by Bodie Thoene
At the same time I had to trust I was not killing the vines by trying to save them! Thick dust or soot killed grape leaves. Intense heat would wither tender shoots and destroy the unripe fruit. Had we placed the pots of tar close enough to protect the vineyards and far enough away at the same time? We would soon know.
Patrick raced in one direction, hopping at tremendous speed on his wooden leg. Samson pitched forward at a breakneck pace around the other perimeter. Both men were swinging firepots, clay jars of embers kept alive by being in constant motion at the end of rope slings.
As each man reached a smudge pot, he paused only long enough to set it alight, then raced on to the next.
With the arrival of the swarm, it was as if the sun had risen and then immediately retreated below the eastern horizon.
Already the thorn hedges around my home and the jasmine vines twined around the pillars of my porch were covered in locusts. While my ears continued to be assaulted by the hum of wings, the din was increased by a new raucous sound: chewing.
The pitch pots were fully ablaze. Swirling plumes of black vapor rose to bar entry into my choicest vines. It was working! As the horde of hoppers flew toward the fields and confronted the fumes, they diverted to either side.
It sickened me to see how quickly they destroyed the first row of unprotected fig trees. Settling on the branches like a myriad of tiny pruning hooks, they changed summer’s lush growth to wintry barrenness.
In order to save the Faithful Vineyard, other parts would have to be sacrificed. Nor would protecting even a remnant be easy.
The grasshoppers were a crafty foe. Like an enemy force unable to advance by one route seeks another, so too did the grasshoppers. They could not fly through the foul reek of the blazing tar, so they landed in front of my defenses.
The battle to save Faithful Vineyard began in earnest.
I shouted, having to cup my hands around my mouth and turn downwind to keep from inhaling a mouthful of pests, “Drive them! Drive them!”
Each of my seventy-two laborers was assigned a row of vines. With an empty grain sack in each hand, a man charged in, flailing on both sides.
The grasshoppers launched themselves into the air where the strengthening breeze caught and propelled them toward the opposite end of the planting.
Some flew directly into the sail-like rigs of palm fronds coated with pitch and were trapped there. Others rose on the wind and disappeared into the distance. The plan was succeeding but required unrelenting effort. Each of my human warriors moved ahead, holding the enemy at bay.
“We need more workers!” I urged Samson. “We must send a second wave to follow the first. Go to the market square and hire more.”
“How much shall we offer them?”
“Still a denarius, if they will come now. Go!”
I soon regretted not eating breakfast at my sister’s urging. There was no chance for even a bite of bread.
A water container with the lid left barely ajar was soon filled to the brim with drowned hoppers or those staying alive on the backs of their fallen comrades.
And still more of them came.
The pitch-covered traps worked so well they sagged beneath the weight of the captured locusts.
I ordered Samson, “We’ve got to replace those screens immediately, and we must send a third wave of men with sacks to keep driving.”
The wail of a woman shrieking came from my home. I ran to investigate.
Martha answered my pounding summons by dragging me quickly into the front hall. She slammed the door again before no more than half a hundred grasshoppers entered with me.
“What’s happened?” I demanded.
“Don’t worry,” my stalwart sister returned. “Someone failed to latch the shutters properly to your office. I sent her in there to fetch something, and when she opened the door … I’m sorry, but there’s a regular Pharaoh’s army crawling on ceiling, walls, and floors. It scared her, but I got the door shut tight now so they can’t reach the rest of the house.”
“But my papers? My manuscripts? They’ll be devoured!” Then I bowed my head and laughed at my own foolishness. “Perhaps they’ll eat the bills. After today there may not be any way to pay them!”
“I’m sorry, brother.”
“Never mind. I’d happily give them my office to save the vines.”
“How is it going up there?”
“Holding our own. At least, I hope so.”
A cry of “More tar! More tar, here! The smudge pots are going out!”
Racing back out, I heard Martha jam the portal shut behind me.
As the orchards of Herod Antipas were consumed, still we held the perimeter of Faithful Vineyard. I had hoped that as the sun set and the day came to an end, so would the horror of the plague, but it did not let up.
The later quantity of tar we purchased was more volatile than the first. Instead of merely smoldering, sheets of flame shot upward as the pots were ignited. Blazing tongues of fire licked each column of smoke. Locusts blundering into them became squirming, burning embers tossing on the breeze.
It was a scene straight from a prophet’s vision of Gehenna. Sheets of flame briefly illuminated flapping apparitions of men keeping locusts from landing. Workers staggered into view, flailing at the air as if battling phantoms, then plunged back into the darkness of the rows of vines.
A blazing grasshopper landed on the pitch-covered sailcloth. The entire device caught fire in an instant, becoming a fiery torch too hot to approach. Thousands of invaders were incinerated. A cheer went up among the men.
As the trap erupted in flames, we left it to become ashes. Like a captain on the deck of a burning ship, Patrick dashed about, giving the orders that hurriedly erected another and another.
Amid the darkness and the fumes and the commotion, there was no ability and no time to see if we were actually accomplishing our goal. We were killing myriads of locusts, but could we ultimately save the best vines?
Only daylight and a final relief from the plague would tell.
I staggered from row to row, alternately waving a flickering torch to chase away the locusts and stooping to check for damage. My eyes burned from the smoke and lack of sleep. My throat was parched from shouting orders.
The smudge pots were going out again. “Samson,” I croaked, “more tar.”
Putting his mouth near my ear, he rasped, “Begging your pardon, sir, but there is no more. We used it all.”
This unwelcome news shook me awake. “Then send Patrick to the village to buy more! Don’t wait.”
As he raised his chin toward the light of the burning brand, I saw it quiver. “That’s just it, if you take my meaning, sir. There is no more to be had. None.”
That could not be right. We could not have worked so hard to be defeated now. “Then in Jerusalem,” I argued. “Send men to the Street of the Roofers. They will have more.”
“Already tried, sir. The man I sent came back an hour ago. Seems all the vinedressers followed your example. There is no tar to be had in all Judea.” Samson sounded as though he were about to cry.
I clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re not finished yet. Just give me a minute to think.”
I tugged at my beard again in thought, and for the first time since the previous morning, I did not encounter a kicking insect. The significance did not dawn on me for a time, and then I noticed: the space around my head was momentarily clear of winged pests.
The torrent of airborne pests was actually slowing. Even the breeze carrying the invaders dropped, then backed around into the south, like an unseen hand pushing the grasshoppers out of my estate.
Had the relief come in time?
Fearful dawn crept up from over Jordan, disclosing three things. First light revealed whole swathes of orchard and vineyard almost completely devastated, plucked cleanly … but these were the areas we had not tried to save.
As I rushed to the brow of the hill, I learned the second revelation: Faithful Vineyard had been
spared. Around the edges of the field the vines had been gnawed, but the bulk of the leaves were intact; the crop was saved.
The third sight meeting my eyes was this: while no more locusts were arriving, the rows were still full of crawling pests. Battered from the sky and stunned by smoke, they were still a menace.
And my troops were as exhausted as the winged ones. My hired men displayed haggard faces and weary limbs.
There was a stirring of air on the side of my face toward the south, and a rustling on the breeze. Then I saw another wave of black specks dotting the sky.
The flapping increased and a shadow once more fell across me from above.
I hung my head in utter defeat and exhaustion. We had lost. It had all been for nothing.
Then I heard the sounds of cheering and laughter erupting from my workers, accompanied by shouts of “Selovs! The selovs are coming! The selovs of the desert are here!”
Quail! Flights, schools, armies of round-bodied birds from the wadis of the Negev and Sinai converged on my vineyards. Spiraling inward as if I had summoned them, their cries encircled me, the hilltop, and Faithful Vineyard. They pounced on the locusts and feasted, snapping up insects on all sides. My new allies plucked grasshoppers from leaves and unripe fruit with savage delight and perfect accuracy.
Later that day we learned that many of the vineyards and orchards of Judea had been saved by hard work, smudge pots, and the miracle of the quail.
The vines of Herod Antipas were not so fortunate: none of them were spared.
“Master!” Patrick exclaimed. “It’s a miracle!”
“A true miracle,” I agreed. “But you are wrong about one thing.”
“Eh!”
“Call me David. I am your master no longer. You are free!”
It was rumored among the rulers in Jerusalem that Jesus had called forth locusts from the abyss to devour the fields of those who approved of the execution of John the Baptizer. Herod Antipas, whose orchards and vines had been devastated both in Galilee and in Judea, alternated between rage and terror at what had come upon him.
I received a message from Mary that wherever Jesus was welcomed in Galilee, the locusts did not come. Mary’s vines were untouched, and her crop would be plentiful this year. She wrote that the Lord and his disciples were coming to Judea for the harvest and that she had invited them to stay with our family through the high holy days.
So it was that Jesus came down from Galilee with his disciples to Judea to stay with us at Bethany.
Seventy of his close followers labored beside us to gather and crush the grapes of Faithful Vineyard. That was when young Carta, British slave of Centurion Marcus Longinus, another of the Lord’s healed, came to live with us and apprentice as a winemaker.
Jesus worked with the men, shoulder to shoulder, harvesting the crop.
After all the grapes were harvested, with great joy Jesus waded into the wine vat to tread the grapes beside me.
It was, for those of us whose vines had survived the ravage, a time of great celebration. A wonderful banquet was prepared for all who had worked so hard to save my vineyard. As music played, we feasted on quail fattened by the locusts. I noticed when Jesus left his place. He stood on the hilltop where the frontline battle against the locusts had been fiercest.
Bringing a plate heaped with food to share, I joined him.
We sat on the hewn stump of a fig tree and ate as we surveyed the vineyards and orchards beyond my property.
“You fought and won a hard battle. Well done, my friend.”
“I lost about a third of the harvest.”
“You saved two-thirds.” It was like Jesus to measure the positive. “But look over there.”
The stripped vines of Herod’s holdings were a sharp contrast to the still lush foliage of Faithful Vineyard.
I said to Jesus, “In Jerusalem and Tiberias, they are saying you called down a curse on Herod Antipas because of John.”
“The wicked call a curse upon themselves. The righteous live in the midst of blessing, though everything around them be devoured.” Jesus swept his hand toward the devastated fields. “Whose vineyard is that?”
“The vines once belonged to my grandfather. The old butcher-king Herod trumped up charges and stole the land.”
“How do you feel seeing your grandfather’s vines destroyed?” he asked me.
“Sad. I think of the dreams my grandfather had when he planted those vines. He would not have imagined it would come to this.”
“How did your vines survive and Herod’s did not?”
“We fought to save them. Patrick, my servant, fought because now he’s won his freedom. Samson, my vinedresser, fought because he loves me and loves these vines as if they are his own. We didn’t give up. And when the oil for the smudge pots was gone and we could do no more, the Lord sent a wind and a flock of quail to eat the locusts.”
Jesus focused on the contrast. “How is it that the vineyard of Herod is completely stripped? Not a shred of green remains. All his crop lost.”
It was a simple question. Easy to answer. “The laborers hired by Herod’s overseer gave up before the battle began. When the insects dropped down, the men didn’t fight to drive them off. They were paid to work, but they have no love for the vineyard. No care for the outcome. It’s nothing to them if everything is lost.”
“The hireling doesn’t care, but the one who owns the land and plants, and the vinedresser who tends the vines, now there are lions who will fight to save the vineyard!” Jesus began to sing the old psalm:
“Restore us, O God;
cause your face to shine,
and we shall be saved!
You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
You have cast out the nations, and planted it.
You prepared room for it,
and caused it to take root,
and it filled the land.”1
I joined him in singing. Jesus’ voice was a clear, sweet baritone.
“The hills were covered with its shadow,
and the mighty cedars with its boughs.
She sent out her boughs to the sea,
and her branches to the river.
Why have you broken down her hedges
so that all who pass by the way pluck her fruit?
Return, we beseech you, O God of Hosts,
look down from heaven and see.”2
In that moment I noticed for the first time that the places in my vineyard where Jesus had walked before had remained completely undamaged during our war against the locusts. The song continued:
“Visit this vine
and the vineyard which your right hand has planted,
and the branch that you made strong for yourself.
Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand,
upon the son of man
whom you made strong for yourself.
Then we will not turn back from you;
revive us and we will call upon your name.
Restore us, O LORD God of hosts;
cause your face to shine,
and we shall be saved!”3
The song came to an end, but I did not want to stop singing. I sang the last line of the chorus alone.
Jesus crossed his arms, his face shining. He said to me, “Lazarus, do you understand?”
I nodded once. “Yes, Lord.”
Then he said, “My Father is the Vinedresser. It is written by the prophets and it is true, ‘The Lord will restore the years the locusts have eaten.’ “4
Chapter 19
Patrick was given his freedom, but there was much more to my promise. He had asked for a wife. He had asked for freedom and the hand of Adrianna, the cook’s helper.
Samson was Adrianna’s foster father. The winemaker came to me in the company of his round and robust wife, whom he called Delilah because she had so captured his heart. Samson was a free man, yet his wife was a second-generation slave in the House of Lazarus. It was known that the House of Lazarus had the fine
st winemaker and the finest cook in the land. The couple had adopted Adrianna when she had arrived at my estate as a small orphan of about five years of age. Adrianna had possessed no skills. She was a shivering, lonely little girl when she came to us. Samson begged me for the favor of bringing her home to his childless wife. Little Adrianna became a part of the family, learning the culinary skills of Delilah, and was grafted into our faith and our ways.
Delilah and Samson stood before me on behalf of their daughter. “Sir, Patrick is a good man, as we all know. And now he has asked for the freedom of himself—”
“Which I have granted,” I said proudly.
Samson continued, “And for the freedom and the hand of my daughter.”
I nodded. “A fair bargain, considering the saving of Faithful Vineyard.”
Samson’s eyebrows went up slightly as he considered what he wanted to tell me. “Though he is not a Jew, as we are, he believes in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
I agreed with the good character of Patrick. “And so your daughter, who is also not descended from Abraham, is a good match for him.”
Delilah shifted uneasily and did not speak, though her lip trembled. “Sir, neither am I a Jew, but am descended from slaves of Gaul. Yet I would not return to my forefathers’ homeland if I were set free.”
I did not understand the emotion in Delilah’s face. The fear in her eyes. “What is it, good woman?”
Samson put his hand on Delilah’s arm. “Sir, Patrick is a Briton. Yes, he fears our God, and yet now that he has his freedom, he says he may take my daughter far, far away from this place and her mother. We have no child but Adrianna.”
“Perhaps, sir,” Delilah blurted, “he will take my girl back to his own kin in Britannia.”
Samson continued, “Here she is a slave in the household of a kind master, at least. But when she belongs to a husband, I will have no way to protect her if … ”