The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  “Perhaps they’re dividing the spoils of Israel.

  Shirts dyed purple, shirts embroidered:

  perhaps there’s a shirt for the neck of my son…”

  So Jabin and Sisera were subdued that day. Their yoke was lifted from the people of Israel.

  And Deborah returned to her palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. She covered her head and began again to judge the people.

  And the land had rest for forty years.

  ELEVEN

  Gideon

  THE PEOPLE OF Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. A farmer named Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh, built an altar to Ba’al. He lived not more than twenty miles southwest of Mount Tabor. Beside the altar he erected a tall wooden pole upon which was carved the image of Asherah, swelling goddess of fertility. Joash still called on the name of the Lord; yet, at seedtime he also made judicious appeals to Ba’al and Asherah. So did most of his clan, the Abiezerites. So did many in Israel.

  But just as the fields that had been planted under a pagan ritual grew ripe to the harvest, a wild desert people came riding from regions east of the Salt Sea. Midianites! They terrified Israel. Riding monsters as swift as the wind, they appeared at dawn, seized the fresh grain, trampled the standing crops, burned the fields, killed peasants from the backs of their impossible beasts, and disappeared again before the dusk.

  Camels—they rode camels! They reached down to club the skulls of Israel. They covered more than sixty miles in a day. And they were able to bear enormous quantities of produce away, two hundred miles away. The distance once protected Israel. But Midian had learned to ride camels.

  They returned the following year, again at the harvest. This time they slaughtered the livestock, too, leaving not a sheep nor an ox behind.

  Next the Midianites came with their tents. Like locusts they swarmed over the Jordan, too many to count, feeding off the green land and driving many Israelites into the mountains to hide in caves and strongholds.

  So it went for seven years.

  And the people of Israel cried for help to the Lord.

  One night, under cover of darkness, someone came and pulled down the altar which Joash the Abiezerite had built for Ba’al. In the morning people found the old stones scattered; but new stones had been laid to form another altar—upon which one of Joash’s bulls had already been sacrificed. And the wood that burned the sacrifice was the pole of the image of Asherah. Her face had turned to ashes.

  The people said to one another, “Who did this thing?”

  NOW, ONE OF THE SONS of Joash, Gideon, was threshing wheat in a square stone pit as deep as his chest.

  This was his father’s wine vat. In better times he would be singing here, roaring happy songs with other men as they trod the grapes, and as the sweet juice flowed down channels to lower, cooler vats. In better times he would be threshing grain on a high, open ground with the help of his ox and his children. For the ox would pull the threshing sledge while his children gave it weight and laughed while he led them round and round on piles of stalks, separating the hard, good kernel from the chaff.

  But these were bad times. Midian might sweep down at any moment. Gideon was hiding. He was beating the stalks with a stick and a flail, threshing in the old way, crouching lower than the walls of his pit, hoping no one noticed.

  Suddenly, he heard a voice and he dropped to the ground.

  The voice was melodious, like strong music. It came from an oak near the winepress. It said: “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor.”

  Mighty man of valor. Gideon hoped it meant someone else. But he feared it meant himself. Slowly he rose to his knees and peered over the edge of the vat. Chaff stuck to his sweaty chest.

  Yes, it meant him.

  For there beneath the oak sat a man of regal appearance. Gazing straight back at Gideon. Smiling, seeming well contented.

  Gideon, hiding all but his eyes below the stone, said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Go,” intoned the marvelous figure, speaking to Gideon; there was no one else in sight. “Go in this might of yours, and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian.”

  Gideon considered the man and the madness of his utterance.

  All at once he jumped up and shouted, “Did someone tell you it was me? Well, it wasn’t! I’m not the sort that dishonors his father. Besides, I’m nothing. I’m no one. Look at me: Gideon, the least of the little clan in the weakest of tribes—”

  “Isn’t it I who send you?” said the smiling figure. His voice had the force of mountain water. “I will be with you.”

  “I hated that altar,” Gideon pleaded. “The face of Asherah frightens me.”

  “I will be with you,” the voice rolled on: “And you shall smite the Miidianites as one man.”

  Gideon swallowed and fell silent.

  The two men looked at each other a while.

  Then Gideon said, “I am going to bring you something to eat. Please don’t leave while I am gone.”

  The man said, “I will stay till you return.”

  So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young kid and unleavened cakes. He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, and brought it all to the man who sat beneath the oak.

  The man said, “Lay the meat and the cakes directly on this rock.”

  Gideon did so.

  The man said, “Now, pour the broth over them.”

  Gideon did.

  Then the man reached with the tip of his staff and touched the food. Immediately fire shot from the rock and consumed the meat and the cakes together, and the man vanished.

  “Alas!” cried Gideon. “Alas, O Lord God! I have seen the angel of the Lord face-to-face—”

  But the voice of the Lord, the voice of many cataracts said, Be at peace, Gideon. You will not die. But go. For haven’t the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East all come together and crossed the Jordan? Yes, and even now they are encamping in the valley of Jezreel.

  That night Gideon did not return to his house. A solitary man, he sat on the wall of his father’s wine vat, staring at a pile of new fleeces which lay on the stone floor exactly where he had been threshing wheat that day.

  “If you will deliver Israel by my hand,” Gideon prayed, “then give me a sign. Let the fleece be wet in the morning, but all the floor around it dry.”

  And so it was. At sunrise Gideon wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl. But he stared at that bowl all morning long, and by the afternoon, when the wool was still moist, he was thinking that wool would naturally hold water longer than stone.

  So that night he put the fleece back in the same spot.

  “Don’t be angry with me,” Gideon prayed. “Let me make just one more trial. This time, O Lord, let the fleece be dry and all the ground around it wet with dew.”

  Gideon sat vigil over the pile a second night through, and in the morning the fleece was dry. All the ground around was wet with dew.

  THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD came upon Gideon the son of Joash. It filled him as a body fills a garment—and Gideon sounded the horn of war, and the clan of Abiezer rose up ready to fight.

  Likewise, Gideon sent messengers throughout Manasseh and Asher and Zebulun and Naphtali. Men came from all four tribes with tents and weapons to follow him.

  This army Gideon led to the spring of Harod, somewhat south of the hill where Midian lay encamped in a valley.

  That same day the Lord spoke to Gideon.

  The people with you are too many, lest Israel should boast in victory, said the Lord. Therefore, tell those who are afraid that they may go home.

  Gideon did as the Lord said, and twenty-two thousand men went home. Ten thousand remained.

  Again the Lord said, They are still too many. They will think it was their hand that delivered them. Therefore, march your armies to the water and command them to drink.

  Gideon did so, and while the men were drinking the Lord said, Those that put th
eir hands in the water and lap as dogs do, count them and keep them. Those that kneel, send them home.

  Nine thousand seven hundred men had kneeled down to drink! That left only three hundred! Gideon felt as if he were back in his wine vat, helpless and small and frightened.

  But the Lord said, With three hundred will I give the Midianites into your hand. Tell the others to leave their jars and their trumpets behind and to depart before the darkness.

  That night Gideon led his small band to the ridge overlooking the valley where Midian lay encamped. Their red fires filled the dark as stars fill the heavens. They made a constant noise, like crawling insects in the night, like bees in their hive.

  The Lord said, Arise, O mighty man of valor, and go against the camp.

  Gideon said, “It is the night, Lord! No one fights in darkness.”

  The Lord said, I have given the enemy into your hand.

  “O Lord! O Lord God, you have reduced us to nothing before this horde, and I am not a mighty man. I have always been afraid.”

  Look, then, little man, said the Lord, and in a vision Gideon became aware of a small barley cake tumbling down the hillside into the camp of Midian. It rolled toward a tent and bumped it—and the tent was knocked so hard that it turned upside down and fell flat to the ground.

  You, Gideon, are that barley cake, said the Lord. Obey me now, and go.

  In darkness, then, Gideon issued each of his men a ram’s horn, a hollow jar, and a torch. While they were yet close before him he whispered their orders: “Whatever I do, do likewise,” he said. “When I blow my horn, blow yours exactly where you stand. Shatter your jars and light your torches and shout, A sword for the Lord and Gideon.”

  Gideon divided the three hundred men into three companies, and sent them north and west and south of the valley, until they became a thin invisible loop in the hills surrounding Midian.

  In the tents of the Midianites, one hundred and thirty-five thousand warriors slept in the assurance of their great numbers. Watch fires burned at intervals throughout the wide installation, ten thousand of those. Camels were gathered in great herds, the easier to feed—five thousand corrals, a hundred thousand head. And men stood watch around the entire perimeter, gazing out into the darkness, expecting nothing.

  Then, just as guards went forth to start the middle watch, a single horn wailed in the hills west of the camp, a snarling irascible sound, as if it were a wild beast upon its prey.

  The watchmen of Midian turned. Who prowls the darkness blowing a ram’s horn?

  But other horns joined their voices to the first. As if the sound were a fire, it raced left and right around the hills, violent, loud, predatory. Who fights in the night? Naked Midianites started to step out of their tents. Who hazards a perfect darkness? What madness is this?

  Suddenly, from all the hills around the camp, great crashings and shat-terings came down. What? What? cried Midian, seizing swords and spears. What army is charging down the slopes at us?

  Now torches were exposed on high, a ring of flame encircling Midian, and human throats were bellowing: “A sword for the Lord and Gideon,” and all the warriors of the Midianites were awake, now, crying: They’ve cut us off! Even their rear guard is swarming down the hills! Fight! Fight! Fight!

  But those whom Midian slaughtered were their brothers. Terrified by the night attack, sightless, fearing infiltration, they slew whomever came near. They killed each other. Gideon bellowed on the hillside and then watched Midian destroy itself, until there were no more than fifteen thousand left.

  These fifteen thousand he pursued.

  In the next days, Gideon followed them as far as Karkor, which was their own city. They considered themselves safe. The miserable army collapsed and began to rest—when suddenly Gideon appeared above them, even here, throwing them again into such a whining panic that he beat them with the edge of his own sword.

  There Gideon captured two kings of the Midianites, Zebah and Zalmunna. He bound them and carried them home and set them up before himself in the square stone wine vat.

  “If you had not slain my kin,” Gideon said to them, “I would not slay you now. But in the day you chose death for Israel, you chose death for yourselves. Jether!” Gideon called. “Jether, come here.”

  A slim, beautiful youth stepped forward, both solemn and scared.

  Gideon said to Zebah and Zalmunna, “This is my firstborn.” And then to the lad Gideon said, “And these men are your task. Kill them.”

  Young Jether walked slowly toward the Midianite kings. He took the hilt of his sword in his right hand and drew it. His arm was lean. It shook uncontrollably. His face remained solemn, but his huge eyes developed tears. He raised the wobbly sword over his head—and there he stopped.

  “Sir!” cried Zebah, and it became evident that he, too, was in anguish. “Sir, we are kings. You have already debased us by placing us in a wine vat. But to execute us by the hand of a beardless boy—”

  Poor Jether lifted his eyes to his father in piteous agreement.

  Zebah said, “Rise yourself and fall upon us—for as a man is, so is his strength.”

  With a horrible bellow, Gideon leaped into the pit and slew Zebah and Zalmunna in two strokes, and there was an end to it.

  But in remembrance of the time of his might, Gideon kept among his own possessions the crescents that once had hung on the necks of the camels of the kings of Midian.

  THE MEN OF ISRAEL said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson, too. You have delivered us from the hand of Midian. Why not continue the peace for the generations that will come after us?”

  Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you. And my son will not rule over you. The Lord alone rules over you.”

  So Midian was subdued. Neither their kings nor their people returned to cause harm in Israel anymore. And through all the days of Gideon thereafter, the land had rest: forty years, a generation.

  TWELVE

  Jephthah

  I

  AFTER GIDEON THERE AROSE to deliver Israel Tola, the son of Puah, a man of the tribe of Issachar. He lived at Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim. He judged Israel twenty-three years, and when he died he was buried where he had lived, at Shamir.

  After Tola arose Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel twenty-two years. He is remembered as a man of wealth, for he had thirty sons who rode on thirty asses and who governed thirty cities in the land of Gilead. Jair died and was buried in Kamon.

  Again the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. The pattern of their behavior became like a wheel rolling. Over and over again, when the generation that had known and obeyed the Lord passed away, the next one would forget him and seek the peculiar power of some other god.

  Then, inevitably, the wheel turned and Israel would suffer at the hand of a new enemy, who gathered strength against them, troubled them, subdued them, and taught them how weak was their hold on the land after all.

  So Israel would remember the Lord their God, and would cry unto him for deliverance. That was the third turn of the wheel. Marvelous in mercy was the Lord! He always turned the wheel its fourth time, completing a full revolution and bringing his people back to peace and rest again. For the Lord God grew indignant over the misery of Israel. Again and again, upon their prayer, he sent his spirit into someone and raised up a deliverer for his people Israel.

  II

  SO AFTER JAIR had died, and after the land had rest for more than a generation, the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

  Then the Ammonites, perceiving a weakness, sought opportunity to regain territory they had lost long ago when their great King Og had been defeated by Moses of the Israelites. They raised a large army and marched into Gilead, east of Jordan, where they encamped and prepared to attack Israel.

  The elders of Israel in Gilead came together at Mizpah, but there was no one among them capable of dramatic military leadership.

  “What man can fi
ght the Ammonites?” they said. “Let him lead us now, and we will give him headship over all the inhabitants of Gilead hereafter!”

  Now, Jephthah was a mighty warrior. He dwelt in the southeastern regions of Gilead with a band of wild fellows. His father had been a man of wealth and reputation, but his mother was a whore. Therefore, he had been driven out by the legitimate children of his father and had made his own reputation as a free man, a rider, a raider, a soldier of fortune.

  Unto Jephthah the elders of Gilead turned, “Come and be our leader,” they said. “Fight the Ammonites for us.”

  As it was, Jephthah liked his life. He had a house in Tob, east of Ramoth-gilead. He had one child, a daughter, who loved him and for whom he had built the house in the first place.

  But the elders were offering him the lifetime leadership of all the clans of Gilead.

  In the evening he went into his daughter’s room and sat down beside her. “Those that hated me are humbling themselves before me,” he said. “Those that drove me out as a bastard are now begging me to be their judge. How can I say no?”

  Father and daughter sat in dim light a while. She was a lovely maiden with slender fingers.

  “You can’t say no,” she said.

  Jephtha said, “But I will be gone a long time.”

  His daughter kissed his forehead and said, “Go.”

  In the morning he and his men rode to Mizpah with a roaring, fierce delight. Jephthah had no doubt that the Lord, the God of all the tribes of Israel, had reached down and lifted him from his low degree to this exalted position.

  Indeed, the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he gathered armies from Gilead and Manasseh and Israel, and just before he marched them into war against the Ammonites, he made a vow to the Lord.

  “O Lord, my best for your best,” he said. “If you give me this victory, then I will give you the first good thing that meets me when I return! I will burn it as an offering to you.”