The Prophetess - Deborah's Story

by Jill Eileen Smith

Deborah felt the heat of flames crawl up her neck at all of the attention they now cast her way, as if she should have every answer to their questions. She drew a breath, placed both hands on her knees. “Not everyone in the land has obeyed Him,” she said, her gaze taking in those who remained near. “Some among us, perhaps in this village, perhaps in other towns, worship foreign gods in secret. If we do not remove the idols from our hearts, we will never be rid of Sisera’s oppression.”

  “What gods still remain among the towns?” Barak raised his voice, his anger clear. “If I must, I will travel to each one and search them out to destroy them and those who worship them.” His dark eyes narrowed and his hands curled at his sides.

  Arguments erupted, the men’s words whipping all around her. They would go and fight each other this moment if she did not stop them.

  “I do not think going house to house is necessary yet,” she said carefully. “But God has clearly shown me that not all have returned to Him. If we do not humble ourselves and obey the Lord in what He has commanded us to do”—she met each man’s steady gaze—“then our fight against Sisera will be in vain.”

  Lappidoth stood and faced the crowd. “Our prophetess has not commanded that our homes be searched, but I think we would all agree that we need to search them ourselves. Bring any foreign gods to the center of town and we will destroy them. I will send messages to the other towns to do the same.”

  Barak seemed satisfied with Lappidoth’s words. “We will take the messages to the towns ourselves.” He looked at Deborah. “If that is what is keeping us from defeating Sisera, Prophetess, I will make sure down to the last man that the word of the Lord is obeyed.”

  4

  One blow. The metal tent peg sank deep into the earth, the hold firm. Jael sat back, pleased with her work, satisfied that the ropes would hold the tent taut and strong against the elements. The metal pegs her husband had fashioned in place of the older wooden ones pierced the ground with greater ease. She had often thanked Heber for making her life so much simpler in this way.

  But her gratitude seemed a small thing compared to the blow she had dealt his pride on the day she had begged him to flee the Negev and his brother Alim’s wrath. How fleeting the feeling of rightness now seemed in this foreign place. The oaks of Zaanannim near Kedesh were so far from Judah, so far from all they held dear.

  One blow to her husband’s pride, to his brother’s authority, and everything had changed.

  “Your son and daughter can find their spouses elsewhere,” Alim had said the day they left. “I will give no more of my sons or daughters to a man who would save an unworthy Canaanite. What do you think Sisera will do to us when he discovers your true loyalties?”

  If only Heber hadn’t come between Alim and the Canaanite slave he was bent on beating to near death to exact information. The man had little to tell in the end anyway. So the beating was useless, and for what? All it did was cause a rift so deep between two headstrong men that Jael’s persuasive words could not change them. So she had convinced Heber to leave.

  She blew out a frustrated breath and moved into the dark interior of the tent. It was useless to fret over what was past, and yet she could not stop the ache, the deep longing for family, for aunts and uncles, for cousins to pair with her youngest son and only daughter in marriage. If they were both wed, they would be happily settled in their own tents with their spouses and babes on the way. Instead, they pined for what was lost.

  As did she.

  The thought pricked her already irritated spirit as she quickly unrolled the rugs and set her mat in one corner. Heber knew his family sided with the Hebrews over the Canaanites—as far back as the days when their leader Moses led them out of Egypt. He knew all Canaanites were looked on with suspicion. Still, Alim had gone too far in his treatment. The God of the Hebrews would not have wanted slaves treated as Alim insisted on doing. What choice did Heber have?

  “Ima?” Her daughter, Daniyah, poked her head into the tent, her arms filled with baskets and colorful yarns for weaving. “Where do you want these?”

  Jael motioned to a far corner where she intended to set up her loom. When the sides of the tent were rolled up, the light would illumine that corner better than the one on the north side. “How much is left to unpack? Where is your father?”

  Daniyah set her burden on the ground and came to help Jael finish straightening a rug. “The donkeys are brushed and fed, and I just have my mat to bring along with the pottery. Ghalib said he would bring the rest.”

  “That is good.” Jael wiped the sweat from her brow, looking in the direction of the donkeys for some sign of her son, the son whose gentle spirit had changed with the move and the rift between his father and uncle.

  “Abba is with Mahir. They are looking for the best spot to build the kiln to smelt the ore.” Daniyah smiled, and Jael could not help but return it. If only Ghalib shared his sister’s joyous innocence.

  “They will be hungry.” Jael walked with Daniyah to the area where the men had unloaded the pack animals and carts. She retrieved her three-pronged skillet and sent Daniyah to find large stones to circle a fire. “Don’t wander,” she warned. “We don’t know this place yet. The trees can hide us, but they can as easily hide men who seek our harm.”

  “I won’t go far, Ima.” She skipped off like a child, but not out of Jael’s sight.

  Jael drew in a deep breath. The girl should marry soon, but what man would they find in this hidden forest? There was not another Kenite clan anywhere near them. Were they destined to intermarry their two remaining children to foreigners of Israel or Canaan?

  Her jaw clenched, a habit that had become too frequent of late, causing a headache to form along her temple. She simply must stop fretting over the future and discuss the matter with Heber, make him see that they had no choice but to send a request to his brothers, with or without Alim’s approval.

  She gathered her cooking utensils and then dug a pit for a fire in front of her tent.

  “Here is your loom, Ima.” Ghalib carried the wooden structure into her tent and glanced back over his shoulder. “Put it in the south corner?”

  “Yes.” She paused in her digging to watch him. He should have married Parisa before they ever fled the Negev. A sigh escaped as she noted the tight lines along his brow. It did not take such concentration simply to carry a loom. He was not happy with the move either, if she knew him at all—and she was most certain she did. Surely she knew her own son.

  Daniyah approached and set some large stones around the hole Jael had nearly finished digging, drawing her thoughts back to the present. As Daniyah ran off to find the dried dung to start the fire, Nadia and Raja, Jael’s two daughters-in-law, came from setting up their own tents. One carried a large pot, the other a sieve and a sack of lentils.

  Nadia sat crossed-legged beside Jael and sifted the lentils through the sieve, careful to remove the stones. Raja poured water into the stew pot while Daniyah returned and started a fire.

  “Are you all right, Ima Jael?” Nadia’s sweet voice broke through Jael’s distant thoughts. Nadia was Alim’s oldest daughter, wed three years to her oldest son Mahir. Surely a grandson would soon come of their union. But Nadia still waited, patiently waited. She was the exact opposite of her father. And Mahir had been kind enough to wait with her when he could have taken another wife by now. Or at least a concubine.

  “I am fine, Nadia.” She straightened her stiff back. “I will be glad to rest. I’m sure you all feel the same.”

  “It was a long journey. I thought it might never end,” Nadia agreed. “I long to lay on my mat this night.” She shook the sieve again and plucked a few more stones from the lentils. Now and then some of them made it into the stew regardless, but at least they sank to the bottom. No one had yet broken a tooth on one.

  “I am just glad to be off the back of that donkey,” Raja said, laughing. “Though at least I wasn’t stuck on top of the camel as Fareed was. He didn’t seem to mind the ride, but I was a
fraid if I had tried it, I would tumble off it to the ground.”

  Jael regarded her second son’s wife with a smile, then a strange sound caught her ear, a slow churning rumble in the distance. She glanced at her girls, saw the curiosity and hint of fear in their gazes. “Go at once to your tents,” she ordered, and each woman did as she was told. Daniyah hurried into the tent she shared with Jael. She would not have a tent of her own until she wed and lived in the village of her husband.

  Jael stood and brushed the dirt from her hands. The rumbling grew, and a great roar like thunder shook the earth beneath her feet. The main road to Hazor was just beyond the tallest tree, the oak of Zaanannim. Their camp was secluded beyond the road, but not as well hidden as she would have liked. Her heart thudded, its slow rhythm making her sluggish, as though she were trying to awaken from a dream.

  Running feet snapped her attention. A rush of air escaped her lungs as Heber and her sons ran toward her. “What is it?” Her words came out hoarse, a mere whisper.

  Heber brandished a sword in his right hand. “I don’t know. Sisera’s chariots, I think.” He moved past her without another word, her sons following close at his heels, each clutching one of the swords they had forged in their workshop back in the Negev.

  They crept to the underbrush and crouched low. Jael moved behind them, snatched up her wooden hammer, and followed. She would not stand by and allow her daughter to be ravaged. She had heard tales on their journey northward. Sisera’s iron chariots wrought terror in the hearts of all who heard them.

  She winced and nearly choked on the dust at the sudden pounding of many horses’ hooves and rush of wheels close by. She blinked against the blur, unable to count them. But she counted the breaths it took for them to become a memory, out of sight and hearing.

  Heber stood at last, and they walked in silence back to the cooking area. The men sat on the ground in the familiar circle. Jael sank to the earth, her hands shaking. Nadia and Raja crept closer and joined them, and Daniyah came to sit at Heber’s feet.

  “What will we do about the Canaanites, Abba?” Fear laced Daniyah’s tone, and Jael caught a glimpse of moisture in her bright eyes. This was not the first time they had encountered this threat.

  “Why did we come here at all?” Nadia, normally quiet and cheerful, could not hide the tremor in her voice. “Were we not safer in Judah? Could not my father’s wrath have been appeased?” Her boldness brought Mahir to kneel at her side.

  He placed a hand on his wife’s knee, but his gaze rested on Heber. “What will we do, Father? You have put off a decision these many weeks, and now we are camped in the very heart of the land Israel has claimed from Canaan. These trees will not save us from any man’s cruelty if he is bent on harming us.”

  “Mahir is right,” Fareed said, taking Raja’s hand in his. “It is not too late to turn back. Even if we do not camp near Uncle Alim, we should not live so close to the Canaanite threat.”

  Jael searched her husband’s stricken face. His pride rested in his sons’ respect, yet here they were questioning his decisions. A decision she had begged him to make.

  “Your father made the right choice,” she said. She twisted the belt of her robe and had to remind herself to unclench her hands, to relax. Her children were not the enemy, they simply did not understand.

  “We cannot go back. Not now.” Heber’s voice was strained.

  “Then what will we do?” Ghalib’s scowl troubled her, his eyes ablaze with barely contained fury. She sighed, wishing not for the first time that they could return to the days when her children were small and safely under her protective wing.

  “We will make ourselves valuable to our enemy,” Heber said, eyeing each son. His back stiffened, and he lifted his chin as if daring them to continue the argument. “The Canaanite we rescued from Alim assured me that this area was not troubled by Jabin’s forces. And we have goods Jabin would find beneficial to his cause, should he or his men come calling.”

  “You would make peace with Israel’s enemies?” She stared at him, her heart sinking with the realization that he would leave an ancient alliance to forge a new one with untamed men. “What are you saying, my husband?”

  “I’m saying, dear wife,” Heber said, taking in the entire group, “that to preserve our lives, we will do exactly that.”

  “Exactly how do you plan to make peace with Jabin and Sisera?” Jael asked the following evening as she rested beside Heber in his tent. He was nearly asleep, and she would leave him soon, but not until she received an answer to her question.

  He rolled over and snorted. “I will offer my services. He needs weapons. I make them. A simple agreement should suffice.”

  Stunned, Jael stared at the man. “If you supply weapons to Sisera, you will surely guarantee Israel’s demise.”

  “Sisera is not my enemy. And there is no reason I cannot also supply Israel with swords, if they but ask.” He closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead. “But I am tired, Jael. We can speak of this another time.”

  “Israel cannot afford to pay for weapons. The women at the well are poor. They’ve been plundered and pillaged, the land raped of its resources. What good are weapons when they need wheat?” Anger flared, and she knew she was pushing him past his breaking point.

  He sighed, an insufferable sound. She should never have agreed to share his tent this night. But she knew if she did not give in to his needs, he would take a concubine who would. He could afford another wife, he had just never bothered to burden their household with one. But if she pushed him too far . . .

  “Please, Heber, think about what I am saying. Do not sell us to an enemy that could destroy us in the end.” She touched his arm, then leaned forward and kissed his cheek. He was a good man when he wasn’t in the process of exasperating her so. She sat back on her heels. “Promise me?”

  He grunted and shooed her away. “Be gone with you, woman. I will promise nothing.”

  She held her tongue as she stood and walked slowly to the door.

  “But I will think on it.” His words just caught her ear as she slipped into the dark camp and returned to her tent.

  5

  Three days after Barak’s arrival, Lappidoth handed sacks of clay tablets to him and his men to take with them to the neighboring towns. “Where will you go once these are delivered?” He directed his question to Barak while Deborah’s girls and maidservants served the men the evening meal. Barak and his men, who had taken to sleeping in the cave below their house or in various courtyards throughout the city, were clearly anxious to be off.

  Barak’s expression sobered as he glanced Deborah’s way. “I would like to know we had a directive from the Lord. Once we know the idols are destroyed, how will we know the time is right?”

  Deborah held Barak’s look. “I cannot command the visions nor the dreams. When the Lord speaks to me, I will send for you.”

  Barak seemed slightly irritated by her comment, as though he would force the issue if he could. But he shrugged his shoulders instead. “We will head back to Kedesh-naphtali for a time then. You can send word there.” He dipped flatbread into the stew pot and plopped the entire piece into his mouth.

  Deborah glanced at Talya, who leaned down to refill Barak’s clay cup with fresh goat’s milk. Barak turned to thank her, and Deborah did not miss the soft smile in her daughter’s eyes. Barak did not show the slightest interest.

  Even when Talya stayed near her father the following morning to bid the men farewell, Barak did not acknowledge the girl with more than a brief nod and a parting, “Be safe. Do not travel without men to accompany you. You risk your life if you do.”

  Deborah pondered the slight frown between Talya’s brows as she walked later that day to her palm tree. She had seen that look once too often on Talya’s face, the one that chafed to prove another wrong.

  The thought troubled her now as she approached the waiting crowd. Would Talya listen? A sigh caused Deborah’s chest to lift in a sense of defeat she had grow
n accustomed to of late, a sigh borne of too much strife. She took time to settle herself on the bench and lifted her spindle and distaff to work as she listened. People flocked to her day after day, and one at a time she heard case after case until she nearly wearied of the mantle of judge she carried.

  As the sun was beginning its descent to the west, two men approached, one holding the other by the collar of his cloak as though he had dragged him across the entire town.

  Deborah set her spindle aside. “State your case.” Her jaw tightened with the telltale ache that always accompanied such a look of malice in the eyes of one Israelite toward another, of a man against his fellow man. She faced the accuser. “Release him.”

  The accuser’s eyes narrowed, his look distrustful, wary.

  “Do not worry, he will not flee.” Deborah focused on the one caught but spoke to the other. “Tell me why you accuse this man.” The freed man stood, head bowed, and his rigid posture eased.

  “I’ve caught this man”—the accuser pointed a bony finger, poking the man in the chest—“in my vineyard eating grapes every day for the past week. There will be nothing left to harvest if he does not stop. Tell him to find work in his own vineyard and leave mine be.”

  Deborah looked at the offender. “Does this man speak the truth?”

  The man nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice faltering, “but only because we have no vineyards. All we have is a garden that has not yet begun to produce enough food, for there has been such little rain this spring. I pass by his vineyards, which are overflowing and ripe for harvest.” He ran a hand over his beard. “I do not take more than I can eat. Not even to share with my wife and small sons. I eat enough to take my fill so that they can eat the food we have.”

  Deborah waited a moment, but the man apparently had no more defense. “You do not fill a bag with the fruit?”

  He shook his head. “No, Prophetess.” He hung his head again as though to admit such poverty shamed him, which Deborah was most certain it did.