“Yes,” David said, pleased at her response. “He is creating a great stir. Andrew says that he teaches with tremendous power and that his message is for all men.”
Deborah was suddenly wary. “He’s not another self-proclaimed Messiah, is he?” If he answered yes to that question, that would end the conversation right there for her.
For thousands of years, Israel’s prophets had foretold the coming of the “Anointed One.” In Hebrew, the title was Meshiach, or the Messiah. In Greek, an anointed one was Christos, or the Christ. This Anointed One was to come in the latter times as Israel’s king and deliver her from her oppressors. In recent years, with the hatred against Rome growing rapidly, the feeling that the time had finally come for the arrival of the Messiah had swept across the land. There was a great sense of expectation everywhere. In Deborah’s mind this hope had become almost a national obsession, and that obsession had led to tragedy more than once. Time after time this or that leader would rise up, and the people would flock to him, believing he was the Promised One. Usually what that meant was that he led the people in a revolt against Rome. And therein lay the tragedy. So far it had always ended the same. The Roman lion was pricked by the “Messianic spear” until it rose up in fury. Then the so-called Deliverer would be caught and the rebellion crushed. That was why Deborah kept telling Simeon to be patient. The time would come when they would be strong enough to take on the legions, but it was foolhardy to do so before they were strong enough to succeed.
David was shaking his head. “Actually, Andrew said that some priests and Levites came out from Jerusalem to see John. They asked him straight out if he was the Messiah. He said no, that he definitely was not.”
“Really?” she said, relieved. “Well, that’s a change—a preacher with a following who says he isn’t the Promised One.”
David reached inside his tunic and withdrew a small piece of parchment. “Do you recognize this?” He handed it to Deborah.
The lines were written in his hand in black ink. She read swiftly. “‘The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” She handed the paper back to David. “Of course I recognize it. It is a passage from the prophet Isaiah.”
“I want to see, Pampa,” Esther said, taking the parchment from her grandfather and peering at it. Seeing nothing she could understand, she handed it back.
“And how do you interpret it?” David asked his wife.
She thought for a moment, but Rachel didn’t hesitate. “It’s my understanding that this person crying in the wilderness is thought to be a forerunner for the Messiah.”
Leah jumped in as well. “That’s what I was going to say too.”
“Who is a forerunner for the Messiah?”
They all turned as Ephraim came into the room.
“Abba!” Esther cried, pulling away from David and running to her father. Boaz also darted to him.
Ephraim, David’s oldest son, was twenty-five years old now. He and Rachel had been married for almost six years, seven if you counted their betrothal. He swooped both of his children up, then staggered as if he would collapse under their weight. Esther giggled, and Boaz shrieked at the top of his lungs.
After a moment he set them both down and gave each an affectionate swat across the bottom. “Go out and play for a bit,” he said. “I want to talk to Pampa and Granmama.”
“See my flowers, Abba,” Esther said.
Ephraim went over to look and made appropriate noises. Satisfied, Esther took Boaz by the hand, and they went out into the small courtyard behind the house.
“So what is this about the Messiah?” Ephraim asked.
David handed him the parchment. He read it and handed it back. “Yes, I agree with Rachel and Leah. There will be a forerunner for the Messiah.”
“I think so too,” David said.
Now Leah came in again. Though she was the youngest in the room, she was an adult. David and Deborah were already talking about finding the proper husband for her in the next two or three years. “I heard the rabbi talk about this one day,” she said. “He said that the imagery is drawn from when a king comes to visit another country. It would be an embarrassment if the king’s party were unable to get to where he was going, so as part of the preparation for the royal arrival, the hosting king sends out his workmen to prepare the roads. They fill in any places that have washed out, repair the bridges, smooth in the rough places.”
“Yes,” David said. “That makes the meaning all the more significant, doesn’t it?” He took out a second slip of parchment and handed it to Ephraim without speaking.
His son took it and read aloud: “‘Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in.’”
David sat back as Ephraim passed it to the three women to read. “Essentially this says the same thing. Only this time it is the prophet Malachi speaking. So he too foretells of a messenger who will prepare the way for the Messiah.”
Deborah handed the parchment back. “What is all this about, David? Why all the sudden interest in this forerunner?”
He looked around at all of them. “So you agree that there will be a messenger who prepares the way for the Messiah?”
They all nodded.
David retrieved the other parchment, then sat down again. His eyes were somber. “This John, that they call the Baptist? He says that he is the forerunner.”
Now the bread was forgotten. “He said that?” Rachel asked slowly.
“Yes. Andrew says that John claims that he is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, that he is that messenger.”
Deborah gave a low exclamation of surprise. “He used those exact words?”
“That’s what Andrew said.”
“But,” Leah said, as surprised as the others, “that would mean that the coming of the Messiah is near.”
David nodded, very serious now. He looked at Deborah. “It’s been thirty years now.”
She started slightly, knowing instantly what he meant.
“Thirty years from what?” Ephraim asked.
David shook his head and changed the subject. “If this John is the forerunner, then the Messiah may already be here.” He let that sink in before going on. “Andrew says that John seeks nothing from those who come to hear him. He is not after money; he is not after position. He lives very simply in the wilderness. His raiment is a camel’s coat and a leather girdle. He eats locusts and wild honey. But he calls on everyone to repent. If they do, he baptizes them for the remission of their sins. When the Pharisees and the Sadducees came out to see him, he called them a generation of vipers and warned them that the ax is laid at the root of the tree and that they had better repent if they don’t want to be hewn down.”
Ephraim grinned broadly. “He said that to them? I like this man already.”
Leah was troubled. She looked at Deborah. “Do you think he really could be the forerunner, Mother?”
She hesitated, watching her husband’s face. “Andrew is about as practical a man as you can find. I wouldn’t think he would be easily deceived.”
“Exactly what I thought,” David said eagerly. “I think it warrants looking into.”
She nodded, not prepared for what he said next.
“I want to go to Bethabara.”
Deborah visibly jerked. “What?”
“I thought that Ephraim and Simeon and I could go. We need to make contact with the date plantations down in Jericho anyway, make sure they’re still going to fulfill their contracts with us this year. We could go and hear this John for ourselves while we’re there.”
Ephraim looked a little dazed. “But Father, there is so much to do right now.”
“I know, but nothing that can’t wait a few days.” He turned to his wife. “By the way, where is Simeon?”
Her eyes dropped. “He left this m
orning.”
“Left?” David said. “For where?”
“The Zealot council asked him to provide an escort for the Jerusalem delegation to the meeting in Sepphoris.”
David grimaced. “That! They really are going through with it?”
“Yes. The Great Council in Jerusalem asked for the meeting. The Zealot council has agreed to at least hear what they have to say.” She was obviously uncomfortable telling him this. “As a member of the local Sanhedrin here in Capernaum, you have been assigned to represent our city. So you can’t go anywhere until after the meeting.”
“I don’t want to go to Sepphoris.”
She smiled thinly. “You know that you don’t have a choice, David.”
“It will just turn into a verbal brawl.” He looked at his son. “You could give those Zealot leaders a talent of gold and ask them if they thought it was of any value, and they would argue about it until the Great Sea turns to mud.”
“David,” Deborah warned.
He held up his hands. “I know, I know. We’ll go.” He looked at Ephraim. “That’s supposed to be held in three days. We’ll bring Simeon back with us, and the three of us will head for Bethabara right after that.”
Ephraim shrugged. “All right.” He had sensed the tension between his parents and decided to move on to something else. “One thing is for sure.”
“What’s that?” David asked.
“If this forerunner is a voice crying in the wilderness, John certainly qualifies. I don’t even know where Bethabara is.”
Chapter Notes
The scriptures cited here by David come from Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1.
In Deuteronomy 6:4–5, what is perhaps the most significant scripture in the Jewish faith admonishes the House of Israel to hear and remember that the Lord their God is one Lord and that they should love him with all their heart, soul, and might. This is known as the Sh’ma, from the first word of that passage in Hebrew. Immediately following those verses, the Israelites were told to keep these words in their heart and to “write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (v. 9). The mezuzah (literally, in Hebrew, “doorpost”) was developed in response to that commandment. Tiny scrolls of parchment on which were written the passage from Deuteronomy 6 and another passage from Deuteronony 11:13–21 were inserted into a small case or tube and attached to the doorposts and gateposts of the home. The Hebrew word Shaddai (the Almighty) or sometimes just the first letter of that word (the letter shin, which looks somewhat like the English w) is usually carved or embossed on the outside of the mezuzah. It is not known whether that was the case in biblical times or not. It became traditional to touch the mezuzah each time one entered or left the home as a constant reminder of the commandment to love God and serve him.
Chapter 2
Whoever throws a stone straight up, throws it on his own head.
—Ecclesiasticus 27:25
I
22 March, a.d. 30
Miriam bat Mordechai ben Uzziel came awake with a start, her eyes trying to focus in the semidarkness. Vaguely it registered in her mind that the low ceiling above her head was some kind of rough fabric. To her left, a crack of light revealed a flap of the same fabric. She squinted against the half light. Where were the polished marble walls, the intricately carved olive wood panels that adorned the ceiling of her bedroom? Raising her head slightly, she groped for the transparent curtain of the finest Egyptian linens that surrounded her bed, but there was nothing. There was no window with its magnificent view of the Temple Mount, no ebony tables, no teakwood chests bought by her father at exorbitant prices from the caravans that came from far to the East.
Then in one instant memory returned. She dropped back to her pillow with a soft groan. She was not in Jerusalem, and this was not her father’s palace in the upper city. It was a small tent, hastily erected in the dark of night, and they were somewhere in the hill country of Samaria. She groaned again. There would be no leisurely breakfast of melon spears, no apple nectar chilled overnight in the cool waters of the cistern, no dates from the plantations of Jericho stuffed with honey and chopped almonds. Worst of all, there would be no bath drawn by Livia, no scented rose water, no oils to protect her delicate skin from the blazing sun of the central highlands.
Miriam rubbed her arms, stretching lazily, focusing, trying to remember what had awakened her. The only sound was that of Livia’s deep, even breathing from the smaller bed near hers. Her lips drew into a tiny pout. If her father and Azariah the Pharisee were starting to break camp at this hour, they would find a full-scale revolt on their hands. Miriam was a person of the night, often staying up well into the third watch to read or to tally up her father’s books. She could be irritable and petulant if awakened too early.
Wondering what time it was, she peered up at the ceiling of the tent. Light was visible, but it didn’t seem to be full sunlight yet. So they were about to begin the first hour of the day. She had hoped that they would not leave until the third hour at least. That was more to her liking. She had hoped for that but did not expect it. There was need for haste. She understood that. Tomorrow’s meeting with the rebel leaders from the Galilee would have the utmost consequences for Judea, for the most difficult of times now lay upon them. The very fabric of the nation was in jeopardy, and much of that danger lay in the stubborn nature of her own people.
It seemed like there were squabblings and disagreements and distrust on every side. The Judeans looked down with patronizing scorn on the “crude and unlearned” peasants of the Galilee. Jerusalemites strongly believed that anyone who lived outside the environs of the Holy City was worthy of their pity. The hatred Samaritans and Jews harbored for each other stretched back several centuries. The Idumeans, Arabic descendants of Esau, were viewed by all other Judeans as thieves and murderers. And of course, then there were the Gentiles, who were viewed with distaste and distrust by all the others. Even the very name her people used for their country showed their attitude toward the Gentiles. They called Israel Ha-eretz, “the land.” The rest of the world was covered by the faintly condescending phrase “outside the land.”
It was no different in their religion. The Jewish nation was hopelessly divided and subdivided into groups that viewed each other with considerable suspicion, if not open contempt. There were the wealthy and aristocratic Sadducees, of which her father was one of the leading elders. They controlled the office of high priest, which gave them control of the temple and its enormous revenues. The Pharisees were by far the most popular sect, with many among the common people supporting their views even if they were not willing to endure the endless minutia and stultifying rituals the pharisaical way demanded.
Closely allied with the Pharisees were the scribes. Often Pharisees themselves, the scribes were the lawyers of Israel, the experts in the Law. Unlike the Gentile nations, in Israel the Law was the Law of Moses and therefore was scripture as well as legal code. When Israel was taken captive to Babylon six hundred years before, the people gradually assimilated into Babylonian culture. When they were freed seventy years later to return to their homeland, Aramaic had become their daily tongue and they no longer spoke nor read classical Hebrew. Since the scriptures were written in Hebrew, those who could read and understand it formed a new professional class.
Miriam laughed softly to herself. At fifteen, to her father’s utter horror, she had flirted with Pharisaism for a time. Though she loved her father deeply, she was honest enough to see that the religion of the Sadducees was mostly outward show, a cloak to be worn on Shabbat and other holy days, but otherwise kept in the chest where it could not inconvenience anyone too greatly. But to the scribes and the Pharisees, religion touched every aspect of life—not only touched but shaped and molded and formed it. She had hoped that their totality of commitment would somehow satisfy the vague inner longing she was feeling, but she had quickly changed her mind. With the commitment came a rigid obsession with minutia and an unbending demand for exacting ritual. Miriam had bee
n raised by her father from the time her mother died, when she was six. She was the pride of his life, and he doted on her without shame. She had not only been given an education far beyond what other women and many men of her nation received, but also she was raised with a great deal of independence. So she found the rigidity of the Pharisees admirable but terribly stifling.
Miriam sighed, thinking of the meeting tomorrow. Then there were the Zealots. These too claimed to be a religious party, but their ideology was fanatically militant. They would defend God and his law by violence and rebellion. Accommodation with Rome or any other pagan power was eschewed with the deepest of passion. The frightening thing was that some of the Zealots were determined to stop those more moderate from themselves from that accommodation too. “The friend of my enemy is my enemy as well,” was a favorite saying among the Zealots.
This was why she was here in a tent before the sun was up, wondering what she was going to find to eat this morning. It was the Zealots who had brought this crisis upon them. Amid the wild melee of clashing ideologies and fiery passions, Miriam and her father and Azariah the Pharisee moved north, hoping to form an alliance between the Zealots and the main parties of Judaism so as to avert war with Rome. If they could not make that alliance, life might become grim indeed. Once before, the Zealots had almost brought about the destruction of their nation. As the old Persian proverb said, “When the elephant is angered, everyone in the grass gets trampled.” These rabid patriots could and would destroy the fragile equilibrium that her father and the Great Council was holding together.
So in a rare show of unity, the Sadducees and Pharisees who sat on the main Sanhedrin, the Great Council of Jerusalem, agreed to send two representatives north to try to strike a treaty with the Zealots. It said much about her father that he was the one designated to lead the delegation, with Azariah as the second ambassador. As chief rabbi of the Pharisaical party of Jerusalem and thereby titular head of all the Pharisees, Azariah was as different from her father as the forested glades of Dan were from the barren wastelands of Beersheba. Azariah wore the peyot, the side curls, in keeping with the Pharisaic interpretation of a commandment given in the book of Leviticus that said to never cut the corner of your beard. Her father and his associates, who didn’t think that was what the scripture meant at all, found the whole concept of peyot irritating and embarrassing. Azariah went through elaborate and meticulous washings before every meal and after touching anything that might spiritually defile him. Her father mocked this ritual unmercifully, challenging Azariah and the other Pharisees to show him in scripture where such fastidiousness was required by Moses.