by Lynn Austin
At first the only words Joshua could pray were, “Please, Lord . . . please don’t take Miriam.” He repeated them silently over and over as Jerimoth prayed silently beside him. As time passed and Joshua’s panic lessened he began to bargain with God, promising to build Him the finest temple in the world, promising to dedicate his life to making Elephantine their home—anything God asked—if only He would spare Miriam’s life. But when even a lifetime of dedicated service didn’t seem like enough, Joshua decided he had to pledge the one thing he’d refused to relinquish all these years: “O God,” he prayed, “if you give Miriam back to me, I’ll cancel the debt Manasseh owes me. I’ll sacrifice my need for revenge, I’ll lay aside all the hatred I feel for him, I’ll put Manasseh out of my heart and my mind forever in exchange for Miriam’s life.” It was all he had to offer.
Hours later, Jerimoth tugged on his sleeve. When Joshua looked up and saw their mother signaling to them from the women’s courtyard, his heart stood still. He scrambled to his feet and ran toward her. “Mama, no . . . please don’t tell me . . .”
“Miriam is asking for you.”
“Is she going to die?”
“She might. She’s very weak from losing so much blood.”
“I need to see her.” He turned, ready to take off at a run, but his mother stopped him.
“Joshua, wait. I’m sorry, but the baby was stillborn.”
He took a moment to absorb the painful truth. “You mean all that time, all that suffering . . . for nothing?”
“I’m so sorry.”
His child was dead. And Joshua had made the decision to bring him into the world too soon. “Does Miriam know about the baby?”
Jerusha nodded. “You need to give her a reason to hang on, Joshua. She’s suffered terribly, and now she wants to give up. She wants to go to paradise with her baby son.”
“No! She can’t die!” Again he started to leave, again his mother stopped him.
“Wait, son. I need to tell you something else.” Joshua’s heart raced as he steeled himself for more. “The midwives said that if Miriam lives, there can’t be any more pregnancies. She will never be able to deliver a baby because of her paralysis. This birth nearly killed her. She must not get pregnant again.”
He stared, unable to speak. If she lives?
“Go to her, son. She needs you. Jerimoth will walk me home.”
Joshua ran blindly through the streets, too incoherent with grief and fear to pray. When he stumbled through the door, he saw one of the midwives holding his tiny, shrouded baby in her arms. She looked up at him with sorrowful eyes. “I’m so sorry, my lord.”
“I’d like to hold my son,” he said.
“That isn’t wise. . . .”
“Give me my son.” He spoke the command quietly, but he knew that his rage was apparent in the deliberate way he pronounced each word. The midwife unwound the swaddling cloths so Joshua could see his son’s tiny gray face. He looked peaceful in spite of losing his two-day struggle for life. Joshua lifted him from her and settled him into the crook of his arm. He remembered holding Amariah’s son at the circumcision ceremony and feeling the warmth and life in the infant’s body. His own child felt stiff and cold. The midwife turned her face away at his tears.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to his son. “I’m sorry. I wanted you to live . . . but . . .” He couldn’t finish. He gently handed the baby to the midwife and turned away to wipe his eyes before going into Miriam’s bedchamber. What could he say to his wife? How could he explain the death of the child she had longed for when he didn’t understand it himself?
Miriam’s face was whiter than the linen sheets, her body as cold as their son’s. He lifted the blanket and lay down in the bed beside her, drawing her to himself. She felt small and fragile in his arms, with no strength to hold him in return.
“Don’t leave me, Miriam. Stay with me. Please.”
“I don’t think I can. . . .”
“Remember what you told me? It’s not your life and my life anymore, it’s our life.”
“I can’t give you children.”
“You’re more important to me than children.”
“No—”
“It’s the truth, Miriam! Don’t call me a liar!”
A tear rolled down her pale cheek. “I hate my broken body . . . my twisted legs, these useless hands . . .”
“I love you. Every inch of you, just the way you are.”
“How can you? Other women are whole and—”
“Do you see me as a monster with a scarred face and a mangled eye? I see you as my precious wife. You’re not crippled to me. I love you for who you are, not because you’ll give me children.”
“But I want you to have a son. If I die, you can marry—”
“Don’t make choices for me, Miriam! If you love me, give me what I want! I want you! I already have a son!” He hugged her fiercely, angry with himself for shouting at her, desperate to convince her to live. “O God . . . Miriam . . . if only I could give you my strength, my body. . . . Please don’t leave me. The darkness will swallow me alive if you go. I’ll never find my way out. Stay with me, please stay with me.”
“I’ll try. . . .”
“You will! . . . God of Abraham, please! You will!” He held her in his arms until she fell asleep, willing his life into her body, pleading silently with God to spare her.
At sundown on the third day, Joshua was still keeping his exhausted vigil, sitting beside Miriam’s bed, refusing to leave her. He was only dimly aware of the midwives coming and going, taking care of her, as he waited for Miriam to come back to him. Finally his mother knelt in front of him and took his face in her hands.
“Son, look at me. It’s over. You can let go of Miriam’s hand now.”
“No . . . she wants me to hold it—”
“It’s time to let go.”
“Miriam might—”
“She’s asleep. She isn’t going to die. But you need some fresh air. You need to go watch the sunset and see that there’s still a world outside this room. If you hurry, you can make it in time for the evening sacrifice. Miriam is out of danger. I promise you that she will live.” It took a moment for his mother’s words to penetrate, for him to finally understand that God wasn’t going to take Miriam as He’d taken everything else. “Go make a thank offering, Joshua. God answered your prayers.”
He ran all the way to the temple grounds. The other men were clustered around the altar, watching the priests slay the evening sacrifice, but Joshua remained at a distance, surveying the jumble of debris surrounding his partially built temple. He knew that the only thing that had delayed its completion was his own ambivalence.
He waited until the service ended before crossing the courtyard to stand before the blazing altar. He whispered a prayer of gratitude for Miriam’s life and renewed his vow to build an enduring monument to God in his new homeland. Then he drew a deep breath, remembering his other vow.
Joshua knew that forgetting everything that Manasseh had done and giving up his own right to revenge would be the hardest of his vows to fulfill. But as the sacrifice burned on the great altar in front of him, Joshua knelt before God and finally laid all of his hatred, all of his vengeance at Yahweh’s feet.
19
Nathan inhaled the pungent aroma of roasting meat as he hurried across the crowded city square. The temple that Joshua and the other men had labored for years to build was finally complete, and the entire community had gathered to dedicate it as they celebrated the Feast of Pentecost. Nathan didn’t care about the new temple or Pentecost, but he was looking forward to the chance to drink and celebrate with his friends. The sound of music and laughter, the roar of voices raised in celebration rang in his ears as he slid into his seat at the banquet table between his brother, Mattan, and sister, Miriam.
“You’re late,” Miriam chided. “We had to start eating without you. Where have you been?”
“With some friends from my platoon.” He reached for t
he platter of meat, turning his head so she wouldn’t smell his breath and discover that he and his friends had also shared a cask of Egyptian beer. He was high from it but not quite drunk.
“You should have changed out of your army uniform,” Miriam said. “You know Joshua hates to see you come to a Jewish feast in Egyptian clothes.”
“I don’t care. He isn’t sitting with us anyway.” He gestured to the head table, where Joshua sat beside Prince Amariah. “He’s much too important to sit with us.”
“This is a momentous day for your father. Please don’t ruin it by being difficult.”
“He isn’t my father,” Nathan mumbled, but he had a mouth full of bread and hoped Miriam couldn’t hear him.
Uncle Jerimoth and his growing family filled the remainder of the places at their table. “Have some melon, Nathan,” Jerimoth said, passing a bowl of fruit. “It’s delicious. You must be very proud of your father and what he has accomplished. I know I’m proud that he’s my brother.”
“I wonder what he’ll do with himself now that his precious temple is finished.”
Jerimoth smiled patiently. “It’s not his temple; it’s God’s.”
“Don’t kid yourself. That building is his obsession. He lives for it.” Nathan knew that Joshua would have lectured him for his surly tone of voice, but Uncle Jerimoth was perpetually cheerful.
“It belongs to all of us, Nathan,” his uncle said. “It’s going to be the centerpiece of our life here.”
“It’s going to be an anchor, weighing us down. Joshua used to talk about going back to Judah and fighting for our homeland. Now he’ll never leave this island. He’ll never tear himself away from his masterpiece. And just when I’m finally old enough to fight, too.”
“Is it such a hardship for you to live here on Elephantine?” Jerimoth asked kindly.
“It’s a prison sentence! I’m sick of this place. There’s a whole world out there, full of interesting people and places, but I’m stuck here in the past, anchored to a bunch of rituals that were old and moldy five hundred years ago.”
Uncle Jerimoth’s smile vanished as he studied Nathan with concern. “What’s wrong, son? Why are you so bitter?”
“I’m not bitter! I’m bored! I spent the first eight years of my life scrounging for a living in Jerusalem. Now I’ve been stuck on this miserable island in the middle of nowhere for eleven years. Except for the year we lived in Moab, I’ve never seen anything of the world.”
“Does your father know how you feel about living here?”
Nathan almost said he’s not my father but stopped himself in time. “He doesn’t care.”
“Now, I know that’s not true. Listen, Nathan, you shouldn’t hold your feelings inside for too long. You need to talk to Joshua. If you bottle them up, they’ll only fester and ferment until they spew out in the wrong way and at the wrong time.”
Nathan simply nodded and finished his meal in silence. Later, as Joshua strolled among the tables, greeting people and acting important, Uncle Jerimoth waved to get his attention. “Joshua . . . over here!”
He moved toward them, grinning, walking on air. The sight disgusted Nathan. But before Joshua had a chance to greet him, one of Jerimoth’s sons stopped him with a question.
“Uncle Joshua, isn’t your temple exactly like the one in Jerusalem? My brother Mattan says it isn’t.”
Joshua crouched beside him. “I keep forgetting that you were born here. You’ve never seen Solomon’s Temple, have you? Well, you’re both right, in a way. This temple has the same dimensions as the one in Jerusalem, and I built it to look exactly the same, right down to the two pillars in front. But instead of facing east, I’ve aligned it to face Jerusalem. The limestone that we quarried from the cliffs along the Nile isn’t exactly like Judean limestone, either, but see the roof? That’s the biggest difference. The roof of Solomon’s Temple is covered with gold. And our courtyard is smaller, too. There was no need to make it any bigger since not as many people will be coming here to worship.”
“Abba says from now on we’re going to celebrate all the feasts exactly the same way as they do in Jerusalem,” the boy said.
“That’s right. According to the Torah . . .” Joshua then noticed Nathan, slouched in his seat. “Why did you come to the feast dressed like an Egyptian?”
“Because I felt like it.”
Joshua stood to face him, and Nathan scrambled to his feet, too, feeling the dizzying effects of all the beer he had drunk. Jerimoth stepped smoothly between them. “Let it go, Joshua. Nathan and I were talking during dinner, and I think he’s still a little upset.”
“What on earth does he have to be upset about? I’ve given him everything he could possibly want.”
“You don’t even know what I want! I want to get off this island! I want to travel, meet people. I’m going stir crazy here.”
“You can’t leave until you finish your military training.”
“I need a break from it.”
He saw the color rise in Joshua’s face. “A break? That’s what you said about your other studies. You never finished those, either.”
“I don’t care. I want to see something different for a change.”
“The world out there has nothing to offer but temptation,” Joshua said in the superior, all-knowing tone that Nathan hated. “Everything you need to be happy can be found right here on this island.” Before Nathan could reply to that ridiculous comment, a knot of city elders surged up to the table to congratulate Joshua.
“Nathan, let it go for now,” Jerimoth whispered as Joshua spoke with the other men. “When I advised you to talk to your father, I didn’t mean right now. He’s exhausted. He has barely had time to sit down all day.”
“He never has time.”
When the elders finally drifted away, Joshua turned to him again. Nathan saw how weary he looked, but he plunged ahead anyway. “Listen, I’m not a kid anymore, I’m twenty years old. Let me travel with one of Uncle Jerimoth’s caravans for a couple of months. Let me see the world.”
“This is hardly the time or the place for this discussion,” Joshua said coldly.
“Oh, I get it. You have more important things to do.”
“That’s not what I meant. I—”
“My lord, Prince Amariah is waiting for you,” one of the elders interrupted.
“I’ll be there in a minute.” Joshua turned to him again. “Nathan, I don’t know where this crazy idea about traveling came from, but you can just forget it.”
“See?” Nathan said to Jerimoth, “I told you he never listens to me.” He stalked away in search of his friends and another cask of Egyptian beer.
Torches lit the courtyard that evening as Mattan watched the men dancing in the city square with the Torah scroll. He scanned all their faces, searching for his brother Nathan, but he was nowhere in sight. The Feast of Pentecost was such a joyful occasion, with music and dancing and tables piled high with food from the first harvest. And the dedication of the new temple had given them even more reason to celebrate. But Nathan had come close to ruining the feast for everyone by arguing with Uncle Joshua at the dinner table. Mattan didn’t understand his brother at all. Why was he always so unhappy?
He was still looking for Nathan when two of Mattan’s younger brothers ran up to him and began tugging on his hands. “Come with us, Matt. We’re going to go get some more date cakes.”
“Not right now. I’m full. Maybe later.” He was proud that they looked up to him, but he was worried about Nathan. Then the crowd parted for a moment and he spotted him across the square, laughing with a gang of his friends from the barracks. Mattan shooed the youngsters away. “Go find Abba. He’ll take you for more sweets.”
He sauntered over to Nathan. “Where have you been all night? I haven’t seen you since you left the dinner table.” He decided not to mention Nathan’s argument with Uncle Joshua.
Nathan looked up at Mattan with unfocused eyes. “Having a private party of my own. Want some of
this?”
Mattan sniffed the mug Nathan offered him. “Is this Egyptian beer? Where did you get it?”
“What difference does it make? Here—have some.”
Mattan knew by the way Nathan slurred his words that he was drunk. He also knew that his own Abba would be very disappointed in him if he ever got that drunk—and so would Uncle Joshua if he knew about Nathan. Mattan took the mug that Nathan shoved into his hands in order to avoid an argument. He pretended to sip as he listened to him and his friends laughing and bragging about their army training and life in the barracks. The gathering seemed harmless enough, but as time passed, Mattan could tell that his brother was growing restless.
“This party’s winding down,” Nathan said as he downed another beer. “Time for some excitement.”
“What do you suggest?” one of the others asked.
“How about a trip to the mainland?”
Mattan was too stunned to speak. When most of Nathan’s friends began to argue against the idea he was relieved. Even with too much beer in their stomachs, clouding their judgment, they remembered the consequences. “It’s forbidden, Nate. We’d better not.”
But Nathan wouldn’t give in. “So what! In the first place, your fathers are so wiped out from a day of celebrating they’ll never even miss you. And in the second place, I can guarantee it will be worth the risk.”
“What’s on the mainland besides trouble?”
Nathan grinned. “Egyptian girls. They’re celebrating the festival of Osiris this week.”
“How come you know so much about pagan festivals?”
“I lived with the Egyptians for a while. They can really hold an orgy, too—not like our stuffy festivals. Anything goes with them. That’s how they celebrate over there.”
“Forget it, Nate. One look at us and they’ll know we’re Jews. They won’t have anything to do with us.”
“You’re forgetting that we’re soldiers in Pharaoh’s army now. Our uniforms will impress them.”
“I don’t know . . . count me out.”
“Yeah, me too.” All but three of Nathan’s friends wandered away.