David Ascendant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 7) (14 page)

He saw David reach down by the brook to pick up some stones. Goliath pushed his shield bearer out of the way. He was obviously unneeded. But he could not stop staring with amused wonder at this bold little rodent who charged at him, swinging his little string over his head. He was within thirty feet now and the child stopped. Goliath dropped his javelin. His new plan was to catch the little runt, rape it alive, then rip its body in half with his bare hands.

David prayed out loud as he swung his sling, “Yahweh, please make up for my bad aim.” He had four additional stones in his satchel just in case.

The sling released.

Goliath was becoming aroused with his perverse thoughts when the stone hit and sank into his forehead, right below the armor line of the helmet.

He heard the sound of his own skull crunching under the impact. He was too confused to figure out what had happened. Then everything went black and he fell to the ground.

The Philistine camp went dead silent. No one could believe what they just saw.

No one.

Did that little Hebrew just fell their champion with a stone?

No one in the Israelite camp could believe it either. Least of all, Saul, and his dark companion.

It was as if time stood still for both sides. It was a valley of silence.

Up on the Philistine heights, Ishbi watched the Hebrew runt run over to Goliath’s fallen body. With great effort, the kid drew out Goliath’s huge scimitar from his back.

Ishbi screamed, “NOOOOOOOO!” as the Hebrew raised the blade high and chopped off Goliath’s head.

Then he pulled up his tunic and released his bladder on the corpse.

Ishbi and Lahmi raced down toward their fallen comrade. They saw the Hebrew raise Goliath’s head in victory as a squadron of waiting soldiers stripped the armor and fled with David back to their lines.

By the time Ishbi and Lahmi arrived at Goliath’s decapitated and stripped corpse, David was almost back to his lines. Ishbi thought he should have had Runihura throw one of his missiles at the fleeing runt.

Lahmi had wanted to take and use Goliath’s armor as his own to honor his brother. But the greasy little Hebrew had confiscated all of it along with Goliath’s head.

Lahmi picked up his brother’s body with tearful eyes. Ishbi was too shocked to respond with anything but open-eyed terror.

Lahmi cried out, “Who was that vile creature?”

Ishbi laid his hand on Goliath’s chest. “We will find out. And when we capture him, we will keep him alive in such pain for so long that Sheol will be a relief to his torment.”

Lahmi’s eyes dried with hatred. He could only think of one thing. “He has a family.”

              • • • • •

David was brought to Saul. He approached the king, carrying the head of the giant. Goliath’s armor was carried by others. He knelt and laid the head at Saul’s feet as an offering of obeisance.

Saul and everyone around him were still in stunned silence.

Finally, Saul blurted out, “Whose son are you, again?”

Saul remembered that he had publicly promised to bestow great riches and honor on the family of the victorious warrior, as well as his daughter in marriage. But David was of such humble origins that Saul never could remember his father’s name.

David said, “I am the son of your servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite.” He was used to Saul’s bad memory, and had often joked with Jonathan about it.

Saul said, “And which one is he again? He will be sad to know that you will not be returning to his house. For you, my gibborim, will be the new captain of my bodyguard.”

In this moment, everyone knew that Yahweh had performed a miracle. But it was more than a miracle, it was an unveiling. More than a few persons now suspected the true reason for David’s anointing by Samuel; that the messiah of Israel had been revealed. Among them were Jonathan, Saul—and Nimrod.

“Send the emissaries to disarm the Philistines,” said Saul. “We have a victory to celebrate.” He placed his hand on David’s shoulder and looked at him with pride. He was elated, and free of his fear and muddled thinking.

The dark counselor had temporarily left him again.

              • • • • •

But Achish, Lord of Gath, had no intention of allowing such an Israelite celebration. He had no intention of submitting to the rules of war. He immediately turned to the commanders near him and barked, “Quickly, lead your forces and flee back to Gath before the Israelites can catch us!”

Ittai stood alone in his forge. He looked with a stone face into the furnace of fire. He had lost everything. He had no family, no recognition, no love, and no dignity left. Everything he pursued in his life sifted through his fingers like sand into the sea. Any hope of finding a little piece of happiness in this miserable existence died when he learned he was the cursed Seed of the Serpent.

He grabbed the noose he had formed with the rope that dangled from the ceiling rafter. He placed it around his neck and prepared to kick away the stool he had been standing on.

He heard the sound of arriving trumpets. It was not the sound of a triumphal entry, but rather the urgent sound of retreat. He was curious. But he thought,
What would the defeat of my city be but one more defeat to crown my life of defeats?

A rapid knock on his door jarred him. He heard his neighbor, the carpenter, yelling, “Ittai! Ittai! Goliath is dead! The Israelites have chased our forces back to the city!”

Goliath is dead? The champion of the Philistines? The general of the Sons of Rapha? Suicide would have to wait. This, he had to hear.

He pulled the noose off and jumped down to open the door. The carpenter was turning to leave.

Ittai said, “How was he killed?”

“They say it was a contest of Champions. They say it was a malicious miracle. Some say it was a mere juvenile who felled the giant. Others say he dropped him with an Evil Eye of magic.”

Ittai remembered the words of Lahmi to him,
An ancient prophecy of a messiah king born of the Seed of Eve and of Abraham will rise within Israel
. He remembered that Goliath was going to call out their Champion and challenge him to a duel. No one could best Goliath.

No one, except a messiah king, a gibborim savior.
That
would be miraculous.

The carpenter saw the noose hanging from the ceiling. “Are you all right, Ittai? Is everything okay?”

“What is the matter with you, Gelt, have you not ever considered killing yourself?” Gelt was speechless. Ittai gave him a big, silly grin and closed the door. His knees almost buckled from his wonderment.
What if this messiah king
was
the vanquisher of the Seed of the Serpent? What if he
was
a savior? What if he was a good king? Would there be a place for repentance and allegiance to his lordship? Could a Rephaim be redeemed?

Ittai’s plans for demise changed. He had a new reason to stay alive. He had new hope.

Saul chased the Philistines all the way back to the gates of Gath and Ekron, ten miles west of the Valley of the Terebinth. On their way back to Gibeah, the Israelites stopped at the location of Goliath’s defeat to plunder the camp of the Philistines before returning home. It was the first moment that the Israelites had to rest since the fateful battle of David and the Philistine.

Saul stood in his war tent, waiting. It was the size of a palace room and decorated to match with purple Phoenician cloth, Egyptian tapestries and a portable throne with small carved lion cherubs beside it. It was ostentatious and indicative of Saul’s new desire for greatness and glory.

He was alone and looking upon his gleaming ornamental bronze armor when David arrived by escort into the tent.

“My lord king,” said David as he bowed. “Would you like music this evening?” He had brought his lyre and began to tune it for play.

“No,” said Saul. He wiped a bloody smudge from the bright metallic surface of his shield. “Finally, a moment to rest from hunting down those cowardly duplicitous Philistines.”

“Yahweh be praised,” said David. “He has brought Israel her victory.”

Saul walked over to David. “Yes, but you have become a gibborim, a mighty man of valor for your god and king. I have asked myself the question over and over, ‘who is this young warrior poet who has come from nowhere with no pedigree to rise in glory and honor before the eyes of all?’”

“I am your lowly servant, my sovereign.”

“Indeed. You were but a shepherd whose favor with both god and man has garnered you the position of royal musician, captain of the king’s guard, and now Champion of Israel, defeating the mightiest of our enemies. And yet you seek no glory in it.”

“Lord, I am what I am by Yahweh’s grace for
his
glory.”

“But what is it you want?” asked Saul. The question was more like an accusation. Saul was always demanding proof of loyalty from his servants.

David dared not say what he was thinking. He wanted love. He wanted the woman whose angelic voice haunted his heart and whose beauty drove him mad with desire. He wanted Michal. But he knew that such desire would make him appear ambitious for royalty after all. And Saul’s mistrust would be justified. But he had another desire as well that was safe to admit.

He said simply, “I want Yahweh to crush all his enemies under his feet, and for his anointed king to reign over all the Land of Promise.”

“Well spoken,” mused Saul. “But much easier spoken than achieved. Still, you have achieved what no other warrior has in my service. And I owe you a debt of promise myself.”

David said, “My lord?”

“I did not forget what I promised to the one who vanquished the Philistine. When we return to Gibeah, I will exempt your father’s family from taxes, and you may have my daughter’s hand in marriage.”

David’s heart leapt. Then Saul said, “You may marry my eldest daughter Merab as soon as you desire and you will become my son-in-law.”

David’s heart fell. Merab? Of course it would be the eldest. It was the normal way of things to marry off the eldest first. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts of Michal that he completely forgot about Merab.

Saul continued, “But you must continue to fight valiantly for me against the Philistines.”

“My lord, who am I, and who is my father’s clan that I should become a son-in-law to the king? It is above my station.”

“Nonsense. It is a common and acceptable means for entering the royal family through matrimony.”

“My king, I must decline your generous offer. I am unworthy and have no desire to claim that prize.” He was sweating now, desperately trying to steady the panic gripping his heart. He could not live if he could not have Michal. To have her older sister instead would be a mockery and a curse against all the happiness in the world. Not for any lack of worth in Merab, but simply because she was not the object of all his love and desire.

Saul was dumbfounded. “I am inclined to be insulted by such a gesture. But I see your sincerity and it proves your loyalty to your stated values. I dare say I am impressed.”

David’s terror dissipated. He finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Saul added, “But I am still going to give your family riches and tax exemption. I insist.”

“Very well, my king. At your insistence, I submit to the wealth and taxes.”

David knew that his chances for wedding Michal had just been obliterated. He had passed on marrying Merab because of his claim to lowly status. How then could he ever ask for Michal’s hand in contradiction to his façade of “noble” motives?

He felt doomed to eternal unhappiness without his precious Michal.

David drifted away after being dismissed by Saul. He found himself at the tent he had been given for his new champion status. He wondered if he could feel any worse than this very moment. He was so absorbed in his thoughts, he did not notice right away that Jonathan stood inside the tent, holding the rotting head of Goliath.

“How goes it with my father, David?”

David looked at him, startled. Then his eyes teared up. “Oh, Jonathan, my master and my friend. My life is over before it has even begun. Your father offered me Merab’s hand in marriage and I turned it down because I love another.”

“Michal,” said Jonathan.

“How did you know?”

“David, it is so obvious to everyone in the palace except only the most blind and dim-witted. Thus my father, who is under his own spell of enchantment, is about the only one who does not know.”

David was speechless. He had been blindsided twice this evening already. God only knew if he would be blindsided any more.

Jonathan held up the decomposing head. Already, maggots were falling out of its nostrils. The forehead where David’s stone had sunk in was more discolored with red and purple than the rest of its decaying flesh. Its dead eyes were clouded and dissolving. “David, you killed the mightiest warrior in Philistia with a single stone. A giant Rephaim whom no one else in all of Israel would face. You and I know that Yahweh guided that stone to its target. Your music alone turns away the evil spirit that torments my father, the king of Israel. I have never seen such a person in my entire life with such favor of Yahweh upon him.”

“Jonathan, you speak too highly of me. Temper your praise with all my faults of which you are also entirely aware. My terrible temper, my fleshly weakness for love.”

Jonathan chuckled, “You are as blind as my father the king. Do you think Yahweh chooses men of perfection and sinlessness? Where is such a man, David? Where? I know of not one.”

He put Goliath’s skull back into its box and closed the lid.

“I am plagued by my sins, Jonathan. I have seen good men and I have seen great. And I am confident of this one thing: the great are rarely the good, and the good are rarely the great.”

“Do you think Yahweh controls only the good in this world and not the evil?”

David answered, “Do you justify evil with such appeals to Yahweh’s sovereignty?”

“Of course not. Yahweh punishes evil even in his chosen people. But they are no less chosen, because he does not choose them for their goodness or their greatness—for anything in them. He chooses them because of his own purposes. And he chooses his anointed one as well.”

“What are you saying, Jonathan?”

Jonathan took off his royal robe. “I have sought out the Seer Samuel to see if my suspicions were correct. And I have found my answer.”

David’s knees grew weak.

“David, you were not anointed to be a royal musician in the court of the king of Israel.” He opened the robe and walked up to David to drape it over his back.

“You were anointed to
be
the next king of Israel.”

David felt faint. He caught himself and sat down on his armoring chair, staring with shock into the air.

Jonathan picked up his bow, his sword and belt, and handed them to David.

“I strip myself of my rights to the throne to support Yahweh’s chosen and anointed one, the messiah king.” He bowed to his knee.

David got up quickly. Jonathan’s weapons fell to the floor with his robe. David walked to the other side of the tent, trying to get away. But he knew he could not get away.

Thoughts collided in his head. This could not be. Was Jonathan lying about his meeting with Samuel? He had never lied to David before. Was this some kind of political maneuver? He had never showed any signs of ambition all the days David had known him. But David was plagued by his own duplicitous motives and failures of faith. It was difficult for him to conceive of a life with such true devotion and purity of heart as Jonathan. Yet he had proved himself over and over to David. He was not a man of fraudulence or ambition. He was a man of integrity and honor and above all, trust in the Living God. The kind of trust that David had learned from and had even sought to emulate. But now this? The ultimate sacrifice of giving up his inheritance as the next king of Israel to David, his younger and inexperienced inferior? Giving up royalty to a nobody because a cranky Seer had told him Yahweh chose differently? Who would do such a thing? No one David had ever known. This was either the supreme example of true faith or the biggest swindle of his life.

“Let us cut a covenant,” said Jonathan. “I will pledge my fealty to you and will protect you against your enemies.”