Song of Redemption (21 page)

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I N G S 1 7 : 1 8 – 2 0 N I V

17

D
ARKNESS SETTLED OVER HEPHZIBAH’S
soul as night fell and the pale light of oil lamps flickered to life in the houses below her palace window. She recalled tender family scenes from her own childhood and imagined them taking place in homes throughout the city. Families would gather for the evening meal, and their faces would glow in the lamplight as they shared the day’s events with each other. Then the children, scrubbed and sleepy, would be tucked into their beds for the night.

If her baby had lived he would be nearly three years old, and perhaps she would be rocking him to sleep, singing him a lullaby. But her baby was dead, and Hephzibah’s arms remained empty.

“My lady, that cool evening air isn’t good for you,” Merab said. “You’ll catch a chill. Here—let me light a fire for you.”

Hephzibah closed the shutters and turned away from the window. She watched her handmaiden fuss with the charcoal brazier, blowing noisily on the coals until they caught fire. “There. Maybe it’ll warm up in here before the king arrives.” Merab bustled around the room, plumping pillows and straightening rugs, then stopped when she glanced at Hephzibah. “What is it, my lady? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Merab, I hope my husband is too busy to come tonight.”

“My lady! Why would you wish for such a thing?”

Hephzibah’s grief spilled over in tears. “Because my monthly time has come again.”

“Oh, don’t start crying, honey. Your eyes will be all red and puffy. And he’ll be here any minute.” Merab dabbed at Hephzibah’s eyes with a handkerchief.

“I don’t want to tell him, Merab. I’m so afraid… .”

“Afraid of what?”

In her despair Hephzibah voiced her greatest fear. “What if he divorces me?”

Merab stared at her in disbelief. “What? Divorce you? But the king is in love with you! Can’t you see the way he looks at you—the way his eyes never leave your face? He’d sooner cut off his right arm than divorce you!”

Hephzibah knew that Hezekiah loved her. In the three years since their baby died she had felt his love grow stronger and deeper and had heard him say it many times over. Hezekiah was hers. But she also knew the strength of his devotion to Yahweh’s laws.

“He’ll have to divorce me, Merab, because I’m barren. I can’t give him an heir.”

“You’re not barren! Don’t even think such a thing!”

“Then why can’t I get pregnant? After all this time?”

Merab wrapped her arms around Hephzibah, comforting her like a child. “Shh … never mind, honey. You’ll get pregnant again—I know it. And King Hezekiah loves you too much to divorce you.”

“But if I don’t give him a son he’ll
have
to divorce me. It’s a terrible disgrace if the king has no heir to the throne.”

“He can always take another wife or a concubine—”

“But he won’t do that. Yahweh’s Law allows him to have only one wife. And the royal line of David must continue.”

“You mean more to him than a silly old law,” Merab said as she dabbed at Hephzibah’s eyes. But Hephzibah remembered how he had refused to hold her on the night her baby died, and she knew that it wasn’t true. “It’s time to stop all this nonsense,” Merab said. “Your husband is coming. Your face will be a mess.”

Hephzibah tried to compose herself, fighting back her terrible fears. She splashed cold water on her face, then let Merab comb her long, thick hair. A few minutes later she heard Hezekiah’s familiar knock and looked up to see his tall frame and broad shoulders filling her doorway. He looked so regal in his gold and purple robe, so handsome as he stood smiling down at her that she longed to run to him, to feel his strong arms surrounding her, comforting her.

Instead, she turned away. “It is unlawful to touch me, my lord.” She hated Yahweh’s Law for making her feel like a leper, for forbidding the very thing she needed the most. The Law caused a separation from her husband, and Hephzibah feared that someday it would be permanent.

“It’s not unlawful to talk,” Hezekiah said quietly.

Hephzibah looked up at him and saw the love in his eyes just as Merab had said. “I’m sorry for failing you, my lord.”

“I’ve told you before, Hephzibah—it doesn’t matter to me. We have the rest of our lives to bear children. Yahweh has promised us a son.”

Hephzibah cringed. She had never brought Yahweh the required sin offering, blaming Him for her baby’s death. She worried that her barrenness was His punishment for breaking the Law, but she stubbornly refused to offer more blood. Yahweh had taken her baby; that was enough.

Hezekiah sat down beside the charcoal brazier and spread his hands before the coals to warm them. When he looked up, his expression was strained with worry. In an instant Hephzibah forgot all his reassurances, certain that he was contemplating divorce.

“What’s wrong, my lord?”

“I’m worried about a report I received from Israel this afternoon. The Assyrians may be on the march again. Every year their empire expands, and it looks like they won’t be content until they’ve conquered every nation, all the way to Egypt. The problem is, our nation straddles the road to Egypt.”

“What will you do if they invade us?”

“Well, I’ll have two choices. I can try to fight them off, or I can appease them by joining their empire as a vassal nation again.”

“Which will you do?”

“I don’t know—neither one until I have to. They haven’t begun to march yet, but the rumors say it’s inevitable.” His hands knotted into fists as he talked.

Hephzibah saw the deep creases in his face and knew the threat must be serious, but she was incapable of worrying about a vague, future invasion from a distant enemy. Her thoughts focused only on her empty, aching arms.

“I’m sorry, Hephzibah,” he said, looking up at her. “I didn’t mean to burden you with all my problems. Maybe the rumors are wrong. Maybe the Assyrians will turn around and march home again.”

“You didn’t burden me, my lord. I wasn’t worried about that.”

“What is it, love? Why are you so sad tonight?”

Her eyes glistened with tears. “I’m just … disappointed, that’s all. I thought maybe this time … this month …”

Hezekiah moved as if to go to her, and she thought for a moment that he would take her in his arms and willingly become unclean for her sake. But he stopped before he reached her. His arms hung limply by his sides.

“Isn’t there anything I can do?” he asked helplessly.

She would not ask to be held, knowing that if she forced him to choose between his God and her, she would never win. She hastily wiped her tears. “No, my lord.”

“Are you sure?” He looked as if the burden of his reign weighed heavily on him, and she was stung by guilt. Hezekiah came to her for comfort, not the other way around. She tried to smile.

“Shall I sing for you, my lord?”

“Yes, I’d like that.”

She picked up her lyre and began to sing one of his favorite songs. But as she lost herself in the words and the melody, a flood of grief and disappointment suddenly overwhelmed her. She stopped, unable to finish, and covered her face.

“Hephzibah … would it be easier for you if I left?” he asked softly.

She longed to cry out,
“No, don’t go! Hold me in your arms!”
But she didn’t.

“Yes, my lord,” she said instead. She heard him get up and quietly leave, closing the door behind him.

Jerusha knelt before the hearth, slowly grinding grain into flour between the stones. On the horizon the rising sun was painting the sky with delicate shades of pink and mauve, but Jerusha barely noticed as she ground out her sorrow and hatred along with the grain. Today would be her last day in this camp. The city that the Assyrians had besieged for more than two years had finally fallen. As if in a dream, Jerusha had again witnessed thousands of helpless men, women, and children being clubbed to death, beheaded, tortured, impaled, flayed alive, or carried away into slavery.

Jerusha knew she couldn’t live with this brutality much longer and stay sane. The first signs of madness had already appeared as her soul splintered and disintegrated like a rotted log. She hadn’t smiled or laughed or felt any emotion besides fear and hatred since Iddina killed her baby. She thought of Marah’s icy bitterness, her harsh, unsmiling features, and knew that she was becoming just like her. Jerusha wasn’t a human being to the Assyrians—she was their possession, a plaything to use and discard. More than anything else, she feared becoming pregnant again. She couldn’t kill her child in the womb, like Marah did, nor could she bear the agony of having her baby snatched from her arms again. It was only a matter of time before she would be forced to choose, but both options horrified her.

She poured the finished flour into the kneading trough, scooped another handful of grain between the grinding stones, and continued to grind. Tomorrow the tents would come down, and the army would march relentlessly forward to destroy another nation, enslave another helpless population. And Jerusha’s life would also grind hopelessly on, with no choice but to submit to her captors or die. She could no longer remember why she had wanted to live, and she often recalled Marah’s words that first day in camp:
“Die, little fool! Die while
you still have the chance to die quickly!”
Why hadn’t she listened to her?

Jerusha finished the second batch of flour and poured it into the trough. She had enough to make the dough as soon as Marah returned with the water. But as Marah hurried back from the spring with the water jug, she appeared upset.

“What’s the matter?” Jerusha asked her.

“I found out where the Assyrian army is marching next.” Marah set the jug down and sank to her knees, pausing as if unable to speak the words. “They’re going to invade Israel. And it won’t be small raiding parties this time, either. They’re sending the entire army.”

Jerusha didn’t respond. The news that she would witness the brutal destruction of her own homeland and people came as a blow to a soul too numb to feel more pain. For a moment she could almost picture the rolling green hills of Israel, the beautiful Jordan Valley, the shimmering Sea of Galilee; then she quickly closed her eyes against the vision of what the Assyrians would do.

All these years, against all reason, Jerusha had nurtured hope in her heart like a fragile seed—hope that someday she would go home, that she would see her family again. That hope had fueled her overwhelming drive to survive. But now the Assyrians had pronounced a death sentence on Israel. Her home and her family would no longer exist. Jerusha’s delicate sprout of hope withered and died, and her will to live died along with it. She had managed to exist without love, but she could never survive without hope. They had finally destroyed the only thing she had left.

Silently, Jerusha made a well in the center of the flour, mixed in water and olive oil, and began to knead. As the dough took shape beneath her fingers, a firm resolve took shape in Jerusha’s heart. She wouldn’t live to witness the destruction of Israel, the enslavement of her people. She wouldn’t endure another day of hopeless existence.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky, Jerusha moved through her routine on instinct, unaware of her surroundings. As she packed dishes and food supplies, then swept out her tent, she tried to decide how and when she would end her own life.

By evening, when she had loaded everything onto the carts except her tent and bedding, Jerusha had made up her mind. She would die tonight when one of the officers came to her tent. They always brought their weapons with them and kept them close at hand, as if not even trusting one another’s treachery. If she acted swiftly, she could grab one of their knives and kill herself before they had time to stop her.

She helped Marah prepare the evening meal, but she couldn’t eat any of it. Waves of terror washed over her as she faced the unknown. She had witnessed thousands of deaths, but now that it was her turn she wondered what it would be like. At last she decided that dying couldn’t possibly be worse than living.

Her hands shook uncontrollably as she helped Marah wash up after the meal and pack away the cooking pots. Then Jerusha went into her tent and sat alone to wait. For the first time since Iddina had captured her, she hoped that one of the officers would come to her tent tonight. The long wait felt like hours, and the dark canopy of the tent hovered over her like a shroud. She held her baby’s blanket against her cheek for courage, knowing that soon she would join her daughter in death.