Faith of My Fathers (Chronicles of the Kings #4)

  “I know the story.”

  “Then why is it against the Law when I do it? Father Abraham performed the same ritual to divine his future.”

  “The Torah says, ‘Do not practice divination or sorcery.”’

  “That’s from the laws of the priests, not the laws of our forefathers. Abraham worshiped under the stars. He could read their mysteries. God commanded him to study the heavens. ‘Look up ... So shall your offspring be.’”

  Again, Manasseh couldn’t argue with him. Everything Zerah said could be found in the Torah.

  “The stars prophesied his future,” Zerah continued, “because Abraham knew how to read their mysteries. But Abraham never worshiped the god you call Yahweh. That’s what the descendants of Aaron named the god they control. Abraham worshiped Elohim.”

  “What’s your point, Zerah?”

  “My point is that the phony priests and false prophets have stolen your power. The Torah says, ‘The secret things belong to the Lord our God, and the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.’ But they have deliberately outlawed the ancient mysteries, keeping them to themselves so they could control your kingdom. Just like they controlled your father.”

  Manasseh stood. “No one controlled my father!”

  “That’s what you think. They made him destroy all of the high places where every man could go to offer his own sacrifices and seek the wisdom of Abraham. Now the priests make us come to their Temple, offer their sacrifices, so we’re under their control. We’re told we can’t worship God without them, and they make us recite empty rituals, devoid of power. This isn’t the worship our ancestors knew. Then the priests put a curse on your father.”

  “They did what?”

  “They cursed him! The God of our ancestors gave us the power of blessing and cursing. He told Abraham that whoever he blessed would be blessed and whoever he cursed would be cursed. Read it for yourself. Abraham knew the secret incantations, and so do your priests. That’s how the man who calls himself a prophet cursed your father.”

  “You mean Rabbi Isaiah?”

  “Yes. He knows how to read the future, and he knows all the ancient omens and signs found in the stars. He even has power over the heavenly bodies. Didn’t Isaiah once make the sun roll backward? Isaiah used the same spell our forefather Joshua used when he made the sun stand still. Isaiah is a powerful man, Your Majesty. He deceived your father all of his life in order to hold him under his control. He would only reveal the future to him piece by piece. Then he cursed him.”

  “Why would Isaiah curse my father?”

  “He wanted to make sure King Hezekiah died before you came of age. That way they could control you and train you to believe all their lies, too.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? How long was your father ill before he died?”

  Manasseh remembered the shock of his father’s sudden death, how it seemed as if he was alive and healthy one day and wrapped in a shroud the next. He was too stunned to answer. Zerah leaned forward.

  “Isaiah told your father he would live fifteen additional years, and the king died fifteen years later, to the very month. I know the ancient curses, too, King Manasseh. But my priesthood is outlawed by those who want to control you. I can read your future as well as Isaiah can. You were born under the sign of the lion, into the tribe of the lion. They know you are doubly blessed with the power of kingship. That’s why Isaiah keeps you under his control.”

  “I haven’t seen Rabbi Isaiah in years.”

  “He’s controlling you, nevertheless, through your palace administrator, Eliakim. They have long been allies, even under your father. Isaiah used his power to secure the palace administrator’s job for Eliakim.”

  “That’s not how it happened. Isaiah prophesied that Eliakim would ... Oh no ...” He sank down on the rock again, seeing the truth in what Zerah had said, remembering the story his father had told him about Eliakim’s rise to power. It was true—Isaiah and Eliakim had always been close.

  “And now that Eliakim is old and nearing retirement, they’re conspiring to replace him with his son.”

  “Joshua? But I’ve always known that Joshua would take Eliakim’s place.”

  “No. They’ve always told you that he would. But shouldn’t the king choose his own palace administrator?”

  Manasseh transferred the knife to his other hand and wiped his sweating palm on his thigh. He suddenly remembered the blind woman in the Kidron Valley and what she had prophesied about Joshua and himself: “The authority belongs to you, but he will be more powerful.”

  “How do I know you’re not making all this up?”

  “Ask them. Ask Rabbi Isaiah. Do you believe he saw the future for your father and grandfather?”

  “I know he did.”

  “Then ask him to tell your future. He knows what it is right now, but he won’t tell you because then he can’t control you. He’ll refuse to do it, and when Isaiah defies you, ask your palace administrator to back you up. Make him choose between the two of you. Eliakim will side with Isaiah, not with you. So will his son and successor. They’re all in this conspiracy together, along with the priests and Levites.”

  “I don’t believe any of this,” Manasseh said, but his voice was trembling.

  “No? Doesn’t Eliakim have a daughter? What family did she marry into?”

  Manasseh knew the answer. As a close friend of the family, he had attended Tirza’s wedding a year ago. But he wouldn’t say the words aloud, unwilling to face the truth.

  “She married into the high priest’s family,” Zerah answered for him. “They are all involved in this plot.” Manasseh could only stare at him, too stunned to speak. “You don’t have to take my word for it,” Zerah said after a moment. “I challenge you to put them all to the test. See if what I’m telling you isn’t true. If I’m wrong, then I’m not a prophet. You can execute me for worshiping the God of Abraham. But if I’m right, then you’d better take control of your kingdom before it’s too late.”

  Manasseh stood in the silent graveyard as crickets chirped and bats flitted between the darkened tombs. A sliver of moon had risen above the hills, but dark clouds suddenly washed across it, blotting it out, just as the turmoil rampaging through his soul seemed to erase every truth he had ever known. He didn’t want to believe this crazed man he had found muttering among the tombstones, but all the stories Zerah had quoted from the Torah had been true. Manasseh had read the account of Abraham’s night vigil. He remembered how Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had each prophesied over their sons, telling them the mysteries of the future, secrets that for some reason had been denied to Manasseh.

  “Do you know what my future is?” he asked Zerah.

  “I could seek it for you through the stars and other omens. I could tell you ...” His eyes flickered up to the moon that emerged, briefly, from behind the clouds. “I could tell you, for instance, that the new moon is rising in your sign. That means that the stars will be favorable for romance, for finding the woman who was destined to be yours.”

  Manasseh gave a short laugh, well aware that his palace harem was still empty. Choosing the one wife he was allowed to marry under the Law was a delicate process, Eliakim had informed him. Eliakim hadn’t permitted Manasseh to make a selection yet, warning him about controlling his youthful lust.

  “Do they even decide who you will marry, King Manasseh?” Zerah asked in a mocking voice. “I’m not surprised. There are many, many things they are hiding from you, secrets they never want you to learn.”

  “Name one,” Manasseh demanded.

  “Did they tell you that your mother worshiped our true mother goddess, Asherah?”

  “That’s a lie! How dare you slander my mother! She would never do a thing like that!”

  “But she did. She worshiped Asherah faithfully until they imprisoned her and forbade her to do it.”

  “Idolatry is against the law! She wouldn’t—”

  “Against their law. Why
don’t you ask Eliakim if it’s true? But first make him swear an oath to tell you the truth.”

  Manasseh’s entire body trembled with anger. “Stand up!”

  “Am I under arrest for telling the truth?” Zerah asked.

  “Start walking! That way—toward the entrance.” Manasseh followed Zerah, carrying his lamp and his knife, leaving the dead pigeons and Zerah’s other belongings to the night scavengers.

  Once he returned to his palace chambers, with Zerah safely locked in the guard tower, Manasseh found that the eerie confrontation in the graveyard continued to haunt him. Like the severed sacrificial birds, he felt divided—between believing what he had always thought was the truth and believing Zerah’s interpretation of it.

  He had never consulted Isaiah about his future, but he was certain the rabbi would reveal it to him if he asked. Why wouldn’t he? Isaiah had prophesied for King Hezekiah and King Ahaz before him. A shiver passed through Manasseh when he recalled Zerah’s accusation that Isaiah had cursed his father. Fifteen years. To the very month.

  “Would you like me to prepare your bath, Your Majesty?” his valet asked.

  “No. I want you to summon the palace guards for me. Send them to Rabbi Isaiah’s house to fetch him. I would like to talk to him. Then light all the lamps in the throne room.”

  Isaiah wasn’t masterminding a conspiracy to control him and his kingdom, Manasseh assured himself. But he needed to settle the questions in his mind tonight. Then he could execute Zerah for his lies and sorceries at dawn.

  Manasseh received his first shock as soon as Isaiah arrived: the old rabbi entered with Eliakim by his side. “They have long been allies,” Zerah had said. Before Manasseh could issue an order, Eliakim took his usual seat at the king’s right hand.

  “Why are you here, Eliakim? I didn’t summon you.” Manasseh tried to keep his voice even and not show his surprise or the trickle of suspicion that shivered through him. Eliakim was always crowding him, always interfering in everything Manasseh tried to do, as if not trusting him to run the kingdom by himself.

  Eliakim spread his hands innocently. “I often visit the rabbi in the evenings. He’s kind enough to answer some of my ignorant questions from time to time. It’s a rare privilege to bask in his wisdom and knowledge.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Manasseh replied. “In fact, that’s why I’ve summoned him.” He shifted to face Isaiah, who stood patiently before his throne. The old prophet’s hair and beard had turned completely white over the years, and he looked shrunken, his skin yellowed like an ancient parchment scroll. But his eyes were alert and Manasseh sensed the latent power concealed beneath his calm exterior.

  “Rabbi, I’m well aware of how you prophesied during my father’s reign, as well as my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s reigns. Now I would like you to do the same for me.”

  “Tonight, Your Majesty?” Eliakim interrupted.

  “Yes. I’ve been negligent in establishing a relationship with you, Rabbi Isaiah. But like Lord Eliakim, I would also like to tap the wealth of your wisdom and insight.”

  Isaiah pinned him with unnaturally keen eyes, as blue as the summer sky. “No, you don’t. You want to know the future.”

  The rabbi’s bluntness startled Manasseh, but he hid his surprise. “I’m only asking for the same consideration you showed my father.”

  “Prophecy doesn’t work that way—” Eliakim began, but Manasseh cut him off.

  “I would like the rabbi to answer, not you.”

  “Eliakim is right,” Isaiah said. “Prophecy isn’t fortune-telling. I can’t predict the future.”

  “Didn’t you once foretell Eliakim’s future?”

  Eliakim sat forward, his mouth opened to protest, but he caught himself.

  “How old were you, Eliakim, when the rabbi foretold that one day you would sit here, in this very seat?”

  “Your Majesty, it wasn’t—”

  “Just tell me how old you were.” Manasseh forced himself to stay calm, to allow events to unfold by themselves.

  “It was the night after my thirteenth birthday, Your Majesty.”

  “Amazing! And here you are, some fifty years later, just as Isaiah said you would be. That sounds like a very accurate prediction of the future, wouldn’t you say?” Neither man replied. Manasseh turned back to Isaiah. “Rabbi, I’ve heard stories about all the events that happened before I was born. Didn’t you also accurately predict that our nation wouldn’t be invaded by the Assyrians at the time that Israel fell? And also that Sennacherib’s forces would die by God’s sword, not by man’s?”

  “I didn’t foretell any of it. God did.”

  “But wasn’t my father able to choose his course of action and govern the nation based on those predictions? By listening to your wisdom and foreknowledge, wasn’t he better able to make sound judgments?”

  “It wasn’t by my wisdom that he—”

  “Yes or no, Rabbi?”

  Isaiah sighed. “Yes. Your father wisely heeded God’s Word—”

  “Then, that’s all I’m asking. Tell me God’s Word so I can do the same thing.”

  “I can’t foretell the future. God has sometimes allowed me to catch a glimpse of it—to see a tiny thread in the fabric of His tapestry. And when He has, I’ve shared that glimpse with your father. Your grandfather never wanted to see what God revealed.”

  “Well, unlike King Ahaz, I’ll listen to you, Rabbi. You may tell me everything that God has revealed about my future. Unless you have something more important to do tonight.”

  Isaiah clasped his hands in front of him and shrugged. “I don’t know your future, Your Majesty. You choose the pattern yourself, and it’s up to you how it will be woven.”

  The rabbi’s words made Manasseh angrier. He struggled to keep his voice reasonable. “But are you willing to consult God for me? To go home and pray and perhaps return in a day or two with an answer?”

  “You have God’s Law, Your Majesty. It tells you everything you need to know about your future. If you obey it, you will prosper and live long in this land. You and your children after you. If you reject His law, you will die.”

  Manasseh was no longer able to control his anger. “Is that what happened to my father? Did he die so young because he rejected God’s law?”

  “No. Yahweh would have taken your father’s life fifteen years earlier. You would have never been born. But in His infinite mercy and love, God extended King Hezekiah’s life beyond his time.”

  “And how did you know that would happen, Rabbi? How did you know the exact length of time he would live?”

  “God revealed it to me.”

  “Then it seems to me that we are talking in circles. You can predict the future, and in fact, you have predicted the future. I don’t care how or what means you’ve employed to do it in the past; I just want you to use those powers for me, as well.”

  “But I have no power.”

  “Then how did you make the sun move for my father?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Eliakim, did you see the sun move backward?”

  “Your Majesty, this is—”

  “Yes or no, Eliakim.”

  “I saw the shadows move, yes.”

  “When Rabbi Isaiah prayed?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Do I need to rouse old Shebna from his bed as a second witness? Did he see the sun move, too?”

  “Shebna saw it, too,” Isaiah replied.

  “Good. Then we have established that you do have powers, Rabbi. Now my next question is, why are you refusing to use those powers for my benefit? Why do you want me to remain ignorant of my future?”

  “If God reveals anything about your future to me, Your Majesty, you have my word on oath that I will tell you.”

  “Ask them under oath,” Zerah had challenged. Manasseh drew a deep breath and gripped the armrests.

  “Did my mother worship Asherah?”

  Manasseh’s question froze the two men into utter s
tillness. Eliakim seemed to have stopped breathing.

  “Do I need to invoke an oath to learn the truth?”

  “No,” Isaiah said quietly. “I’ll tell you the truth. For a time, yes, she did worship Asherah.”

  “Was she imprisoned for it?”

  For the first time that night, Isaiah wouldn’t meet his gaze. “She was banished from the palace and confined to your father’s villa.”

  Manasseh turned to Eliakim. He was staring at the floor. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “It was something your mother was ashamed of. I didn’t think she wanted you to know, or she would have told you herself.”

  “Liar! That’s not why! What else haven’t you told me?”

  Eliakim looked up, not at Manasseh but at Isaiah, and the look they exchanged confirmed Manasseh’s growing conviction that everything Zerah had told him was true. There was a conspiracy to control him, and these two men were deeply involved in it. He began to tremble, the way he had trembled in the cemetery as he had crept up on Zerah and disarmed him.

  “Rabbi, I’m a reasonable man. I would like to give you one final chance to think things over and decide whether you’re going to withhold your powers from me, powers that Eliakim has testified that you possess. In the meantime, I can’t allow you to roam freely when there’s a chance you’ll turn against me. I’m going to ask Eliakim to escort you to the palace prison for the night, and maybe by morning God will reveal something to you. Prison worked quite well for Joseph. He saw the Egyptian Pharaoh’s future very clearly after serving some time in jail. Eliakim, take him there. Now.”

  Eliakim stood. “Your Majesty, I ... I can’t put Rabbi Isaiah in prison.”

  Manasseh felt his stomach roll over in dread. “Why not?”

  “Because he hasn’t committed a crime.”

  “Refusing to obey the king is a crime.”

  “But he’s not refusing to obey, Your Majesty. Your request is impossible to obey.”