Judging Noa

by Strutin, Michel;

  “Are you acquainted with this young man?” Boaz asked Hoglah.

  She ducked her head. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Aha,” seized Malah, “the young man of the knotted shrub. I knew it.”

  “Explain,” Boaz said.

  Malah and Tirzah’s words tumbled over each other, telling what they knew of Asaf. At the heart of the telling was Hoglah’s tale of Asaf’s gallantry at the well.

  Boaz plucked a grape and bit into it. “Sweet, nonetheless.” He looked distracted, thinking he might have to take Asaf’s bidseriously after all.

  “I WILL BE called ‘barren.’ And I will die childless. Noa, what can I do?”

  “Are you sure Seglit has not lied?”

  “My body tells me she does not lie.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Find me an answer.”

  “This is a difficult problem.”

  “You are such a well-known problem-solver. So, solve it.”

  Malah voiced her demand with equal parts anguish and ridicule.

  “Attacking me will not make me inclined to solve it.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Wait. I’ve thought of something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember the story of Abraham and his wife Sarah, who was so old she offered Abraham her handmaid, Hagar, as the source of their future?”

  MALAH DID NOT wait a day. After Seglit had fallen asleep, she lay down next to Boaz, covered them both, and whispered the problem and the solution. Boaz did not deny the problem, but the solution was more than he could bear.

  “Mom,” Tirzah whispered insistently, “Malah and Boaz are making too much noise. Why are they arguing? I know they are. I can hear.”

  “People who live together have differences,” she whispered back. “It is just that way. They will resolve it. And please stop calling me that rude term.”

  Tirzah lay, listening. She could not hear their words, but their tone carried on the night air. She rolled closer to her mother. “Mom-mom-mom,” she whispered, to see if her mother had fallen asleep.

  “Tirzah,” her mother scolded in a low voice, “go to sleep.”

  “How can I sleep when they are hissing like snakes?”

  CHAPTER 17

  A TEMPORARY HOME

  THE TRIBES OF Israel trudged on in a daze. One harsh horizon looked much like all the others.

  “We have passed this plain before. I remember that tree with the red flowers.”

  “This well cap, it is one we have opened earlier, I am certain,” said another. “Moses is leading us in circles.”

  They tried to avert their eyes from the unyielding horizon, so all were surprised when the land softened. In the northern reaches of the great Wilderness of Zin, dry plains gave way to clusters of low hills whose water-carved crevices were veined with shrubs. Lines of date palms sinuated below the hills, creating avenues of shade under their feathery green heads. Fields of yellow and purple wildflowers greeted the travelers.

  The land looked so welcoming that the first tribes to arrive hesitated, fearing a trap by its inhabitants, hidden among the hills. But the cloud above the Ark of the Covenant stopped at the broad oasis, so the people knew God had designated the place, which they named Kadesh Barnea, Holy Wilderness of Wandering.

  As the Levites erected the Tent of Meeting near the center of the broad oasis, other tribes rushed to claim a shady place beneath the trees. Later tribes squeezed in where they could. Like oil in water, lobes of one tribe oozed into the edges of another. Fights broke out, boundaries were set, then broken, then set again.

  By day’s end, order had taken hold. Tents, raised for the first time since they left Mount Sinai, absorbed the voices of the night. Transforming themselves from a Nile of humanity flowing across the desert, the people pooled in clans and tribes, just as they had at the holy, roaring mountain.

  Manasseh trod farther back in the line of tribes, so could claim only an outer arm of the many-branched oasis. Those too tired to raise their tents lay down their rugs and fell asleep watching the hills glow blue and purple as the sun set.

  Gaddi ben Susi and Tamar selected a spot for their tent befitting a leader of Manasseh. Hur and Noa erected theirs adjacent. After unpacking, Noa walked toward her family’s tent as fast as her swollen shape allowed. Hoglah was holding forth on her anticipated engagement.

  “ . . . and he has promised me finery for my wedding day . . . in addition to the bride price.”

  “And where do you think a sheep shearer will get such finery,” Malah asked, her head bent to her spindle. “A sheep shearer with no family name? How would that look in a family with a name such as ours?”

  Hoglah, the sister hidden in the middle, was made bold by love.

  “You will see. All the young girls will talk about how he saved me at the well. I will be married to a hero.”

  Noa had more practical concerns.

  “What do you really know of this . . . sheep shearer?”

  “You and Malah act as if you know everything,” Hoglah complained. “He iswhat he says he is. He lost his parents and, from nothing, he made something of himself. Not like those who have everything already,” she tossed off, defiant.

  Noa and Malah looked at each other, astonished. The notion of Hoglah as social critic struck Noa as funny. She bit the insides of her cheeks as her face puckered with silent hilarity, infecting Malah, who sputtered laughter.

  Hoglah slumped.

  “Oh, Hoglah, we don’t mean to mock you,” said Noa, “This Asaf, is he really of the tribe of Manasseh? There are questions about him that are meant to protect you.”

  “No,” Milcah countered, defending Hoglah and thinking of Oholiav. “It is to protect your idea of ourland. You care more about this land than Hoglah’s happiness.”

  “Not true. What if Hur died?” Noa spit against the Evil Eye. “I could be sent back, with a child and a pot or two. A burden to my family. Or what if one of us does not find a husband? What will she be left with? In either case: she or me could be reduced to servitude.”

  “We will get you your land, Noa. Me and Adam—we are going to fight our enemies!” Tirzah trumpeted, diving toward Noa.

  Before she landed, Malah pulled Tirzah onto her lap and wrestled her into a knot of robing. “Wild one, you are trying to deprive us of a nephew.”

  “But why does it matter whether Asaf is from Manasseh?” Milcah argued.

  Hoglah flashed a thank-you smile toward her younger sister.

  “Again, because the judges will counter, ‘If we allow these women to inherit and they marry outside Manasseh, the land will go to some other tribe.We cannot allow that.’If we say we will marry within the tribe, it will blunt the teeth of their opposition.

  “If we win the Judges of Hundreds,” Noa continued, “we’ve set a standard. Then we can bend the law toward true justice. Our rights to inherit whether we’re married within Manasseh or not. Whether we’re married at all.”

  THE PEOPLE SETTLED at Kadesh, anticipating that soon they would reclaim the land of their ancestors. The men spoke of planting fields watered by rippling rivers. Women dreamed of washing their bodies and dusty robes in languid pools. Before they reclaimed their land, Moses had asked each tribe to provide one man for the small group that would spy out the land and report on its plants and animals, and what peoples lived there.

  In the cool of the evening, the leaders of Manasseh sat at the base of a palm, with the others arrayed around them. Each of the young men was anxious to be chosen as Manasseh’s representative.

  “I know these desert people,” said Hur. “I spend time with one of their princes.”

  “To think of any of those people as a prince is to show how much you have been swayed by them,” said his cousin Uval. “They are as ants to be scraped up and tossed in a heap. Conquered. Cleaned away from the lands of our fathers.”

  For emphasis, he cupped his hand, scraped it across the sand, and collected a small pile of conquer
ed grains.

  “Yes,” countered Hur, “but we must spy out their ways so we may turn their strengths against them.”

  Focused on a role he felt should be his with vows to Haddad buried below, Hur thought his analysis sounded both tough and smart. He reached over and scooped up the mound of sand Uval had gathered and flung it into the air. “We will scatter them!”

  “Hi-yah, Hur!” one called out. Others, sitting cross-legged, beat the ground to signal their agreement.

  Gaddi smiled to hear his son, but the young men’s boastings were in vain. Manasseh’s leaders had already decided. They chose Gaddi ben Susi, proposed by Boaz and elected by Manasseh’s elders.

  Hur and the other young men had been certain one of them would be chosen for their youth, vigor, and fearlessness.

  When Hur understood that his father was chosen, he argued, “Mother won’t sleep a night without fear for you.”

  Hur, too, feared. He had heard tales of torture, impalement, beheading. He, not his father, could surely outmaneuver any enemy.

  But the older generation had decided that wiser eyes should spy out the hill country that lay north and east, lands none had seen in more than four hundred years.

  THE SPIES SET out in darkness, silently, with their shields on their shoulders and their knives at their waists. They carried little else. And the people wished them well.

  These are the names of the men that Moses sent to spy out the land: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua ben Zaccur; from the tribe of Simeon, Shafat ben Hori; from the tribe of Judah, Caleb ben Jephunneh; from the tribe of Issachar, Igal ben Joseph; from the tribe of Efraim, Joshua ben Nun; from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti ben Rafu; from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel ben Sodi; from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi ben Susi; from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel ben Gemalli; from the tribe of Asher, Sethur ben Michael; from the tribe of Naftali, Nahbi ben Vophsi; from the tribe of Gad, Geuel ben Machi.

  The people knew that when the spies returned, all of Israel would go forth onto their lands. So they set about ordering their lives, making contracts for marriage and contracts for flocks. Yoela’s family arranged her marriage date to the second son of Zerach. Yoela pleaded with Noa to stay near her, and Noa pledged that she would.

  Boaz, adding Gaddi’s duties to his own, was busy with tribal matters when Asaf came to formally claim Hoglah’s hand in marriage.

  Hoglah, anxious to know her fate, made her way to the back of her uncle’s tent. She flattened herself against the ground and carefully lifted the edge of the tent and peered under. She could see their knees, angled up as they sat cross-legged. She could see the bronze platter and small cups tooled with Manasseh’s banner. She saw a hand reach down for one of the cups. Asaf’s hand. She sucked in her breath, excited by the sight.

  A stone was pressing against her rib and, quietly as possible, she slid her hand under her chest to extract it. This was how Milcah found Hoglah, with one hand wriggling a stone from beneath her while keeping the tent flap slightly lifted with the other hand.

  “Get up,” Milcah whispered, “lest you make a spectacle of yourself.”

  When Hoglah did not respond, Milcah lay on the ground to see what Hoglah was seeing. They heard only snatches of the negotiation. What they saw was Asaf’s hands fumbling with a wrapped cloth at his side. He lifted some bangles that caught what light the tent afforded. Hoglah sighed with the thought of his presents adorning her body.

  “Did you think he would not bring rings for your arms and your ears?” Milcah whispered. “It is required.”

  “Be quiet or go away.”

  Asaf’s hand next lifted the corner of a sheepskin as he said, “many more.”

  “Of course he would bring those.”

  “Be quiet, Milcah,” Hoglah hissed. “Your comments are ruining my pleasure.”

  “Now on your stomach. After marriage, on your back.” Milcah giggled.

  “Milcah . . . what is that?”

  From the depths of a sheepskin, Asaf lifted out two round, flat stones coupled one atop the other, the diameter of a round bread.

  “Stones . . .” Hoglah groaned. “What gift is this?”

  They heard Asaf talking quickly, and Boaz responding slowly. Then Asaf stood and said, “Well, then, she will be mine?”

  On the other side of the tent, two men entered. A discussion ensued. Asaf’s tone slid from triumph to defensiveness.

  “Do you think I am not who I say?”

  Asaf then intoned a long line of names, each “son of . . .” adding a bead to strengthen the string of names.

  “Bar-On, your father’s brother? In truth?” one of the men asked.

  “Bar-On will share his tent with us. That is what uncles do. We need only raise a curtain.”

  “And how do we know you have not made all of this up,” said Boaz. “How do we know you are not of another tribe, or even another people?”

  Asaf stood, dropped his robe, then his loincloth. The two young women gasped, quietly. Hoglah lifted the tent edge higher.

  “There. Like a sheared sheep, I am exposed. Circumcised as covenant. And I am ready to make another covenant, with your permission.”

  Asaf turned slowly, a ray from outside lighting the bronze hair on his legs. Hoglah and Milcah saw his narrow buttocks tighten as he took each step until he had circled toward the back of the tent where they spied. Neither noticed his face. They were riveted by the sight of his genitals, hanging loosely between his thighs.

  “Eh. Cover yourself,” said Boaz. “We have seen enough.”

  AFTER THE SPIES had set out, Hoglah implored Boaz to accept Asaf’s bid. Noa pressed him about approaching the Judges of Hundreds. And Malah insisted on the one thing he could not stand to think about. Worn down by the young women’s barrage, he said, “yes,” “yes,” and “yes.”

  “Ach. Hoglah may have her young man,” Boaz said, sitting with his sister-in-law. “Set the marriage five days from now, the next new moon.”

  Ada smiled. Another daughter accounted for. She ran her hand over the hand mill Asaf had presented.

  “Perhaps it will save her bones from the fate of mine.”

  The gift was something most had never seen: two matched stones, stacked one atop the other. A peg, fixed in the bottom stone, rose through a hole in the top stone.

  “What is this good for?” Boaz had asked.

  “Let me show you,” Asaf said, as though he were about to make magic.

  He poured wheat kernels into the hole with one hand and, turning the top stone with an affixed wooden handle, he ground the kernels between the two stones into fine flour.

  “Hoglah will be the envy of all the young women,” Ada marveled. “Even her own sisters.”

  Hoglah knew now would be her time to shine. She had won a husband. And, in the bride price, she had received a gift the envy of women young and old. She also knew her time to shine would be short, so she burnished it with the promise of allowing others to try her hand mill after her wedding.

  Noa knew that preparations for Hoglah’s wedding would take precedence over her appearance before the Judges of Hundreds. She had time. The Israelites would go nowhere until the spies returned.

  “Please, uncle, secure me a place just before the spies return.”

  “And if they do not return.”

  “Then sometime after Hoglah is wed.”

  “It will not be easy,” Boaz cautioned. “By now, your plea is well known and few judges want to handle a case that stands on such uncertain ground.”

  “But . . .”

  “I will have to call in a favor, but I will do it.”

  FEARING HE MIGHT never father a child, Boaz finally agreed to Malah’s suggestion. He wanted the loathsome deed done quickly and, until it was done, he sent Seglit to her family.

  He told Malah, “I will send a man to you on three nights, when your womb is most open to seed.”

  Malah bowed her head to show she was humbled by his hard decision.

  “But,” he continued
, “you must veil yourself. I will wait outside the tent to ensure your safety.”

  The first night, when the camp was dark, Malah lay on her bed, tense. She heard a rustling not far from her head on the other side of the tent. A night creature, searching for food or a mate. The thought of strange mating made her shudder. Suddenly, she heard Boaz’s voice.

  “Cover yourself, Malah . . . my wife.”

  Malah pulled a veil over her face and lay absolutely still.

  She heard someone enter the tent, then felt the man’s presence at her feet as he lifted her skirts, unveiling her sex. His hands pushed lightly against the inside of her thighs, and she widened her legs. She smelled goat and strangely sweet sweat as he felt past the swollen lips guarding her vulva and entered her with his fingers. He withdrew, then grasped her shins and angled her legs into position. She sensed his heavy presence as he lowered himself into her, grunting, thrusting against her, finally withdrawing. He raised himself from her, and then was gone.

  He did not cover her. Her skirts lay tangled around her waist. She felt a breeze tickle the wetness between her legs. She pulled down her skirts, but was afraid to lift her veil.

  Boaz did not enter, and she could not tell whether he remained outside or not. She lay, too disturbed to move, until she fell asleep.

  The next day Boaz said, “Twice more he will cover you. Then we will wait to see if the planted seed will grow.”

  She could not look at him, nor he at her.

  “And what if it does not?”

  “At the same time of your next cycle, we will try again.”

  “What assurance do you have of his ability?”

  “He has had other ‘results,’” was all Boaz would say.

  CHAPTER 18

  SCOUTING THE PROMISED LAND

  THE SPIES TRAVELED on the shoulders of the day to avoid summer’s blistering heat. They followed camel tracks across the desert, knowing they could easily dodge the few caravans they might meet. Moses had cautioned them to avoid traveled roads once they reached the hill country.