On the Mountain of the Lord

by Ray Bentley

  “Or deliberately recast events to suit their agenda,” Lev remarked.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Bette said brightly. “If we Israelis worried about our reputations every time we were accused of something, we would have shrunk to nothing long ago. But I am sorry you have to leave so suddenly.” Her tone conveyed a personal disappointment.

  The words made Jack’s heart give an odd blip.

  It made Lev study her with curiosity.

  “Before you’ve completed your research,” Bette added hastily. “But listen: I have an idea. Have you replied to that email yet?”

  “No,” Jack admitted. “I wanted to talk with you. . .” He looked back and forth to make it clear he meant both of them. “Discuss it before I answered. What’s your idea?”

  “Let’s go north again,” Bette said. “Mount Hermon.”

  “All the way up there? Why?” Jack asked.

  “Because it shows Israel on the front lines against terrorism,” Bette said.

  “And it’s hugely significant in prophecy,” Lev noted, expressing warm approval.

  “And because wireless communication is notoriously unreliable up there,” Bette said. “You may not even receive the recall notice for—a couple days?”

  “I hope you brought your overcoat,” Bette remarked as the road wound higher and higher into the mountains. Up ahead loomed the snow-capped peak of Mount Hermon, the highest elevation in Israel.

  “So I see,” Jack remarked. “Where are we headed, exactly?”

  “Neve Ativ. It’s where the ski resort employees stay.”

  Jack took his eyes off the summit to glance at her. “Seriously?”

  “Israel is full of surprises,” she teased. “We are over 2,000 meters and the summit is close to 3,000 meters—9,000 feet.”

  “I live in England,” Jack joked in return. “I can do metric.” Jack pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Yeah,” he added happily. “No coverage.”

  Amir leaned forward from the backseat where he and Lev sat. “Just east of us is the UN Disengagement Observer Force Zone. You have no idea how long it took me to learn to say that!”

  “No Man’s Land is easier and just as correct,” Lev observed. “Have you seen it on a map?”

  “Not a detailed map,” Jack admitted. “Why?”

  “The UN zone looks like a crumpled bit of spaghetti,” Lev said. “Stretches from the northern border of Jordan, up past the Golan Heights, ‘til it separates Israel and Lebanon and Syria.”

  Bette agreed. “Nowhere wider than thirty kilometers,” she said. “Some places as narrow as three. And guess where the UN peacekeepers sleep?”

  “On the Israeli side?” Jack guessed.

  “It’s that or risk a Syrian mortar round or ISIS grenade landing on their cots,” Bette noted. “We call this area, ‘the eyes of the nation.’ ”

  Wheeling into the parking area beside the Hotel Rimonim made Jack laugh again. Clustered around them were A-frame cabins the same as Jack saw in the Swiss Alps or at Lake Tahoe in the states, pretending to be those in the Swiss Alps. “No skiing now, of course,” Bette added. “The season is only a month long; sometimes less. We missed it this year.”

  “I’ll have to come back,” Jack announced.

  Bette said, “Three bedrooms in our chalet. I’ll let you gentlemen arm wrestle to figure out who shares with whom. What do you say to dinner in an hour?”

  “Perfect,” Jack replied. “This mountain air gives me an appetite.”

  The buffet at the Hotel Rimonim, Mt. Hermon was not lavish but the salad bar was European-style (or American, Jack thought) and presented lots of options. It was easy to make a meal out of the offerings Jack found there, together with fresh-baked yeast rolls and lentil soup. The quartet ate without a lot of conversation.

  Maybe they’re deferring to me, since I’m the one playing hooky, Jack thought. Or maybe I’m not the only one altitude and the air up here makes really hungry.

  Dessert was more interesting: two dozen substantial-sized cups of crème brûlée waited on a tray for the handful of diners to discover.

  Tapping the caramelized sugar topping with a spoon just like gently cracking a boiled egg, Jack remarked to Lev, “So you said there are prophetic details connected with Mount Hermon too. Like what?”

  Lev gestured for Amir to take the lead. “This mountain has been treated as a sacred place since time too far back to count,” Amir said. “We Arabs give it the title Sheikh—like a chief among mountains—and also it is called al-haram.”

  “Just like the Temple Mount,” Jack noted.

  Lev took over. “It’s mentioned several times in Scripture as an exotic or distant location, like the verse that talks about ‘the dew on Mount Hermon,’ but it hasn’t always had pleasant associations.”

  “Oh? Meaning what?”

  “There have been lots of pagan temples on the mountain,” Bette said, “including one dedicated to the god Pan—you know, the cloven-hoofed one. A temple and a town and a whole religious industry grew up around a grotto and a spring of water. Place was even called ‘Panias,’ because of Pan.”

  Jack took a bite of custard. “You are a constant surprise, Officer Deekmann,” he teased.

  “When I was in the military I did Alpine here,” she explained.

  “Some scholars say,” Lev took over again, “This is the Mount of Transfiguration; the place where Jesus temporarily revealed His divinity to a few close friends—and talked with Elijah and Moses about the end of His earthly life. That makes all kinds of sense. The headwaters of the Jordan needed to be cleansed of two thousand years of pagan worship. Jesus came to redeem the whole earth from the curse of the Fall, true? Jesus staking a claim on Mount Hermon was like taking on Satan right on his home turf.”

  The stone pillars and wooden beams supporting the roof of the dining room wavered oddly, and Jack’s eyes blurred a bit. Was he about to have a vision right here and now?

  The moment passed and Jack’s sight cleared. He looked down at the custard cup and saw it was empty. He could not remember finishing it. The other three studied him, waiting for him to comment. Too strange. Better to leave it for now, Jack thought. “Anybody besides me want another one?” he said.

  The air smelled like wood smoke and cedar trees. The stars of the Milky Way cut a jeweled path across the night sky. The late-arriving moon broke the horizon with a glow like a forest fire.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen this many stars since I was a kid.” Jack stretched his hands toward the campfire. He and Bette were alone outside the cabin on a rustic wooden bench.

  Bette was golden in the light. She lifted her face toward the sky. “The moon shines bright, on such a night as this, when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, and they did make no noise, on such a night. . .”

  “Shakespeare.”

  “Merchant of Venice.”

  “How do you know Shakespeare?”

  “The love scene between Jessica and Lorenzo. When Jessica, daughter of Shylock the Jew, elopes with the Gentile Lorenzo. Merchant of Venice is Shakespeare’s most anti-Semitic play. After it was performed in London, gangs of thugs roamed the streets, beating up Jews.”

  “Well, that just takes the romance right out of it,” Jack said, flipping up the collar of his overcoat.

  “Truth—it was required reading in a Hebrew University class. Anti-Semitism in Literature. How do you know it?”

  The breeze sighed through the tops of the cedars. “My wife was a professor of English literature. The Romance of Shakespeare was one of her most well-attended courses.”

  Bette hugged her knees and recited in a whisper, “In such a night did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, and with an unthrift love did run from Venice. In such a night did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well, stealing her soul with many vows of faith, and ne’er a true one. . .”

  Jack poked the dying embers with a stick. “You have out-nighted me. I concede. Can we start over? Please?”

 
“Your turn.” The flickering light danced on her face.

  He paused a moment and looked up. “On such a night as this Jacob slept beneath the stars and dreamed of angels and a ladder to heaven.”

  She replied, “On such a night as this Jacob wrestled the Angel of the Lord and received a blessing as the sun rose.”

  “Just one more truth, Bette?”

  “Alright, then.”

  He moved closer to her, putting his arm around her. Her breath was on his cheek. “On such a night as this—I think—I mean, I know I could—fall in love again.” He kissed her hesitantly. The embers sparked and flared as she fiercely returned his kiss.

  Jack stood on the highest peak of Mt. Hermon, yet he was not cold. A patchwork blanket of snow littered the ground and lay heaped in crevices. The rocky outcropping on which he stood was just below the summit. A confused wind whistled around stone pylons, tossing handfuls of frost crystals toward pinpricks of stars.

  Jack was now so familiar with experiencing visions he turned expectantly to locate Eliyahu. His guide nodded toward him, leaning into the wind, propped against his staff.

  “If this is what I think,” Jack said, “You should be in this vision—like at Mount Carmel—and not just here with me. You are Elijah. And this is about the Transfiguration of Jesus, isn’t it?”

  Eliyahu did not reply. His left hand, which was grasping his beard to keep it from billowing around his face, gestured toward the peak.

  On the height, which had been vacant a moment before, stood two robed men. The wind ceased and the light brightened so Jack could both see and hear clearly. One of the figures was tall, handsome, regal of bearing and proud of face. His clothing was rich with brightly colored silk. His eyes were a penetrating sapphire.

  The other man was shabby. His garment was frayed and faded. His face was gaunt and pinched. His cheeks were sunken, and the bones of his face were prominent beside weary eyes.

  But the tired eyes caught Jack’s attention. They were brown, flecked with gold. Sorrowful, but kind. . .a deep, embracing kindness quite the opposite of the haughty superiority in the gaze of the other.

  “All these things will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me,” the regal man said.

  Satan! This was not the moment of Jesus’ transfiguration but the time when the devil took Jesus to a high mountain to test Him. So if the handsome, proud one was the devil, then the frayed and tired figure was—Jesus.

  “Look!” Satan demanded, sweeping his arm up and pointing toward the glimmering gray in the east. “Look at all the kingdoms of the world!” As if projected against the sky, the image of a peacock throne appeared. On the seat of absolute authority sat an imperial sovereign, crowned with gold, while two dozen courtiers lay prostrate on their faces. A palace appeared, reaching up to the heavens, all of its terraced balconies lined with flowers. Jack caught the scent of jasmine and sandalwood.

  “Look!” Satan demanded again, pointing south down the length of the Jordan and across the Dead Sea and over the desert.

  There the pyramids loomed, challenging eternity, cloaked in gleaming limestone. A hundred slaves pulled an ivory chariot. In the royal cart rode a haughty Pharaoh, gilded rod and flail across his chest.

  “Look!” Westward now. Marble columns, arches, aqueducts. Caesar, his brow encircled with a gem-encrusted laurel wreath, accepted the cheers of thousands in a stadium the size of a small city.

  The vision of the world spun. Great cities sprang up. Sprawling metropolises pushed out from coastlines and riverbanks. Skyscrapers erupted, reaching proudly upward like Babylon, like Egypt, like Rome.

  Jack recognized familiar scenes: the London Eye placidly revolving beside the Thames—the Eiffel Tower, shadowing the Seine—the Transamerica spire, pinning the head of San Francisco to the cobalt waters of the bay.

  Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo—Jerusalem.

  “All these things will I give you,” Satan repeated. “If you will fall down and worship me. They are mine to give, you know. The man and the woman surrendered their deed to me—willingly, I might add. I did not force them.”

  Why doesn’t Jesus speak? Jack fretted. Why doesn’t He reply?

  Shadows fell across the scenes. The lights on the great wheel beside the Thames flickered and died.

  Two hundred-story towers erupted in flames and collapsed in on themselves.

  The shining coating on the pyramids sloughed off like a snake shedding its skin—and sand buried what remained.

  The vision spun back toward Babylon; zoomed in past the royal assembly. In a side chamber, a steward added poison to a cup of wine. In another, a pair of viceroys stabbed a rival to death. A throng of common people scattered before two advancing armies. The sky was darkened with a hail of arrows and a shower of spears.

  Slaves toiled around the pyramids. Overseers whipped those carrying stones until the sandaled feet of the bearers following slipped in the blood.

  The arena was filled with the sound of shrieking. Gladiators slashed and stabbed and bled and died, while the onlookers cheered.

  Children, emaciated and dying, lay in the arms of mothers too weak to beg.

  Lepers were hounded out of cities and into desolate wilderness.

  People were forced out of their homes to trudge through heaps of snow, keeping only what they could carry.

  Men in brown or black uniforms herded hollow-eyed, frightened families into dark enclosures, beyond which furnaces loomed.

  “Do you think that changes anything?” Satan demanded. “Yes, most will be abandoned or destroyed. But if you serve me, then those you favor will be rewarded. Isn’t the most important thing to be on the winning side? Do you think you can follow the path the prophets have set out without pain and misery and death for you? Do you think the ages to come will honor and respect you? Don’t you know you will be deserted and betrayed by your closest friends? And in ages to come, that will be the pattern of your followers: choose death and destruction, or denial and betrayal. Which do you think they will choose? What do you care if some are crushed? That is nothing compared to ruling! Bow down and worship me. Call me El, and all the kingdoms are yours.”

  In a voice that surprised Jack in its intensity and authority, Jesus spoke: “Get away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.’ ”

  Like a candle, when it is blown out, leaves a trace of smoke to mark its end—as when a green spot hovers in sight after an incautious view of the sun—Satan disappeared, but a look of malevolent hatred lingered on Jack’s view of the scene.

  Jesus, now alone on the summit, was surrounded by other beings—respectful, helpful creatures, offering bread, a thick robe, a cup of scented wine, and a bowl of warm water for washing.

  “Time for us to go,” Eliyahu said, pointing Jack toward a path descending between two boulders.

  “Wait,” Jack insisted. “One question first. Satan—the Accuser—he wanted to be called El. He wants to be acknowledged as the god of this world? Is that it?”

  “You know what he said: ‘I will ascend to the heavens. I will raise my throne above the stars of God.’ ”

  Jack woke up in his bed on the second floor of the cabin. The snow and the stars and the cities and the conflicts all receded, replaced by plastered walls, a framed print of an Alpine skier, and a three-drawer dresser. He was wide awake and full of questions about what he saw. Why was he ever reluctant to talk with Lev about his visions? Now he could hardly wait to bring up the most recent—to get Lev’s take on what it meant and why Jack experienced it.

  But what about Bette? She was another matter altogether, especially after last night at the campfire. Last night? Jack glanced at his watch. Three hours ago.

  Their relationship was definitely headed somewhere beyond friendship—if both of them wanted it to. What would Jack’s visions mean to her? She said she wasn’t religious; certainly wasn’t Christian. I need to sort this out before I share it with her.


  Would she think Jack was crazy?

  Okay, and what if Iran dropped a nuclear weapon on Israel tomorrow?

  Right. Enough worry for now. Nothing else, except—Jack really needed to talk to Lev.

  Even though it was two in the morning, Jack tapped on Lev and Amir’s door. Bette was safely tucked in the single, tiny chamber at the very peak of the A-frame, so if the men spoke quietly she would not be bothered.

  That was the way Jack reasoned with himself: not that he was keeping something from her, he was being courteous. He didn’t want her to be disturbed. “Lev,” he called softly.

  “Hmmm? Jack? What?”

  “Got questions. Need to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, okay. Come on in.”

  The bedside lamp between two narrow twin beds clicked on and Jack swung the door silently open. Jack stood in the entry. “Got some questions for you,” he repeated.

  “Yeah,” Lev said, sitting up in bed. Amir blinked at the light and fumbled with his glasses. “Yeah. I saw you and Bette beside the campfire. I figured you’d need a little man-to-man.”

  “What? No, not that. I mean, yes, but not now. Something else. Listen, let’s go downstairs so Amir can sleep.”

  Seated beside the fireplace in the living room, Lev pulled two armchairs closer together and said, “So what is this about?”

  “I had another vision tonight. A dream, I guess, since I was asleep. I was here—I mean, not here, here, but here on Mt. Hermon, and I saw Jesus.”

  “Transfigured?”

  “No, that’s what I was expecting, but it was His temptation. I saw Satan tempt Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world.”

  “Okay, you got my attention,” Lev said. “Now slow down and tell me every detail.”

  Jack’s retelling took less time than his memory suggested the actual event lasted. The vision seemed to go on for hours. He recalled for Lev every detail he recognized, then mentioned the ones he guessed at. “I’ve never been to Japan,” he admitted, “but I’m pretty sure that was Tokyo. Beijing too. London, Paris, D.C.—those could be images from my memories. But the Orient—I’ve never been there. And scenes out of ancient Egypt or Rome? And something like Babylon? I mean, if my imagination was really that good I should be a writer.”