by Cliff Graham
“You sound like a new recruit,” Ittai said, smiling. “Haven’t you fought Hebrews before?”
“That’s why I am afraid.”
“What do you mean?”
The armor bearer shook his head and licked his fingers. “We fought them when Abner led them, but nothing strange ever happened. It was when their prince Jonathan led them that it would become odd.”
Ittai looked back at the fire, thinking. A log snapped over the coals and sent a wave of sparks drifting up into the night. “I was in the valley away from the fighting during Gilboa, but I heard about Jonathan. They say he was a man, more than his father. They say the same about David. Maybe their god favors certain warriors.”
“Why do you suppose Saul marched against us in the first place?”
“There are four Hebrew tribes in that region. He couldn’t abandon them.”
“Which tribes?” the armor bearer asked.
“Naftali, Zebulun, Issachar, and Asher. Issachar men usually serve as their scouts.”
“I heard that his people hated him. Seems strange he would come to their rescue.”
“He had his reasons, like all kings do.”
“Their god is terrifying. They say he even makes the mountains shake.”
Ittai pulled his necklace out and fingered Dagon’s amulet. The green stone glowed dully in the firelight. “We are protected,” Ittai said.
The aide looked at him, looked at the amulet. “Will Dagon be able to defeat their god when it comes time?”
Ittai did not reply.
TWENTY-FOUR
Eleazar crept into the dark room where his children were sleeping. He made his way to the girls first. The two oldest were nestled together under the same blanket as they always were, having stayed up far too late talking and then falling asleep face-to-face.
He reached out his hand to touch their faces, then caught himself. He held his hand steady, feeling their breath on his skin. They would marry not many years from now. He wondered if he would be there to see it.
He made his way slowly to the other side of the room, where the two younger girls had also fallen asleep side by side. He slowly pulled the blanket at their feet over their waists. They stirred but did not wake. He looked at their faces, their necks, the way their hair was tangled.
The memories he had of all of their births were fading. He could only recall a few details, like how the midwives had made the announcement, or what joke Josheb had said when he heard it was another girl. Yahweh, forgive me for not being a better father, and for every time I pushed them aside.
Then he found his son where he always somehow was in the middle of the night, curled up under the bench in the corner. No matter where Eleazar or Rizpah would lay their son down, he would always wake up the next morning under the bench. For a while it had been out in the alley. “My brothers were that way too,” Rizpah had said once. “Maybe boys are born restless.”
Eleazar rested his hand on the boy’s ankle. As he sat still in the darkness, listening to all of them breathe, he saw his father walking toward him across a field. He had weapons in his hands, and his face was proud. Eleazar saw his own son practicing with the bow, and chasing his sisters with the spear.
And then he imagined that he was sitting in a still forest, listening for Yahweh’s voice in the trees as the wind passed, whispering. The days of his life were growing short and cold. He knew it in his soul.
Eleazar sat a while longer, wondering what it would be like to live in peace, only fighting off scorpions in the common room and marauding crows from his crops. Then he stood and crept back out, his heart aching with love and grief.
Eleazar, carrying his weapons and a few days’ worth of hard bread and water, found Josheb and Shammah at the back entrance of David’s house, along with three members of the Kelethite and Perethite foreign bodyguard that Benaiah had formed. Josheb was in a heated debate with them as Eleazar walked up.
“You can go wait with the rest of the troops at the gate.”
“Lord, Benaiah has ordered —”
“Benaiah does not intend for you to hang around the king like a yipping dog. You will have the chance to do your job, Philistine, but for now, as we march out to fight against your kin, I simply do not trust you.”
The man looked at his partners, who could only shrug their shoulders. The leader sighed, exasperated, then walked down the dark street toward the city gate with the others behind him.
“You have to feel for those fellows,” Eleazar said. “They never get to do anything. David sends them away all the time, Benaiah gets angry at them for leaving David even though they have been ordered away, and you prattle at them like a mother-in-law.”
“If they were men, they would be marching against us in the Rephaim right now.”
“David pays well.”
Josheb rubbed his forehead. “The king told Joab and Abishai that they would not be coming along.”
“We should not leave them here alone when the army starts to muster. Orders or not, Joab won’t sit still with all of those men waiting to be led into battle,” Eleazar said.
“That’s why Shammah is staying behind to watch him.”
Eleazar was stunned. He looked at Shammah, who lowered his head. “Leaving Shammah? On the eve of battle? Why not leave a messenger for Benaiah when he returns? Benaiah should muster them. What kind of foolish —”
“Joab would kill any such messenger and inform Benaiah that David had left him in charge.”
“Unlikely, even for Joab.”
“We don’t know who in the court is sending the Philistines information. It might be Joab. After Abner, I’m putting nothing past him.”
“Joab is a fool, but he is not a traitor. And Abishai regrets Abner’s murder. He would hold Joab accountable.”
“Shammah stays here to wait for the army. He will let Joab muster the troops while he tries to find out who is feeding information to the Philistines. When the time comes to lead them out, Shammah will bring them down the Bethlehem road to hit the Philistines from behind and pinch them against us.”
“Is the garrison marching?” Eleazar asked.
“We have to assume that every Philistine in the land is converging on us.”
Eleazar stamped his feet against the chilly night air. “Did you say good-bye to your family?”
Josheb looked irritated. “Yes, of course.”
“Not long enough,” Shammah said.
“Forgive me, I didn’t know you had emerged from the goat shed where you sleep to give me family counsel.”
David stepped out of the doorway at that moment and approached them, looking up and down the street. “Where is the bodyguard?”
Josheb said, “I told them to meet us at the gate.”
“Are we ready?”
“I just finished telling Eleazar about Joab.”
“We could really use Shammah and his spear,” Eleazar said.
“I know. But I need him here. Joab cannot be left alone.”
“You’re the king,” Eleazar sighed.
“Have the preparations been made for the sacrifice?”
“Yes,” answered Josheb, “Abiathar is ready. As you requested, the people have gathered at the city gate.”
“Each man has a water ration and three days of food?”
“Yes, and each is carrying all of his weapons. Gareb is organizing runners to bring us resupply at the cave as often as possible, but supply is tight right now.”
They walked down the street past the silent homes of the Giborrim in the direction of the city gate. A few moments passed, then David said, “Just a few valleys. That’s all that stands between that army and our homes.”
“Three,” said Eleazar.
“What?”
“Three valleys.”
David sidestepped a bit in order to kick a rock in the path. It tumbled and bounced until it struck a wall.
“Leave Eliam behind with Shammah.”
“Why?” asked Eleazar.
Shammah nodded but said nothing.
Eleazar let his mind wander while he walked. To his children as he had kissed them in their beds, and to his wife.
“You love this, don’t you?”
“It’s better than kicking down the doors of harlots trapping our men.”
Eliam watched as Gareb stood with his foot on the back of a soldier who had left his sword lying in a mud puddle next to the well. The soldier tried to lift his head out of the mud but Gareb pushed it back down.
“That tastes better than your guts at the end of a Philistine spear. I heard that they eat the liver of their enemy.”
Eliam looked away to hide the smirk on his face. Gareb finally relented and let the soldier stand up, wheezing through mud-covered lips.
“Will you leave your sword in mud again?”
“No, sir.”
Gareb nodded and clapped him across the face.
“If it rusts, let it be because it has been drenched with the blood of Philistines, not because it was left in the mud. Fifty leaps and then you can get back to your section.”
The man began to jump into the air and land on his chest repeatedly as Gareb and Eliam walked away, continuing their inspection of the troops being assembled in the early morning darkness.
“Do they actually eat the liver?”
“Shut up.”
Eliam chuckled, then changed the subject.
“Where are Joab and Abishai? David would not leave without them, not with a Philistine invasion coming.”
“Over my head and yours. I am trying to figure out how to move these girls to Adullam by the end of the day, attack a force that outnumbers us by thousands, and do it without water or resupply for days.”
They reached the gate and looked back over the column of troops preparing to march. It was a mixture of veteran soldiers and new recruits, every man who could muster within the hour as instructed. Messengers had been dispatched across the hills to rally the armies, but it would be days before they could all come. Gareb hoped that the discouragement he felt was not showing on his face.
In the column, wives were clinging to husbands; husbands were speaking deep oaths of love back to them. Gareb rolled his eyes. “I have, for a fact, pulled most of them out of the arms of whores myself. Funny how a man suddenly remembers that his wife is the only woman who cares about him, in the end.”
Louder, to the group, he said, “You’d better drink your fill now. Each man carries two pouches of water, to be distributed by your section leaders. It won’t be enough to live on for more than a few days, so either kill a Philistine and take his water, pray that there is water at the well of the cave, or plan on drinking wine in Sheol by the end of the week.”
While they scurried to do so, Eliam said, “Where do you want me on the march?”
“Nowhere. You need to stay here.”
“What? Why?”
Gareb shrugged. “Shammah told me that you need to remain behind with him to keep an eye on Joab. They suspect he is up to something.”
“Up to what? And Shammah is staying behind from a battle? Have they gone mad?”
“Up to what we have been talking about — spying in the court. Somehow the Philistines know our movements and that we don’t have an army assembled right now.”
“But Joab’s been barred from the court. He doesn’t know all that David is doing. And he’s David’s relative!”
Gareb sighed. “It really doesn’t matter for us, does it? Those decisions are made over our heads.”
“But you’re one of the Thirty!”
“But not one of the Three.”
Eliam scowled. “I will go put my equipment back,” he said.
“Sometimes our duty requires us to be away from the front. It’s no less important.”
Gareb watched him walk away. He was maturing and had potential, but Gareb did not like the thought of him spending time around Joab. He reached down to pull a pebble out of his sandal. When he stood back up, he noticed that everyone had gone silent.
On top of the city gate stood David, visible in the light of the watch fire. Next to him were Shammah, Eleazar, and Josheb. The soldiers in the street were paying close attention. Many had not seen the king in months, others never. Gareb thought that David looked comfortable in his armor and that his eyes were finally tight and focused.
“Brothers, it all depends on us. If Philistia can isolate us from the north, we will never recover from it. I know that many of you do not trust me, but I promise you, my blood will be spilled in this fight just the same as yours. It is the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. My tribe is Judah. Your tribe might be something else, but we are Yahweh’s people, and it is in Yahweh’s name that we will go.
“One day, we will again have the Ark of the Lord in our midst, and we will know Yahweh’s presence among us. That is my vow! But first we must destroy what threatens us, and we ask the Lord our God, keeper of our safety and salvation, to march before us into battle!”
Josheb raised his arm, and people began to part from the rear of the column as a group of warriors passed through, making their way to the front. They were large and fierce, Gadites and Gittites both, foreigners and Hebrews marching together.
The crowd sensed who they were and a cheer began to rise, because no matter how dire their circumstances, these men were marching out to battle.
The Thirty.
Gareb could not help but smile.
David gestured toward the street, where an altar had been hastily constructed from the stones of his own house. A robust, thickly muscled bull was led out by two Levites. Abiathar the priest laid his hands on the animal’s head and spoke a prayer to Yahweh. Then he took the sword that Gareb handed him and pierced the animal’s throat, skillfully severing the arteries. At first the bull did not know what happened, then as it felt its body grow weaker, it began to thrash. The Levites pulled it over the altar and held it in place while gouts of blood splashed out of it onto the altar.
When it died at last, Abiathar directed another group of priests to begin cutting off the animal’s head and legs and removing the entrails. His arms bloody past his elbows, Abiathar arranged the pieces of bull carcass across the altar. It occurred to Gareb that the smell of butchered cattle resembled the smell of butchered men. He had never seen a sacrifice this close before and felt slightly nauseated.
After long moments of work, for it was his task alone, Abiathar pulled several handfuls of the animal’s fat over the rocks and reached for the pitcher of oil. He poured it out over the remnants of the carcass that covered the altar and then cried out with his bloody hands outstretched to the heavens.
A Levite handed Abiathar the torch, and as Gareb watched the flames erupt on the altar, he glanced at David.
Eyes open, the king was muttering something and staring hard into the fire.
Holding a shawl over her head and wrapped in a cloak, standing in a blackened corner of an alley where no one would bother her, Sherizah watched the sacrifice of the bull. She saw the crowd begin to sing the song that David had written for use in times of war, listened to the sound of the many voices echoing firmly along the stone corridors. She cried out to Yahweh in her spirit to watch over her husband, Benaiah, still gone.
The knock on her door had come several hours previously, and once she was certain that her children were sleeping soundly, she slipped out into the night to find out what was happening. The news about the Philistine invasion had gripped her heart with worry. Was Benaiah now dead, and would her sons be fatherless at last?
She shivered as a breeze swirled through the streets. Her ankles were sore from carrying water to the poverty-stricken widows on the edge of town all day, those too weak to carry it for themselves. She and the other wives of the Giborrim busied themselves with such tasks, and she loved the solace of it.
There was a noise, and she searched for its source. Something falling? A step? The oran
ge glow of the altar fire flickered down the dusty street, and she suddenly felt afraid to be alone.
Sherizah worked up the courage to walk forward toward the crowd. The breeze died, she heard the noise again, and fear emerged once more. It was a footstep. Something was following her.
Monstrous images filled her mind. Brutal men with rough hands grabbing at her, pulling her down, the smell of her daughter’s blood drowning her.
Screaming and running down the street now, sobs shaking her, then the Amalekite raiders pinning her down, tearing at her clothes, the pain of violation. Benaiah was not there, and she screamed as she ran from whatever was chasing her.
She was back in the dark room. The girls were screaming. A man held a knife to her oldest child’s throat. Sherizah turned her head and screamed. The knife made its cut, and Sherizah passed out from the terror and grief of it. She awoke and found the same man on top of her, hurting her, her daughters no longer screaming. Her vision swirled in waves of black and red, the icy cold of the table beneath her cutting deep into her flesh. There was hideous laughter, the smell of wine, cries of anguish in the distance. The smell of smoke.
Sherizah stopped running at the edge of the crowd and collapsed, sobbing. She raked her fingers through her hair, trying to scrape out the horror that kept returning to her mind. But it would never leave. Yahweh, it will not leave!
She opened her eyes and saw the men marching out of the city and the families gathered and the children who would be fatherless before the end of the week.
Whatever had been following her was gone, but the despair remained.
Eleazar was to run to the valley to scout the Philistine force. He should have left immediately after the sacrifice. But he did not care at this moment.
He waited until the last of the column of men cleared the city gate and marched away toward the north, then retreated to the alcove outside the wall where he had instructed his wife to meet him. She was there, still wrapped in the blanket, unconcerned with what others might think.
He picked her up and carried her to a dark corner of the woods. He pressed his face against her neck and felt her shiver from the cold night air. “Do not let Josheb choose your husband if I fall.”