Jerusalem's Hope

by Bodie Thoene

  “The harlot sister of El’azar? That is news.”

  “But she’s different. Changed and . . .”

  “The council would as soon have her openly condemned. She will never do as a witness. Never.”

  “What I can say is this: she’s not the same. They are not the same family. Yeshua has made some . . . difference in them. How can I explain? He simply changes everything he comes near.”

  Gamaliel gave no sign of astonishment, did not demand details from Nakdimon. Instead, with his elbows on the arms of his chair, he propped his chin on steepled fingers. “So you believe he’s the Messiah?” he asked softly.

  “I . . . ,” Nakdimon began, then stopped. “He does things no one else can do and knows things no one else can know. I won’t ask you to believe unless you see for yourself, but . . .”

  “But is it enough?” Gamaliel demanded. “There are rigorous tests that must be met before I will acknowledge a Messiah. Fail one and fail them all, agreed?”

  “Agreed. But tell me quickly . . . there are rumors even in the Galil about the coming Passover. What’s happening?”

  “The Sanhedrin presses ahead with the aqueduct scheme, despite my efforts to caution them. Caiaphas and his faction attempt to justify the Korban use at every turn, but they know there’ll be protests. When the population of Yerushalayim doubles for the festival, there’ll be trouble. Caiaphas knows it, the Romans know it, and I know it. The question remaining is: ‘What form will it take?’ Listen!” Gamaliel touched an index finger to his forehead. “The two matters are linked. If this Yeshua declares himself at the feast and takes up the Korban issue as his own cause, there will be rioting . . . and many will die.”

  “But what if he really is the Holy One of Israel?” Nakdimon queried. “Then he would be right to take up sacrilege as his cause!”

  “So you also have been reviewing the words of Dani’el,” Gamaliel noted. “Of course that’s the whole point: could he truly be the Awaited One?”

  “You said yourself the years allotted in Dani’el’s prophecy have nearly ended,” Nakdimon pointed out.

  “But what does ‘cut off ’ mean? Caiaphas grows more frightened every day that the doom applies to him.” The learned Pharisee laughed. “He’s taken to having his father-in-law attend council meetings and deferring to his opinion . . . as if the Almighty might be fooled into picking on the wrong cohen hagadol!”

  Nakdimon chuckled too. Annas, Caiaphas’ father-in-law, had been high priest years before and still insisted on being addressed by the title.

  “Start at the beginning,” Gamaliel challenged. “List the requirements a Messiah must fill and tell me how the Nazarene fares.”

  “He is of the tribe of Judah and the family line of David,” Nakdimon reported. “I’m satisfied of that. The prophet Isaiah says he’ll be preceded by another voice . . . and Yochanan himself baptized Yeshua and acknowledged him as the Master. Isaiah also records that he’ll perform miracles . . . which he clearly does, and be anointed by the Ruach HaKodesh, which Yeshua clearly is!”

  Saul, Gamaliel’s student, reentered the chamber and stood behind his chair. “But he violates Sabbath!” the young man protested. “He heals on the Sabbath, in direct contradiction of the Law! He eats with sinners and women! Notorious women!” By this, Nakdimon surmised the student referred to Miryam. “This Yeshua doesn’t keep the laws of cleanliness! Such a one can never be the Anointed One! Never!”

  “Nephew, meet my shy and tongue-tied student, Saul of Tarsus,” Gamaliel said dryly.

  Unabashed, Saul continued, “What about this? Doesn’t the prophet Micah say that Messiah will be born in Beth-lehem?”

  Gamaliel quoted the reference, “But you, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

  Saul interjected, “How could the Messiah be called a Galilean?”

  Nakdimon was stumped. “I don’t know,” he said. “His father was a carpenter in Nazareth until his death. His mother has recently moved from there.”

  “There, you see?” Saul said triumphantly. “He’s a fraud. A drunkard and a man who goes with whores.”

  To the surprise of the younger men it was Gamaliel who held up a cautioning hand. “Not so fast,” he warned. “This Yeshua is about thirty years of age?”

  “Thirty-two, I believe,” Nakdimon reported.

  “And how old was he when he first began to teach publicly?”

  “About thirty.”

  “The same age as David when he became king.”

  “He refused the crown that people tried to force on him.”

  Gamaliel nodded. “It came to me in the night. The age is right. He could be the one. Simeon, my father, used to tell of a child brought into the Temple for dedication thirty-two years ago. My father believed he was the Deliverer. He spoke of it often. After that three foreign astronomers came to old Herod’s palace here in Jerusalem. They told Herod they had seen a sign in the heavens announcing the birth of a king in Israel. Herod called the scholars to him. Father was among them. I remember what happened when Father showed him the prophecy of Micah.” Gamaliel reflected on that dim memory. “A slaughter. You can read it for yourself. All of it. It’s recorded in the archives as one more fit of Herod’s madness. But,” Gamaliel emphasized, “since that time those of us who know the prophecies and calculate the exact times haven’t spoken openly about them to secular rulers. As in the days of Moses, the innocent are made to suffer when kings and princes of this world seek to stop the words of Adonai-Elohim from coming to pass. Make no assumptions! Learn all you can. This isn’t a time to be on the wrong side! Let’s speak more tomorrow!”

  It was on the slope below Herodium, almost in the shadow of that fortress, that Marcus Longinus located the camp of the engineers. There he found Gaius Robb, chief of the surveying crew, examining a map of the region and matching charted features to their real counterparts.

  The line of hills on which Herodium perched extended southward toward Hebron. These westward-facing heights intercepted the last of the Mediterranean moisture from wind-borne clouds. The escarpment divided the fertile plains of Judah from the Judean desert. Here rainfall effectively ended.

  From the caravan routes crisscrossing Idumea to the south, to the town of Arimathea on the edge of Samaritan land to the north, Judea possessed no more than a dozen creeks. Water, though plentiful in the Jordan River Valley, could not escape the confines of that gorge to be useful for people living above it to the west.

  Water was never abundant. Where it bubbled up and pooled, orchards prospered and stock fattened on the grazing; when it failed, so did the villages its life-giving properties had nourished.

  Between Hebron and Herodium the convergence of two canyons formed a natural catch-basin to use as the headwaters for Pilate’s planned aqueduct. From several springs in the area, as well as seasonal precipitation, water would be made to flow to Jerusalem. In order to have sufficient height for the precious fluid to reach the capital of the Jews, almost the entire length of the watercourse would have to be raised significantly above ground level. This elevated construction had to begin as soon as the channel emerged from the hilltop reservoir.

  The intended route as laid out by Pilate’s predecessor passed beneath Herodium and crossed the pastures of Beth-lehem. Beside Beth-lehem it joined Herod the Great’s existing aqueduct at a place called Solomon’s Pools, only a couple miles away.

  “Hail, Centurion,” Robb greeted Marcus formally, then extended his hand in friendship. “What brings you to such an out-of-the-way place? Did the governor send you here to check up on me?”

  Marcus smiled. Robb was a promising young officer previously attached to the Tenth Legion in Syria. Marcus had met him once in Damascus. Pilate must have bribed Vitellius to part with him. “Just the opposite,” Marcus declared. “Pilate sent me here to keep me out of trouble. How is the work progressi
ng?”

  “Well, I think,” Robb offered with a noncommittal flick of his fingers toward the chart. His green eyes sought Marcus’ steady gaze. “Actually, I’m glad you’re here. I . . . I do have concerns.”

  Marcus knew Robb to be an intuitive mathematician with a practical bent. He was highly regarded by Vitellius for certain improvements in siege weapons, and he was equally at home designing defensive fortifications. Slightly built and scarcely more than five feet tall, the inventive engineer had boyish features that made him look even younger than his twenty-four years.

  Right now those boyish features were troubled. Marcus waited for him to continue.

  Sighing heavily, Robb folded a pair of dividers, stabbed the prongs into the wooden arm of his drafting chair, and resumed. “It seemed so straightforward. The aqueduct, I mean. Water is precious here, and no people on earth crave it more than the Jews. Wash before eating, wash after eating, bathe before worship, bathe before making a vow, before signing a contract, before going to a wedding. In all the world, no people appreciate fresh water more than we Romans do, unless it’s the Jews! And not merely for the simple pleasure and relaxation like us, oh no! With them it’s sacred, religious, a sign of piety.”

  Undoing his chin strap and doffing his helmet, Marcus tossed it onto a camp chair. None of this analysis was news to him. “So?” he queried, though he already knew the answer. “What’s the problem?”

  “Everything!” was the retort. “There’s a dispute about the funds to build the aqueduct . . . and I don’t understand since the high council of the Jews voted the money.”

  Marcus explained what he understood about the Korban dispute. “The high priest Caiaphas slipped the measure past the council with a rigged vote,” he said, “knowing that many consider it sacrilegious. Once named as Korban, the Temple money can’t be used for anything other than religious purposes.”

  “But much of this water is for their Temple,” Robb protested.

  Marcus spread his hands. “That’s the same argument Caiaphas tried, but some still aren’t convinced. And that’s beside the point. A knottier problem is a rebel band like bar Abba’s, who might seize on this issue and use it to rally an uprising. Has there been any rebel activity in your area?”

  Robb scratched his sandy-colored hair. “Yes and no. There was one slash-and-burn raid . . . no more since. But the Jewish stonemasons, quarrymen, and laborers I employed are afraid to stay in their work camps at night . . . say they’ll be targeted as collaborators.”

  “Don’t you have legionaries assigned to guard the works?”

  Bobbing his head, Robb added, “But only one cohort. They can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “So what’s the situation?”

  Robb pointed out toward the arches and spans looming over the sheepfolds. “Instead of camping near each construction site, the workers go back to Herodium every night, where they’ll be safe! That’s the problem! It takes too long to get them back to work every morning.”

  Humming to himself, Marcus said, “I’ll look into the guard details so you can concentrate on the engineering. Who’s your captain of legionaries?”

  “Centurion Shomron, sent out from Jerusalem. Praetorian Vara said he was the right man to keep the Jews in line.”

  Inwardly Marcus groaned. Vara, with his innate cruelty, was bad enough, but Shomron too! Shomron was a Samaritan who made no secret of how he detested all Jews and especially the more religious ones. The combination appeared as likely to remain peaceful as applying a torch to a pile of sulfur. “I’ll see what I can do,” Marcus vowed. He gazed across the horizon toward the Tower of Migdal Eder. “Go back to your plans.”

  The smell of sweet, fresh hay filled Emet’s senses as they entered the lambing stable. He closed his eyes and inhaled.

  At the end of the long corridor of stalls, Lev was turning the straw.

  Such luxury! When Emet and Sister had wandered the streets of Jerusalem, they had slept in doorways, begged on street corners. A bed of clean straw was a dream in those days. Sister had sold herself into servitude for the sake of food and shelter. At the stone quarry entrance she had left Emet, who was no use to anyone, in the reluctant care of Avel.

  And what about Avel? The Sparrow boys who lived in the Jerusalem quarries received new bedding six times a year from the Temple charity. And how Emet had envied that charity. How he had longed to be a Sparrow! To sleep beside a fire among the other boys! To carry a torch and earn a halfpenny for each link! Enough daily bread to fill his belly! That had been his ambition. But here he wanted to be a shepherd! In the whole world could there be an occupation as fine as this?

  Emet watched as Avel leaned on the rail and stared wistfully down into the pen. He reached out to touch the soft wool of two recently arrived babies.

  Emet and Ha-or Tov joined him to gawk.

  Zadok studied Avel’s face. “Well? I see words in your eyes. What is it? What? Speak up, boy.” The old man cupped his hand around his ear.

  Avel replied solemnly, “We’ve fallen in a tub of butter.”

  Zadok guffawed a hearty belly laugh. “So you have!” And then he asked Ha-or Tov, “And what is your opinion on the lambing stable?”

  “Very fine butter at that.”

  “Y’ like the place, I take it,” Zadok replied. He placed a hand on Emet’s head. “And what’s running through your mind, little one?”

  Emet was ashamed to mention his thought that it was far better to live in a sheep pen in Beth-lehem than as a human beggar in Yerushalayim. He fixed his gaze on the pair of newborns tugging at the udder of their mother. Tails flicked with delight as they nursed. “Pretty things.”

  Zadok raised his chin slightly and winked as he whispered, “Lambs, boy. They’re everywhere hereabouts. You’ll soon get used to the sight. Twin ewes, these.”

  Last night that stall had been home to one fat, miserable ewe. This morning she was flanked by tiny white creatures bumping and tugging merrily at the feed bag! Their arrival had been accomplished as Emet and the others slept. The lambing stable of Beth-lehem was a veritable palace of miracles!

  Lev tossed the pitchfork into a mound of fodder and hailed Zadok. “They’re up and at it, sir,” drawled the big youth. “That one there? She’s been eating all morning. Making up for lost time. Like y’ said.”

  “I’ve brought y’ the three strays as day workers, Lev.” Zadok nodded continually as he spoke. “You’ll be in charge. They’re ignorant of the ways of the fold. It’ll take a load of teaching. Are y’ up to it?”

  Lev blinked down at Emet. “Sure. Sure. Sure. I could use a hand. But . . . scrawny things, aren’t they?”

  “Need to put muscle on them, I know.”

  “These two’ll fatten right up,” Lev said about Ha-or Tov and Avel, as though they were sheep instead of boys.

  “That’s right. Good big bones on this one.” Zadok patted Avel’s back. “He’ll be strong enough for pasture work. Herding. Big feet. Always charging off in front of the others. A mover. A header. We’ll teach him to work with Red Dog.”

  Lev sucked his teeth thoughtfully and scowled at Ha-or Tov. He picked up the boy’s arm at the wrist and gave it a shake. “Delicate boned.”

  “As y’ know from last night, we can use a pair of small hands and a good imagination. This one has both. We’ll teach him lambing,” Zadok said.

  Lev pointed at Emet. “What will I do with this? Until it grows, the ewes will knock it over and trample it!”

  Emet flushed with worry. Would Lev make him leave? Would old Zadok consider him too puny and unworthy to work with the flock?

  Zadok glowered at Emet. Then he said, “We’ll find something useful. He’s eager enough.”

  “It’s barely got its eyes open, sir. Can’t we sent it off to the village? Let a woman watch it till it grows? Let it dig turnips in a garden?”

  “I’ll grow!” Emet protested. “I promise!”

  Avel stepped up. “I’ll watch over him. I’ve been looking ou
t for him awhile now. He’s no bother. Quiet. No trouble.”

  Zadok tugged his beard in contemplation. “Then it’s settled. Emet’s to stay here. Avel, you’ll see to it he doesn’t get into trouble, eh?” And then Zadok brightened, as if a solution came to mind, and instructed Lev, “Emet can tend to Old Girl and the orphans. Never was a ewe more gentle than Old Girl. She’ll teach him which end of a sheep is which.” He nodded toward the pen where the elderly ewe resided with her four adopted offspring.

  “Well, then,” Lev said, accepting this arrangement. “Old Girl won’t trample it at least.” Lev cocked an eye sternly at Emet. “You fancy tending the sweetest old ewe in Judea?”

  Emet agreed promptly. Anything! As long as he was not to be sent off to Beth-lehem to work in a turnip garden!

  Zadok called Red Dog and Blue Eye, then took Avel and Ha-or Tov out into the sunlight where a group of twenty-four lambs and ewes awaited transfer back into the pasture.

  Lev grasped Emet’s shoulder and directed him farther into the stable, to the cubicle where Old Girl lay in the straw among three white lambs and one black.

  There was nothing attractive about Old Girl. She blinked drowsily at Emet when he repeated her name. “Shalom, Old Girl. I’m Emet.” Her fleece was ragged and patchy, yellowed from sun, weather, and age. She seemed a huge and formidable creature. Amber eyes with clouded corneas considered his hazy form with vague interest, as if he were another ewe’s lamb. She chewed hay languidly.

  Lev explained, “This is your flock then, runt. Herself and the four little ones. Old Girl does most of the work. She tends them four as need tending.”

  Each of the four lambs still had the extra strip of fleece secured to it. Lev pointed at the black lamb with knock-knees who wobbled toward Old Girl and stuck his nose in her ear. On his head was the cap of white fleece tied with a leather cord under his chin. Black ears poked out through the patch. “I give her a bit of grain so Old Girl’s got enough milk to nourish the four about three quarters of what they need every day. I’ve been feeding them milk from the goats. I’ll show you how it’s done.” Lev hoisted Emet over the barrier.