J: The Woman Who Wrote the Bible

by Mary Burns

  I did not let him see that his words affected me, but I heard my mother breathing hard, her fingers ever tighter on my shoulder. Then she spoke.

  “We women have faced death before, sir,” she said. “We are not afraid.” The women and children behind us were uniformly silent, and stood with their heads high at these words. The Amalekite looked at my mother, and I saw what might have been a gleam of respect in his dark eyes. Just then, a horseman broke through the circle, slid off his horse, and knelt before the captain. His words, though hurried, were plain to my ear.

  “Sir, word has come—David and his men—on their way—will be here by nightfall!”

  The Amalekite stood still a moment, then nodded. Shouting to his men to form a guard around us and get us moving on the road, he mounted his horse and disappeared into the battalion of warriors. The horsemen then began to herd us, like sheep, pushing their horses against us to make us walk away from the city, up into the hills.

  They pressed us hard; for the first few miles, we practically ran. But this could not be sustained. We stopped to rest when we reached the foothills about five miles from Ziklag; many of the older women were shaking and could not stand, nor those who were carrying small children.

  The Amalekites numbered about three hundred men, all on horses. After a brief council between the captain and several of his chief warriors, it was clear they had come to a decision. The men strode among us, choosing only young, strong women and girls, and shoved us away from the rest—the older women, the babies and young children. Cries of grief and terror rose from all sides as it began to sink in what was happening. The soldiers pulled us up onto their horses, and began to ride away. The dark-haired captain had my mother riding in front of him. She no longer held Amnon in her arms, and I could see she was striking out at the man with all her strength. I was unceremoniously flung onto a young soldier’s horse where his leather-clad arms held me like a vise as we rode away.

  We heard screams and cries behind us, and I feared the worst. Would they slay all those helpless ones left behind? Or would they simply leave them in the high desert with no food, no water, already exhausted and unable to make their way back to Ziklag, prey for wolves and jackals when night fell? I had no strength left in me for fighting and could only determine to endure what might lie ahead with as much courage as I could find.

  Where was HaShem’s promise and protection now? My eyes were shut tight as the Amalekites hurled themselves up the mountain to the pass that led back to their own land. I felt as if every tooth in my head would be shaken loose by the pounding of the horse’s hooves on the rocky ground. HaShem, I prayed, if you are indeed a god, our God, deliver us from the hands of our enemies! Give my father wings to speed after us, and strength to slay our foes so You will be praised above all other gods!

  In the swimming darkness of my closed eyes, I saw a strange creature, a ram with three horns. He pawed the ground, his fiery yellow eyes like flashes of lightning. Then the vision was gone.

  We reached the pass as the sun began to set. The path through the mountains was narrow with steep walls of rock on either side. The horses and their riders were weary and moved more slowly. I had been falling in and out of a wretched half-sleep for a while, when I was awakened by the fact we were no longer moving. At the head of the troops, the black-haired captain sat upright, hand and head raised, as if he were sniffing the air. All my senses were alert, and I strained to hear or see anything in the gathering dusk and shadows.

  In silent swiftness, the captain pulled my mother off the saddle and let her slide to the ground where she half fell on legs long wearied from riding. He motioned to his men to do the same, and I was dumped from the young soldier’s horse like a sack of grain. My legs were rubbery and sore, and I stumbled toward my mother who was painfully making her way to the shelter of some overhanging rocks off the path.

  An eerie silence lay upon the scene. We women of David’s tribe gathered by the rocks on the side of the path, huddled close.

  The captain and one of his chief soldiers whispered together, then the captain nodded, and drew his sword. The silvery, slithering sound of three hundred swords drawn from their sheaths whispered and echoed in the rocky heights. With a grim look on his face, the captain advanced upon us. I closed my eyes and prepared for death.

  But he rousted us up from the ground, motioning silently to my mother to start walking ahead of the soldiers through the pass. I realized what was going on—they feared an ambush, and we were to be their shield!

  Clasping each other around the waist and shoulders or holding hands, we walked forward into the shadow of the pass, expecting to be cut down by the arrows or swords of an unknown enemy. My mother and I were first.

  I thought the pounding of my heart, so tight in my chest, would suffocate me as we trudged over the rocky ground. Huge stones and boulders rose over our heads with sparsely leaved bushes clinging to the cracks in their sides and branches rising into the darkening sky. All at once, as I glanced up and to my right, I saw the gleam of a sword, and then another, and another. Then, through the high branches of a twisted tree, I saw my father’s eyes, bright as gold and terrifying. My arm around my mother’s waist shook involuntarily as a tremor ricocheted through my whole body, and she turned her head slightly to where I was looking. I felt her stiffen, and her lips parted but I clutched at her, shook my head the barest amount, and she did not speak. Other women began to notice the swords and feel the presence of David’s army, but they too kept silent. It was a most uncanny procession!

  As soon as the last woman had walked through the narrowest place of the passage, we quickened our steps. The Amalekites started behind us, on horseback, and a thought occurred to me. “Let’s run!” I whispered to my mother. “It will draw them out the faster if they think we are trying to escape!” She nodded and whispered to the woman next to her. Within a few moments, the word had spread, and at Abigail’s sign, we all began to run down the path toward a great open space, lit by the last rays of the dying sun.

  With an outraged cry, the Amalekites spurred their horses to chase after us, and they came through the pass swiftly. As the last man rode through, a mighty sound like a winter wind ripped the air, and David’s bowmen struck down horse and rider alike as they raced toward open ground. David himself rose from behind the rocks and leaped upon an astonished horseman, killing him with a single blow.

  It was all over in less time than it takes to tell it, though it seemed long. The din was terrific: the cries of the dying men and horses, the shouts of David’s warriors, and ours too—for we shouted war cries from the high plain we had gained, and sang aloud prayers of praise and gratitude to our God who delivered us.

  My father, bloodied but unwounded, clasped us in his arms when all the fighting was done. All around us, my uncles and cousins and kin were joyously reunited with their wives, sisters, mothers. My mother’s first words, “Amnon! Our son! They took him from me!” were answered immediately with reassurance and joy. The women and children left behind had been found, by the might and grace of HaShem, and all were safe. He had indeed protected His Anointed One.

  Everyone gathered around their king, eager to hear how this salvation had come about, and David told us that the miracle of their coming began with Achish’s other allies, Philistines who distrusted David. They had refused to fight if David and his troops were part of the battle against the Israelites; they mistrusted his declarations of allegiance to their king and feared he would attack from behind. Achish had no choice but to send David back to Ziklag, where he was met with the desolation inflicted by the Amalekite raiders.

  His rage and anguish could not be contained, he said. He lay in the dust, weeping and beseeching HaShem to spare our lives and grant him vengeance. At that moment, a young boy stumbled into Ziklag, nearly dead from exhaustion. He had been with the women and children who were left behind to die in the hills, and was able to tell David where the Amalekites had taken us. Praising God for His goodness, David and his
men set out for the mountains, and then the final miracle occurred: as they approached the narrow mountain pass, a large sheep with three horns appeared on the rocky hillside. It approached David, looking at him with what seemed human eyes, then turned and ran swiftly back up the hill, looking back as if to say, “Follow me!” David ran after it, and it led them to a shorter way across the mountain, enabling them to beat the Amalekites to the other side of the pass.

  I remembered my vision, and marveled at this proof of God’s favor to me, but said nothing aloud. It was enough to know the vision I had asked for had been a true one.

  “All that was prophesied has come to pass,” my father was saying, and my heart swelled with the joy of it.

  “Although some men of the town died defending Ziklag,” my father said, “no one of my household has been harmed.”

  “That is not true,” I spoke up, lifting my head from my father’s shoulder. “Didymos, your scribe. He was killed trying to save me.”

  My father looked at me with his keen eyes.

  “Then, little seeress,” he said kindly, “we will give him a hero’s farewell, and his name shall always be called on the day of the ancestors.” Then he picked me up and held me in his right arm and put his other arm around my mother’s shoulders, and we were safe at last.

  When we finally reached our home sometime near dawn, I felt the trickle of blood on my thighs, and wept with relief and awe at the awakening of my new life as a woman and a prophet.

  Chapter 8

  “How fallen are the mighty in battle, and their weapons of

  war – stolen away!” 2 Samuel 1:27

  David was declared King of Judah, but it was not without cost. The Philistines had indeed overcome the army of the Israelites, as the prophet Samuel had foretold, and Saul and his son Jonathan were dead.

  It took my father hard, though he had known it was going to happen. The day the messenger came, a few days after we had returned to Ziklag, was hot and sultry. We had been hoping for a storm to wash away the dust, and clouds to block the glare of the sun. My father sat in his council room, not even pretending to listen to the ongoing arguments of his brothers.

  When the messenger entered, he caused a storm of another kind. I saw at once that he was a man of Zebulon’s tribe, an Israelite, and edged closer to my father’s chair as his hands gripped the carved wooden arms.

  The man fell on his knees before David, touching his forehead to the ground. My father asked him where he had come from.

  “I have escaped from the army of the Philistines,” he said, raising his head slightly.

  David leaned forward eagerly. “What news do you bring? Tell me.”

  “Saul’s army has been driven from the field,” he said, raising his head a little more. “Many have fallen in battle, on both sides. Saul and Jonathan his son . . . ” the man paused and bent his head down again. “They are dead.”

  My father stood up, trembling.

  “How do you know that Saul and Jonathan are dead? Come, stand up and tell me.”

  The man rose and spoke, his voice uneven. “I was there, great lord, on Mount Gilboa, and I saw Saul leaning on his spear, wounded. The horsemen and foot soldiers were closing in upon him. He turned and saw me, called to me.” The man paused to lick his lips; the whole room listened. “He—he asked who I was, and I said, ‘I am of the tribe of Zebulon,’ and then he said to me, ‘The throes of death have seized me, but still I live! Come, stand near me and help me die on my own sword, so that the enemy shall not give me my death blow.’” Again the man paused. David said nothing.

  “So I stood near him and held the sword firm and helped him push himself into it, and then he died.” A gasp circled round the room, followed by low muttering. David raised his hand, and all fell silent again.

  “And Jonathan?”

  “The King’s son, sir, was already dead; I saw him,” the messenger said. “There were as many arrows in him as a man has fingers, and his face was cold, for I touched him.”

  My father’s face was terrible to see, his eyes like iron, his features a mask.

  “And then?”

  “I—then I thought to take the crown from the King’s head, my lord, and the armlet from his arm, to bring them here to you, sir. And some other things, too. Here they are.”

  He pulled from a sack on his shoulder the golden crown of King Saul and the circlet of gold and silver he wore around his arm; he set them on a small table before David’s chair. Fumbling with the sack for a few more moments, he then took out the broken pieces of a warrior’s bow, Jonathan’s mighty weapon, and a golden amulet on a leather thong.

  My father tore at his clothes and gave a great cry, echoed again and again by all the people in the council room. He reached for his sword, hanging in its sheath from the back of his chair, and pulling it free, advanced toward the messenger.

  “You have killed the Lord’s Anointed; by your own mouth, you are condemned, and so shall you die!”

  “No, father!” I called out, unaware I was doing so. He turned on me, raising his sword above my head. His eyes were red fire, his face was not his own, and I believe he would have slain me on the spot, except that something—or someone—stayed his hand. I saw him struggle, wrestling his arm as if against a mightier grip, and then the sword fell from his hand with a great clang upon the stone floor.

  The messenger had fallen upon his knees, begging for mercy. David looked wildly around the assembly, and called out to his council.

  “Is it the will of this council that the man who killed the Lord’s Anointed shall live, or die?” The response was immediate. “He shall die!” came the cry from all corners of the room, and the man was seized and carried off by several of my uncles. Shocked as I was by this hideous injustice, I knew I could not protest further.

  My father, dazed and grief-stricken, came back to himself enough to turn to the assembled crowd and say, “There will be fasting for this day, and this night, and for tomorrow, until the sun is set. Anyone who eats shall die.” We stood in awed silence as he clutched to his breast the amulet and the remains of Jonathan’s bow; he stumbled away, weeping.

  * * *

  After sundown the next day, a great bonfire was built in the courtyard; there my father sang a lament and danced the showing of it so all would know and repeat it in memorial to Saul and Jonathan. Many years later, when I was skilled in writing, I captured it as closely as I could remember, though the words alone seem poor when I recall the drama of my father’s dancing as well as the weeping and groans of the people all around the bonfire that night.

  Janaia’s Writing of the Bow-Lament of David

  Now watch! And show this bow-lament to the men of Judah, how the mighty ones fell, slain on the heights of Israel’s mountain, our glory!

  But show it not, tell it not in Gath or in the streets of Ashkelon—the daughters of the Philistines shall not rejoice, shall not be glad over us!

  No rain, no dew shall fall again on the mountains of Gilboa, nor offerings of the fields be burnt there, for on that place the shield of the mighty Saul lost the shine of oil gleaming, though his sword never returned unsatisfied of blood.

  There fell Jonathan of the mighty bow—which turned not back from piercing the flesh of the enemy. Together they fought and fell—as in life, together they were loved and gracious—in death they were not parted.

  Swifter than eagles! Stronger than lions!

  Now weep, Daughters of Israel, for Saul! How he clothed you in scarlet and gold!

  Fallen are the mighty ones! Fallen, my Jonathan, slain on the heights. Dear to me, my brother, dearer to me in my grief, my love for you far more than the love of women.

  How fallen are the mighty in battle, and their weapons of war—stolen away!

  Abner, son of Ner, Saul’s commander-in-chief, eventually rallied the forces of Israel, and fought back against the Philistines. Soon, though Abner was really in charge, a young and cowardly son of Saul’s named Ishbosheth, was declared King of Is
rael—over Gilead, the Asherites, Jezreel, Ephraim, and Benjamin as well. But Judah followed David and proclaimed him their king, and before winter we had moved from Ziklag to the city of Hebron in Judah.

  HEBRON

  Chapter 9

  “She was a woman of intelligence and beauty, but the man

  was brutish and ill-mannered.” 1 Samuel 25:3

  The ancient city of Hebron was a long day’s journey east from Ziklag to the southern hills of Judah. In early days it was called Kiriath-Arba, and it is the site of the Cave of Machpelah, the resting place of our great Father Abraham, Mother Sarah, and Isaac, Jacob, and Rebecca. It had fallen into the hands of the Canaanites long, long ago but was re-captured by Joshua of blessed memory and restored to the hands of the Israelites. It is one of our holiest places.

  Since David would soon be crowned king of Judah in Hebron, our arrival was a triumph. But we of David’s family felt solemn and humbled by the graciousness of HaShem and our narrow escape from death, and the grief we felt for Saul and Jonathan stilled our joy in silence.

  For me, there was something more in Hebron—a feeling in the air, almost a scent, that spoke to my heart and filled it with yearning for something I could not name. We entered the city as the full moon was rising, the moon of harvest, and its warm light washed everything—buildings and trees, faces and clothing and flowers—with a rosy golden glow. It seemed to me a city set apart from this earth, a city of the spirit only, where the passions, desires, and wrath of men dissipated like smoke, a city purified by a breath from the skies, a kiss from the mouth of God.

  For the first time in my young life, I felt I was at home.

  * * *

  One of the great benefits of life in a larger, more cultured city like Hebron was the presence of teachers and masters of various arts: music, dance and, to my great delight, the composition of poetry and stories, both orally and in writing. But my hopes were dashed almost before I could conceive them, when my mother took care to inform me that learning to write was completely out of the question for me.