All Kinds of Scented Woods: Wood and
Woodworking in the Bible
Othniel: The Force of God
We called it the year of the lion. Your scribes in Jerusalem count it as the
seventh year of the reign of King Amaziah in Judah.
By anyone's reckoning, the year of the lion, my tenth, was a year when the
ravages of wild beasts and wilder men spread fear and terror throughout our
land.
The night of the lion brought those terrors to our home outside Tekoa. The day
of seedtime for spring crops came with the third new moon after Tishri, the end
of summer and the coming of the first rains. We hoed our field in the ravine
behind our hut, scattered our barley seed on the thin, stony soil, and sowed our
beans and lentils in our garden patch between the hut and the trees.
I brought in the sheep at day's end to pen them for the night in the shed that
my father had built onto the side of the house. At milder times of the year when
we did not keep them at pasture, we would bring them into a sheepfold in front
of the hut. As sheepmaster of Tekoa in times of peace, my father always taught
us to keep the ewes warm and safe from wild beasts at this time of year. He
built the shed onto our hut with a common doorway so that he could be close to
the ewes at lambing time. He hewed the door himself from oak timbers that he
hauled in, one at a time, from over the hills in the west beyond the wilderness,
and he hung an ox hide over the inner doorway into the hut. Before leaving to
serve the king, he had meant to make a courtyard by adding more rooms.
"Your father had clever hands," Mother always told us; "A man like him should
never have had to go back to war just to feed his family."
After a scanty meal of lentil soup and barley bread, Abishai and I glanced up
the trail from Tekoa before barring our door in silence for the night. We saw
nobody coming. Another day had ended with no word of our father, but we said
nothing. The ebbing twilight looked as bleak and cold as we felt after our long
day of sowing. The absence of our father cast a pall over the pleasure that we
should have taken in a good day's work.
My mother gathered us around the hearth to ask the Lord to bless our seed and
grant us a harvest. Then we huddled together for warmth under the sheepskins and
mantles on the raised part of the floor that served as our sleeping platform.
My brother Abishai and I whispered together in the dark because sleep comes
slowly on a winter night for those who live on lean fare.
"Another day without our father. Won't he ever come back?" Abishai wondered out
loud as he had done every night. "Why did he have to go to war?"
"That's enough of that talk, Abishai," my mother warned. "You are the man of the
house now, and you have your little brothers and sisters to think of."
Abishai was twelve, three years older than me. Although our little brother and
two baby sisters had cried the most for our father, they soon began to forget
him. Abishai and I were the ones who missed and needed him the most.
All we knew at the time was that my father had not come back from King Amaziah's
war, like many other men of Tekoa. The men of Tekoa have served at the side of
every king of Judah since the days of Saul and David. Our father went in the
hope of earning enough to build up our flock of sheep and perhaps barter for a
goat or even a donkey.
King Amaziah went to war with King Jehoash of Israel because he blamed Jehoash
for plotting the murder of Jehoahaz, his father. My mother always said that
Amaziah probably blamed the right man, but he chose the wrong man to challenge
in battle. For all his faults, Joash and his army had mastered the art of war in
many victories over the kings of Aram.
Returning stragglers had told us during the following month how Jehoash swept
aside King Amaziah's army like thistledown and took him captive. No one knew
what happened to my father.
"I'll watch the trails for him every day," Abishai protested.
"No, you won't," Rebah, my mother, declared. "It won't help now. We said the
prayers for the dead three months ago. Remember, he's better off dead than in
slavery in Israel. With or without him, work has to go on tomorrow for the sake
of the living, so stop that chatter and go to sleep."
Lying there in the dark and feeling rebuked, I thought about my mother's sharp
words. I decided that she must have put aside her feelings because she already
thought of herself as a widow. Life in Tekoa, here at the edge of the wilderness
of Judah, always balances on the edge of hunger and hardship--even in the best
of times.
Since my father went away, Abishai and I had taken care of our few sheep just as
if we had never had a father. We also helped our mother to tamp down a fresh
layer of clay to seal the roof of our house against the coming of the winter
rains. We tended the sycomore-fig tree in the field behind the stone hut that
our father's father built. This tree that he planted taps water deep below. We
caught the rainwater from our roof in cisterns so that we wouldn't have to carry
water every day from one of the pools of Tekoa where we watered our sheep.
I couldn't tell you when I fell asleep, but something awoke me all of a sudden.
The embers in our hearth had died out. Lying in the darkness, I had the feeling
that I had heard something strange outside--something other than the howls and
screams of the night creatures I knew--owls, jackals, or hyenas. What else could
it have been? Not one of the countless sounds that the wind makes in the night
while it probes every chink and gap in the roof and walls of our house.
Then I heard it again: a roar so brief it sounded more like a cough or a grunt.
I reached across my little brother to shake my mother. "There's a lion out
there!" I whispered. "A lion! I know there is."
"Wind, my son," she groaned. She did not stir. "We haven't had a lion in these
parts for forty years. Go back to sleep before you wake the little ones."
A louder roar answered her.
"It's coming for us!" I shouted. "I want my father!"
That woke up Abishai. He rolled over and sat up, jerking all the robes and
sheepskins off the other children. The wintry air clutched their sleeping forms
and they awoke shrieking with cold and fright.
Mother hissed for silence as she groped for the hearth and found a stick to poke
through the ashes for a live coal. Finding one, she blew it back to life and
added tinder to rekindle the fire. The firelight began to quell our fears until
a shout made the children scream anew.
"Let me in, let me in, I beg you! Hurry! Before the lion gets me!" a man's voice
cried as he beat on the outer door.
"Abishai, go and let him in," Mother told my brother. "Have I ever turned anyone
away hungry from my door? Shall it be said that I feed strangers to lions?"
The sheep added their bleating to the noise in the hut. Whether or not they knew
the smell of a lion, they shared our fright and added to it.
Abishai grabbed for something to pull around his shoulders and stumbled to the
doorway. He pushed aside the ox hide and fumbled for the beam that held the
outer door closed.
"Hurry, hurry," the voice outside pleaded. The voice rose in panic at the sound
of another, closer roar from the lion.
The beam yielded to Abishai's struggles, and the door came free at last. It
grated inward on its hinge post and let in a blast of wind and grit that nearly
blew out our fire. My father had built the shed with a wooden gate to kept the
sheep from running into our hut when we brought them inside. The man had been
pushing so hard to get in that he fell through the doorway, knocked down the
gate, and sprawled among the sheep. He stirred up such a noise of bleating and
terrified sheep that the little ones thought the lion had run amok.
"Shut that door!" my mother shouted.
I lit a firebrand and ran to help Abishai close and bar the door. The stranger
pulled himself up out of the sheep and found his way into our hut while Abishai
picked up the gate and put it back in its place.
Mother had straightened her clothing, covered up her little ones, and drawn her
mantle about herself. She lit our one oil lamp and held it before her to study
the face of the stranger.
"The Lord be with you," he panted, "and all in this house." The smoky air of our
hut, thick with its smell of sheep, made him sneeze.
"He is with you, whoever you are," Mother snapped; "He could have let you stray
into a den of bears!"
Abishai and I started to laugh but our mother stopped us.
"Here, you young warriors: go and frighten that lion away. Wave your fire, sound
the horn, and bang on our iron pot for all you're worth. You'll make that lion
slink off like a jackal."
We just stood there staring at the stranger. He was a man of middle years and
tall enough that our roof beams made him stoop. His white tunic and mantle, now
torn and stained, marked him as a servant of the king. Fright and shock had left
him trembling, but he no longer had to pant for breath. My mother's poise seemed
to bring back his courage.
"Your pardon, my lady. I am Kamrath ben Kalhar from Jerusalem. I lost my staff
and my way in the dark."
A thud and another roar shook the door. The children and the sheep began howling
and bleating all over again.
"It's going to get on the roof and break through!" Abishai shouted.
"Must I get rid of it myself?" Mother shouted back over the noise.
Kamrath took my torch. "I know what to do now, mistress. I couldn't make a fire
out there, and nobody but Samson could rend a lion apart with his bare hands."
Abishai went to open the door again while I found the pot and a stick. The three
of us went out whooping and shouting and banging. Mother followed us with an
armful of old straw from the shed and set it on fire. We heard no more from the
lion. It must have been the burning straw that drove it off because I remember
to this day how the stench lingered.
My mother added a knot of cedar to the fire on our hearth to sweeten the air
while we gathered to soothe the small children back to sleep. Kamrath held my
little brother in his lap while he told us why he had come to Tekoa. The child
felt the whiteness and softness of his mantle and tunic, and he stroked them
until he fell asleep.
"War and famine have filled the land with wild beasts and wilder men," he began.
It all happened because of King Amaziah, he explained. "He had let himself swell
with pride ever since smiting the sons of Edom five years ago."
Mother told the scribe that my father served the king in that battle. "The Lord
was with King Amaziah in those days, and those misbegotten Edomites earned their
defeat."
"So they did, my lady. Yet our king should have known better than to go up
against Jehoash. Fighting Aramaeans hardened Jehoash and the hosts of Israel. He
warned our lord Amaziah that he would smash him like a thistle, but our king
wouldn't listen. He still claims that Jehoash paid two royal servants to murder
his father.
"Dearly did Jehoash make our lord Amaziah pay for his folly. He took Amaziah
captive. He seized Jericho and Gilgal, and he turned his army loose on
Jerusalem. They looted the city at will."
We saw tears in Kamrath's eyes while he lamented the fate of Jerusalem.
"The soldiers of Jehoash would not even spare Solomon's Temple, bare and
crumbling as it was. What the Egyptians did not take after the death of King
Solomon, his successors took to pay for their dreams of glory. Only King Joash,
King Amaziah's father, had made an attempt to halt the decay by repairing the
Temple.
"Then Jehoash freed our king and left him in the ruins of Jerusalem. He took
hostages from the royal family and the priests, and he went back to Samaria in
triumph."
Kamrath warned us that Jerusalem had not begun to get over these events, and its
troubles had barely started. Anger sharpened his voice as he went on.
"As jackals follow the lion, so do worthless fellows come after the soldiers.
The hosts of Jehoash made merry for a day or two before leaving with the last
riches of our land. The jackals that followed them are like the locusts that
darken the earth with their numbers and leave nothing.
"To make matters worse, these jackals are men of Judah, albeit outcasts. They
dwell in clefts of the mountains or caves in the wilderness in times of peace.
They prey upon travelers and the people of their own land, and they flock to
join any enemy who comes against us. They rejoice to make themselves the heavy
left hand of our foes so that they can cast down good people and trample upon
their necks."
Kamrath paused to clear his throat. He snorted in disgust, "Vermin of that kind
have made themselves masters of Jerusalem. And then what did our noble King
Amaziah do but let these worthless fellows make him captive in all but name?
Those of his servants who did not flee, they have slain or cast out."
"Is that why you came here, sir?" I asked.
"It is as you say, my son," Kamrath answered. "My lord Amaziah has always had a
ready ear for everyone but his own servants. He blames us all for the murder of
his father. Anyone would think the guilt of two weaklings means that every last
one of us joined the plot against him. Oh, he thinks that the king of Israel
paid the two murderers, but their story died with them. Our lord Amaziah even
believes the rest of us killed the murderers to keep him from learning their
story. King Joash may have caught the murderers stealing from the offerings to
repair the Temple, for all I know, or the Assyrians or Egyptians may have bribed
them. We'll never know now. Yet, because of the treachery of those two men, our
lord Amaziah hastens to blame all of his servants and avoids asking for our
counsel."
Kamrath's voice trailed off. I can see him remembering how his scrolls went up
in flames amid the ruins of Jerusalem. He looked up and warned us, "A lion may
take one lamb from your flock, but wild dogs--when do they stop?"
How well we knew about the havoc that a single wild dog can wreak. The bite of a
mad dog brings on madness and the most horrible death that I know of. We despise
dogs and will not keep them, but they run wild from Israel and the heathen
nations around us. Here, they roam our land in packs that scavenge and kill at
will unless we hunt them down. The taste of one lamb fills them with such a
blood lust that they will not stop until they have killed the whole flock. I
once went with my father and the men of Tekoa when they banded together to track
down a sheep-killer, and I saw what it did to the lambs. They are worse than
wolves and bears, which do but kill for food.
"The taste of hot blood is like wine to them, sir. They won't stop before they
rip out the throat of the last ewe," I answered.
"What wild beast can ever be as savage as men who obey neither God nor laws?
Like mad dogs, they will not cease until they rend asunder our whole land. Now
you know why you must watch well over your house and your flock, young masters,"
Kamrath told Abishai and me, "until your father comes home."
Hurt silence was our only answer. Mother looked aside into the shadows. Abishai
tried to look brave, but I felt my lips quivering.
"So your father served the king, did he?" Kamrath guessed. "I should have known.
You have the bearing of a mighty man, my son," he told Abishai.
"That is the place of the firstborn in our land, sir," Abishai answered. Nearly
thirteen years old, he looked forward to becoming a soldier. He added, "Men of
Tekoa have served at the right hand of every king from the first days of the
kingdom."
"Truly said, my son. And Abishai is a warrior's name, is it not? 'Abishai of the
open hand.' Your father would be proud of you. An open hand comes from an open
heart--a good heart."
The scribe turned to me.
"And you, Amos, are the burden-bearer? May you live up to your name."
I did not know what he meant. I also meant to become a soldier. No other way of
life appeals to any boy of ten in Tekoa. I told him, "My burden will be a sword
and shield, sir."
Kamrath rose and laid his hands on my shoulders. "Ah, you will learn that other
burdens have their own glory, my son. However much the king needs fighting men,
he always has greater need of sheepmasters and husbandmen. In them lies the
strength of his kingdom. Let one warrior to a family be enough, I say. Noble is
your burden, Amos, and high your calling."
"And what will you do at the break of day, sir?" my mother broke in.
"Why, I shall find my way once more and take the road down to Hebron and Ziph.
My fellows and I must warn the cities of Judah against the jackals who have
seized our master."
My mother pursed her lips in open doubt that a handful of scribes could do much
to help the king.
Untroubled, Kamrath went on: "Ah, mistress, the king's son Uzziah stands with
us. He is yet a youth, like your own sons, but we shall call upon all the elders
of Judah to anoint him as our king until we can free our lord Amaziah. Must we
allow worthless fellows to lord it over the throne of David?"
The scribe's voice hardened and his eyes glittered. Frail and elderly as he
might be, we felt a strength of purpose in the man.
Mother still pressed him: "And what, sir scribe, makes you so sure that this
prince will not strive to outdo the follies of his father?"
"You do well to ask, good mistress. Our lord Uzziah is young, as you say, and
yet he has a good heart and the will do to what is right for Judah in the eyes
of the Lord."
Satisfied for the moment, my mother gave the scribe a sheepskin robe and bade
him make himself comfortable by the hearth until daybreak. "May your sleep be
sound. The Lord be with you," she whispered.
When I laid down to go back to sleep, I wondered about this strange night of the
lion. The Lord had saved us and our flock from the lion, and he had brought us a
new friend. I decided to pray for a new king who could bring my father home and
heal our land.
