“Your Majesty! Please wait!” He turned and saw Eliakim hurrying toward him with his robes flapping in the wind. Then the engineer leaped over the barrier that separated the royal dais from the courtyard. “Your Majesty—may I have a word with you, please?”
“This is neither the time nor the place, Eliakim. You may petition me at the palace through Shebna.” He walked away, irritated at Eliakim’s presumption, but Eliakim hurried to keep pace alongside him.
“Please, Your Majesty. I’ve tried to go through the proper channels, but Shebna refused my request.”
“Shebna has the authority to speak on my behalf. If he refused your request, then I can’t help you.” Hezekiah continued walking, hoping Eliakim would have the sense to retreat.
“But, Your Majesty, Shebna doesn’t understand God’s Law.”
Hezekiah glanced at Shebna waiting in the Court of the Gentiles. He was watching them from behind the barrier he was forbidden to cross, and his dark face smoldered with rage.
“Is this matter worth risking my anger?” Hezekiah asked.
“Yes, my lord—that’s why I did it this way. I’m sorry.”
“Come with me, then.” He led Eliakim down the royal walkway until they reached the Court of the Gentiles, then held up his hand, cautioning Shebna to remain silent while he spoke. “I’m going to hear your petition, Eliakim, only because you’ve worked hard and served me faithfully. Don’t use this as an excuse to bypass Shebna in the future. I’ve already warned you that he has the authority to speak for me.”
“I understand.” Eliakim drew a deep breath and pushed his hair off his forehead. “Your Majesty, I would like to request more funds for the refugees. The money you’ve allotted for housing has run out. I submitted the request formally, but—”
“I refused,” Shebna said. “And I will continue to refuse it.”
“But the flood of immigrants hasn’t even begun to crest!” Eliakim said. “People are pouring in by the thousands every day, and they need housing and food and—”
“It is not in the economic interests of our nation to spend any more funds on the refugees,” Shebna said.
“But it is! These people will become assets to our economy!”
Shebna gestured to the outer court, where a ragged group of refugees was begging alms from the Judeans as they filed through the Temple gates. “They are not assets,” Shebna said. “They are worthless beggars looking for a free handout.”
“They wouldn’t have to beg if you’d give me the funds to help them!” Eliakim turned to plead with Hezekiah. “Your Majesty, they’re forced to beg because they’re desperate. But most of them were once farmers or potters or tanners or other craftsmen. They’d be willing to work if we gave them a chance.”
Hezekiah watched as the refugees continued to beg, ignored by the wealthier Judeans. “What are you proposing, Eliakim?”
“Give me the funds to feed them and help them get a new start in our nation. I promise you they’ll work to pay it back.”
Shebna exhaled angrily. “I have offered him government loans, Your Majesty, but he refused them. He wants a free handout. I did everything I could short of making these people a huge financial drain on our nation, but it was not enough for him. That is why I refused to pass his request on to you.”
“Wait a minute,” Hezekiah said. “Let me get this straight. If you requested funds, Eliakim, why did you refuse the loans?”
“Because they violate the Torah.”
“And I suppose you are also an expert on the Law, as well as an engineer?” Shebna asked.
Eliakim grinned sheepishly. “I should be an expert—my father has been quoting it to me all my life.”
Shebna crossed his arms. “Then how does accepting a loan violate the Law?”
“In the third book of Moses it says that if one of our countrymen becomes poor and is not able to support himself, we should help him so he can continue to live among us. We’re not to take interest of any kind from him, but—”
“They are not our countrymen,” Shebna interrupted.
“We’re all sons of Abraham. And it also says that if you lend money to one of God’s people who is needy, charge him no interest—”
“That is absurd!”
“No, he’s right,” Hezekiah said. “The Torah explains that we were all slaves before the Lord redeemed us, and so we shouldn’t exact usury from one another.”
“But an interest-free loan is the same as a free handout!” Shebna said. “You know we will never see that money again.”
“Yes, we will,” Eliakim insisted. “The Torah says, ‘If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands . . . you will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. However, if you do not obey the Lord your God . . . all these curses will come upon you and overtake you—’”
“Enough,” Hezekiah said. “I know the rest: ‘You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed’ . . . and so on. I’m sorry to overrule your decision, Shebna, but he’s right.” Eliakim exhaled in relief, but Shebna’s anger and humiliation smoldered dangerously.
“Continue your work with the refugees, Eliakim, and I’ll see that arrangements are made for some interest-free loans.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. You won’t regret it—I promise.” Eliakim bowed and quickly disappeared.
All that day and late into the night, one question continued to nag at Hezekiah. What if Eliakim hadn’t been willing to speak up for the refugees? What if he had given up after Shebna’s refusal? By not helping his brethren, Hezekiah would have violated God’s Law—and that worried him deeply. Shebna’s decision seemed logical, and Hezekiah had agreed with it at first, but God’s Law often disagreed with human reasoning. By ignoring that Law, Shebna could have triggered a disaster—and Hezekiah’s confidence in him had been seriously shaken. As much as he hated to do it, Hezekiah would have to monitor Shebna’s decisions to make sure this never happened again.
Eliakim had risked a lot for the refugees’ sake and had earned Hezekiah’s respect. As he lay awake that night, Hezekiah found that he envied Eliakim. The engineer’s integrity and compassion sprang from a source that Hezekiah had never known—the loving discipline of a godly father.
Iddina crouched by the fork in the road and studied the footprints lightly etched in the dust. “It’s her. I know it’s her.” Three of Iddina’s best trackers stood around him, observing him with cautious respect.
“Do you want one of us to keep following the oxcart, sir?”
“No. She turned south. A little birdie, flying home to her nest.” He stood up, brushing the dust from his hands, and studied the rutted road until it disappeared behind a small rise. “An excellent hunt,” he said. “She provided a good chase. But she’s close to home now, and she’s growing careless. This is almost too easy.” He twisted his sandal in the dirt, erasing the delicate footprint.
As the sun bore down with relentless heat, Iddina strode over to his horse and untied a skin of water. He gulped noisily, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
“She made it farther than I thought she would, sir,” one of the trackers said. “The way she started out that day, I figured we would have her back by nightfall.”
“She didn’t surprise me. She has a strong will to live—though only the gods know why. I wonder if my fellow officers have captured their pitiful village yet. They can sift through the rubble with a sieve,” Iddina said, laughing, “but they won’t find her.”
“Sir, with all those wagon tracks going in and out, how did you know she’d left the village?”
Iddina removed his dagger from his belt while he unwound his long, fringed sash and used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He glanced at the soldier who had asked the question. “Because I know her.” He refastened his belt and tucked the weapon in place. “That’s the first rule of any hunt: know your prey—what they would do, how they would think.”
/> He stroked his lower lip as he studied his three trackers, pleased with their admiring gazes. “I know her,” he repeated, “and she wouldn’t like to be locked behind city walls.”
Iddina mounted his horse in one swift, muscular leap, and the other men hurried to follow him. “We’re close now—very close,” he said. “Search inside every house and barn, under every rock and bush, until we get her back—understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s mine. She belongs to me. But when we find her, you will all have a share.”
Jerimoth awoke before dawn and lay on his mat, listening. Something had jolted him awake. He raised up on his elbows and cocked his head, straining to listen. He did hear something! He tossed the covers aside and leaped to his feet, startling Hodesh.
“What is it?”
“Shh! Listen!” He ran to the window overlooking the road and flung open the shutter, but it was too dark to see anything.
“You were dreaming, Jerimoth. There’s nothing—”
But before Hodesh could finish, Jerimoth bolted from the house and ran down through his vineyard toward the road. He had waited for so many years to hear Jerusha’s soft footsteps on the dusty road that he had imagined them many times before. Was he imagining them now? He stood in the semidarkness behind the leafy vines, his eyes straining for his first glimpse of her.
At last a lone figure came into view, a pale specter, a shade darker than the gloom around her. But even in the dim light before dawn Jerimoth knew her at once.
“Jerusha! Oh, thank God—my Jerusha!” He raced toward her, stumbling down the rutted road. The figure froze, startled by Jerimoth’s sudden appearance. Then she began running toward him, arms outstretched.
“Abba! Abba!”
Jerimoth clasped his beloved daughter fiercely. He would never let her go. “Praise God! Oh, praise God!” He wanted to dance and leap and shout for joy. Yahweh had brought her home again. “Oh, thank you, God! Thank you for my Jerusha!”
She was alive! He leaned back to gaze at her beloved face and saw how thin she was. He held a mere skeleton in his arms instead of his vibrant, healthy daughter. And she looked old, as old as the trees that had shaded his land for centuries—not in appearance, but in her spirit. He saw death in her vacant eyes and in her tattered soul.
“Dear God, what have they done to you?” he moaned. “What have they done to my little girl?” He lifted her into his arms and carried her up to the house, stumbling over vines in the path, his vision blinded by tears.
“Hodesh, look! She’s home! Jerusha is home!”
Hodesh cried out with joy and clung to her daughter, too overwhelmed to speak.
A moment later Maacah scrambled down the ladder from the loft. “Jerusha, is it really you? Oh, thank God—it is! It really is you!” She threw her arms around her sister and wept.
“I never thought I’d see any of you again,” Jerusha sobbed. “I never thought I’d come home again!”
“But you’re here! Oh, God, thank you! Thank you!” Jerimoth murmured the words over and over as he rocked her in his arms. Yahweh had answered his prayers. He had done the impossible. God had brought his beloved daughter back from the dead.
22
Jerusha had dreamed of this moment for so long that she could scarcely believe it was real. But she felt Abba’s strong arms crushing her to his chest, smelled the sweet outdoors smell on his clothes, felt the soft brush of his beard. Mama’s sturdy hands stroked her hair, caressed her face, dried her tears. It wasn’t a dream.
“Mama . . . Abba . . . I never thought I’d see you again!” Jerusha sobbed.
She was home. She had made it home again. Everything seemed unchanged—the simple, handmade furnishings, the oxen in their stall opposite the living quarters, the soot-smudged cooking pots, even the clumps of fragrant herbs hanging from the ceiling beams seemed the same.
Yet everything seemed so different. Abba appeared older, thinner, and his broad shoulders were hunched as if he carried a heavy burden. She saw the jagged scar on his forehead, too white against his tanned face. Strands of gray streaked Mama’s mahogany hair, and she looked shrunken and small. Maacah was no longer a wispy eleven-year-old but had grown into a handsome young woman. Jerusha recognized her by the freckles sprinkled across her upturned nose. How she loved her family! She would never let them out of her sight again.
“Look at you!” Jerimoth said as he stroked her swollen, blistered feet. “Look at your poor feet! Did you walk all the way from Nineveh?”
“No, Abba. I never went as far away as that. I’ve been living with the army, and they’ve been fighting just north of here all this time. I walked part of the way home, over the mountains, until a stranger let me ride in his cart.”
“An angel—God sent His angel,” Jerimoth murmured. “I knew you were alive. When we didn’t find your body with the others . . .”
Jerusha turned away, ashamed. What would her family think of her if they knew how she had survived? She could never tell them what she had become. Jerusha shivered, but it wasn’t the damp air inside the house that chilled her. The coldness crept out from her soul as she lied to her parents.
“They let me live so that I could cook for them—for their officers.”
“And now you escaped?” Jerimoth asked.
“No, Abba. They let me go. This is a game for them, a sport. They set me free so they could track me down again.”
“They would hunt my daughter like an animal?”
Jerusha knew Abba could never comprehend how evil they were, how brutal and vicious. She shivered again as she remembered her pursuers. Home was not the end of her journey; it was only the beginning. She scrambled to her feet, tugging on Jerimoth’s hands.
“Abba, we’ve got to get out of here! They’re coming!”
Jerimoth clasped her tightly to his chest. “I will never let them have you again. Never!”
“But they’re right behind me—chasing me! I can’t stop running!” She struggled out of his embrace. “We all have to get out of here, Abba. I don’t want to go back with them! I’d rather die!”
“The Assyrians are still tracking you?”
“Yes, Abba! Please, we can’t stay here! We’ve got to hurry!”
But Jerimoth stood paralyzed, as if he didn’t believe her. Why didn’t he move? Why didn’t he run?
“You’ll be safe here,” he said at last. “There’s a hiding place under the house.” He kicked the rug aside and lifted the flagstone to show her the empty cistern. “When the Assyrians come you can all hide in there. They won’t find you—you’ll be safe.”
“You don’t understand!” she cried. “When the Assyrians came all those other times, they were only idle soldiers on a binge for fun. This time their entire army is invading us! They won’t leave us here, Abba. They’ll kill us all, or worse—they’ll make us their slaves! Nothing will be left of Israel when they’re through with it!”
“I won’t leave my land,” Jerimoth said quietly. “If what you say is true, then there is no safe place to go. I’ll die here, on the land of my fathers.”
Despair overwhelmed Jerusha until she felt as if she was drowning. She struggled to breathe as she turned to her mother, gripping her hands. “Mama, please talk to him, make him listen to me! We can’t stay here!”
Hodesh nodded toward Jerimoth, who stood in the doorway, gazing at the fields and vineyards he had tended all his life. “I could never persuade him to leave. Where could he go? This is his land. He is rooted here, like his vines and olive trees.”
Jerusha fought the urge to scream. “How can I make you understand? I’ve struggled for so long to survive, to come home and see you again! We can’t let them win now—we can’t!”
Suddenly Jerimoth stiffened. “It’s too late,” he said, staring at the horizon. “They’re coming. I can see the dust cloud on the horizon and a few riders out in front.”
“NO!” she screamed. The Assyrians had caught up with her! They had found he
r! Jerusha bolted for the door, desperate to escape, but Jerimoth blocked her path. “Move out of my way! Let me go!” she screamed, beating her father’s chest, struggling to push past him and flee from the house. She wanted to run and run forever. It took all three of them to subdue her and keep her inside the house.
At last Jerusha collapsed to the floor, trembling and weeping with fear. Then she drew her knees to her chest as her mind began to splinter into madness. Dimly, she heard her father’s voice trying to call her back.
“I’ll hide you from them, Jerusha. I’ll keep you safe. I won’t let them find you again. Yahweh is merciful. He’ll let me die on my land, and He’ll keep the rest of you safe underground.”
Jerusha looked up, slowly comprehending what he was telling her. She saw the open cistern and clutched him desperately. “You have to hide, too, Abba.”
“There isn’t enough room. Besides, I don’t want to live to see what they do to my land.”
“Abba, please,” Maacah begged.
“No, we have Jerusha back,” he said. “Yahweh answered our prayers; that is enough for me. Yahweh will protect all three of you.”
Hodesh shook her head. “I’m staying with you, Jerimoth. I’m your wife, and my place is with you.”
“Don’t be foolish. Who will take care of our girls?”
“Look,” Hodesh said, pointing to the cistern. “There isn’t enough room for me, either. Please, let me stay with you.”
Jerimoth pulled her into his arms. “All right, Hodesh. All right.”
Jerusha could barely comprehend what was happening. She was losing Mama and Abba all over again! She fell into their arms, clinging to them in sorrow, memorizing their faces for eternity. The life they had shared in this ancient stone house was coming to an end . . . this time forever. They clung to each other for the last few moments that remained.
At last Jerimoth wiped his eyes. “Enough. It’s time. God has helped you survive, Jerusha. Promise me that you’ll take care of your sister now.”