by Cliff Graham
He eyed me warily as I approached, so I held my hands up in a gesture of submission. “Please, I long to go with you and only wish to ask you some things.”
The man’s eyes grew cold. “Egyptians cannot come with us.”
“That is not what I heard. I heard that your god allows others to come if they desire.”
“You heard wrongly.”
“Moses himself told me this.”
“Nonsense!” the man scoffed. “No one speaks to Moses who is not an elder!”
By this time the wife had finished packing up their belongings and was standing behind her husband, watching us. Their children stopped playing and watched as well.
I could not be angry at the man for treating me this way. His face and arms bore terrible scars from his lifetime of bondage, as did his wife’s and children’s. They had been fed to be kept alive, but that was the extent of any luxury they had known.
I bowed my head. “I will leave you alone. I only had some questions that I pray you would answer for me. And . . .” I let this draw out a moment. “I am not an Egyptian. Not anymore.”
The wife had moved up close to her husband and, shockingly, placed her hand on his elbow while he was still engaging with me.
He turned on her, too surprised to be angry. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, then bowed respectfully.
He looked back at me, his face less hostile. “My wife tells me that she has seen you before. With Moses. Now that I look at you longer, I recognize you as well. How do you know him?”
“May I have the honor of knowing your name, and that of your father?”
The man glared at me. “No Egyptian has ever cared to know my name.”
“As I said, I am not an Egyptian. And I do care. I have no friends in this new land.”
“Perhaps I will share it later. You will soon learn among my people that a name is all a man has to offer. How do you know Moses?”
“I was in the palace guard of the king of Egypt. I saw them perform your god’s wonders. And I met them on the road from Goshen when the curse of darkness came. They were kind to me.”
The man appeared to be at a loss as to what to make of me. I was not posturing arrogantly like an Egyptian is prone to do, and yet I was dressed like one. I was being courteous to him, and it appeared to help him relax.
“What are your questions?”
Grateful, I asked, “Why does everyone pack so lightly for such an unknown journey?”
“We were told to pack lightly the night the Destroyer came. We painted the doorposts of our homes with lamb’s blood to make him pass over us. We had a meal made with unleavened bread, because we were told that the Lord required it of us to be able to leave to symbolize how he had delivered us. We were told to pack only what we could carry.”
I did not understand what he meant by any of that, of course, but this made me think about the night of the final terror and how the shadow seemed to have come from the north. From Goshen. As though the figure I saw devouring the moon and stars had indeed come for Egypt like a rampaging lion.
“How will you . . . how will we survive out there? I have been a soldier on the frontier. There is nothing that could possibly sustain us.”
For the first time, the man smiled. “After all you witnessed, after all of the signs and wonders, you ask how Yahweh could provide something as simple as water and bread?”
“Perhaps we could pitch our fire together,” I said.
The man tilted his head. “Do you have a woman?”
“None. Not anymore.”
His eyes flickered down at my chest. I realized I still wore the Gold of Honor.
“You say you were a warrior.”
“I said I was a soldier. The two are different.”
He pointed at my neck. “I know that chain. It is the Gold of Honor. It tells me you were more than a mere soldier.”
I nodded, convinced now that an Egyptian soldier would never be welcomed in these ranks. I started to turn away from him.
But I was wrong.
“We will have need of warriors in the days ahead. You have shown humility. Far more than a winner of the Gold of Honor could be expected to show. We have nothing promised to us but our inheritance. We must go and fight for it. Are you prepared?”
I began to notice more things about this man. He had a firm confidence, a quality great leaders carried that could not be taught or explained well. Men were simply drawn to such leaders, prepared to follow them wherever they might go. The wife looked at him with eagerness and admiration, not fear. His children crawled around on his legs, and he did not swat them away as most other fathers would have.
“I am prepared,” I answered. “I will fight for whatever life your god delivers to me.”
The man smiled. It was his true self, I could tell immediately.
“If you are to win victories, he must become your God as well.”
I had nothing else to say. I waited patiently for his decision. If he said no, that I could not pitch my fire with him, then I would move on alone. But I did not wish for that.
“You may pitch your tent with us,” he said finally. “I will take you to Moses and Aaron once we have left the sea behind us. Perhaps they can appoint you to some needed task. Forgive me for being rude earlier.”
“No forgiveness is necessary. You have every right to be suspicious of my kind.”
I walked back to retrieve my pack and sword, which were lying in the sand. The man’s family was already heading toward the mass of others, hundreds of thousands slowly shifting away from the shoreline, forming a long line as they walked through a craggy pass leading to the east.
“Wait,” I called out. The man turned and looked at me curiously.
I hurried back to the edge of the water. Lifting the Gold of Honor from my neck, I looked at it one more time. All-powerful where I had been. Powerless where I was going. I threw it as far as I could and watched it splash way out into the sea, where it sank to the depths and was beyond my reach forever. It would remain buried there, along with my lost comrades.
I watched the waves a moment more before returning to where the man stood waiting for me. He studied me as I approached, respect and slight amusement on his face.
We were not friends yet, but as we turned and followed the others into the desert, the beginning of a long exile of difficulty and war and suffering we could not possibly grasp at the time, I sensed that we would be.
Indeed, this man became my truest war brother.
I would shed blood for him, and he for me. We would grow old together, sharply disputing at times, as two strong-willed men are prone to do, but sharing a brotherhood that would never be broken. We would grow old and gray together and spend our lives threatening the enemy.
I heard a song, a chant rising up from the crowd. Countless voices took it up. The melody was difficult to place, and the people were too overjoyed to sing the right notes, but I had the feeling the song had been made up in this very moment. I listened for the words.
“Yahweh is a warrior; Yahweh is his name!”
“Yahweh is a warrior; Yahweh is his name!”
Yes, I thought to myself. This Yahweh is indeed a warrior. I now know his name.
I fell into step next to the man I had been conversing with, my new companion.
“Would you do me the honor of sharing your name?” I asked again as we were swallowed up by the desert, the distant pillar of fire guiding us on.
“Joshua,” he replied, “the son of my father Nun.”
21
Sorrow and Might
It was dark in the tent now. The oil lamp had flickered and snuffed out during the last hour, but Othniel was so enraptured that he could not bring himself to strike another flame to a new one.
Othniel inhaled the dank, musty air inside the wet tent and tried to rouse himself. “Then the wandering began,” he said quietly.
“Then the wandering began.” Caleb sighed. “And as difficult as those months were when Ph
araoh kept refusing to let us leave, they were nothing compared to the wilderness.”
“We need to be finished for the night, Uncle. You must rest now.”
“No. I do not need to rest, not yet.”
Othniel smiled. “Then I need to rest.” He stood up to leave. His joints and muscles felt tight from sitting in the cold for so long; he couldn’t imagine how the old man was feeling. “Do you want me to send for a maid to lie with you for warmth?”
“I would be lying if I said that was not tempting. But no.”
“Is there anything else I can get for you?”
“I will go and fetch a hot drink from the watch fire. Oftentimes the watchmen keep a pot boiling over the flames on nights like this.”
“I can fetch it for you, Uncle.”
“I want to stretch my legs some more before going to sleep.”
“Please do not go out on the watch tonight. It has been a long day. We need you to have a fresh mind.”
“The day I do not take my turn on the watch is the day I am buried. And even then, I will take the first watch in Sheol.”
Othniel smiled and shook his head. It was no use arguing with his uncle. Before leaving, he sparked a fresh lamp for Caleb to have in his tent. He set it on the small table at the entrance.
“I look forward to hearing about how Yahweh sustained you in the wilderness, Uncle. No one remains who can tell us of these things.”
Caleb nodded. “I will tell it to you.”
“We must always remember how he saved your generation from the Egyptians,” Othniel said, more to himself than to Caleb. Then he left.
Caleb used his walking stick to help himself to his feet. He stretched as best he could. Pain. Constant, eternally deep pain, from the back of his neck all the way down to the toes of his feet. The prickling sensation felt like a hundred weavers’ needles pressing into his elbows, knees, and feet.
“Must get moving to loosen up,” Caleb mumbled to himself as he made his way to the flap of the tent and stepped outside.
It was late evening now. He could see the watch fire being stoked with more wood as the first watch of the night prepared to go to their positions on the perimeter. Troops stood around the fire warming up before heading to their shift.
It made him forget the pain for a moment. Such a wonderful sight. Troops encamped in the woods. No arrows flying yet. No death to grieve. No mothers or wives to give the sackcloth of mourning to. The night before the first battle felt like the thrill of a great hunting expedition and not the last night many of them would see before Sheol devoured them.
He poked his walking staff along the trail toward the fire. He thought about letting them see him smile, but waved the thought off. He would smile for them when the Baal worshipers were all dead.
Thunder rumbled long and steady. He noticed it because it had been many hours since he had heard any, despite the constant rain. Lightning flickered high above in the same casual pace as the thunder.
Movement. To his left.
He crouched and turned to face it, but the night was too dark to see anything clearly. But there was movement, he was sure of it. Unusual movement.
Wiping the rain from his eyes, he stared at the black forest. Squinted. Held absolutely still. “Yahweh, please illuminate the sky for me once again,” he whispered.
And Yahweh did so. The sky lit up with lightning, and the movement he had seen was now bearing down on him. Massive, mountainous shapes running toward him.
Anakim.
They must have smashed through the perimeter, and the sentries’ shouts had been drowned out by the storm. He did not have time to think of anything else, for the nearest monster was almost upon him.
Anakim were all at least two heads taller than any other man, and as their dark forms drew closer he could see their immense, bare, mud-covered torsos.
Caleb quickly realized they were wearing only loincloths, no armor, probably to be able to sneak up noiselessly on them. He strengthened his grip on his staff, his only weapon, and held absolutely still.
Do not shout for the others yet. Kill the first one through surprise, disorient their attack.
The first of them was three strides away, and the giant had his face turned toward the watch fire and the men around it. They would strike the camp, kill as many as possible while they fought their way through, then disappear back to their city with a few captive women.
A heathen raid just like every other heathen raid, be it Amalekites or Philistines or any of them, and Caleb’s anger flared hotter than the sun. He yearned to slaughter them and feel their hot blood on his face. His muscles tightened.
I have killed you before in your dozens, and I will kill you in your hundreds and thousands if I must.
Caleb watched the giant’s waist rise, then fall in stride, then rise again, and that was when he attacked, emerging from the shadows and sliding his staff into the gap between the giant’s legs, which were so thick and he was running with such force that it jerked the staff out of Caleb’s hand.
But the attack worked. The giant tripped and hit the ground with a heavy thud. Caleb scrambled to find his staff, probing his fingers into the undergrowth where he thought he saw it land. He had only seconds before he lost the advantage. He pushed his hands through the mud again, again . . . there!
As soon as he had it he staggered to where the Anakite had fallen, glancing to his left and right to see the others descending on the camp. He yelled, “Ambush! To arms!” but that was all he had time for, because the giant had gained his hands and knees and was spinning toward him.
Caleb darted around his enemy’s blind side and leaped on top of his back, putting the staff against the thick neck and pulling with all his strength to cut off the man’s windpipe.
But he was not strong enough to hold it. Not anymore.
The Anakite lurched back against him, flopping like a fish on land, and Caleb winced as the great bulk pinned him backward onto the ground, trapping a sharp rock against his spine. His mind became foggy from the pain, then cleared. Then he realized he needed to release the staff and grab for the rock, yet he was too late. The giant twisted, and a massive fist swung around and struck Caleb on the side of the head, hurling him back to the wet earth.
“To arms!” Caleb cried again, though weaker now and with bursts of light in his vision. He still had the rock. Still had the rock. What to do with it? He had a plan, could not remember it.
The Anakite was standing above him, holding a blade high, about to drive it down into his gut and send him to Sheol.
The rock.
What about the rock? Fog. More bursts of light. He could not think. Wished he was a younger man.
Something in his instincts triggered, and he managed to roll to the side just as the sword of the giant slid deep into the mud where he had been.
The rock!
He screamed and threw the rock as hard as he could directly into the giant’s face, which was so close he could smell the foul breath. The Anakite recoiled in shock, his face shattered.
Caleb’s fury raged hotter as he regained clarity. Exchanging blows with this enemy would not work. He saw the sword. Dove for it.
He pulled the sword out of the mud and begged for just a little more strength from his old, tired muscles.
The Anakite was rising. Caleb thought, as he stabbed the tip of the bronze sword forward, that they had been fools not to wear armor coming against him.
The blade’s aim was perfect. It cut through the flesh of the giant’s torso and slid out the other side with little resistance. Caleb did not stop to examine the result of the wound, for he knew it was fatal. Instead he started running back to his tent, to where his own weapons were. The death scream of the Anakite rose up as he pulled at the sword that had run him through.
Caleb saw nothing in the darkness. The Anakites had doused the flames, as he knew they would, for they wanted terror and confusion, wanted to kill as many of Caleb’s people as possible in one swift pass through the
camp and then disappear back into the woods.
“God of my people,” Caleb shouted hoarsely as he approached his tent, “give me battle this night! Look with favor on me and strengthen me to kill your enemies!”
Just before he reached the tent, he felt it coming across him. The warmth in the back of his neck. The sensation of a hot breath blowing through his blood. His eyes flaring wide. Muscles surging and twitching.
He did not know what it was, but it had come to him in desperate times, from the days he had killed Amalekites for Moses until this very night.
“Yes, Yahweh! I receive!” he shouted.
He tore into his tent and found his sword and his battle-axe. Both forged from new copper. Both yet unstained with the blood of enemies. That would change.
Back out in the camp, running fast, his blood heating up, Caleb saw the figure of one of the giants tearing into a tent. The screams of a woman from inside. Caleb rushed forward in that direction.
Men were emerging from tents at the commotion. “Rally on me! Rally on me!” he called out.
Caleb entered the tent. An oil lamp was casting just enough light to show the Anakite pulling one of the cooking women toward the entrance by her neck.
Caleb locked eyes with the man for an instant. The giant nearly filled the tent with his bulk. His eyes flickered between Caleb and the woman, and Caleb knew what he was about to do if he could not capture her alive.
“Stop!” was all he could cry out as he lashed forward with the blade, but the giant already had his elbow crooked around her neck, and it was easy for him to snap it, killing her instantly, just before Caleb’s sword slid through the Anakite’s ribs and was buried to the hilt. Tears burned in Caleb’s eyes as he wrenched the sword around, trying to slice the giant’s insides into ribbons before pulling it out with a firm yank.
The giant screamed at him through a mouthful of blood. Caleb dodged the swipe from his hand and swung the tip of the blade across the man’s neck, opening up a wound that would be fatal. Caleb turned away from him to rush out of the tent. No time to weep for the dead woman; they were killing more of them all across the camp.
Pagan filth, attacking our women! Cowards!