Take This Cup

  “My father has been on caravan before,” he said. “They weren’t careful with water like we are. Once they got lost and went a week without finding a well. Two men were driven crazy, Papa says.”

  Michael’s list of the horrors of being without water increased my own anxiety. I was relieved when we reached the edge of the barren tableland and spotted a cluster of trees near its base. I saw bronze sunlight glinting off a pool. The oasis was anchored in place by a large hawthorn tree, but palms and junipers were dotted around it too.

  “We’re there, and the water is there.” I shaded my eyes against the glare. Then renewed worry struck me. “But another caravan is already there,” I said, noticing human forms in the grove.

  Raheb, leading a camel, arrived alongside me. “It’s all right, Nehi. This is the best water for a week, Hosea says. There’ll be plenty. Besides, I don’t even see any animals.”

  He was right. As we descended the slope and drew nearer to the camping place, there were no camels, no horses, no donkeys anywhere in sight. I saw people resting against the trunks of trees or reclining beside the water, but no beasts of burden.

  Suddenly Raheb stopped me. “Nehemiah,” he said tersely, “stay here with Michael. Reena,” he called to his wife, “go no farther. Keep together. Yacov, stay with them.”

  “Grandfather,” Michael said, “why are we stopping? There’s the water. Why can’t we—”

  Raheb sounded angry when he repeated, “Stay here!”

  Raheb, Hosea, and a party of men, spread out in a line like scouts approaching enemy territory, moved cautiously toward the grove. They advanced among the nodding palms, swords or spears in hand. Hosea called them together for a brief conference, then they trudged back up the hill toward us.

  Raheb reported to our family, “Bandit attack. That’s why there are no animals.”

  Reena whispered a question I could not hear, but Raheb answered by saying, “All of them. None escaped. You stay here. We’ll get done as quickly as we can.”

  Raheb told me to stay with the children, but I had been struck by a burning question. “I’m a shepherd’s son,” I said. “I’ve seen dead men, and I’ve seen bandits. Please let me come.”

  There were fifteen bodies scattered among the trees. All were men. All had been stripped of their clothing.

  The caravan had defended itself, but bodies tangled in blankets near campfire ashes told the tale: they had been attacked while they slept. Their guards had failed them.

  Or betrayed them.

  I found Jehu locked in the embrace of death with his assailant. He had plunged a knife into the heart of his opponent even as a curved dagger slashed his throat.

  The dagger had been wielded by the bandit I saw on the trail with his arm in a sling when the rabbi and I were hiding. One of Zimri’s men.

  I trembled. I had almost joined Jehu’s company. I would have been in the camp when Zimri’s men attacked.

  Wielding shovels or using our hands, we buried the bodies well away from the oasis. We dug a trench beneath a sandy knoll, loaded it with the dead, then collapsed the overhanging brow of earth onto them.

  Then we brought our caravan into camp.

  There was little conversation that night. We realized that crossing the desert exposed us to many dangers besides being short of water. I was glad the Almighty had led me to Hosea and Raheb. I prayed fervently that as we kept the Sabbath, so the Almighty would keep us.

  It was four Sabbaths before the start of Hanukkah—four more weeks until our caravan would arrive in Jerusalem. Miles from any town, we kept Sabbath night in camp and worshipped during the following day.

  When the service was held, Raheb was called up to read the words of the prophet Malachi. It was a grim passage, I thought, about how the priests stole from God and defiled their worship with theft and trickery. Raheb read God’s accusation to the wicked priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name.”1

  After the service the assembly scattered to their individual camps. A traveler named Saul of Hebron, passing in the opposite direction, had shared a meal and the worship service with the caravan. He trudged alongside us.

  “Things must have been bad in Malachi’s day,” Saul said, “but they have not gotten any better since. High Priest Caiaphas lords it over the people, because he is backed up by Governor Pilate. His priests cheat the people when they change money for Temple coin. They charge outrageous prices for sacrificial lambs. It is a rotten business, stinking to heaven. No one stands up to them.” Then he brightened. “No one except one man . . . Jesus of Nazareth.”

  My wandering attention refocused at the sound of that name.

  “I’ve heard of him,” Raheb said, “but he’s supposed to be a man of peace. Meek, they say, and kind.”

  “Not on this occasion,” Saul argued. “Some time ago it was. I saw it! Made a whip and scattered the moneychangers left and right. He may be the very king of peace for all I know, but at the time of which I speak, he was a Prince of Righteousness! Consumed with righteous anger for the One God, whom he called Father.”

  “A madman, then,” Raheb responded.

  Saul shrugged. “A brave and righteous madman. No one else challenges the high priest . . .”

  “And lives,” Raheb concluded drily. “He can’t last long, can he? Not after challenging the Levites and the hypocrite merchants right in their lair.”

  “Perhaps not, but I’d pay good money to see him do it again,” Saul concluded. “So would you, I wager. Not since the Maccabees did anyone stand up to the corrupt priests like this Jesus.”

  That night I worried as I tried to fall asleep. What would I do with the cup if Jesus was arrested . . . or even killed . . . before I met him? How could I complete my mission?

  I wrestled so with these concerns that I was relieved when a voice I recognized as belonging to Joseph the Dreamer called to me . . .

  “Nehemiah? Will you go on a journey with me?”

  “Yes, please,” I responded.

  There was a crashing noise followed by billows of air. It was like when a tent’s guy ropes are released and the shelter collapses with a rush. Just like that, night collapsed to become day. I no longer slept on a sandy trailside. Instead, I stood next to Joseph on a rocky ridge hemmed in on both sides by deep valleys. Above it loomed another rocky outcropping.

  Built on the point of the lower ridge was a citadel. In front of the fortress a conference was taking place. A rank of tired-looking warriors with notched swords and tattered bowstrings faced a man dressed as a priest but wearing a circlet of gold atop his head.

  “The one speaking is Abram, my great-grandfather,” Joseph said, indicating the leader of the warriors. “Facing him is Melchizedek, the king of Salem, where we are now. As to the rest, just listen.”

  “We pursued the Elamites as far as Damascus,” Abram said, “the ones who kidnapped my nephew, Lot, and his family.” Abram paused to rub his hands up and down his blood-stained robe. “We attacked the enemy camp by night and routed them. When they fled, we chased them. We rescued Lot and all my kin and all his possessions. We also took spoils of war from the enemy. Now we have returned from the fight, but before we go home, I ordered that we turn aside here. You, Melchizedek, are king. You are also priest of the Most High God. Since we serve the same God and he has helped me, I am here to offer him thanks.”

  “You have done well, Abram,” the priest said. “And wanting to honor God also does you credit. But you are tired. You have traveled and fought, so here is refreshment for you.” Snapping his fingers, Melchizedek summoned a row of servants bearing trays of bread and jugs of wine. Moving down the row of Abram and his allies, Melchizedek broke the loaves and handed some to each man. Then he poured wine into a silver cup and carried it down the row of parched combatants for each to drink from. As the king offered the wine, he touched the fo
reheads of Abram and his men. Melchizedek spoke words for every warrior pronounced too softly for me to overhear. A blessing spoken over each man?

  I stared at the cup. It was polished silver that gleamed in the sun. “That looks just like your cup,” I said to Joseph. “Except shiny and new-looking.”

  “That’s because it is my cup . . . before it was mine. Listen.”

  When each man had received the bread and the wine, Melchizedek spoke loudly again. “Abram, you are blessed by God Most High, Possessor and Maker of Heaven and Earth. And blessed, praised, and glorified be God Most High, who has given your enemies into your hands.”

  Now it was Abram’s turn to summon a column of servants. Each bore a pack on his back. At Abram’s command the attendants unrolled the bundles at Melchizedek’s feet. The contents displayed contained gold coins, jeweled necklaces, bracelets and rings, gold and silver plates. “For the service of the Most High,” Abram said. “A tenth of all the spoils, for a thank offering.”

  Melchizedek nodded gravely. Walking directly toward Abram he extended the silver cup from which the king of Salem had dispensed the wine and his blessing. “For you. A memorial of this day. Whenever you eat bread and drink wine from this cup, you will remember that you honored the Most High and that he has blessed you.”

  The two groups of men parted. While Joseph and I watched them go, the Dreamer said, “So here is a true and honorable priest of the Almighty. And what does his name mean, Nehemiah?”

  “King of Righteousness.”

  The Dreamer concurred. “And since he is the Master of Salem, which means ‘peace,’ he is also the Prince of Peace. Do you know where Salem is located?”

  “Salem is . . . the same as Jerusalem!” I realized. “And so that rocky cliff,” I said, turning and pointing, “that’s where the Temple is now.”

  “No moneychangers or corrupt priests here today,” Joseph said. “But here were more shadows of things to come. Now let me take you home.”

  The Dreamer swirled the edge of his robe around my shoulders. Daytime and Salem disappeared. A cup of jewel-like stars spilled across the night sky from the constellation called the Cup.

  Chapter 19

  A herd of goats traveled with our caravan, providing fresh milk for the youngest of our pilgrims. Extra milk, curdled in goatskin bags, became cheese. The animals also furnished a supply of fresh meat we would not otherwise have enjoyed.

  Part of the work assigned me by Hosea was to move the small flock along parallel to the plodding camels. The duty was not hard. The shaggy goats naturally followed their four-footed leader, a rangy wether wearing a bell around his neck. All I had to do was prod those that lagged behind and keep track of any injuries they suffered. Raheb praised me for noticing when a ewe scratched her udder on a thorn bush, or if a young animal turned up lame from a stone caught in the cleats of his hoof. Keeping a flock healthy was something I had learned at my father’s side and through the skill of my mother. Doctoring with olive oil, in which mint, lavender flowers, and sulfur had been steeped answered for most of their hurts.

  At the beginning of our journey, Raheb, or one of his sons, assisted me with the flock. I was proud when, after a week of travel, my guardian recognized I was an experienced herdsman and left the goats in my care.

  Michael often walked with me, but only for part of each day. He was too small to keep up without running, so wore out quickly. Still, I was glad for the company.

  He told me stories about living in Ecbatana, within sight of the tombs of Queen Esther and Mordecai. I responded with tales of facing down wolves and leopards in the canyons of my home. (I may have exaggerated slightly.)

  One afternoon, as the shadows were drawing in, Michael’s uncle Yacov brought us the word that we would be stopping for the night in another hour or so. Bending toward his nephew, he offered, “I’ll carry you back with me now, Michael.”

  “Please,” my friend replied, “let me stay with Nehi. I’m not a bit tired. Let me stay till we bring in the flock.”

  Standing erect, Yacov appeared to judge the distance to the procession of the caravan: about a quarter of a mile. The camels trudged along the flat plain while my herd, and others like it, grazed amid the brush that fringed a serpentine line of small hills. Squinting at the horizon, he agreed to let Michael remain with me. “But as soon as the sun touches those peaks,” Yacov said, stretching one hand toward the west, “bring the flock up quickly. I don’t want you out here after dark.”

  “We will,” I said.

  The dark orange disk of the solar coin was merely a handsbreadth over the peaks when I counted the flock one final time in preparation for bringing them down the slope. “Nine, ten, eleven,” I recited, before stopping in consternation. Beginning again brought me to the same conclusion. “We’re missing one.”

  “It’s Beulah,” Michael remarked with assurance.

  He was right. The ewe he named had been more trouble than any of the rest, sometimes butting me in the back out of sheer contrariness. She often found the most awkward, brush-choked gullies in which to wander. Beulah seemed to take delight in hiding her scraggly brown-and-white blotched hide amid matching shrubs and rubble.

  “She can’t have gone far,” I reasoned. “I’ll start the leader back toward camp, and the rest will follow. You go with them, to keep them moving, while I go find her.”

  “I’d rather stay with you,” Michael said.

  I judged the heavens. Half the sun was below the distant rocky ridge, but the clear sky was still full of light. The flock was grazing contently amongst the scrawny hawthorns, wild olive shrubs, sickle grass, and yellow bedstraw. “All right. We’ll make it quick.”

  I was certain Beulah was no farther than the sharp spine of a limestone outcrop fifty paces away. As I trudged up the incline, I prayed she had not tumbled down the other side into a ravine.

  The Cup of Joseph, tied in its covering around my waist and slung behind my back, clunked against my shepherd’s staff as it swung with each stride. When I reached the jagged array of boulders forming the backbone of the knoll, I clambered atop it in order to see better. The other side of the ridge did fall sharply into a narrow defile . . . and Beulah was nowhere in sight.

  Panting from the climb, Michael joined me at the summit.

  “I can’t see her,” I said. “Let’s go back to the others.”

  “We can’t leave her out here,” he objected. “Something will get her for sure.”

  Over our heads a vast flock of cranes, flying south to their winter home, swept past. They soared above us, a living river in the sky, like a stream of clouds flowing downwind.

  “Her own fault,” I argued.

  “There’s still plenty of light. Look, there’s a path.”

  It was generous to call it a path. A game trail, no wider than one of my feet, snaked downward by way of a long, slanting plunge into the gulley below.

  “Bet there’s a pool of water.” Michael sniffed. ”Don’t you smell it? Bet that’s what she’s after.”

  I considered what my friend said. The air wafting upward from the shadowed gorge was noticeably cooler and moister feeling than that of the exposed hillside. Tracing the descent of the narrow track with my eyes, I spotted a brown-and-white form darting around a curve. “You’re right. There she goes.”

  With that we also plunged headlong down into the canyon. At each bend in the trail I spotted Beulah for an instant, just before she disappeared again behind a screen of brush or a dusty limestone cornice.

  When we reached the bottom, the goat was still bouncing ahead of us toward a goal only she knew. The floor of the gorge was filled with deep sand that made harder walking than the rock-strewn slope had been. It was barely wide enough for two horses or donkeys to pass side by side.

  There was no water in the ravine, but we were definitely heading in an upstream direction. The dry creek bed wandered into the heart of the mountain. Side branches appeared along the way. Beulah darted left or right as her mood too
k her. There was no longer any main channel. All the ravines looked alike: constricted and choked with grit, mere threads of gravel flanked by sheer stone precipices.

  I was angry at the goat and determined to catch her. I would tie the sash from my robe around her neck and drag her back to camp. I was sure that soon she would dash into a dead-end canyon, and then her game and this chase would be over.

  Soon stretched into a very long time. The pale blue light reaching into the depth of the gully changed to azure, then cobalt, and then to purple. The lateness of the hour had just penetrated my thinking when I turned a final corner to come face-to-face with a blank rock wall . . . and no Beulah.

  “Where did she go?” Michael wondered aloud. “Even a goat can’t climb that,” he said, gesturing toward the cliff. “She disappeared.”

  Thinking of an explanation, I suggested, “At that place where the last two canyons came together? We thought she followed the left, but she must have ducked into the other way.” I saw Michael shiver. The night was growing cold, but with our cloaks and fleece-lined leather boots, his shaking must be from fear too. “Enough,” I decided. “It’s late. We’re late. And we’ve wasted enough time on one stupid goat. Let’s go back.”

  “But, Nehi, . . . which way is back?” he queried.

  “It’s easy,” I said with assurance. “It’s this way.” After three steps I looked at my feet and stopped.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “No footprints,” I mumbled. “We didn’t come this way after all.” Facing about, I added, “Silly mistake. Here we go. Follow me.”

  Three dead ends and five wrong turns later, I admitted we were lost.

  “If I could just see the stars,” I lamented. “But down here in the bottom of this ravine I can barely see any bit of sky.” Michael’s bottom lip trembled, and I feared he might cry. “Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “All we have to do is climb out of here—it doesn’t matter where—and as soon as I can see the stars, I can get us home.”