The Hammer: A Story of the Maccabean Times

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  THE HOPE OF ISRAEL.

  A week had passed since the fatal day of Eleasa. Judas had been buried inpeace in the grave where he had laid, five years before, the agedMattathias. The Greek general had been so much impressed with the valourand generalship of the Jewish hero that he strictly ordered that noindignity should be offered to his remains; and when an envoy came fromthe surviving brothers to ask that the corpse should be given up forburial, made no difficulty about granting the request. It was only fittingthat a brave man should be so honoured. The King, too, had been avenged onhis enemy, nor did he imagine for a moment that the rebels, as he calledthem, would continue to hold out now that their leader had been taken fromthem. It was impossible for him to foresee that those undaunted brotherswould maintain the desperate struggle until they had wrung from the Syrianking the recognition of Jewish independence. Accordingly he granted atruce for a fortnight, and even sent some of his troops to accompany thefuneral procession. It had been a touching scene; and when the hero hadbeen laid to rest in the sepulchre of his fathers, and the piercing voicesof the women, many of whom had struggled over the long and toilsome wayfrom Jerusalem to be present, raised the cry of lamentation, many of theGreek soldiers found themselves moved to tears. This had been the dirgethat had been sung over the grave:--

  "How is the valiant man fallen that delivered Israel. In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion's whelp roaring for his prey. For he pursued the wicked, and sought them out, and burnt up those that vexed his people. Wherefore the wicked shrunk for fear of him, and all the workers of iniquity were troubled, because salvation prospered in his hand. He grieved also many kings, and made Jacob glad with his acts, and his memorial is blessed for ever."

  And now once more the little company of those whom we have known by nameare gathered in Seraiah's house. The orphaned girls are there, Miriam andJudith, passionately grieving for their father, but yet exulting aspassionately that he was at the side of Judas to the last, and that hishope had been at least so far fulfilled that he and the captain whom heloved had been saved from drawing sword among the legions of Rome. LittleDaniel, too, is there, his childish heart sorely troubled with thedarkness of a dispensation which he cannot understand; and Ruth,comforting herself and the children with the thought that he whom they hadlost had rejoined his own Hannah, and half reproaching herself for herselfish joy in having her Seraiah still spared to her. Huldah and Eglah,who had been among the mourners at Modin, are there also, and the agedpriest Shemaiah.

  "O father," cried one of the women, "tell us why these things are so. Whydoes God so disappoint us of our hopes? We trusted that it had been he whoshould have delivered Israel, and now he is dead!"

  "We must wait," said the old man, "for God's good time, for He seeth notas we see. Did not David think that Solomon, his son, should be thepromised king of Israel; and, behold, he turned aside to worship idols,and laid such burdens on the people that his kingdom was broken in twain?And now we, too, have built our hopes upon a man, and they have failed.Surely of Judas it might have been said, 'He shall deliver the needy whenhe crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper; he shall redeemtheir soul from deceit and violence, and dear shall their blood be in hissight.'

  "We looked," said Seraiah, "for the time when all kings should fall downbefore him, all nations should do him service. He seemed like the stonecut out of the mountain without hands that should smite all the kingdomsof evil, and we waited for the reign of Messiah the Prince."

  "And will Messiah come?" cried little Daniel, who had been eagerlylistening to these words, not understanding all, indeed, but catchingtheir general purport.

  "Surely, my son," said the old man; "but there are many things to besuffered first."

  He was silent for a time, sitting with eyes that seemed to take no heed ofthe present, but to be gazing into a far futurity. At last he spoke.

  "He loved Israel with all his heart, but he has brought upon us a peopleof iron, harder than the brazen Greeks. He looked to them for help that hemight build up the walls of Sion, and behold! in the days to come theywill make Jerusalem a desolation and the inhabitants thereof a hissing.And yet, by the Lord's help, he wrought a great deliverance for Israel. Herecovered and cleansed the Temple, and by his hand the Lord changed theking's commandment, so that we may once more worship Him in the beauty ofholiness. And surely, had it not been for him, when he put to flight thehosts of Lysias, we should have been carried away again into captivity.For this was in the heart of our persecutors; only Judas stood in the waythat it should not be done. The Lord reward him for it, and impute not histransgression unto him, for he did not transgress wilfully, or out of anevil heart. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that it shall not be so whenMessiah shall come, for come He will at the appointed time, seeing thatthe Lord repenteth Him not of His promises. Verily He shall not do homageto any godless bestower of kingdoms, nor listen to the voice of the EvilOne, though he promise Him all the world and the glory of it. With His ownright hand and with His holy arm will He get Himself the victory!"