Exodus

by Cliff Graham

  He panted, his chest heaving. The fire in his blood was not cooling. It was ordering him to stay. To wait. A man would come.

  Rain fell hard. No other sound. No other movement. Nothing else visible. Only the dull orange of the watch fire against the sky, and the black outline of the walls.

  Then came a loud clanking sound as the gears of the gate ground against each other. The men around Caleb crouched next to him, ready to receive the charge.

  “If I meet my death, return to the camp and hold council. Appoint the three senior generals to command the siege of the city,” Caleb said.

  Othniel blanched. “I thought Yahweh told you that he had given them into your hands.”

  “Yahweh said that he has given us this city for our inheritance, and that all here would know that he is the Lord. That has nothing to do with whether I live or die.”

  “That is madness! If we lose you, we have none able to lead us.”

  “The will of the Lord is all that matters. He wishes to make himself known to the Anakim, just like he made himself known to the Egyptians.”

  “Uncle, you—”

  Caleb ignored him and walked toward the gate, which now stood wide open. Through it he could see the courtyard of the city, where a mass of residents had gathered and dozens of torches burned under awnings in the marketplace, casting flickering shadows.

  Othniel motioned the others forward, almost fifty of the Hebrews, their weapons tense and positioned high, waited for whatever was to come through the open gate.

  To himself he noted the bravery of these men, who had acquitted themselves well during the ambush and now stood ready for the enemy in the shadow of his fortress.

  People began pouring out of the gate and into the grassy field below the walls.

  “They have come to watch,” Caleb said. “That is good. All will know.”

  Rich and poor were present. Canaanites of all nationalities. Othniel was surprised to see that they were not all giants like the ones who had attacked them earlier, but regular-looking people.

  “Uncle, where are the Anakim?”

  “They run the city,” Caleb answered. “Others from the land dwell here among them and serve them.”

  “Are they favorable to us?”

  “They worship the Baals just like the Anakim. We can give them no quarter. If we let them live, they will turn the hearts of our people.”

  As though in answer, the people, realizing they appeared to be nothing more than farmers—contrary to the rumors of demon gods who had been sweeping through the land after destroying Jericho—began shouting and taunting them. They threw stones and handfuls of mud, but they were hesitant to charge them.

  Caleb closed his eyes and released the aches and pains all over his body to Yahweh. May they be my offering to you, God of my people, he prayed. Whether I live or die, whether I am in comfort or in pain.

  Everyone appeared to be waiting for something, and before long it became apparent what it was.

  From the back of the crowd came a giant at least three cubits taller than any other man present, much larger even than any of the Anakites who had attacked them that night. He was dressed in his armor of bronze plates and stiff leather. A bronze, full-cover helmet kept his face hidden. It was polished and shone even in the dim light, with a plume of thick horsehair billowing from the top.

  The people cheered him. Children cried out the name of their god. The giant waved at them and raised his spear.

  “Who is he?” Othniel muttered.

  Caleb smiled. “The Lord has given me Sheshai, the youngest of the three chiefs of Anak. But it cannot be that easy, God of Israel! I did not even breach the wall!”

  Othniel looked at him as though he had lost his mind.

  Sheshai gestured behind him with a huge hand, and a cluster of women were pushed forward from the crowd and thrown down on the mud in front of Caleb. Six of them had been captured. They were bound together by the wrists.

  “Here they are, Hebrew. Come get them,” Sheshai said, his voice roaring above the clamor of the courtyard.

  Caleb recognized several of the Hebrew women, including the elderly one who had served him earlier. He made himself stand as still as stone. Only his eyes moved, searching the top of the wall for their archers. The rain was falling hard, and they would have no range to strike him.

  “You are Sheshai, correct?” Caleb asked in the Canaanite tongue.

  The giant tilted his head. “You have heard of me?”

  “I have. Your head will be mounted prominently on the gate after I have worn it on my belt, watching my warriors sack this city.”

  “I am honored,” the giant said in a mock tone.

  “And afterward I will come for the heads of your brothers and send them to the other cities I have come to conquer for my inheritance.”

  The giant laughed. “You must be the old man they call Caleb.”

  “I am.”

  “What is this inheritance you speak of? My kind were here long before your father’s father.”

  “I have come to claim the land that Yahweh, the God of Heaven and Earth, has declared is mine.”

  “I do not know this Yahweh.”

  “You will soon.”

  Sheshai raised his weapon high, a sword as tall as Caleb himself. He barked an order, and several soldiers stepped forward and pulled at the legs of the huddled Hebrew women, who began screaming as they were separated. But their wrists were bound with cord, and once they were pulled apart, they formed a rough circle with their arms outstretched and a length of rope between them. The soldiers pressed their chests down into the mud and held blades to their necks.

  Sheshai stepped on the back of one of them as he entered the circle. “We will test your god, Hebrew. If you win and kill me, you may go free with the captives. If I win and kill you, your commanders will surrender your army.”

  “I will kill you, and then I will destroy your city,” Caleb answered.

  There was a commotion, and the residents of the city pointed above them to the top of a large building on the edge of the courtyard. High above, two other giants were standing side by side next to a watch fire.

  Sheshai looked up at them and waved his sword. “Brothers! The Hebrew general has offered himself to me in single combat!”

  A cheer from the crowd. Sheshai held his arms up to quiet them.

  “I invite you to watch as I kill him and enslave his army!”

  But the Anakite chieftains above made no movement or reply. They only stood still, resembling mountains that wore cloaks.

  Louder, so that everyone could hear him, Caleb said, “People of Kiriath-arba! I declare this town’s new name to be Hebron, and I will put you all to the sword if you oppose us! Those who leave peacefully will be allowed to cross the Jordan out of our lands. I warn you that I will not have mercy even on your little ones if you remain.”

  Caleb pointed at Sheshai. “But your head will hang from my tent when I lie down to sleep this very night.”

  The people turned quiet, seemingly shaken by his conviction.

  “They will have heard of our other sieges,” Caleb said quietly. “They want no part of us without their champions.”

  Sheshai shouted another order, and the soldiers pinning the Hebrew women down lifted their heads up by yanking on their hair so that they faced Caleb. They put their daggers to the women’s throats to keep them from moving.

  Caleb locked eyes with one of them, a young wife and mother he knew from the camp. She was wincing in pain, but her gaze was hard and brave. He nodded to her. “Stay strong, my sisters,” he said in the Hebrew tongue. “You will return to your men this night. You will see your children married.”

  Sheshai stepped into the center of the circle formed by the women and the ropes. “If your men interfere with us, mine will slit their throats,” he said, gesturing at the wives.

  “Are you that afraid of me?” Caleb asked, his mouth widening into a grin. “Perhaps you have heard what I have done to
the rest of your kind.”

  Sheshai lifted his sword out in front of him at eye level. He crouched down. Caleb walked forward and stepped over the rope. As he passed the young wife he’d made eye contact with, he reached down and touched her head gently.

  “May the Lord bless you with many sons and may they be full of years.”

  The soldiers of the city all laughed.

  Blindingly fast, Caleb knelt and pivoted with his entire body’s force to swing the blade, and his sword cut through the nearest soldier’s neck, sending him backward with a death mask of surprise on his face.

  Arrows flew through the rain from Caleb’s men and struck each of the other soldiers. Only one managed to slice his blade against the neck of his captive before three shafts buried into his chest, but it was not deep enough to cause serious harm. The women, crying, jumped up and staggered toward the Hebrew soldiers, who had shifted their bows to aim at Sheshai.

  The Anakite bellowed an order to the watch on the wall, but the arrows far above were driven low in the rain and thumped harmlessly fifty strides away.

  Caleb rushed at Sheshai, not giving him time to realize his mistake, his weapon up to strike first, drawing out the giant’s defensive posture, then at the last moment holding back to allow his men to send the arrows they had ready. The fletching made whistling sounds as they passed him, and Sheshai recoiled as a dozen arrows struck against his armor.

  Caleb ran to the side and found the weak spot in his armor, at the base of the neck, and shoved his blade through it for a clean kill.

  But Sheshai had recovered his balance and managed to twist aside. Caleb’s strike clanged off the armor, and he pulled back to regain his own balance.

  “Attack them!” Sheshai called to the gates.

  An arrow deflected off Sheshai’s face guard, causing him to stagger back a step. Caleb moved in with his sword up, calling out to Othniel, who closed in beside him and circled Sheshai on the other side. Othniel had a battle-axe and darted in close behind Sheshai to land a blow to his knee, which Sheshai avoided by jumping back—only to trip against Caleb’s outstretched leg and crash to the earth.

  By now more soldiers were rushing forward to fight the Hebrews, who maintained their perimeter around where Caleb and Othniel were struggling with Sheshai.

  “Help them!” Caleb said to Othniel. “I will finish him.” And as Othniel turned to hold off the attack from the gate, Caleb tried to make another cut through a gap in Sheshai’s armor and landed this one, a deep gash into his flesh that made the giant yelp in pain.

  To this point, he’d had Sheshai on his heels, surprised at the ferocity of his attack and his disregard of the understood rules of single combat, but now Sheshai managed to gain his feet and crouch in his defensive stance.

  Neither man taunted the other; they simply attacked. Sheshai’s blows were too strong for Caleb to block directly. He prayed for speed, and the warmth in his blood seemed to increase, giving him the extra step he needed to avoid Sheshai’s swinging arcs with his large sword.

  From nearby he heard Othniel shout, “Uncle, they are sending more Anakim outside the walls! Dozens of them!”

  Caleb glanced up and saw them storming out the gates, an army of the huge men, and knew he had to order the withdrawal. “Pull back to the camp! Back to the heights!”

  Caleb pressed the assault against Sheshai, but the giant backed up and held his hands out to his men. “Stop! He is mine! He is mine!”

  The Anakites running out of the city did stop, but their faces were filled with rage and confusion. They cried out to their leader. The people from the city chanted for them to attack, consumed with bloodlust.

  Sheshai attacked Caleb recklessly, his anger overriding his judgment. Caleb waited for the next opening and then stabbed, making another deep cut above the breastplate near the arm.

  Sheshai buckled under the blow, completely taken aback by it. Caleb felt a surge of power in his arm, a whisper in his soul: That they may know that I am the Lord.

  He yelled, fury overtaking him, his blade finding its own way down and around the giant’s neck, and then Caleb was on Sheshai’s back, knocking off the helmet with his free hand and revealing a head twice as large as his own with long black hair.

  Caleb pulled his hair and stabbed the blade into the neck far enough to slice the windpipe. Sheshai went rigid and gagged, grappling for Caleb, but the old man’s arms were strong beyond measure, full of the power he had known since he was young. He paused so that all who were present could witness what he was about to do.

  “You will know . . . that there is a God in Israel!”

  Caleb rammed the blade up into Sheshai’s throat as hard as he could. When it was buried to the hilt, he threw the face back into the mud with contempt.

  The defeat of their champion was so complete, and so fast, that many did not know it was over. Their chanting slowly died. Children asked parents what had happened. Men stared in disbelief. The Anakites who had charged out of the city stood motionless and watched, stunned. They eyed the Hebrew archers who kept them at bay.

  Caleb strode over to Othniel and held out his hand for the axe. Othniel handed it to him.

  Caleb walked back to Sheshai’s body, peering up at the dark shadows of the two other chieftains as he walked, and swung down several times with the axe until the head was separated. He held it up in the air.

  “I have kept my vow and taken his head!” Caleb shouted, his white beard caked with so much mud and blood that it looked black and thick like a man half his age. “By the end of this week, every one of you will lie dead, and you”—he pointed at the chieftains—“will join your brother on the city gate.”

  Caleb turned and walked back to his men, tying the severed head to his belt with the hair.

  The Hebrews kept their bows up until he had passed them, then they all withdrew into the forest. Their last glimpse of the gate was of the Anakites and the rest of the people staring after them, still unmoving.

  After helping the women along the rocky part of the trail, for they had been barefoot when they were taken, Othniel drew close to Caleb as they climbed the hill.

  “Well done, Uncle.”

  Caleb grunted. He was moving with more effort now. “We lost people tonight,” he said heavily.

  They passed the perimeter of the camp. Hundreds of people were running around in the night and calling out for loved ones. Wails and trilling of mourners. Caleb picked his way to the tent, where the Anakite had killed the woman.

  A crowd had gathered outside the entrance. Several of them held torches; the rain had lightened enough to allow for it. They all were staring at the entrance silently. Caleb heard grunting and a few shouts.

  The dead woman was lying on her back near the entrance. Her husband was smashing the corpse of the Anakite with a rock, screaming at it, cursing it.

  “We know the corpses are unclean, but we cannot approach . . .” someone was saying to Caleb. He waved them off.

  “Don’t interrupt him because of that. Let him grieve.”

  Caleb felt his throat close up and choke away his voice. Tears burned in the edges of his eyes. The group parted for him as he approached the grieving husband. He knelt down next to the man and placed his hand on his back.

  The husband jerked around and swung at him. Caleb ducked away from the blow but remained calm.

  The man swung again and cried out, “I was hauling rocks up the hill on your orders! I was gone! She is dead because of you! I was hauling rocks, and this monster killed her!”

  Caleb recognized him. Heliphet, the son of Japhtha, the one who had been the first back with his stone.

  Heliphet threw the rock at Caleb, who avoided it but did not return his attack. Others rushed forward to protect their general. He waved them away as well.

  Heliphet tore at his garments and screamed at the sky in despair. Caleb knelt near him. There was nothing he could say, no comfort he could offer the man.

  Finally, Heliphet crawled over to his
wife’s body and put his face on her chest. He wept uncontrollably.

  Caleb stood slowly, moved next to him, and knelt again. He placed his hand on Heliphet’s back. This time the grieving man did not swat him away, but kept weeping. Everyone watched as the rain continued to fall.

  Heliphet raised his head and looked at Caleb. Even in the darkness his eyes appeared swollen. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said softly. A broken man.

  “There is nothing to forgive, my son,” Caleb replied. “What you say is true.”

  Caleb stayed with him another hour after ordering everyone else away. He let the man scream, let him weep, let him beat his chest. He convinced him not to kill himself.

  It was a process he had gone through many times with so many of his men that Caleb could recognize every part of what Heliphet was going through. He would be filled with rage as well as embarrassment, violence as well as passivity.

  At the end of the hour, Caleb gave him a long embrace.

  “Remember who the enemy is,” he said, pointing at the corpse of the Anakite. “Let it dwell in you. Not for vengeance, but for victory. Your wife will be honored with victory. We will make the burial arrangements. Be with your unit tomorrow morning.”

  Heliphet nodded. Caleb stood and departed.

  A short distance away, Othniel emerged from the forest to fall in step next to him.

  “You are not giving the man time away to grieve?” Othniel asked.

  “Time away? If we had time, perhaps I would. But battle is what heals a man. Take him away from his brothers and the mission for too long and he will grieve poorly. Give him battle and he will grieve well, and with purpose.”

  Caleb did not turn to his tent but kept making his way through the crowds of his people, who were still recovering from the raid.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To find the watch commander. Who was it tonight?”

  “Sholem.”

  They came to the center of the camp. A large watch fire had been built, and the cold, wet, terrified people were amassed around it and arguing with each other.