by Brian Godawa
He found it and marched with deliberation toward the action.
• • • • •
The reason it seemed as if the Israelites had a large force was because they had spread out their four hundred in number around the entire camp. When the war horn sounded, they attacked from every side. There were a few men in small fighting squads, but the impact of a simultaneous invasion from all sides had an overwhelming effect. It caused panic in the ranks of the Amalekites.
David had counted on that panic, coupled with the Amalekites’ diminished capacity from celebrating, to help even out the odds. But with gibborim like Abishai, Benaiah, Joab, Jashobeam and others beside him, those odds were now in his favor.
They cut through the desert camp with a fury. Abishai and Joab went to protect the captives. Jashobeam and Eleazar led squads to torch the tents. Only Benaiah and the Guard fought with David as he pushed his way toward the center.
The battle went quickly and decisively in David’s favor. Amalekites were running, jumping on their camels and trying to escape.
Through the smoke and flames, the mad screams and scattered confusion, David noticed a sole figure at a distance of a hundred feet, a giant walking his way, unscathed by the battle, intent on a mission. He cut down Israelites without even looking at them. He was in fact looking at David.
It was Lahmi.
In an instant, David suddenly knew it was a mistake to have left Ittai back at the brook.
His attention was diverted by ten attacking Amalekites, screaming with madness and wielding swords, axes and maces. Benaiah and he met them with skilled technique, superior to their enemy’s demonic insanity.
Lahmi stopped seventy-five feet away from David and set his javelin loop for a throw.
David finished off two Amalekites. He turned and saw the javelin already in the air flying towards him with mighty speed. In the darkness, he could not judge its distance or speed well and did not have enough time to dodge it.
It was going to skewer him.
Benaiah’s leaping figure intercepted the javelin in mid-air, mere feet from David’s body. He tumbled to the ground snapping the javelin in two with a roll to his feet.
David looked back up to see the figure of Lahmi curse him and then bolt off into the darkness of the desert with other Amalekites on their camels. Lahmi knew his chances were slim at closing the distance and getting a strike in on David before being overwhelmed by the host of gibborim around him.
David was about to order a chase, when the dozen Rephaim broke through the smoke with all their senses locked as one onto David.
Benaiah, Abishai, Joab and the other gibborim responded by lining up in front of David.
The giants attacked. On their way toward their target, they ran over warriors, both friend and foe, without even noticing them. Their skill and speed were frightening.
They hit the line of David’s gibborim. These warriors, who had taken down hundreds of men in single battles and thousands over their lifetime were taxed to their utmost of skill and energy to keep these twelve giants at bay. It was the most ruthless fighting David had yet seen. And it caused him to wonder how impossible it might be to confront an army of them.
But his mighty men rose up that night with supernatural vigor. They not only held the giants at bay, they ended up slaughtering every last one of them. No one was going to touch their anointed messiah.
David looked out into the darkness where Lahmi had fled, and he knew the giant would be back one day. He only hoped he would be ready for him.
Chapter 76
Saul had run out of steam. He had switched to a battle axe earlier, but his arm felt heavy as lead. He could swing no more. Jonathan’s bow was empty. The armor-bearer was out of arrows. The fight between the three guardian angels and the three demons from hell continued unabated. But the demons were pressing in. The fighting all around Saul dizzied him. Jonathan pulled his sword and held his own against the onslaught.
Mount Gilboa had turned into a mountain of death.
Earlier, dark storm clouds had gathered overhead. Now thunder cracked the sky, and it began to rain.
Asherah had faced off against Remiel, who was relentless with a battle axe. She matched him stride for stride. When the first drops of rain struck her, she thought to herself, Just like Yahweh, the cowardly, cheating bastard.
Since before the time of the Great Deluge, she and her fellow gods had been created with a weakness in water. Their supernatural strength would become as mere humans when submerged. By making it rain on this Jezreel Valley battle, Yahweh was tipping the scales in his favor.
By the time the gods were drenched in the rain, they had begun to falter. All of them could feel it. Even Ba’alzebul’s mighty brawn had lessened to a mere mortal’s. Saraqael began to push him back. Dagon’s arms tired with the use of his trident against Raguel. Asherah felt every hit of Remiel’s sword jar her muscles.
The hill had turned into a pile of slippery mud. Jonathan slipped and fell into the muck. It gave his opponent the opportunity to thrust his sword into Jonathan’s gut. He screamed out.
Saul howled, “Jonathan!”
He picked up a javelin with a superhuman burst of energy and thrust it into the Philistine attacker.
Then he was by Jonathan’s side. The armor-bearer shielded them for the moment.
“Father,” Jonathan grimaced. Saul saw his blood pumping out and mixing with the rain in the mud. Jonathan was pale. Saul placed his hand on the wound. He knew it was the end.
“My son. What have I done? What have I done?”
Saul looked into Jonathan’s eyes and knew in that moment that he was about to lose everything: his life, his sons, his kingdom, his legacy. He was being cast off to the uttermost. Deep within him a black rage welled up. It is all Yahweh’s fault. He has done this to me. He has cursed me. He has caused this evil. I was a great man. He took my glory because he was a jealous, selfish tyrant.
Jonathan whimpered, “Father, Yahweh is just,” and he died in his arms.
Saul set him down with a steel heart. Yahweh is just? Yahweh is just? After all that Jonathan had been through, and now, the end of the Saulide bloodline, and the words on Jonathan’s dying lips were, “Yahweh is just?” Absurd. Preposterous. His son had died a deluded fanatic.
Saul stood up to scream into the black, stormy sky, “DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU TO SHEOL!”
Though the spirit of Nimrod had long since departed from Saul, he retained a kind of madness. The only one with power to damn a creature to Sheol was Yahweh. So a curse to damn Yahweh was the kind of irrational bellow that could only come from a mind and heart ravaged with the madness of unmitigated pride. It was pride that was the elemental sin of mankind. And pride unchecked became an obsession to control that would always end in the frustration of unfulfilled self-deification. Though he tried, man could not be God.
At that moment, Saul looked up into the sky. He saw a flurry of Philistine arrows raining down upon them.
Asherah and the gods knew they had failed. They braced themselves for impact.
A thousand arrows peppered the area, piercing men and god alike. The angels were hit. The gods were hit. Saul was hit. His armor-bearer had used his shield to protect himself instead.
Saul fell to the ground with three shafts in him. He lay in the muck next to his son’s body.
The gods pulled out the arrows from their bodies like annoying pins and needles. They knew they had lost. So they turned from the battle and ran off, leaving the angels to nurse their own wounds.
A new wave of Philistines approached Saul. They would be there in moments.
Saul looked up at his armor-bearer and grunted, “Draw your sword and thrust it through me, lest these uncircumcised Philistines molest me with dishonor.”
The armor-bearer stood agape with fear. He fell to his knees weeping. “I cannot, my lord. I cannot bring myself to it.”
Saul whimpered, “Forsaken by everyone.”
He picked up his own swor
d, placed it at his gut and fell to the ground pushing the sword into him with a guttural groan.
The Philistines came upon them. The armor-bearer looked up and followed his king by falling on his own sword.
The reign of Saul had ended.
Chapter 77
The town of Ziklag had been repopulated with the hostages rescued from the Amalekites. David and his four hundred men slaughtered eleven hundred of their enemies. Four hundred of them had escaped on their camels, and along with them, Lahmi of Gath.
But now they had their work cut out for them in rebuilding the ruins of their town. It would take many months to repair what evil had destroyed in one day.
Ittai stared out into the hazy desert terrain. He was on duty as watch-guard of the town’s perimeter. David had felt foolish because of his decision to leave Ittai out of the raid on the Amalekites. He had almost been killed because of it. He told Ittai he would never let that happen again.
Ittai’s attention was piqued by the sight of a single man on a horse approaching the city. He appeared to be half dead, in ragged clothes and almost falling off his mount.
Ittai rushed out to meet the visitor with a squad of gibborim.
• • • • •
“I am the son of a sojourner,” said the man in tattered garments. He knelt before David in the leader’s war tent, surrounded by his trusted commanders.
“My name is Namiaza. In my travels, I happened upon the aftermath of a battle at Gilboa between the Philistines and Israel.”
David gestured to some servants, who brought forward some wine for the messenger. Namiaza’s eyes went wide and he gobbled up the bread, nearly choking on it, spilling the wine as he guzzled it desperately.
Abishai and Joab looked askance at David, who sighed in thoughtfulness. “Tell me what you saw, Namiaza.”
Namiaza spoke with his mouth full of food. “The Israelite forces have scattered. Many are fallen and dead. Saul and his three eldest sons are dead.”
A sea of heads turned to look at David. He closed his eyes with pained heart. His whisper was only heard by Benaiah. “Jonathan.”
Namiaza continued, “The Philistines found the bodies of King Saul and his three sons. They cut off Saul’s head, hung his body and his son’s bodies on the walls of Beth-shan, stripped his armor and hung it in a temple of Ashtaroth.”
Idol of shame, thought David.
He looked back up at the traveller. “How do you know this?”
Namiaza took another gulp of food. “I travelled through Jabesh-gilead. And some of their valiant men had taken the bodies down from the walls of Beth-shan. They burned the bodies and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh.”
Silence permeated David’s men. It was a holy silence of respect. The world had just changed and the implications were far reaching.
“But I have not told you the most important part,” said Namiaza.
David looked at him with curiosity.
“You see, I had travelled through the battlefield before the Philistines had plundered it. And I had happened upon Saul, still alive, and leaning on his spear.”
David could not believe what he was hearing. All ears waited to hear what happened next.
Namiaza continued, “He called out for me to kill him before the Philistines were upon him, because he was already dying with some arrows in his body. I quickly recognized him as the king, and so I obeyed him, to protect him from the abuses of the Philistines.”
Terror filled David’s face. He slowly reached up and grabbed his outer robe and ripped it. The other leaders followed him, ripping theirs as well in the traditional manner of grief.
Namiaza reached into a sack he had with him. Benaiah and others reached for their swords in defensive reaction.
But it was not a weapon that Namiaza pulled from the sack. It was a golden crown and an armband, the royal emblems of Saul.
Namiaza approached David and knelt before him, handing him the crown and armband. He said, “My lord, how the mighty have fallen.”
He had hoped that since David would be the new king, maybe he would appoint Namiaza to some important position with wealth and prestige for his honorable obedience to the king and for producing the king’s crown.
He had counted wrong.
David’s eyes thinned in anger. “How is it you were not afraid to raise your hand in destruction against Yahweh’s anointed one?”
Namiaza’s eyes filled with terror. “But I obeyed the king! And I brought the crown to you.”
David looked away from him and said, “Execute this blasphemer.”
Joab had been waiting for this very moment before all the others. He stepped out, drew his sword, and cut off Namiaza’s head.
David looked back upon the decapitated corpse with blood pumping out onto the floor of the tent. He said without mercy, “Your blood be upon your own head. For you have testified against yourself when you said, ‘I have killed Yahweh’s anointed.’”
Two men dragged the corpse away. David said to his men, “Tonight, we will fast. Have everyone meet in the town square for a lamentation.”
• • • • •
That night in the town square, David sang a lamentation he had written in honor of King Saul and his son Jonathan.
“Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places!
How the mighty have fallen!
Tell it not in Gath,
publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.
“You mountains of Gilboa,
let there be no dew or rain upon you,
nor fields of offerings!
For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,
the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
“From the blood of the slain,
from the fat of the mighty,
the bow of Jonathan turned not back,
and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
“How the mighty have fallen
in the midst of the battle!
“Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.
“How the mighty have fallen,
and the weapons of war perished!”
After the lamentation, David looked out upon the people gathered around him. They were weeping for their king and for Israel, their people. He wept for his brother, Jonathan. The only man he had ever known who was without guile. He was the only man David could ever trust without reservation, because he was the only man who willingly gave up a kingdom for the glory of Yahweh.
His was a faith that had changed David. Beside Jonathan’s true, unwavering belief, David’s passionate ups and downs felt like so much juvenile insincerity. Yahweh had described David as a man after his own heart, and yet, David knew deep down that Jonathan was more worthy of that designation. He could only conclude that Yahweh brought things into being for his purposes. What Yahweh declared, he would create and make it so. David prayed that he would one day become what Yahweh had proclaimed him to be.
He quieted them down and announced, “I have consulted the ephod of Yahweh!”
The crowd waited to hear what the will of Yahweh was.
“We will go up to Hebron. And there, I will be crowned king of Judah!”
The crowd leapt with cheers.
After all these years of running and fighting, the time had finally come.
Someone yelled out, and the crowd chanted, “The king is dead! Long live the king! Saul is dead! Long live King David!”
Chapter 78
David looked out upon the city of Jerusalem before him. His forces were arrayed for a triumphal entry through the gates. He had conquered the city and was making his official entry to establish his kingship and rule from the cit
y as his new capital.
So much had happened since he had been anointed king of Judah at Hebron. Now, he was about to be crowned as king of both Judah and Israel in this new city, dubbed, “The City of David.” This would be the new capital from which he would rule a united kingdom of Judah in the south and Israel in the north.
The first thing he had done upon conquering and naming his City of David was to find a hill just outside the northern walls where he buried the skull of Goliath of Gath deep in the rocks of the earth. It was a symbolic ceremony of remembrance. That rocky ridge he named “Golgotha,” for “place of the skull.”
A company of minstrels and women dancers led the procession through the gates of the city. Women waved long, flowing, silken banners to the sounds of timbrel, lyre and tambourine. Other women sang songs of victory and kingship. Citizens laid palm leaves and branches on the ground as a ritual carpet of entry.
Benaiah sat ever-presently beside David, still the king’s chief counselor, and head of his bodyguard of Cherethites and Pelethites that followed the king’s entourage.
Joab rode at the forefront of the king’s escort with his brother Abishai next to him. Abishai was still chief of the Thirty, but Joab had finally surpassed him after years of competitive attempts to outperform his older brother. Joab was now Chief General Commander of all of David’s armed forces.
He had won this distinction by accepting David’s offer for a competition. The armies of Israel had besieged Jerusalem’s walls, but could not penetrate them to conquer the Jebusite inhabitants. So David offered the position of General Commander to anyone who would lead a strike force into Jerusalem using the underground water shaft. Joab volunteered first and led Judah to victory. It was Joab’s fearless leadership that led to the very triumphal entry that entered Jerusalem right now.
Behind the Cherethites and Pelethites were a contingent of David’s gibborim, his finest warriors who performed amazing feats of daring in battle and defense of the king. Many were in his original band of outlaws when he was on the run from Saul’s murderous pursuit.