OTHNEIL

The Force of God

Chapter Nine

by Richard S. Barnett

CHAPTER NINE

That is how the Lord fought for us while Milcom slept. The Lord helped us to pit our strengths against the weaknesses of the Highborn.
Caleb never forgot his own weaknesses, Ehud, my son. Any army is always hungry and thirsty, and Caleb's was no different. Even though we had taken Summit City and Hebron with their harvests for Judah, the season had come for us to sow our next harvest. Caleb needed to bring peace to the highlands and take the Negev, the Southland, so that the people of Judah and Simeon could settle on their lands.
"We will shut up the rest of the Highborn behind their walls and conquer them later," he told us. "A winter of fear and hunger should make them easier to fight."
We swept the land clean of the Amorites, the Highborn, as far south as Arad, Hormah, and Beer-sheba before turning back to Hebron. Nevertheless, Caleb urgently wanted to take Debir before winter set in. The Canaanites used to call it "Kiriath Sepher" or Monument City. There in the foothills at the edge of the Southland and less than half a day's walk from Hebron, Debir stands watch over the trail from the plains to Hebron. Caleb wanted to keep the Highborn at Debir from getting help from the kings of the plains or the Sea Peoples for an attack, yet he couldn't turn his full strength on them.
When we came back to Hebron after taking the Negev, Caleb called all his leaders of hundreds together. He blessed all those who were ready to settle their lands, and to the rest he said,
"I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Monument City."
I couldn't believe what I heard although I knew how many men coveted Acsah. Hundreds from all Israel had begged Caleb for years, and the time had come for him to give them an answer. At the same time, Caleb thought too much of his youngest child to give her away to anyone she didn't like or who might be unworthy of her.
Always full of wiles, Caleb had seen a way to capture a city and find a worthy husband for Acsah at the same time.
Everyone cheered his words but me. I saw my chances melting away like the morning mists after sunrise. My brothers enlisted Gedawr's support and got busy right away finding men to follow them. Their promises of loot lured more than five hundred men into following them. I could barely keep my hundred men from following them too.
Gera helped me, praise the Lord, when at last I told him about my dreams of winning Acshah. He accepted without jealousy as if he had known what was in my heart all along, and he reminded my men and his how the first attack on Ai failed.
"Shabab and Kenabi and their rabble haven't learned a thing." Gera told them. "They are too flushed with pride in victories they did nothing to win."
I thanked the Lord that Gera and his men had not yet gone back to Jerusalem. "They haven't learned the worth of good bowmen and slingers, my brother, but I have. What can I offer you and your hundred to fight at my side once more? My spear? All the wealth of Monument City?" I pleaded.
Gera laughed, "Othniel, my friend, I wouldn't go with anyone else for all the wealth of Monument City and forty more cities. Only let us dance at your marriage feast!"
"You know how to drive a hard bargain," I agreed. I could have hugged Gera for joy because I could now see some hope of winning Acsah.
It still dismayed me to see my brothers go first. They and Gedawr met with Caleb early the next morning to ask his blessing. Caleb had made camp near the well at the terebinths of Mamre until he could claim some land for his family. I waited there and watched for Acsah, who chose to stay in the women's tent that day.
Caleb welcomed my brothers with all the outward signs of warmth due to his kinsmen and the friends of his son Gedawr. I felt my hopes shriveling away as I watched. To give them their due, my brothers had gathered a force that looked ready and able to overwhelm two or three times their number of Highborn. Kenabi, the younger, was a little taller than me and three years older. He looked so much like my father, as well as I could remember. I always envied his curly hair and good looks. He took pride in keeping his hair and beard well groomed and lustrous, and I knew that Acsah and every other sensible young woman in Israel must admire him--adore him. Shabab, the firstborn of our family, looked more like Caleb--a dark, sturdy man but crude, swaggering, and flaunting a paunch. His scowl never left his face whereas Kenabi could always put on a smile to charm and coax others into his way of thinking. That smile always marked Kenabi as the more dangerous of the two.
Caleb sent the two on their way by a clapping a heavy hand on their shoulders and praying, "May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and bless your quest. May He sow doubt and fear among His enemies and grant you the harvest!"
"May the Lord bless you, sir." Kenabi answered. "May we also see the sunshine of your daughter's face and know that she smiles upon our quest?"
"Happy is he, my son, who remembers Ai. He will return with singing, for he will surely see her face in his tent. See, these trees are witnesses!"
Even Shabab smiled, thinking that Caleb had as good as promised Acsah to him.
"Monument City is yours today, sir," he shouted. Kenabi, Gedawr, and all their men roared in reply, "For the Lord and for Caleb!"
They all marched away, wild with zeal and singing,
"The Lord has spoken;
who shall stand against us?
The Lord has spoken;
Israel and Judah shall prevail.
The Lord has spoken;
Monument City shall fall!"

Their spirits were so high that I felt torn between wanting to go with my brothers and despair over Acsah. Rifaz and Gera wouldn't leave me in my gloom.
"When will you learn steadfastness, Othniel?" Gera rebuked me. "You let yourself be dismayed too easily. Before you give up, won't you think again about what our lord Caleb told your brothers? I've never heard such a left-handed a promise. Didn't he say that blessed is he who remembers Ai? Didn't your brothers think only of themselves at Ai? Have they learned better?"
I knew my brothers would never learn, but the gloom over my heart would not lift. I saw no more of the sunshine of Acsah's face than my brothers did that day.
Rifaz and Gera led me back to our camp when the sound of my brothers' men had faded into the distance. "Let's take counsel together," Gera urged me, "and see how the Lord may give Monument City into your hands."
Not knowing where else to begin, I asked Rifaz, "Why do they call it Monument City? What do you know about their monument and its story?"
"Their monument is a standing stone, sir: a round black pillar of polished basalt which they call sacred to Anath, their chief goddess. The pictures carved on it tell the story of the city and how their first king made a treaty with Anath."
"Anath--we have hear that name before; their goddess of love and war," I said.
"So they say, sir. In the grey dawn of years, when Canaan had no master, Arad, the son of Arbah came to make his place on the earth. Now Arbah was one of the Anakim, a race of giants born of women and the gods when they came down to earth. He built Arbah City, and each of his sons went forth to build his own city. Arad was yet a beardless youth when he set forth, and his father gave him a mighty bow that was the handiwork of an Egyptian master craftsman. He made it from strips of horn and three kinds of wood, and it was the height of a man and bound in gold. Not even Baal-Hadad, lord of winds and storms, had a bow with such reach and power.
"Now Baal-Hadad became vexed because he couldn't hurl his lightning as far or as close to the mark as Arad. He withheld his rains in the months when the heavens open and the rivers rise and run full. In black anger and spite did he close the windows of heaven until the land was near death. 'The earth is mine,' he said, 'and my rains give it life.'
"Long and bitter was the drought, until the gods came before him and begged him to end it. Baal-Hadad thought deeply about their claims and answered,
"'Bring me Arad's bow of bright gold to send down my lighting. Bring me that bow, because water is the first of all things and I should have that flashing bow to send forth my lightning.'
"Therefore the gods besought Anath, the sister of Baal, 'Sister, we pray you,' they pleaded, 'go down upon the earth and entreat Arad for his golden bow. Implore him with all your charms and music and he will soften his heart toward you.'
"Anath stripped off her garments, braided her hair and scented herself with jasmine, camphire, and musk. She took her tabret in her hand and went forth to Arad like a minstrel maid. She stood before him and sang in a voice like the tinkling of cymbals until Arad gazed in wonder upon her charms, spellbound by the music of her lips.
"'Daughter of song, so lovely and happy,' he said to her; 'what brings you into this dry and thirsty land that Baal-Hadad has forgotten?'
"'I am Anath, daughter of Asherat,' she told him. "I have come to beg for your mercy upon all your brothers and sisters. Harsh and heavy is the drought you have laid upon them, and they can bear it no more.'
"Arad was furious to hear that the gods blamed him for the drought. 'What have I to do with the rains?' he cried. 'Go, plead with Baal-Hadad that he will send rain upon the earth.'
"'If it pleases you,' the goddess answered, 'for want of a golden bow Baal-Hadad does not send forth the lightnings that call down the rain.'
"Arad had looked upon the goddess until all his desire was aroused. 'Lady Anath,' he said, 'though you offer yourself as a pledge, I shall not part with my golden bow.'
"The goddess entreated Arad and plied him with all her skills until he could stand it no longer. 'Lady,' he cried, 'Let the gods make a covenant with me. If they would ease the drought, then give yourself to me, and when the season comes I will lend Baal-Hadad my golden bow.'
"Thus the goddess gave herself to Arad, and that's the story of the great stone," Rifaz said. "The coming of the rains marks a feast of lust at Monument City to this day. To begin the feast, the king brings out his golden bow and shoots arrows of fire into the sky. He then takes the maiden who plays the part of Anath."
"We've heard enough about their wild feasts," I said. "Surely the season for this feast passed with the coming of the early rains?"
"Yes, sir, but Monument City has many other feasts to their goddess of lust. They say Anath would entice men to her bed and ask them riddles. She made slaves of all those who could not answer. The king leads feasts in her honor all year long."
"Not for much longer," I told Rifaz, "unless he learns to serve his goddess better in battle than in bed. Now, what do you know about this king? He hasn't fought Israel before, has he?"
"No, sir, for Arad was the youngest of Arbah's sons and his city is too small to be numbered with Hebron, Jarmuth, Jerusalem, Eglon, and Lachish."
"Who's king in Arad's place today," I asked.
"He calls himself Arbok, Beloved of Anath, and Lord of the Golden Bow, sir. He has been king for at least twelve years that I know of."
"Do all these Highborn kings call themselves 'beloved of Anath?'" Gera remarked.
"How have they fortified the city?" I asked.
"Monument City sits on high ground above the only spring that flows year round. Its walls are like the walls of other Highborn cities."
"You mean that they have stone facings over cores of rubble?"
"Yes, sir, for all their strong appearance they need strong defenders.
"Does Monument City have strong defenders?"
Rifaz shrugged. "Sir, I couldn't say. They still have strength in numbers, at least, because they haven't had to fight Israel before today."
"Then they haven't proved their worth in battle yet," Gera added, "until today."
"Until today," I agreed. The more I thought about that, the worse I felt. All my hopes of winning Acsah now hung on the bravery of the Highborn at Monument City. Had my longing for her made me false to Israel and Caleb? Could my best dreams and goals turn me into a traitor? I couldn't bear the thought of letting that happen; I wouldn't let it happen.
"My friends," I told Gera and Rifaz, "we can't tarry or hold back when our friends and kinsmen may be in peril. Who knows what may befall them at the hands of the Highborn? Shikha must have warned them about our ways of fighting by now."
Gera and I called our men together and we left Rifaz with Caleb while we followed the tracks and fading dust cloud my brothers' men had left. The trail from Hebron to Monument City followed a ridge of crumbling ochre limestone part of the way before plunging into a brown valley with a dry watercourse. The valley twists in the same direction until it coils around the hill of Monument City.
We heard the noise of fighting when we came to the head of the valley. and we saw men fleeing toward Monument City.
"A trap!" Gera cried. "Those are Hebrews. The Highborn must have come upon them from behind. They've cut off their way back to Hebron!"
"If we don't help them, the Highborn will kill them all! We've got to break up the ambush," I argued. "No one knows about us. Let's go down and hit them from behind!"
Gera was eager to try, so we told our men to keep quiet and follow us until we came within bowshot of the enemy. We found a hidden path that took us down into the valley behind the Highborn.
The Lord was with us. In their eagerness to chase my brothers' men, the Highborn had forgotten to watch their own flanks and rear. Gera's men closed in and aimed a flight of stones and arrows into their rear ranks. My men and I charged with our spears leveled and yelled, "For the Lord and Israel!"
A score of Highborn soldiers fell under our stones and arrows, and others couldn't turn in time to meet our charge. A few more fell but the rest slowly fell back before us instead of fighting. Though they had twice as many men, the shock of our charge forced their leader to break off the attack on my brothers' men. We heard the leader's horn sound to rally his men. They broke off fighting, drew aside, and formed closer ranks for a fresh attack on us.
The lull in the fighting gave my brothers' men time to come over to us. Gera and his men moved aside to high ground to let my brothers' men through and I herded them back toward the ridge.
"Get your wounded out of here!" I told them. "We'll hold back the enemy."
A horn sounded and the Highborn marched toward us, stamping the ground and pounding their spears on their shields in time as they chanted:
"Face to face; hand to hand;
Fight us where you stand!
Face to face; hand to hand,
We'll grind you into sand."

The valley rang with their noise, and I had to shout to make myself heard as I passed the order to fall back slowly. Gera's slingers and bowmen harried the Highborn from the side of the valley when they came within bowshot. The walls of the valley pressed the Highborn more and more into a column. My men blocked that space with a mass of spears and we slowed the attackers with quick charges and retreats that took a steady toll of their numbers.
My brother's men now crammed the paths out of the valley while the Highborn still forced us to retreat, and I knew that they wanted to crush us. Thinking that they had won, the Highborn yelled louder and some soldiers in front began to break ranks in their frenzy to attack us. One wore a leader's gilded trappings with a leopard skin. I thrust my spear at the fellow and its iron point pierced his gilded armor like linen. His fall wrenched the spear from my hands but I managed to snatch up his sword as I jumped over him to thrust at the next soldier. He turned aside the sword with his shield and lunged at me with his axe raised high for a kill. I dodged his axe and chopped him on the back of the neck as he passed.
The Highborn behind him retreated just long enough for my men to press forward past me. I found my spear, shouted "Enough!" and told them to edge back once again.
The Highborn became more wary about clashing with us after that, and Gera's bowmen and slingers kept them from following us up the narrow trails out of the valley. It took the rest of the afternoon to get everyone out of the valley and back on the ridge.
Gera's men had escaped injury and my men had only a few wounds, but my brothers' men had suffered badly. After counting their losses, we found that the Highborn had killed Shabab and forty other men and taken Kenabi captive. Gedawr and a hundred more men had suffered deep wounds.
"The fools led us into a trap," Gedawr grumbled. "Shabab saw a small troop of Highborn soldiers in the valley and we went after them. The rest of them charged from behind and attacked us before we knew they were there."
"You went into a strange land with no scouts?" Gera asked. "It's no wonder you got into trouble."
"Never mind, that. You got us out, Othniel."
"It was the Lord's doing," I told him.
"If you say so, but I do know that but for you, we would all be dead by now. I've always been hard on you, Othniel, but now I see my father was right; you're not like your brothers. Is it too late for me to be your friend?" He heaved himself to his feet with his spear and tried to hug me. I welcomed Gedawr's change of heart, and he hugged Gera next. When we had all finished with our thanks and relief, laughs, and tears, Gedawr sat down and told us, "Monument City will be harder than ever to capture now that we have let the Highborn draw Hebrew blood, but you can count on me to help you."
"First, we had better get you back to Hebron," I answered. "You need care, and you don't want to camp here while bloodthirsty Highborn soldiers are searching for you."