by Brian Godawa
Jacob had decided to help Gischala eliminate Eleazar.
This would gain the favor of Gischala for Jacob. But he would do so secretly and without Simon’s knowledge just to hedge his bets between the two of them.
The danger was compounded by the fact that the Passover was tomorrow and Jerusalem was overflowing with pilgrims from all over the land. Tens of thousands of Jews filled the city for this most important of feasts.
More civilians meant more innocent deaths in the wake of a battle. But more civilians also meant more of a chance for subterfuge, the ability to surprise Eleazar in a way they could not without them. Sometimes innocent casualties were simply the necessary collateral damage of war.
He called to his head servant, “Nathan! Prepare a guard for me to visit the temple mount.”
But first, he had to stop by the hippodrome and check on the Christian doctor Alexander. If Jacob’s plan went as anticipated, there would be a battle between Gischala and Eleazar with many casualties. He wanted to make sure that the medical services that Jacob was in charge of would be ready and exceptional and that Jacob would be rewarded accordingly.
Jacob said to Nathan, “Just two guards. My visit will be incognito. I cannot afford to have Simon find out about it.”
Jacob and his two escorts walked over to the hippodrome and entered the large arena, only to find a handful of assistants managing the entire hospital. They looked woefully unprepared for what was about to happen.
Jacob pulled aside one of the assistants, an older woman, who was so busy she didn’t recognize Jacob.
“Where is Alexander?”
“He’s working in the mines.”
She tried to return to her work, but he held her and demanded, “The mines? What is he doing working in the mines?”
“That’s what we all said. But he wouldn’t listen. He’s been working there the last few days.”
Jacob stormed out of the arena and pushed his way through the crowds of the Tyropoeon Valley on his way to the mine.
When he arrived, Jacob marched right down into the cave without stopping, all the way down until he found his target deep in the bowels of the mine.
Alexander was using a pick axe against the limestone walls along with dozens of his fellow Christians. He was sweaty and covered in dust with a scarf covering his mouth. But Jacob would know that creature anywhere. He had become obsessed with the Christian doctor as an object of revenge. His intent had been to make Alexander miserable, but it seemed the doctor had outdone Jacob’s intentions.
“Alexander, stop working!” Jacob yelled above the noise of iron chipping stone. He broke off to cough from the dusty air he was breathing in.
Alexander stopped swinging his pick and turned toward Jacob. So did those around them.
“What in hell are you doing?” Jacob demanded.
Alexander glanced around. “This isn’t quite Gehenna, but it’s close.”
Jacob was not taking the humor in stride. “I need you in the hippodrome performing your medical duties. You are risking your life and the lives of countless others if you die down here.”
Alexander stood firm against him. “These are my brothers down here. They are my purpose for being in this city. Whatever you do to the least of them, you do unto Jesus. And that includes me.”
Jacob burned with anger. The doctor was deliberately using a phrase that the Nazarene had used to condemn those who mistreated Christians during the Great Tribulation.
Dirty little satan, thought Jacob. How dare he make such an accusation.
“My lord,” said Alexander, “I will gladly return to my duties in the hippodrome—if I can bring these assistants with me. There are only fifty of them left, and they are already trained to provide the best care possible for the sick and wounded. Is that not what will bring you the recognition you are looking for?”
Jacob felt uncomfortable under the eyes of those standing around him. The very ones whose lives were being bargained with.
But now Jacob fully understood the doctor’s intentions. His care of patients was second to his commitment to protect his fellow believers. They were everything to him.
Alexander was the best of only a few doctors available, and he would need all the help he could get from his trained Christian assistants for the wave of casualties that was coming. Jacob could no longer hold back if he wanted to come out of this clean.
“All right,” said Jacob with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You may bring your Christian helpers back to the hippodrome.”
Alexander beamed a smile as he looked around at his fellow dirt-covered Christian miners. Surrounding the doctor, they hugged him with gratitude.
Jacob hated their camaraderie, their love for one another. It was unnerving.
Alexander broke away from his men and approached Jacob. “Thank you, my lord. You will not regret this.”
“I had better not.”
Jacob stomped back up the tunnel. He coughed again and pulled his cloak up to cover his mouth.
Jacob couldn’t tell Alexander that his betrayal of Eleazar was going to provide the doctor with many wounded sooner than he realized.
Jacob and his two men arrived at the Hall of Unhewn Stones on the west side beneath the temple mount. Jacob gave a message to the guards there to give to Gischala.
His bodyguards waited outside as Jacob was brought into the hall alone where Gischala met him with two of his captains.
The large semi-circular room was usually used for sanhedrin deliberation but was empty now as Jacob offered Gischala his plan.
“I know how you can eliminate Eleazar and take the inner temple.”
Gischala eyed him suspiciously. “And why would you want to betray one of your countrymen into my hands?”
“You are one of my countrymen,” he replied. Gischala nodded agreeably.
Jacob continued. “The fact of the matter is that Eleazar is a fanatic who endangers the whole city. He is a mere impediment to your superior forces, which makes him an aid to the Roman abomination.”
“True enough,” replied the warrior.
Jacob added, “I want Judea to win this conflict, not lose it by cutting our own throats with civil war.”
“What about Simon?” queried Gischala. “We are also at odds.”
“That is more complicated. But Eleazar is a simple matter. And I have a simple way for you to take Eleazar out of the equation.”
Gischala gave a look at his captains. “Our stone miner and medical coordinator is apparently a military strategist as well.”
They chuckled.
Jacob spoke up with confidence. “Thanks to my mining, I have an intimate knowledge of the underbelly of this entire city. And I know how to get into Eleazar’s hideout in the inner temple.”
Gischala gave him a look of serious interest. Now Jacob would finally have the respect he needed for his own intentions.
He said, “Eleazar will obviously have guards over every tunnel he knows beneath the temple. But Eleazar has never been to the mine. So Eleazar does not know of my tunnel.”
CHAPTER 12
The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night.
Apocalypse 8:12
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
The Passover had come on the fourteenth of the month of Nisan. For the next seven days, the pilgrims of Jerusalem would be celebrating the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They would bake and eat the prescribed food as a commemoration of the haste with which they had to leave Egypt in the Exodus. The feast would end on the seventh day with a celebration at the temple.38
Gischala had an agreement with Eleazar to avoid battles during feasts and religious duties of the priesthood. This way the people would not rise up against them both for violating Torah and the sacred space of the temple would not be polluted with the blood
of war.
For that reason, Eleazar had opened the gates of the temple for the faithful to enter during the festival. It was the last day of the festival and a time of celebration in the temple courts. The moon was starting to leave its full phase but still lit up the temple mount with heavenly glow on this hot summer night. People packed into the outer courts, chattering, dancing, and singing in their various families and communities.
Groups of men came to present themselves before the Lord in the temple’s inner court. Disguised as one of them, Gischala looked up on the battlements of the temple to see a few unsuspecting guards. Eleazar was keeping his part of their agreement.
Unfortunately for Eleazar, Gischala wasn’t. He whistled. The hundred men who had just entered the temple with him threw off their cloaks to reveal armor and weapons ready for battle. There were only about fifty of Eleazar’s Zealots casually overseeing the inner court. Gischala’s men dispatched them quickly before they could even notify their fellow Zealots of the attack. Hundreds of them had joined the festivities outside, and the rest of them were camped out in the compartments below the temple.
A trumpeter blew his horn for attack.
In the crowded outer court, three hundred other men rushed forward and broke into the temple to join Gischala.
They pushed the gate shut behind them.
Jacob had earlier revealed to Gischala a secret tunnel route that led from his mine to the inner temple. A horde of Gischala’s soldiers had been quietly waiting there to attack. When they heard the trumpet, they burst out of hiding, filling the hallways and compartments with brandished weapons.
Eleazar’s men were taken by surprise. Those who had been sleeping were thrust through with swords before they could awaken. Others who were awake sought to fight back but were overwhelmed by the numbers and lack of preparation.
Not all were zealous in their loyalty to Eleazar. While half of the Zealots were cut down, the other half surrendered.
The floors of the tunnels and rooms beneath the temple ran thick with the blood of the conquered forces.
Up above in the inner court, Gischala stood victoriously on the steps, surrounded by his armed men.
At last, a handful of warriors came from below dragging the beaten body of Eleazar out of the hall and up to the foot of the steps. They dropped him to the ground. Grunting in pain, he looked up at his conqueror descending the steps in the moonlight to meet him.
When Gischala came near to Eleazar, he sat down on the last step to talk out of earshot of his men.
Eleazar spoke painfully, holding his side of broken ribs. “Traitor. You pollute the temple with the blood of war.”
Gischala smiled, looking around at his men. Then he whispered to Eleazar, “This is my temple. You polluted it long ago when you took it from me.”
Eleazar coughed up blood. Gischala said, “Can you see the moon and stars tonight, Eleazar?”
The Zealot refused to look at the sky. He kept staring at his captor with hatred in his eyes. Gischala added, “A third of the heavenly bodies over Jerusalem are struck tonight. A third of the sun has gone dark. Two thirds remain.”
Gischala was using the language of prophecy that Eleazar knew all too well. Covenantal language. The description of the heavenly host going dark or being struck or falling from the sky was a way of describing the fall of powers, whether in heaven or on earth. In this case, it was earth as Eleazar represented one third of the rulers who had power over the holy city.
Gischala leaned in and growled, “I trained you when I was captain of this temple. When I stood against Florus on this very spot, against the abomination of Rome, you didn’t stand with me. You watched as I became a fugitive so you could take my place. And then you dared to stand against me when I returned. Well, you fought on the wrong side of this conflict. Now it is time for you to stand and face God.”
Eleazar spat on Gischala, who pulled back and wiped the spittle from his cheek.
Standing up, Gischala declared, “Hang him from the Beautiful Gate.”
His men cheered and dragged Eleazar over to the front gate of the temple, now opened, where they threw a rope down and pulled their captive up into the air.
As Eleazar’s body jerked with its last spasms of life, Gischala looked out onto the crowd of Jews that had amassed below the steps. They had been silenced by what was transpiring before them.
Gischala announced, “The Zealot Eleazar, traitor to our people and our cause, is dead! I have cleansed the temple of his corruption. Now the inner and outer temple are one and I am its guardian! To all those of his men who remain, I give amnesty! Join us as one to protect the temple from the nations who would defile God’s holy house!”39
His men cheered. The crowd joined in. Soon, chants of “Gischala! Gischala! Gischala!” could be heard outside the walls in the streets of Jerusalem—and no doubt in the ears of Simon bar Giora.
CHAPTER 13
Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of the people. The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
Apocalypse 9:13-17
Road to Jerusalem
Apollyon stood with Azazel on a high place on the hillside above Gibeah about four miles outside of Jerusalem.
Azazel breathed in the air with relish. “Ah, the desert of chaos. It feeds me.”
Apollyon gave him a suspicious glance. Azazel was referring to the fact that the Jews called the desert the dwelling place of Azazel and his goat demons.40 It had been the satyr’s domain for so long in the past, and he surely wanted to take it back from Apollyon if he had the opportunity.
That was one of the reasons why the Angel of the Abyss had separated Azazel from his co-captain Semyaza by sending the latter to watch over his human ward Vespasian. Despite their importance to his plans, Apollyon had to head off the possibility of a coup, so it was worth keeping them apart.
In order to release the captive four angels at the Euphrates, Apollyon had been required by the divine council to return the two hundred ancient ones back to the Abyss. He had substituted two others for these mighty leaders.
Apollyon looked out upon the snaking column of legionary soldiers winding its way through the valley toward its destination: Jerusalem. In the lead were the auxiliary forces from among the nations. Then the three legions followed by their imperial legate Titus. The fourth legion was going to meet them from the direction of Jericho. In all a total of over sixty thousand troops descending upon Jerusalem like a plague of locusts. Or more precisely, a plague of locust demons.
Apollyon, the Locust King, considered the irony with amusement. In the unseen realm of the spirit, the picture was a bit more impressive. The seventy gods of the nations went before the horde dressed in their heavenly armor and ready for war. The number of mounted troops following them was more like two hundred million. Apollyon snorted with satisfaction at yet again mocking the Most High, who often referred to his heavenly host as “ten thousand times ten thousands of his holy ones.”41 That would be a mere hundred million. Well, Apollyon had twice that number in his demon army of “unholy ones” that now infested the legions of Rome. Through spiritual eyes, these blasphemous creatures were frightening exaggerations of their earthly counterparts. Their horses wore breastplates of fire, sapphire, and sulfur. Their heads were lion’s heads. Fire, smoke, and sulfur came out of their mouths. And their tails were like serpents with heads.42
“What of the northern army?” asked Azazel. He was referring to the t
hree thousand Roman legionaries who guarded the Euphrates River in the north.
“Oh, they are on their way,” answered Apollyon. “I wouldn’t miss that symbolic opportunity for anything.” He was referring to the fact that his four captive angels were previously released at the Euphrates River, which was the unleashing of Apollyon’s restrictions to be able to launch this final campaign upon Jerusalem. Every significant enemy of Yahweh had invaded Israel from the northern regions. Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece. So the Euphrates River as the northernmost border of the Promised Land had become a consistent symbol used by the Hebrew prophets to express impending judgment by Yahweh.43 Apollyon was certainly not going to break that delicious prophetic pattern.
“Mark my words,” said Apollyon to his watching accomplice. “I’ll be done with these Jews within five months, and by then another third of their population will be dead, their city and temple desolate.”
CHAPTER 14
Pella
Cassandra sat on the left side of the congregation holding her sleeping infant. Rachel sat beside her as they all listened to Boaz preach a sermon. Women and children sat separate from men just as in Jewish synagogues. Cassandra’s attention was distracted by Rachel’s gaze at a young man sitting near Noah on the opposite side of the converted synagogue. He was gazing back at her daughter.
Jonathan. The young man on whom Rachel’s thoughts of marriage had centered no matter how much Cassandra discouraged them. The youth was admittedly quite handsome. Sweeping hair, good complexion, quite masculine for his age. He had been training to become a warrior. He wasn’t a worthless suitor if it came to that.