Abraham and Sarah

by Roberta Kells Dorr

  “But, my lord,” Eliazer said hesitantly, “the little bird that rests in your bosom.”

  “My wife, Sarai, you mean. Among ourselves we can speak frankly. We are family, are we not?”

  “Well then, your wife, Sarai, has mentioned to some of the women that we are going to Shechem. The big, fruitful valley beyond the mountains of Gilboa.”

  Abram looked down into his cup and smiled. “So someone has plowed with my heifer, as the saying goes, and you think you have discovered something.”

  The men looked away in embarrassment. Very rarely did they give away the source of their information, particularly if it had come through their wives. However, they were all so anxious to discover what this man who walked among them like a god was thinking that they scrambled to get any bit of information possible. “We meant no harm,” one of them mumbled.

  “Of course you meant no harm,” Abram said as he handed his gourd for the serving lad to wipe with the tail of his short robe before he carefully fastened it back on his belt. “You want to know and I want to know. I’ve only this impression, this vision that comes into my mind of the fertile valley … the fig trees, pomegranates, nuts, and grain for bread … and grass for more flocks than we can imagine. A veritable garden.”

  “And,” Lot urged him on, “you are to be given this land?”

  “That my God has spoken I know. He wanted to save me from the trouble that was coming with the Elamites and also from the evils of the new religions and their idols.”

  “The land … what about the land you are to be given?” Lot was growing increasingly anxious.

  “I only know He is leading me to a place that is to belong to me and my descendants, and that my people are to be a great nation. These things I know, but the details weren’t given.” He got to his feet and walked out through the midst of them.

  When he was gone, one of the men spoke, “Do you think it’s true that he really doesn’t know where he is going?”

  “I think he knows a lot more than he is telling us,” another man ventured. “He’s certainly convinced it’s going to be some wonderful place.”

  “Well, I’m counting on Abram’s hadh, or luck as we say. He’s already wealthy beyond belief. I think we can trust his instincts for success,” Lot announced as if to assure himself. “You’ll see, this God of his has promised to bless him, and if we are there, we’ll get some of it too.”

  “But the famine. What about the famine?” one of them said.

  Lot turned back and spoke almost fiercely, “You can be sure the famine isn’t where we’re going. Abram’s God promised blessings.” With that he said good night to Eliazer and left.

  The men thanked Eliazer for his hospitality and then quietly disappeared into the star-studded night. The vicious dogs that were trained to prowl all night around the camp growled, baring their teeth until each man spoke, and then knowing the voice, they went on their way.

  The night air was fragrant with the odor of wood smoke and pine. Here on the lower slopes of Hermon were pine forests and, in places, jutting rocks, caves, and bubbling streams. If it weren’t such rugged country, it would be a delightful place to stay.

  As Abram approached his tent, he had a feeling of well-being. Their grain bags were full, the leather satchels were stuffed with the most succulent dates, and since they had gathered the pine cones on Hermon, they had a good supply of pine nuts. He saw that Sarai had already gone to bed and was undoubtedly asleep. He could decide in the morning whether to tell her how the secret he had entrusted to her had suddenly come out in the meeting.

  He smiled as he pictured her hair loose and flowing, her lashes thick and feathery like a young girl’s. Her mouth still had the fullness of passion, and when she was awake, it either curved into a smile or, if puzzled or irritated, formed into a most provocative pout.

  If he scolded her for her indiscretion in telling his secrets, he could just imagine how she would look at him with her whole expression gone suddenly serious. Tears might pool in her eyes and she’d say she was sorry. It had all happened before and he could never stay upset with her for long. Ever since they had been children, playing together in his father’s sunny courtyard beside the house in Ur, he had not been able to keep a secret from her.

  He let his serving man roll out his sleeping mat and raise the side of the tent so he’d get more of the night breeze. Then without another thought he went to sleep.

  Mara heard footsteps, then muffled laughter as goodnights were said. She saw the light glowing through the qata, the brightly woven cloth that divided Lot’s section of the tent from hers. She called his name softly and he came around to stand by her fire. She quickly knelt and loosed his sandals, banked the cushions for him to sit, and motioned for him to relax. “Was there news? Has anyone heard just where we’re going?”

  It was a subject they never tired of discussing, and Lot sank down on the cushions, ready to tell what he knew.

  “Did he say where we are going?” she asked again eagerly.

  “He never says. He’s always vague, but I have a feeling we’re almost there. Maybe a new moon or two, and we’ll see this land he’s to be given.”

  “How do you know? What makes you think such a thing?”

  “It’s just a feeling I have.”

  “What feeling? What do you feel?”

  “I guess it’s his own excitement. You can’t be around him without sensing something wonderful is about to happen.”

  “So you think it’s all true? He’s really going to have all these promises come true?”

  “He’s a sensible man … a very pragmatic man. And he believes and is even more excited than I am.”

  “But the famine … what about the famine? I thought there was a famine in the land west of the Jordan.”

  Lot jabbed at the fire. “Who knows? One can’t always believe traders. Anyway, can you imagine Abram’s God giving him some land blighted by famine? All his talk and excitement for nothing? It’s hard to imagine such a thing.”

  Mara shrugged and looked out into the darkness. “He and Sarai would be so embarrassed. After all that talk about his God, convincing all of us to come along, even leaving the family gods behind, it would be quite devastating.”

  “He didn’t ask any of us to come,” Lot said defensively. “It was something we chose to do.”

  “However it was, it will be most embarrassing if there should be a famine,” Mara tried to speak calmly, but her voice held an edge of malicious enjoyment that Lot completely missed.

  They heard only rumors of the famine until they came to ford the Jordan near the city of Hazor. Here they met a straggling band of men and their families fleeing Shechem in the valley of Mukhnah. With hollow eyes and distended bellies, they spoke of famine, dust storms, and heat.

  When urged, they reported that most of the people had gone to Egypt or down the Wadi Far’ah to the land east of the Jordan. “The rains should have come a month ago,” one of them said. “It was just the same as last year, and the year before. Now it’s even the drinking water. The streams and cisterns are all going dry.”

  The men in Abram’s band looked at him, thinking to see some hesitancy, some reaction. Though he listened, the depressing news seemed at first to have little effect on his enthusiasm. But when the sun beat down mercilessly and the nights grew hot and suffocating, Abram became silent and thoughtful, yet still insisting that they press on toward the valley.

  Finally one little boy pointed out birds of prey that seemed to be following them, and Abram became disturbed. Great vultures and hawks would come flapping their wings and then light in the dusty branches of the tall carob trees where they could look down on his company with parted beaks and hungry eyes. “That’s ominous,” he muttered. “Birds don’t act like that without some awful carnage.”

  The farther they went, the more they encountered bad omens, repeated warnings of hunger, lack of water, and a terrible, debilitating heat. All the people they met seemed almost speechless
, unable to tell adequately of the horror they had experienced.

  Finally the men and women in Abram’s company began to beg him, first gently and then insistently, to turn back or go another route. To their surprise, he pushed his headpiece back and wiped the sweat from his brow but insisted they press on. His step slowed, and his eyes began to look dark and troubled, but he continued to urge them on up through a rock-bordered pass until late one afternoon they came out onto a wide basin. “See the mountains on the right with the sun glinting on them,” he said as he tried to muster some enthusiasm. “The tallest is Mount Ebal and the other beside it is Gerizim. The walled city in between is Shechem.”

  The large valley was surrounded by a ring of mountains. In better days it had been fertile beyond belief, but now it was a bowl of blowing dust.

  They passed several small villages that showed no sign of life. When they came to a huge oak at the foot of the valley that led up to the city called Shechem, they stopped. It was obvious that the oak had been a center for various mysterious rites.

  “I remember this tree,” Abram said. “It was known as the Oak of the Sorceress. There used to be an old hag who sat here begging and telling fortunes. She had charms and incantations, and some even said she called up the devil and the djinn to do her bidding.”

  As they came closer to the enormous tree, they could see that libations of blood had been poured all over the gnarled roots. Near a broken-down altar they found bones, bits of curling hairy skins, and broken shards of pottery.

  The odor of decay, death, and corruption was heavy on the air. “Things have been very bad here,” Lot whispered to Abram. “The people obviously have been trying to placate Mot, so he will free Baal and they will have rain again.”

  Abram didn’t seem to hear him. He walked around under the tree, lightly touching the standing stones with hollowed out places for oil or blood and fingering the bits of cloth tied to the bare branches of the tree.

  With a sigh he looked back at the expectant faces of his people and remarked, “Such things are forbidden by Elohim, our God.”

  The people looked with interest at the tree and then up the valley toward Shechem. From where they stood they could tell that the city gate had once been impressive and the wall well built. Now however, the gate hung open, and the wall was crumbling with large, gaping fissures. Through these openings, they could see an odd assemblage of one-story stone and mud houses. They had flat roofs constructed of dried rushes covered with mud held in place by large crossbeams. Few of the houses had windows.

  Abram chose Lot to go with him and cautioned Eliazer to hold the caravan in place until they returned. As the two men approached the city, they could see that it was depressingly dirty. Refuse had been thrown out in the streets for the goats or wild dogs. Vines and almond trees that had once lent a certain charm to their small courtyards were now standing leafless and bare, adding to the total desolate effect.

  At first the city seemed deserted. However, as they came closer, beggars and a few lepers crept out with various objects supposedly for sale. The two men soon discovered that the beggars wanted to trade the decorated pottery, woven strips of bright cloth, or a few handfuls of grain for some drinking water.

  Abram asked one of the threadbare urchins to get someone in authority. The boy hurried off and, within minutes, was back with an elderly gentleman. Abram noticed that he walked with a cane but carried himself with dignity. “You are welcome. You are welcome,” the old man said, speaking their language with a strong Amorite accent.

  He didn’t smile, and Abram noticed that he kept nervously jabbing his cane into the path as though that might steady him. He wore fine robes, but they were stained and dusty, and his elegantly decorated sandals were strapped on feet that hadn’t been washed for days.

  “We need your permission to camp in the valley below your city,” Abram said.

  Instantly the man’s eyes grew troubled as he looked over the crowded carts, donkeys, camels, sheep, and goats that stretched as far as he could see. “You are welcome to camp, but as you can see most of those who were able-bodied have fled the valley. The rest of us are still trying to leave.”

  “So I imagined,” Abram said.

  “You can see the streams are almost dry. The soil has turned to powder. It’s blowing away.” The old man motioned to the valley and then up the side of Mount Ebal where terraces once cradled vines and small olive trees.

  “We’ll need water,” Abram muttered almost to himself as he looked back down toward the valley. “We have many people and our flocks are extensive.”

  The old man shook his head. “The water is scarce everywhere. We are sending mules to the wells at Dothan and over to Jezreel just to have drinking water.”

  Lot moved closer to his uncle and spoke in a whisper, “It would be foolish to camp here. We need to move on.”

  Abram frowned. “I remember this as such a green, fruitful valley. How can it all have dried up?”

  The old man raised his hand and looked up at the cloudless sky. “It’s said that we’ve offended Hadad, god of rain. We even sacrificed our children to him … and see, he doesn’t care. He isn’t going to help.”

  Abram frowned. When people sacrificed their children, they were usually desperate. The bigger the problem, the more precious the sacrifice demanded by the gods. A child, a young man, a beautiful young woman—all were sacrificed in the hope of getting the gods’ attention.

  “Is it all right if we decide to stay?”

  “You can stay. Of course you can stay. I suppose there’s enough dried grass for a few days. There are no wells. You’ll find precious little water anyplace.”

  Abram thanked the old man and started back to the mouth of the valley where he had left the caravan. He was deep in thought, and Lot assumed he was deciding to move on. But when he spoke, it was involving another matter. “Lot,” he said, “go down and see that the people pitch their tents near whatever water you can find.”

  “And you, my lord? Where will you be?”

  “I am going up the mountain. I need to be alone.” Abram was already looking toward the path that led up past the city of Shechem to the steep mountain heights of Ebal.

  “My lord,” Lot said in a tone of voice that conveyed his concern, “shouldn’t we move on as quickly as possible?”

  Abram seemed not to hear him. “You’ll be in charge and make all decisions until I come back.”

  Abram turned and started up the path. He didn’t look back to see if Lot was following his instructions but pressed on with a determined stride. He was soon out of the valley and climbing. The dogs and curious children eventually turned back, and at last he was alone.

  He saw nothing of the carefully terraced plots now overgrown with cactus or stripped down to the bare outcroppings of rock. He was deeply troubled. He realized that all along, he had envisioned this valley as the very place God was leading him and his people. He had thought this was the land God was going to give him.

  He had seen the valley first on a trading venture with his father. They were on their way down to Egypt when they heard there were armed bands waiting for the caravans along the usual route, so they had decided to come through this valley, then move up into the highlands. The valley had burst upon their travel-weary eyes as a virtual paradise. As young as he had been, he had noticed how fertile it was and how few people had settled in or around it. “There are no wells. Also it is hard to defend such an open valley,” they had told him.

  When he reached the top of Ebal, he sank down on a projection of rock. He felt exhausted and terribly disappointed. More than that he felt let down, tricked. Tears of frustration blinded his eyes. He’d risked everything and, worse, he had encouraged others to follow him. Now he could see it was like following a mirage. He began to doubt, to wonder if he could have imagined the promises.

  It was some minutes before he looked up and was astonished at the sight before him. He stood up and shielded his eyes to see better. There was not
only the valley of Mukhnah, “the encampment,” but he could clearly see that the city of Shechem squatted right at the entrance to a pass that led westward, out to the coast.

  Off to one side was the huge sacred oak that from this height looked no bigger than one of its leaves. His people setting up camp looked as small as ants.

  The view of the valley was as nothing compared to the great distances he could see in every direction. To the south, he saw the port of Joppa and beyond it the great sea; to the east, the hills over against Luz, beyond that the chasm of the Jordan River, and on farther the plain of Hauran. His eyes followed the Jordan almost to its source and on out to the snowy peak of Mount Hermon.

  He forgot how hot and tired he was. He also forgot for the moment his concern over the famine and the lack of water. There was a wind blowing, but the sky was cloudless and the air was clear, making the view all the more distinct. He drew in a deep breath of the clear, hot air and continued to pick out the familiar sights.

  On that first visit so long ago with his father, he remembered an old man in Shechem telling them that Ebal was the highest point in the land and one could see almost down to the border of Egypt from its height. Now he knew that was true.

  Slowly a great peace settled over him. The frustrations that had led him to strike out and climb the mountain melted away. In their place was a strange quietness. It was a quietness he had felt once or twice before. A quietness that carried with it an undercurrent of excitement. A feeling that something important was about to happen. Gradually he felt intensely alert, aware of the blueness of the sky, the grayness of the jagged rocks around him, a thorn bush, and a small yellow flower at his feet.

  It was then that he heard the voice. It was the same voice and the same feeling that had caused him to leave Haran. “Abram, unto your seed I will give this land.”

  Abram whirled around expecting to see someone, but no one was in sight. He stood very still and listened. He heard only the wind and saw only small puffs of dirt blown around the base of the rocks. Again he heard the voice: “Unto your seed I will give this land.”