Daughter of Deliverance (22 page)

“No, I don't need it.”

“Sure you do. We all do.” Ezra took a healthy drink from the flask, then urged Othniel, “Just one little drink won't hurt.”

“All right. One little drink.”

But that one little drink was followed by another—and then another, and before Othniel knew what he was doing, he was drinking deeply. He fell into a drunken stupor, and as the sun grew hotter, he crawled up under the shade of the bushes. He did not hear the sound of Caleb's voice crying out, “Attack! Attack!” but slept on as the attack was made.

****

The attack worked perfectly. The king of Ai saw the small body of men and cried out, “Come! They're in our hands!” His men rushed out of the city against Joshua. Joshua commanded his men to keep backing up as if they were in a panic.

The men of Ai were exulted and cried out with voices of victory.

But in the midst of the battle, as soon as all of the men of Ai had joined in to annihilate Joshua's small force, the Lord said to Joshua,
“Hold out toward Ai the javelin that is in your hand, for into your hand I will deliver the city.”

Joshua stretched out his spear, and as soon as he did, he saw movement beyond the city. Caleb was attacking!

The men of Ai had been pressing the attack against Joshua when a loud a cry went up. The soldiers turned, and the king himself turned and saw smoke.

“The city's on fire, sire!” a courier cried out.

At that moment the king of Ai understood that he had been tricked. His face grew pale, but there was no escape.

Caleb's force flooded out of the city, and Joshua's men were reinforced. They caught the army of Ai as if in a nutcracker and crushed it. They annihilated the army and then did as they had with Jericho. They killed the inhabitants of Ai, but Joshua had counseled them, “This time God has said we may keep the cattle for our spoils.”

****

Joshua gave commands for an altar, and quickly the soldiers built one of uncut stone, simply a pile of rocks. As soon as it was ready, Phinehas the priest offered a sacrifice to the Lord. And Joshua gave commands that a copy of the Law of Moses be placed on these stones. Joshua stood up on a large promontory and began to read the Law of Moses. The soldiers stood rank upon rank listening, knowing that God had given them another victory.

Finally Joshua finished and gave commands that the cattle should be taken back to the camp. “There'll be feasting this night,” he cried.

****

When Othniel woke up, he could not remember where he was for a moment. The sun was low in the sky, so it was midafternoon. With a start he realized that the army was gone!

Crawling out from under the bush, he stared about wildly. He climbed the crest of the hill and saw Ai was a smoking ruin.

“The battle's over,” he whispered hoarsely, “and I missed it.”

Othniel cringed with shame. He wanted to run away, but there was no place for him to go. Slowly he walked past the city of Ai, trying not to look at the bodies of the slain, for it reminded him of the slaughter at Jericho. As he came close to the Hebrew camp, he heard the sound of laughter and singing and could soon smell burning meat. He tried to sneak around and get to his own tent, but he was spotted and his fellow soldiers began mocking him.

“Look. There's mighty warrior Othniel! Are you awake at last?”

Others took up the cry, making Othniel want to slink away and die.

Suddenly he was face-to-face with Ariel, whose eyes were fixed on him. Othniel started to speak, then discovered he had nothing to say as he read the bitter disappointment in the woman's eyes.

“I'm nothing, Ariel—and there's no need of my trying to be anything.”

With these bitter words he turned and moved quickly away, not bearing to face the scorn that he had seen in Ariel's eyes.

Nothing gave Rahab more pleasure than to view the tabernacle, the spot where Jehovah met to speak to His people. She was not permitted, of course, to go inside the tabernacle itself. No one could do that except the priests, who were all of the tribe of Levi. But she found herself going again and again to view the tabernacle and the fence that surrounded it.

It was late in the afternoon, after her work was done, that she made her way to a rise, and from the crest of it she turned to look down on the tabernacle. The sun was brilliant, and the tabernacle was dyed in resplendent colors, primarily of crimson. In the front were five huge pillars made of gold. Phinehas had told her that the entire structure was ten cubits wide, thirty cubits in length, and ten cubits high. Gold-covered pillars were settled into sockets of silver. The walls were fastened to each other by golden bolts, and a curtain surrounded the entire structure made of linen of blue, purple, and scarlet thread.

From where she stood she could hear the pleasant sound of voices singing and laughing, the voices of children and of older people as well. The camp surrounded the tabernacle so that the tabernacle was the center of the heart of Israel. Now she studied the courtyard encircling the tabernacle. Twenty pillars on each long side and ten pillars on each short side surrounded the entire structure, forming an outer court. She admired the hangings of fine linen work, blue and purple and vermilion, that caught the falling sun. Suddenly it seemed to her that the sanctuary had glowing walls that seemed to rise out of a sea of molten silver.

Rahab had become enamored by the God of Israel. True, she knew very little about Jehovah, but much of her waking moments were spent meditating on the stories she had heard of the Hebrew people from Phinehas. The gods of her people, which included Ashtaroth and Baal, were utterly crude and vile to her now, and she could not bear to think of the terrible things that were done in their names.

But Jehovah—He was a God to be worshiped and adored. He had spoken to Moses, and she recalled how Phinehas had told her that Jehovah had said He was a God of tender mercies and infinite love. A God of love! She had never heard of such a thing from her own people in her own land. From her own experience of life in Jericho, she knew the gods of Canaan to be only fierce and cruel and bloody. The people who worshiped them became every bit as cruel as their gods. She often wondered at what seemed like cruelty on the part of Jehovah in demanding that the Canaanites be completely wiped out, but when she saw the goodness of the Hebrew way of life—their devotion to God and their kindness to those who loved their God—she began to understand a little more. From Phinehas she had learned that God was all wise, and knowing that helped her trust Him more, regardless of whether His ways all made sense to her or not.

“Well, again I find you here admiring the tent of meeting.”

Startled out of her reverie, Rahab turned and saw two men standing there. One was Phinehas, the high priest, the grandson of the great Aaron. The other man she did not recognize.

She bowed low and greeted them with reverence. “Good afternoon, masters.”

Phinehas turned and looked down on the tabernacle. “I never get tired of looking at that.”

“It is beautiful. It seems not to be made with human hands but by angels,” Rahab whispered.

To her surprise the other man laughed. “Well, there were times when I wished angels would have come, but in all truth it is the handiwork of men, not of angels.”

“You have not met Bezalel, Rahab?”

“No, sir. I have not.”

“Then let me make him known to you. You will find him interesting. Bezalel, this is Rahab. You have heard the story of how she preserved the lives of our scouts Ardon and Othniel of the family of Caleb.”

“I have heard much, but it is an honor to meet you,” Bezalel said. He was a tall, well-formed man with silver in his hair and a few lines on his face, but he had obviously been a strong, active man all his life.

“If you want to know about the tabernacle, this is the man to ask,” Phinehas said. “He is the man God selected to build it.”

Startled, Rahab's lips flew open. She stared at Bezalel as if he were a visitor from a foreign land. “I cannot believe it. You built that?”

Bezalel seemed embarrassed. “It was Moses' doing, all of it. God spoke to him when he was on Mount Sinai and gave him specific instructions on how to build the tabernacle and all of the furniture.”

“I was not there when that was done,” Phinehas said, “but it must have been a wonderful time.”

Bezalel seemed lost in a reverie. “It was. No one was more shocked than I when Moses told me that God had commanded Him to choose me to be the builder. Me and my friend Oholiab were both shocked.”

“It must have been wonderful,” Rahab said.

“There is no way to describe it,” Bezalel said. He began to speak freely, and it was obvious that he was remembering the high point of his life. “I had no idea where we would find the materials to build such a thing. You remember we were in the desert. There was not a shop to go buy what we needed, but God provided. Moses commanded that the people bring in the materials. I must admit I was doubtful, yet it happened. Every day the people brought in all that was required. Why, there were piles of materials. Jewels, metals of all kinds, wool for the walls. Everything! Finally Moses had to command them to stop.”

“But where did they all come from, all those rich things?” Rahab asked.

“Has the high priest not told you how when we left Egypt, delivered by the hand of our God, the Egyptians loaded us down with precious things? I thought it only just, for we had built Egypt with the sweat of our brow. It was little enough pay for four hundred years of hard labor.”

Rahab listened as Bezalel continued to speak. “Everyone worked in those days. We were free from slavery and working for our own God now. No one held back. The spinners and the weavers, the workers in metal. Look at the tabernacle. It was a tremendous job to put it together. It's not just one covering but several all joined together, for everything has to be moveable.”

Indeed, Rahab had once witnessed the tabernacle's dismantling when the camp had been moved at Jehovah's command. She had seen the entire tabernacle stripped down, packed, loaded, and moved.

“And does no one ever go inside the tabernacle, except the priests of Levi?”

“Only the priests, according to the Law of God,” Phinehas said.

“It must be beautiful on the inside.”

“It is indeed beautiful,” Bezalel said. “I remember after all this time how I labored over the golden ornaments for the interior of the tabernacle. I made the roof of pure gold, and two cherubim are woven into the curtains that separate the Most Holy Place.”

“The Most Holy Place?”

“Yes. That is where the ark of God is. Only the high priest can enter that and then only one time a year. He must take blood inside and make an offering for the sins of the people.”

“That must be wonderful. May I ask what it looks like on the inside of the Most Holy Place?”

Phinehas shifted uneasily. “I do not like to speak of that. It is frightening.”

“The ark was the most difficult of all to make.” Bezalel spoke for some time, his face glowing as he remembered those days when the tabernacle was being constructed.

Finally he said, “I must go now. But first I would like to show you something else very special that might help you understand a little of how God's hand is on the Hebrew people.” Bezalel carefully pulled a beautiful gold medallion out from under his tunic, which hung about his neck on a leather strap, and showed it to Rahab.

“Why, it's lovely,” she whispered, gently fingering the raised figure of a lion on the medallion. Bezalel turned it over to show her a lamb on the opposite side. “Did you make this too?” she asked.

“No,” Bezalel said. “This medallion was given to me. It has been passed down through the people since the time of Noah, and I was given instruction to pass it on to whoever God tells me to before I die. So I will await His instructions.”

“What is it for?” Rahab wondered.

“It is some kind of sign,” Bezalel replied. “But its total meaning is a mystery…much like our God is to us, Rahab. I believe it points to a day in the future when a Redeemer will come into our midst and save us all. Perhaps then we will understand the full significance of the lion and the lamb. But for now we can rest in the peace that God has a future and a hope for each one of us.”

Rahab looked up at him with wonder in her eyes.

“It has been good to meet you, Rahab,” Bezalel said. “I am so glad that you now serve the true God.”

“Thank you, master,” Rahab whispered. She watched as the tall man tucked the medallion back into his tunic, nodded, and left them. She turned to look at Phinehas. “What a wonderful man!”

“Yes, indeed. He could tell some stories. He was barely twenty when God's judgment fell on Israel when they refused to enter the Land of Promise. But I get him to tell the stories as often as I can so they will not be forgotten.”

Rahab suddenly asked a question that had been on her heart ever since the destruction of Jericho. This man, the high priest of Israel, surely must know the answer!

“Sir, I have often wondered why it is that the people in Jericho and Ai had to be killed. Some of them were only children, some of them very old people. I do not understand it. You have said that Moses discovered that God was the God of love, but is that love to kill a whole people?”

“I gave up a long time ago trying to understand God,” Phinehas said. “He is not a God who can be apprehended by a finite man or woman. But I have prayed much, and I talk often with my father, who was intimate with Moses. The two of them wondered about the same thing. What I have now come to believe is what they taught me. The people of this country,” he said, waving his hand around at the darkening landscape, “are altogether given over to idolatry. Moses told my father that Israel would fall into that same error if the land were not cleansed. God knew that there had to be a new beginning for Israel.”