outside, striding boldly across the village square. I followed, noticing that Johanan, Simon, Eleazar, and Jonathan were also leaving their homes. Each of the married sons was saying good-bye to his wife while Jonathan said his farewells to Rosana.

  I didn’t care that I was the only woman shouting at her departing soldier. “What will I do if something happens to you?” I yelled, watching Judah tie his bundle to the back of his saddle. “If you leave, next year I might be raising a fatherless child.”

  “HaShem has promised to be a father to the fatherless,” Judah called. He patted the stallion’s rump, checked the girth strap, stepped back and turned to me. “You know I must go. I am sorry for leaving you, but this is the way it must be. But you will have my mother and your mother, and all your sisters-in-law for help and company.”

  My lower lip edged forward in a pout as I crossed my arms. Part of me felt ashamed for resorting to such theatrics, but what was I supposed to do? I had tried reasoning with my husband. I had wept, I had begged, I had conceived a child in an effort to turn him from war. None of those things had worked, so why not throw a temper tantrum?

  “Leah.” Judah drew me close, pinning my folded arms to his chest and leaving me helpless. “Know that I would not leave you without comfort. And know that I will be asking HaShem to keep you safe and protected by angel armies.”

  He kissed me on the forehead, then bent and gently pressed his lips to the growing mound at my belly. The unexpected gesture disarmed me and made me forget how angry I had made up my mind to be.

  My anger cooled as the brothers mounted their horses and cantered away from Modein, Judah in the lead. The other women walked over, and Morit kept her arm around my waist until the men had disappeared from our sight.

  “Come to my house,” Rosana said as we prepared to go back to our homes. “Let me prepare you a cup of honey water.”

  I followed because I was too emotionally spent to rebel. While Rosana drew water from her pitcher, I sat on a stool and moodily watched my mother, who slept on a cot by the window.

  “She naps a lot,” Rosana said, following my gaze. “I think she sleeps to escape her memories.”

  The remark surprised me, and I said as much as I accepted the cup.

  Rosana sank into a chair across from me. “Our minds are always working,” she said simply. “We can think about the past, dream of the future, or worry about the present. We can work out a problem, argue with ourselves, or pray . . . I wish I had thought to pray more often. Seems to me that prayer is the best way to spend one’s time.”

  I sipped the sweet water, then frowned. “Judah said he and his men plan to pray before the battle. But Mother once told me that she had prayed for years, and HaShem never answered her prayers.”

  “HaShem always answers, but not always in the way we want Him to. Perhaps your mother received an answer—”

  “She didn’t like?” I felt the corner of my mouth twist. “I pray for Judah to be kept safe, but I know he may die. And if that is HaShem’s answer to my prayers, I won’t like it. My child will need a father. I need a husband.”

  “And Israel needs a champion.” Rosana shifted and leaned toward me. “Tell me more about your mother. She has lived with me for months now, but she never talks about her past. I still don’t know much about her.”

  “She suffered greatly at the hands of my father.” I glanced at Mother’s face to make sure she was still sleeping. “When I was younger, I found it hard to respect her because sometimes she seemed to purposefully attract Father’s anger.”

  Rosana lifted a brow. “What do you mean?”

  I shrugged. “Once, when I was late from the market, Mother didn’t have dinner ready when Father came home. He was furious with her, but instead of explaining that I’d been late from the marketplace, Mother smiled, which made Father even angrier. He demanded to know why she was smiling, and when she didn’t answer, he struck her. Every time he hit her, she smiled again, and again, until he threw her against the wall and she passed out.”

  I glanced at my mother again, my heart welling with familiar sensations and old memories. “I thought she was stupid for behaving the way she did. At times I thought her the greatest coward in Jerusalem because she would never stand up to him. I promised myself that I would never let my husband treat me like that.”

  I shifted my gaze to Rosana, expecting her to applaud my strength of will. Instead, I saw that her face had grown pale, and tears shone on her cheeks. “My darling girl,” she said softly, “I am not surprised you didn’t understand, because children rarely do. But as a woman who has raised children of my own, I know what your mother was doing. Far from being a coward, she may have been the bravest woman in Jerusalem.”

  “I still think she was foolish.”

  “No, Leah. She did not tell your father that you were late from the market because he would have turned his anger on you. She smiled after each blow because she was happy to bear the pain that would have been yours. Tell me—did your father ever beat you?”

  I blinked. “No. Well—once or twice. When I was a little girl. But Mother snatched me away from him.”

  Rosana nodded, her eyes brimming with tenderness and sympathy.

  I winced as truth crashed into my awareness like a boulder thundering down a mountain. All the times I thought Mother was weak and cowardly, I was wrong. She had always been there to protect me, remaining at home to be with me, standing between me and Father, allowing Father to eat first so that we didn’t give him a chance to rail at us over meals. She had sacrificed her heart and body for me, absorbing blows he would have delivered to me, breaking her bones instead of mine, scarring her flesh—

  A sob rose in my throat. I tried to clamp my mouth over it, but out it came, followed by a steady flood of scalding tears.

  Rosana was by my side in an instant. “Do you not see, love? This is what Judah is doing. He is bearing the blows for Israel, for you and your child. Out of love and duty he is sacrificing himself so that future generations will never find themselves bound by Seleucid chains.”

  Her words made me cry harder, and her arm tightened around my shoulder. When my sobs slowed, she squeezed me again, handed me a bit of linen to wipe my face, and nodded toward my mother. “Go to her,” she said. “When she wakes, thank her for everything she did for you. And if she asks why you are saying this, tell her the truth—you stand at the door of motherhood, and you will soon be doing the same things for your child.”


  I threw my arms around Rosana and thanked her . . . for opening my eyes.

  Chapter Forty

  Judah

  My brothers rode out at midday, visiting the villages of Judea and spreading the word about the coming attack. Our warriors, Simon and I decided, would assemble not at the wilderness camp, but at Mizpah, the spot where Samuel had gathered the children of Israel to prepare for battle with the Philistines. Samuel had the people fast and pray before the confrontation. When the Philistines arrived to attack, the voice of Adonai thundered from heaven and sent the Philistines into such panic that our forefathers easily defeated them.

  Johanan had suggested that we meet in Jerusalem, but I knew we could not. The city still lay in ruins, with its walls down and its Temple desecrated and forlorn. To make matters worse, Jewish Hellenes and Gentiles held the citadel, the strong tower Apollonius had erected near the ruined Temple. We would not prepare for battle beneath their prying eyes.

  So we would do what our forefathers had done. We would follow Samuel’s example and strictly observe every divine ordinance HaShem had made known in the prophet’s day.

  Two days later, we met our kinsmen and fellow worshipers in the cool morning air outside Mizpah. By my command the men had been arranged as in the days of Moses: with captains of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and squads of ten. Following Moses’s example, we dismissed the newly married men, the vinedressers, and the timid and unwilling.

  I wanted no naysayers in our company.

  When the last of the dismissed men had gone, those of us who remained put on rough sackcloth and covered our heads with ashes. Together we lamented the sins of our nation and begged HaShem for His help. We named our wrongdoings and asked for mercy and compassion. We prayed for hours, in community and in smaller groups, until strength flowed through our veins and our hearts beat in unified, bold rhythms.

  Then men from my father’s Levite family brought out the sacred garments of the priesthood, along with our tithes and the firstfruits of the harvest—offerings that would ordinarily have been deposited at the Temple. One of the Levites raised his hands and lifted his voice to heaven: “What shall we do with these? Where shall we take them? Your sanctuary is trampled down and profaned, and your priests mourn in humiliation. And behold, the Gentiles are assembled against us, coming to destroy us. You know what they plot against us. How will we be able to withstand them, if you do not help us?”

  The hot air shivered into bits as the sound of the shofar reminded us that HaShem was Judge over all and He would grant us the victory.

  A priest from my father’s tribe brought out a copy of the sacred Torah, a scroll Gentiles had desecrated with ribald paintings of Greek gods. The sight of such blasphemy was enough to stir my men to action. Their faces flushed as they sprang to their feet, and I stood along with them.

  “The enemy is a day’s journey from us, so we must be ready. Do not listen to those who speak of numbers, of military might, and impossible odds,” I called to the assembly. “Our God will go forth to fight for us. In the past, with Moses and Joshua and Samuel and David, it was Adonai our God who fought on our behalf. He allotted land between the Jordan and the Great Sea to us for an eternal inheritance. Adonai our God will thrust the enemy out ahead of us and drive them out of our sight, so we will possess the land, as Adonai our God promised.”

  Insects whirred from the desert trees as I paused to gather my thoughts.

  “So be very firm about keeping and doing everything written in the book of the Torah of Moses and not turning aside from it, either to the right or to the left. Then we will not become like those nations around us. Do not even mention the name of their gods, let alone have people swear by them, serve them, or worship them; but cling to Adonai as you have done to this day. This is why no one has prevailed against us and why one of us has chased a thousand—it is because Adonai our God has fought on our behalf, as He said He would.”

  Murmurs of agreement rose around me, a ceaseless hum of cooperation.

  “Therefore take great care to love Adonai our God. Prepare your heart for battle tomorrow morning, and prepare your sword for action. And do not forsake the Law of the Lord.”

  Our meeting ended, not with a roar but with broken whispers and heartfelt cries as thousands of men lifted their voices and begged Adonai to bless His people and heal our land.

  Alerted by reports that the enemy had already camped outside Emmaus, I did not let my men settle at Mizpah, but immediately led them on the long march to Emmaus. We walked silently and steadily as the sun lowered, moving quickly as we followed a little-known southern road that was rife with opportunities to turn an ankle or fall into a ravine. The journey would have taken an average traveler a full day, yet we covered the distance in a few hours, then slowed our pace. After moving through a narrow pass, we finally reached the bare hill country around Emmaus where we could see the camp of the Seleucid army. We bedded down in the brush to sleep for a few hours, watching the glow of the enemy’s campfires.

  The next morning we rose under a cloak of darkness and girded ourselves with determination. My captains reported their readiness, and I offered a last word of encouragement. “Strap on your weapons and be valiant,” I told them. “Be strong to fight these Gentiles who have assembled to destroy us and our sanctuary. It is better for us to die in battle than to see the continued misfortunes of our people and our Temple.”

  “Do you really—” Jonathan’s voice wavered—“do you really think we can do this?”

  “I do.” I lifted my gaze to heaven. “May His will be done here today.”

  What Adonai did—how He preserved us—surprised even me.

  I later learned what our enemy had done the day before. While my men and I prayed for HaShem’s deliverance, a Gentile scout from the Jerusalem citadel spotted us and hurried to Gorgias, the Seleucid commander, with news of our gathering at Mizpah. Gorgias, hoping to attack us while we slept, took five thousand of his best men and followed the scout over the northern road to Mizpah. Though we traveled on two different roads, at some point we passed in the night, each army unaware of the other. When Gorgias entered Mizpah at sunrise and found it deserted, he laughed and told his captains we were cowards who had fled at their approach.

  Yet at that same hour, I stood outside the Gentile camp with my army of three thousand. The Seleucid camp appeared strong and well fortified. I knew thousands of armored and highly trained soldiers slept within its perimeter, and most of my men were armed with javelins, pitchforks, and slingshots.

  I climbed onto a boulder to address them. “My brothers”—I couldn’t stop a smile from stealing over my face—“the hour has come. As you look upon the enemy, do not fear their numbers or be afraid when they charge. Remember how our fathers were saved at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh and his forces pursued them. So let us cry to heaven, to see whether He will favor us, remember His covenant with our fathers, and crush the army before us today. Then all the Gentiles will know there is One who redeems and saves Israel.”

  I would have laughed if I had known that we were looking at the remnant of the Gentile army, a sleepy force that was still abed. As the trumpeters blew their horns, our warriors fell on the Seleucids in their tents, attacking them exactly as the Gentiles had planned to attack us. Though the Seleucids were quick to strap on swords and grab their shields, they were no match for us.

  Most of them fled as we fired their tents. My men followed, breathlessly chasing the enemy through the wilderness. Some Seleucids ran as far as the fortress of Gezer. Others fled to Jamnia and Ashdod, a day’s journey from the battlefield. Those who did not run were slain by the sword.

  Yet we had not struck the first blow when I realized something was missing from the scene—horses. The Seleucids always used mounted soldiers, and I spotted only a few mules in the camp. Gorgias’s mounted fighters were missing.

  The shock of discovery hit me like a blow. Since Gorgias and his army were somewhere in the hills, they were certain
to see the smoke from burning tents and supplies. The general would realize that he had left his camp as an appetizer for our army, so he would rush back to defend the remnant.

  We had to be ready for them.

  I told the lookouts to blow the trumpets and recall our men. When most of them had returned, I gathered them around me.

  “We are not finished,” I warned. “Be not greedy of the spoils, as the real battle still looms before us. Gorgias and his five thousand are coming. When they arrive, stand against them and fight, and afterward we will seize the plunder boldly.”

  I ordered my captains to position their men in lines around the perimeter of the camp, to stand with weapons ready and eyes on the surrounding hills. Within an hour we saw enemy soldiers emerging from the mountain paths.

  But Adonai had already won the battle for us. At the sight of our men standing before their burning tents and fallen comrades, panic overcame the Seleucids. They ran back into the hills even more quickly than they had arrived.

  When at last the hills went silent and still, we looked around the ruined camp. Philander had spoken truthfully when he mentioned that merchants would be traveling with the soldiers. At least a dozen traders had been in the camp we attacked, and they had fled at the first sign of trouble, leaving all their valuable goods behind.

  “Was this an army?” Eleazar asked, his arms filled with bolts of blue silk and Tyrian purple. “It looks more like a marketplace.”

  I nodded grimly, remembering that the traders had come to add the people of Israel to their list of goods. How appropriate that Adonai should reward us with the treasures of those who wanted to sell us into slavery.

  On our return to Mizpah, we sang hymns and lifted praises to heaven, for HaShem was good and His mercy endured forever.

  War became our business, our daily work, and our lives. Though I granted leave to small groups so they could tend their crops and check on their families, I could not forget Philander’s warning of three generals who were advancing toward us. We had defeated the first at Emmaus, but two others were on their way.