The young men, their blood hot for war, charged that they did not need to be escorted to the edges like trembling women. Old women complained that the move would kill them and, for some, the complaint proved true. Others feared disruption. As ever, the people grumbled. Except the children, who thought the journey a grand adventure.
When they reached Mount Hor, Aaron took off his priestly garments, put them on his son Eleazar, and was gathered to his ancestors. With the deaths of both sister and brother, Moses now felt utterly alone and knew his time approached. Increasingly, he depended on Joshua.
The Canaanites, hearing that Israel’s tribes journeyed near, remembered stories of a weak slave people and sent a band to assault them. With Joshua at their head, the tribes overcame the Canaanites and the news spread. When Balak, king of Moab, learned of the victory, he consulted with Midian allies who recommended a prophet named Balaam.
“Here,” commanded Balak, “come curse these people for me.”
The elders of Midian and Moab paid Balaam handsomely to curse Israel’s twelve tribes, now camped at Shittim at the northern edge of the Salt Sea. So Balaam made his way up the Mountains of Moab. From the ridge, he looked out on the silver surface of the Salt Sea, the tumbling Jordan River that spilled into the sea from the north, watering the great oasis of Shittim, with its canopy of stately winterthorn acacia trees and broad green meadows. Green meadows, black tents, white sands, silver sea . . . all laid out in beauty. God blinded Balaam with beauty. Instead of curses, he uttered blessings:
How fair are your tents, O Jacob,
Your dwellings, O Israel!
Like palm-groves that stretch out,
Like gardens beside a river.
Balaam’s reports, carefully told to those who sent him, strengthened Haddad’s plans for a marital alliance between his daughter and Hur’s son.
His wife countered, “You would sell our daughter to our enemies?”
When his daughter Keturah heard of Balaam’s blessing, praising the orderliness of the Israelites’ camps, she cursed the priest to her friends. She was among the young Midianites who saw the tribes from Egypt as strangers who stole their land. Her mother had taught her well. Keturah met with Cozbi, another ripe young woman, to plan humiliations for the interlopers.
Malah’s reaction to Balaam’s blessing was different from Haddad’s or Keturah’s.
“From up there all may look orderly. Tell that old priest to come down here and see how things truly are,” Malah growled to no one in particular.
She was tired of desert dust when a green land was what they were promised. She was tired of being a tent-dweller when she aspired to a mudbrick home. She was tired of moving from place to place. She was, simply, tired.
YARED AND HIS companion approached the well, intending to fill their waterskins. They were surprised to see three young women, laughing as they tried to roll back the rock that covered the well. He noticed the clan mark of a wolf on the ankle of one, the tattoo trailing a wolf’s mane under her skirts.
“Not one of us,” Yared thought, intrigued.
“Please, handsome lads, can you help us?” the young woman with the tattoo urged.
“Who are you?” Yared called. “We have not seen you among the tents of our tribes.”
“We are from the tents of Midian, not far from here,” she said. “Strange we have not seen you here before.”
As they approached, the young men saw that the Midianite women were comely.
“Had we known what we would find, we would have come sooner,” Yared’s friend said, as they helped the young women roll back the rock.
“And you, who are your people?” Keturah asked, her smile a mask for her guile.
“We are from the tribe of Manasseh. My mother’s brother—Hur, son of Gaddi—leads the tribe,” Yared boasted.
Keturah could not believe her luck. She shot a look at her two friends. One raised her eyebrows and played her tongue across her lips.
“Will you lads help us draw water?” Keturah asked, bending to her jug so that her robe gaped open, revealing enough for Yared to respond:
“You call us lads. We are as much men as you are women.”
“Then, prove yourselves,” Keturah dared, handing him the jug, implying something else.
Aroused by this bold invitation, Yared took up her challenge.
“WHO WILL GO out and take back what is ours?”
The square-faced judge counted nine others willing to find those who had stolen the prized flock of fat-tailed sheep.
They were among the bands that formed at Kadesh Barnea to sharpen themselves in the art of war. When they first formed, Tirzah demanded she be included.
The judge countered, “Women are full of fear.”
“Ho! Fear?” Tirzah’s feral laugh caught them up.
Adam, amused, raised his eyebrows at the idea of a fearful Tirzah.
“You will be a weight when we need speed,” the men argued.
“I vouch for her speed,” Adam said.
“If you should be killed, what of your sons, especially the one . . .” implying Gibor’s infirmity.
“I will not be killed. And I have sisters who can care for him,” said Tirzah.
The men relented and, with spears and knives, they went out on forays from Kadesh Barnea. From her temperament to the color of her hair, Tirzah was a match for the name they had given her: Tanit, Little Jackal.
Tanit tied up her hair, wore a short tunic, and carried a long knife. On her first foray, she hung back briefly to assess the battle. Finally, plunging in, she helped slay one, then another. The men of her band were inspired by her fierce joy in battle.
After the twelve tribes settled at Shittim, Midianites and Moabites beset them, some to repulse them from their borders, some to steal what they could. By this time, Israelite warrior bands were battle hardened.
Now Tirzah bore a leather shield on her left arm, made from the hide of a gazelle Yared had killed. After the brothers brought back the carcass, Gibor began curing the hide, parching then rolling it with salt-laden soil until ready to scrape and grease.
“This is women’s work,” Tirzah scolded. “Don’t put yourself in a worse light. I’ll get one of Hoglah’s daughters to cure it.”
“Leave him be,” Yared said. “Everything my brother can do he does well. And why Hoglah’s daughters? Why not you?”
“Take your disrespect away from my face.”
The encounter with Yared ended badly, but the shield came out well. As did the spear Gibor had fashioned for her. If Yared was embarrassed by his mother, Gibor strove to gain grace in her eyes.
At first, Tirzah had refused to carry a spear, saying a knife was sufficient, until Adam said, “If you run at your enemy and he holds a knife the length of a hand and you hold a spear the length of an arm, who has the advantage?”
As they went out to regain the stolen sheep, the spear felt good, the heft in her hand, the balance as she ran. Adam carried a bronze, Kenite-crafted sword, for which he had paid dearly.
In the pre-dawn glow, the small band said little as they trotted south along the swath of desert framing the Salt Sea. Speed kept them warm in the late winter chill and last week’s rain softened the hardpan under their feet. As the rising sun crested the Mountains of Moab, its rays glinted bright and cold on the warriors below.
The sun was higher when they heard the sheep bleating, then saw them in the distance, milling under a lone umbrella acacia tree. The pursuers stopped out of sight to decide their strategy. Adam suggested circling to the southeast, attacking as the sun blinded the thieves’ eyes.
They moved slowly, from bush to bush, until they saw their prey lazing near the base of the tree. They made little noise until they were nearly upon the logy men. As they ran, the slap-slap of their sandals gave them away. The thieves looked and leaped up as the Israelites stiffened their spear arms and attacked.
The thieves were fewer than they. The Israelites, calculating quickly, each spott
ed a man as they ran. Adam and Tanit, working together, pursued a tall, thin man.
“I’ll run ahead,” Adam panted, as they pounded forward, “and take him from the front. You . . . back.”
Tanit grunted her agreement.
In the confusion of bawling sheep and fleeing men, pursuit was chaotic. Their man dodged among the sheep, grabbing fistfuls of wooly backs for leverage as he pushed himself forward through the frantic animals. Tanit stayed at his back while Adam cut around to the front.
He caught the thief making a break for the open sands, and pegged the man’s foot with his sword. The man grabbed at Adam, and they clattered to the ground together. Tanit, close behind, dropped her spear and drew her knife. She leaped atop the downed thief, then aiming just below the ribs, she drove the knife in. When it was over, three thieves lay dead. The one Tanit stabbed crawled off to die, and two had fled.
“We can run them down,” said one of the Israelites.
“Let them run. They will return to their people, and we will get a name for ourselves,” said the judge. “In their telling, we will become greater in number, larger in body . . . and,” he slapped his thigh, laughing, “fierce as the god Ba’al.”
“And Amnon?” said one, quietly, as Amnon succumbed to a belly wound, his head cradled in the man’s lap.
“We will carry Amnon home. Here . . .”
The judge grabbed one of the dead thieves’ robes, and they lifted Amnon onto it. Four to carry him, the rest to drive the flock.
Once they were on their way, Tanit looked over at Adam and noticed a ragged wound in his thigh, still trickling blood. During the initial rush, he had been gored by the horn of a sheep, but was so full of battle he had not noticed. She pointed, and he looked down, surprised, as she pulled off the band holding her hair and bound it around the wound.
Adam looked at Tanit, her eyes alight, her hair tumbled around her face, streaked with dirt and the dark henna of crusted blood. The sight of her made him forget his wound.
When they returned, the owner of the flock thanked them each with a sheep and two for the widow of Amnon. He roasted one other in celebration and, after they feasted, they divided the meat that was left.
When Adam and Tirzah returned home, Gibor insisted on fetching Milcah to fix his father’s wound. Milcah came with her unguents and needles and threads, but Adam said that the ragged edges needed only binding, not the needle. So Milcah cleaned his cut, trimmed the edges, smeared it with honey to guard against infection, and bound it so the edges would suture.
Then they sat outside at the smoldering cookfire, chewing charred, succulent chunks of roasted sheep, the grease smearing their mouths and hands. After she had eaten, Milcah cleaned her hands, wrapped the meat she saved for Dor, and returned home.
Across the Salt Sea, the setting sun limned a luminous rim atop the western mountains. The sky darkened and a full moon began its ascent above the mountains. Tirzah kissed her hand and raised it to the Queen of Heaven:
“ . . . for giving us victory today.”
As they watched, another darker orb slowly consumed the moon until the silvery light was completely covered and the double orb glowed the color of dried blood.
“A Blood Moon—a sign,” Adam called. “But not our sign. I’m glad we did not see this last night.”
Others had emerged to watch, with awe and dread, as their lunar timepiece temporarily disappeared behind the shadow of the orb on which they lived.
“Whose fate is the moon foretelling?” Adam wondered.
“I hope our next sign will be for our promised land,” Tirzah said.
“And whose land would that be?” Yared muttered.
“What did you say?” Tirzah demanded.
“I said, ‘Whose land do you plan to take?’”
“Our land.” Tirzah’s face was as full of anger as was her son’s of defiance.
Yared remembered Keturah, lying on his robe, drawing him into her, fueling his passion to challenge his mother.
“How will you know which is our land when all you see are the dwellings of others?”
“It was ours before it was theirs.”
“And whose before that?”
“God will show us our land,” Tirzah countered.
“And if their God showed them the same land?”
“Our God is stronger.”
“Stop,” demanded Adam, disturbed by the railing between wife and son. “Whose land is it? He who takes it. That is always the way.”
HUR SAT ON a rock at the edge of a spring-fed pool, waiting for Haddad. The rock was half-hidden among reeds and, as he sat there, he ran his thumbnail down a tall stalk, wondering how this meeting would go.
Hur had sent one of his men to request a meeting here, known as a neutral place. Now he chided himself as a fool for exposing himself, alone. He had brought his bow and a quiver of arrows, having said that perhaps they would hunt, as they used to. They had not seen each other for some time and hunting was a plausible, easy reason to meet. He brought his knife, too, as a hedge. He could not imagine that Haddad would betray him, yet he sat with his back covered by a screen of reeds.
Hur was certain Haddad had heard of Israel’s move to Shittim, and was equally certain Haddad had heard of Balaam’s blessings. As Hur rehearsed the words he would use, his mind wandered.
When Moses came down from the mountain, the laws he brought were meant to mold them as a distinct people sworn to remain distinct.
“But,” Hur wondered, “Moses married a Midianite, so how separate must we be?”
He heard a rustling, reached for his knife, then looked up to see Haddad.
“Friend, did you not hear me?”
Haddad strode around the edge of the pool, and Hur rose to meet him. They embraced, but Hur noticed that Haddad had said “friend” when they used to call each other “brother.”
“How is it with you?” asked Haddad.
“We recently buried my brother-in-law, Boaz.” Hur raised an eyebrow, hinting at the change in his position.
Haddad was silent a moment, as he took in Hur’s meaning.
“Ha! Making you sole leader of Manasseh. And a worthy one.”
“One who waited. And how goes your . . .”
“ . . . always the Scarface snaps at my heels, looking for weakness. I keep sending him off to battle. If he refused, he would lose face. One of these battles will solve my problem.”
“He could gain a name by challenging you.”
“He could, but he’s better at scheming than fighting.”
Haddad smiled with such naked satisfaction at his Scarface solution that Hur clapped him on the shoulder, laughing. “You!”
Their comfortable camaraderie reestablished, they busied themselves with checking their bowstrings and sighting the line of their arrows as though that were their goal. Then they set them down and continued talking. Eventually, Haddad reached for the topic he had on his mind all along.
“Your son, Gaddi, how is he?”
“Excellent,” Hur replied. Then, realizing where this would lead, he drew back his enthusiasm. “But you know children are never exactly as you wish them to be.”
“I know only too well,” Haddad agreed, thankful for Hur’s circumspection. “My daughter, a beauty, but . . .” Haddad looked around as if his praise might have attracted an Evil Eye. “She is hardly ready for a husband, I fear.”
“A wise parent knows when the time is right. Your daughter is fortunate to have so wise a parent.”
Their conversation slipped into stiff platitudes as they backed away from the oath they had sworn to bring their peoples together. They traversed to the abstractions of leadership.
Haddad sighed. “It is not easy.”
“Yes. Now a wall surrounds me. I can go so far and no farther. Did I build it, or was it there?”
“Some of each. And it tests friendships.”
They were no longer the careless young men they once had been. Haddad looked at Hur, trying to sound ligh
thearted when he knew this was likely the last time they would meet.
“The day is soon ending,” Hur said as he got up and gathered his hunting gear.
Haddad did the same, then backed away.
“Good friend,” he said, as he raised his free hand in farewell. “I will see you again. In time . . .”
“Yes, in time,” Hur returned the lie.
Each fixed the face of the other in his heart, then turned and went their ways.
CHAPTER 27
SEDUCTION
BALAAM HAD NOT given satisfaction to those who sent him to curse Israel, and he sought to redeem himself in their eyes and in their purses. He heard that Cozbi, daughter of a Midianite tribal chief, plotted to seduce Israelites and drew other young women to her purpose.
Balaam allied himself with Cozbi and hatched an audacious plot that went beyond seduction. Not only would the Midianite women dilute Israel’s future leaders through the vehicle of their bodies, they also would humiliate the interlopers’ elders and worse. Cozbi clapped her hands with spiteful delight. Balaam remained more restrained but anticipated a return to rich living.
The Midianite women chose their targets and inducted young Israelite men into the mysteries of Ba’al-Peor, and Ba’al’s profane sacraments. They brought their lessons to the tents of the twelve tribes on a spring day when the warming sun steamed away the end of winter. Cozbi flaunted across the Israelites’ holy sector with her lover, Zimri, heir to the Israelite house of Simeon. Zimri, his loins aflame, saw nothing but the red red bower to which she drew him.
Pinchas, son of high priest Eleazar, found the two near the Ark of the Covenant, copulating with cries and groans, filling the holy sector with the sounds of sex. Bursting with zeal, Pinchas grabbed a spear and plunged it with such potency it pierced both Zimri and the bower of Cozbi’s body.
The deed immediately rippled back through the tribes. Tirzah heard it at her mother’s not long before she rounded the corner of her own tent to find Yared atop a naked young woman, her son thrusting like a ram. She froze, watching the sex-flushed rump of the woman beneath her son pulsate up and down. She smelled them, a pungent odor, sweet as honey, sour as sweat.
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