Джеймс Миченер - The Source

“Do you accept El-Shaddai?” the patriarch asked.

“I accept the one god,” Zibeon declared.

“Where is Leah?”

“Slain.” And the old man’s grief was so pitiful that Epher allowed him the life of Zibeon, through whose later children the great Family of Ur would survive.

Of the nearly nineteen hundred Canaanites only nine men escaped the slaughter, plus fifty women and some two dozen children. To each, old Zadok went as if he were still leader of the clan, exacting promises that they would worship El-Shaddai, and after the women had been distributed among the Hebrew farmers he gathered the Canaanite males and personally circumcised all who had not undergone the rite. At the end of his labors he sat before the tabernacle and wept, a tired old man from whose eyes the fires of zealotry were fled; but he was not missed, for Epher was giving commands.

Unnoticed, Zadok betook his age-bent shoulders, his untrimmed beard and his staff up to the high place where the monoliths had stood, and there he looked back upon the town that his people had been forced to destroy, and he lamented:“Gone are the granaries of yellow corn,

Emptied are the reservoirs.

The streets are ashes

And the homes are black with soot.”

He was ashamed of his part in this day’s sorrow and cried, “El-Shaddai, why was I chosen to author this destruction?” That day he had lost nine more of his cherished sons; his slave girl had been cut down by the chariots, and his daughter by her brothers; but at dusk he thought principally of the Canaanites slain needlessly, and since he could not accept what his people had done he openly defied his god: “You are without mercy, to kill so many.” And El-Shaddai grew impatient with his patriarch, and after enveloping the mountain in a cloud of light, appeared before him face-to-face. And the old man was dead.

It was night before his wives found him, fallen across the spot where Baal had once reigned, and his sons came to bear him down from the mountain, chanting that he was the hero who had destroyed Makor, the patriarch who had triumphed over Baal. And as they placed his almost weightless body before the altar and closed his wonder-struck eyes, they speculated among themselves as to which of them El-Shaddai would talk with now, delivering his commandments for them to follow. There was extended discussion, for of the old man’s four surviving sons three were more than forty years old and each was devout, and it puzzled the Hebrews as to which El-Shaddai would choose as his servant for rebuilding the town. But that night as the Hebrews celebrated victory and mourned the death of their patriarch, their god spoke directly to red-headed Epher, and all saw the young captain tremble and draw back from the nomination. But the older sons acknowledged the principality of their brother, whereupon El-Shaddai said to Epher: “Zadok the Righteous have I taken this day because he disobeyed me, but he was a great man on whom I relied for many years. He was a man with whom I walked and now you shall serve me in the same way, for this is the promised land that I have brought you to inherit.”

But as the years passed, with old Zadok long buried under the oak trees, Epher heard rumors which disturbed him and he climbed to the high place. There he found that his people, aided by Canaanite survivors, had once more set up the monolith to Baal and the accompanying monument to El-Shaddai, and he wrestled with the stones and would have thrown them down, but he was alone and was not powerful enough to do so.

LEVEL

XII

Psalm of the Hoopoe Bird

Horned altar cut from one piece of basalt rock using iron tools. Makor, 1116 B.C.E. Bull’s head carved in low relief. Aperture for blood of animal sacrifices. Religious significance of the four corners known as “horns” not clear, but on consecrating a new altar the blood of animal victims was rubbed on each of the horns, according to the directions given by Yahweh to Moses in Exodus 29:12. “And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar.” Fugitives seeking sanctuary, even from the king, were secure so long as they grasped the horns of the altar, as explained in I Kings 1:50: “And Adonijah feared because of Solomon, and arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar” Deposited at Makor in late spring, 963 B.C.E.

It was morning in Makor. Birds chattered on rooftops and children played noisily in the crowded streets below. As the little town nestled securely within its girdle of newly built stone walls, the door of the governor’s quarters opened for the departure of a chubby man who wore a dark scowl on his fat bearded face and a host of freckles on his bald head. Obviously disappointed over some adverse decision handed down by the governor, he entered upon the curving main street of the town and walked disconsolately homeward, but he had gone only a short distance when he was joined by a group of children who began chanting, “Hoopoe, Hoopoe, Hoopoe!”

He stopped. His worried face lost its scowl and he began to smile until his features formed a great half-moon, reaching from the back of his bald head to his chin, all wrinkled in laughter. Catching up a little girl, he tossed her in the air and caught her with a kiss as she fell back to his arms. “Sweets, sweets!” she squealed, so he put her down and began gravely searching his pockets as if he did not know where the treats were hidden. Other children ran up and danced on nervous toes as he continued feeling his robe, from which he finally produced a cloth bag filled with sweetmeats. Distributing them to the children, he continued homeward as the crowd at his heels cried happily, “Hoopoe, Hoopoe!”

For as long as men had existed upon the land of Israel they had been accompanied by a curious bird, the hoopoe, who had given them more amusement than any other living thing. He was a stubby creature, about eight inches long, with a black and white body and a pinkish head, and was remarkable in that he walked more than he flew. He was always busy, hurrying from one spot on the ground to another, like a messenger responsible for an important mission whose details he had forgotten. The laughable bird seemed to go around in circles, trying to recall what he was supposed to be doing.

His appearance added to his grotesqueness, for he had a head shaped like a slim, delicate hammer, which he tripped up and down with surprising speed. One end of the hammer-head was obvious, a yellow bill nearly two inches long, but the balancing end was amazing, a tuft of feathers also about two inches long which could be either compressed into a single projection that matched in size and color the beak or flashed out into a spreading crest, so that the bird seemed to be wearing a jeweled crown.

As he hurried about the ground he probed into worm holes until a grub was located or insects were caught hiding, whereupon the hammerhead would thrash up and down until the long beak grabbed the meal. Then the happy bird would strut away to some rock where he would throw the captive onto a hard surface through which it could not escape back to earth, and the hammer-head would flash up and down as the bird tore the grub or insect apart and ate it, after which he would go waddling back to the hunting ground, poking his inquisitive head here and there.

As long as man remembered, this comical bird had been called the hoopoe because of its ugly, short, sharp call. It could not sing like the lark, neither could it mourn like the dove, and to the men of Israel it evoked no poetry summarizing the earth on which they lived. To the Egyptians the hoopoe was sacred; to the Canaanites it was clever, for Baal had given the bird an evil smell and then hidden rare jewels in its nest, and the smell kept thieves away. To the Hebrews the hoopoe epitomized family loyalty, for young birds tended their parents with care, covering them on cool nights and plucking dead feathers from their wings in the moulting season. But to all, the funny little bird that could fly and didn’t was an object of amusement, and even seemingly important men like the governor often stopped their work to watch these busy little excavators.