5

Three days after Barak’s arrival, Lappidoth handed sacks of clay tablets to him and his men to take with them to the neighboring towns. “Where will you go once these are delivered?” He directed his question to Barak while Deborah’s girls and maidservants served the men the evening meal. Barak and his men, who had taken to sleeping in the cave below their house or in various courtyards throughout the city, were clearly anxious to be off.

Barak’s expression sobered as he glanced Deborah’s way. “I would like to know we had a directive from the Lord. Once we know the idols are destroyed, how will we know the time is right?”

Deborah held Barak’s look. “I cannot command the visions nor the dreams. When the Lord speaks to me, I will send for you.”

Barak seemed slightly irritated by her comment, as though he would force the issue if he could. But he shrugged his shoulders instead. “We will head back to Kedesh-naphtali for a time then. You can send word there.” He dipped flatbread into the stew pot and plopped the entire piece into his mouth.

Deborah glanced at Talya, who leaned down to refill Barak’s clay cup with fresh goat’s milk. Barak turned to thank her, and Deborah did not miss the soft smile in her daughter’s eyes. Barak did not show the slightest interest.

Even when Talya stayed near her father the following morning to bid the men farewell, Barak did not acknowledge the girl with more than a brief nod and a parting, “Be safe. Do not travel without men to accompany you. You risk your life if you do.”

Deborah pondered the slight frown between Talya’s brows as she walked later that day to her palm tree. She had seen that look once too often on Talya’s face, the one that chafed to prove another wrong.

The thought troubled her now as she approached the waiting crowd. Would Talya listen? A sigh caused Deborah’s chest to lift in a sense of defeat she had grown accustomed to of late, a sigh borne of too much strife. She took time to settle herself on the bench and lifted her spindle and distaff to work as she listened. People flocked to her day after day, and one at a time she heard case after case until she nearly wearied of the mantle of judge she carried.

As the sun was beginning its descent to the west, two men approached, one holding the other by the collar of his cloak as though he had dragged him across the entire town.

Deborah set her spindle aside. “State your case.” Her jaw tightened with the telltale ache that always accompanied such a look of malice in the eyes of one Israelite toward another, of a man against his fellow man. She faced the accuser. “Release him.”

The accuser’s eyes narrowed, his look distrustful, wary.

“Do not worry, he will not flee.” Deborah focused on the one caught but spoke to the other. “Tell me why you accuse this man.” The freed man stood, head bowed, and his rigid posture eased.

“I’ve caught this man”—the accuser pointed a bony finger, poking the man in the chest—“in my vineyard eating grapes every day for the past week. There will be nothing left to harvest if he does not stop. Tell him to find work in his own vineyard and leave mine be.”

Deborah looked at the offender. “Does this man speak the truth?”

The man nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice faltering, “but only because we have no vineyards. All we have is a garden that has not yet begun to produce enough food, for there has been such little rain this spring. I pass by his vineyards, which are overflowing and ripe for harvest.” He ran a hand over his beard. “I do not take more than I can eat. Not even to share with my wife and small sons. I eat enough to take my fill so that they can eat the food we have.”

Deborah waited a moment, but the man apparently had no more defense. “You do not fill a bag with the fruit?”

He shook his head. “No, Prophetess.” He hung his head again as though to admit such poverty shamed him, which Deborah was most certain it did.

She faced the accuser once more. “Have you seen this man take bags of your fruit and carry them out of your vineyard?”

The man’s right hand clenched then released. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Can’t say that I’ve seen him carrying a sack, no. But he has stripped one of my vines of its bottom branches.”

“Out of how many branches, would you say?”

The man looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Does it matter how many?” His defiant tone caused Deborah to lift a brow.

“You have come to me for judgment to decide between you. Will you abide by that judgment?” She folded her hands and straightened, her gaze unflinching.

The man looked beyond her, then slowly nodded. “Yes, Prophetess. I will accept what you say, for I know you speak the words of God.”

“I only speak what I know comes from the law that Moses gave to us, my lord. It is the law you must heed. And whether you have many vines or few, the law says this: ‘If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. If you go into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.’”

She motioned to the one accused, who had lifted his head in wonder at her words. “So you see this man has not broken any law of God. He has only filled his hunger by taking food that he could find.” She looked once more at his accuser. “Perhaps you could find it in your heart to hire him to help you harvest your grapes and make your wine, and then he will have money to purchase food for his hungry family.”

The man nodded grimly and seemed at least the slightest bit chagrined. He looked at his nemesis. “You could have told me you had no food. You could have asked for my help.”

The other man glanced again at his feet. “I was ashamed. I thought we could live on the land. Except I did not expect my wife to become ill with the birth of our last child or the rains to be so slim. We are not near a brook where I can draw water as you can for your vines.”

The accuser placed a hand on his neighbor’s shoulder. “Come to work for me. I have more than I need, and I daresay I should have known this law long ago.” He looked into Deborah’s eyes, and she noticed the slightest sheen of regret in his. “Thank you, Prophetess. You are truly a woman of God.”

They turned and walked off as comrades, and Deborah leaned against the tree, breathing a relieved sigh.

“That turned out well for you.” Talya’s voice interrupted her moment of respite. “You should come now and rest. It is almost time for the evening meal.”

Deborah glanced heavenward. How had she missed the swirling orange and blues of the dusky sky? She gathered her spindle and distaff and rose stiffly from the bench. Talya came and draped the shawl more securely about her shoulders.

“That is kind of you, my daughter.” She offered the girl a smile, but it was not returned. At least she had not been met with a scowl or a tone of bitter scorn.

They walked in silence toward the house when at last Talya spoke. “I have talked with Abba, and I wanted to make sure you agree.”

By her daughter’s unyielding posture Deborah knew that if she disagreed, Talya would make life more difficult than it already was.

“Tell me.” Though she really was too weary to hear it now.

Talya seemed not to notice her exhaustion in the wake of her own enthusiasm. “Lavi has taught me to use the sling, and I have practiced in the cave below the house. But he said I need to practice in daylight in the fields so that I can gauge the angle of the sun as I aim. Abba said I could come to the fields with them tomorrow, if you will but agree.” Talya touched Deborah’s arm, her fingers warm and vibrant on Deborah’s skin. “Please say yes, Ima.” How rarely had the girl called her thus. It was always Mother. And with a tone of disdain. “I heard what Barak said, and I promise not to stray. Consider this as helping me to prepare in case danger truly does arise as Barak has warned us.”

Deborah stopped midstride to assess her daughter. The girl had inherited her father’s full mouth and wide eyes but Deborah’s own rounder face and high cheekbones, while she seemed to possess the determination of them both. The girl needed a husband more than ever.

“If you promise to stay close to your father and brothers, you may go.” Though Deborah questioned her own sense in saying so.

Talya’s smile lit her face, and she jumped like a young gazelle, nearly dancing in the middle of the dirt street. When she came to rest on both feet again, she bent to kiss Deborah’s cheek. “Thank you, Ima. You will be proud of me. You’ll see. And who knows? Perhaps one day, once I am as good as Lavi is with a sling, he will teach me the bow as well. Then just let Sisera try to come after us. If you can lead Israel’s men in judgment, I can kill the enemy with one blow.”

She skipped off, not waiting for Deborah to respond. A woman kill Sisera? Unheard of. She had long imaged Barak would be the one to deal that final fateful blow. She shook her head and walked slowly toward the courtyard where food awaited, trying not to think that her daughter was both obstinate and delusional.

Travel along the overgrown hillsides and through the dense forests was slow going past Shiloh toward the village of Arumah. Barak and his men took to moving in the open areas at night when the roads were clear, but even then one could not trust that Sisera’s spies were not hiding in the bushes and caves that sometimes dotted the sides of the roads.

He stopped his small band of men a stone’s throw from Arumah’s broken walls and splintered bricks. The charred scent of a recent fire set his heart pounding. Surely Sisera had already been here—done exactly as Barak had feared. He stumbled a step forward, the weight of grief staggering.

Keshet caught his arm, his presence steadying. “How do you want to handle this?” he asked, his tone a fierce whisper.

Barak shook himself, blinking back the acrid, nauseating scent of death. He pushed one foot in front of the other. “We have to see if anyone is left alive. We will rescue those we can.” He glimpsed the shaft of an arrow lodged into the side of the broken wall. “And bury their dead.”

Sluggish and weary, he braced himself as the broken bricks and splintered doors of the gate drew closer. In the streets, men lay strewn like felled trees. No sign of the women or children.

“Check the houses for idols,” Barak commanded, “and any living creature.” But the search yielded neither life nor false god.

“Sisera has taken not only the daughters of the elders but their wives and livestock as well,” he said after the last house was searched and the last man buried in a nearby cave.

“So it seems.” Keshet’s dark eyes flashed, his right hand keeping a tight grip on his bow. “Unless we find their bodies along the way.”

“Some of them might still be alive.” Barak’s pulse quickened.

“More likely they have all been taken as slaves to Harosheth-hagoyim,” Keshet said.

“We will search the brush along the road to Shechem. Perhaps we will find a few of the weaker ones.” Or those so abused they would barely resemble a woman or child, as Barak had found Nessa those years ago. A sick knot tightened his gut. He turned away from the burial cave and started walking away from the city. Had Sisera taken idols they had hidden? Or were they simply victims of the whole nation’s unfaithfulness?

Either way, this business of Sisera’s treachery must stop.

How long, Adonai? When will You send us a deliverer?

“Do you think we can reach Shechem by nightfall?” Keshet’s voice held a thin trace of worry.

Barak glanced at the sky. Doubtful they could make such a lengthy trek in their weary state, but he did not say so. “Of course,” he said instead. Shechem meant refuge.

To Barak’s relief, Shechem’s walls were indeed intact, its people safe. But even here Barak could not rest. Urgency laced his words as he met with the elders and told them of Arumah and warned them of Sisera’s latest threat. The elders in turn commanded every man to disclose any idols in their homes, eventually finding none.

Two days later Barak and his men headed north to Tirzah, then on to Beth-shan, near his hometown of Kedesh-naphtali along Kinneret’s shores, each time meeting with the same reaction. No idol worship to be found, and every elder on edge. Barak’s anger mounted.

“How can the prophetess say the land is still filled with idol worship when we have found none?” he asked Keshet one night as they settled along Kinneret’s banks.

“We have yet to search every town, my friend. Perhaps it takes only one as it did in the days of Achan and Joshua.” Keshet whittled a piece of driftwood while the rest of Barak’s men sat in a circle about the fire, talking quietly.

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Keshet’s words were sobering. “What do you think of visiting that Kenite for weapons?” One of the elders of Beth-shan had informed them of a Kenite, a metalworker, living nearby in the sanctuary at the oak of Zaanannim.

“What makes you think the man will want to help us?” Keshet looked toward the south in the direction where the Kenite lived. “Just because he’s a metalworker doesn’t mean he makes swords. They make bowls, vases, cups, statues, and figures too. He could be making idols for all we know.”

“Kenites have a history with Israel.” Barak picked up a small branch and drew circles in the dirt. “Moses’s brother-in-law was a Kenite.”

“Family ties don’t always bind together, you know.” Keshet’s words gave Barak pause. The man spoke from a life of broken promises, of not only a lost sister to Sisera but a lost wife who returned to her father, considering Keshet too weak to protect her. Keshet had been forced to give the woman a writ of divorcement against his wishes. But her father had the power of the city on his side, and Keshet had nothing.

“Not everyone is like your family, my friend.” Barak searched his mind for a good example of an intact, loving family. There were so few in the years of Canaanite oppression. Their land had become divided by worship of false gods—more so in the earlier years after Ehud died than today, but everyone still did what they thought right, whether the law agreed with them or not. “Deborah’s family is one that has a tight bond.” Funny that he didn’t think of that earlier. With the memory, he recalled the daughter who seemed much too eager to please him or the men in her family but had less respect for the prophetess.

“Perhaps you are right. We won’t know if we don’t ask the man to help.” Keshet’s comment brought Barak’s thoughts back to their goal.

“You and I will go alone,” he said, “lest the man and his family think we have come to raid them.”

Talya walked the winding path to the olive grove that bordered her father’s fields, her leather quiver hanging over her right shoulder and a small bow clutched in her left hand. She had taken to pulling her robe and tunic between her legs and tucking them into the belt that hung low on her hips to secure her ability to run at the first hint of danger. Keeping the belt lower allowed her to loosen the robe at the top, hiding her womanly curves, yet did not expose her legs to the point of indecency. Her father had accepted her actions, but if her mother knew the lengths she went to in order to move quickly, she would surely insist Talya’s lessons in weaponry end.

A sigh escaped as she trudged along, her ear attuned to her surroundings. Her mother was far too protective. If not for Lavi’s help in shaping the wood for the bow and teaching her to wax the linen for the string, and in whittling the long sticks into arrows and showing her how to grind the stones to sharp points to put at their heads, she would still be using a simple sling and stones, nothing more.

She tugged the strings of the sling still tied to her wrist, assured that they were secure. With two weapons, she would be a forceful warrior, even if she never got to use her skills for more than hunting birds in the trees. But in the weeks since Barak’s visit, she had practiced, and she knew without doubt—she would not be taken captive by the Canaanites without a fair fight.

She approached the grove, taking in the familiar sight of the gnarled branches whose great arms spoke of long years in this place. Guilt nudged her as she rounded the bend in the grove, heading home. She should have waited for her father and brothers to accompany her through the main gates, but she feared her mother’s greeting and another confrontation. She knew better. She also should have asked her mother’s permission to follow the men today. But her family’s fields had shown no evidence of Sisera’s threat, and she was always within a stone’s throw of her brothers. Better to slip away unnoticed by her mother than to face the constant strife.

She quickened her pace, eager to reach home before her mother’s duties with the people came to an end. But a strange sound met her ear as she approached the next row of trees. She stopped. Was that a pagan chant?

Her pulse jumped. She edged closer, gauging the distance of the sound. The voice carried a familiar female lilt. She stepped warily over protruding roots and dry twigs until—

She stopped cold. In the clearing a tall idol sat stately atop a tree stump. Yiskah, her cousin Shet’s wife, bent low before it, repeating guttural sounds and foreign words.

“What are you doing?” Talya spoke before she could think and headed straight for the idol. Asherah. She whirled about and faced Yiskah, whose wide eyes narrowed to slits, her expression moving from stricken to defiant.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Yiskah straightened, though she remained on her knees. “You are interrupting my worship.”

Talya stared. Shet, her closest childhood friend, had chosen this woman in place of her? Her throat felt suddenly dry. She swallowed once, twice. “We are to worship the Lord our God and Him only.” She repeated the words she had been taught all of her life, and suddenly she wondered why she had ever doubted them. Her mother was right—this foreign worship was hurting the whole nation and it had to stop.

“Your God does not listen to my prayers,” Yiskah said, her voice slightly less defiant than it had been. “If He had, Shet and I would have a quiver of children by now.”

“You have not been married long enough to hold a whole quiver.” Talya knew the retort was unkind, but the girl was barely older than she was, by just a handful of years, and a child could still be forthcoming.

“I know that I cannot give Shet what he wants, and your God does not answer. Asherah gives life. She will hear my prayers.” Yiskah lifted her chin and stood as if in challenge.

Talya took one lengthy look at this cousin she could not understand, then bent, picked up a heavy stone, and turned on the idol, smashing its head in.

Yiskah screamed. “What are you doing?” She rushed at Talya, who hurled her whole weight against Yiskah.

“Silence! Do you want all of Sisera’s army to come down on us?” Did not Yiskah realize the danger?

“Asherah always protects me,” the girl said through gritted teeth. She scrambled free of Talya’s hold and ran into the trees.

Talya looked from the half-ruined idol to her fleeing cousin, trying to decide whether to finish the work of turning the idol to rubble or run after the foolish woman. Yiskah would surely get lost in the woods and Shet would be devastated. But Shet would be more devastated to learn that his wife secretly worshiped Asherah. Wouldn’t he?

Decision made, she took off after Yiskah. She must find her even if it meant she would return to the village late and have to explain her actions to her mother.