13

Barak stood on the ridge looking down on his city, Kedesh-naphtali. He had spent the night in the home of his parents, not far from the one he had built a short distance away, the home he once shared with Nessa. But fitful memories filled his dreams until he had flung the covers from him, donned his clothes, and snuck past his sleeping parents and his men to escape the stifling reminders. Even here, her presence still lingered in every corner of the house she had often visited to be with his mother, though her scent of wild roses had long since dissipated.

Grief gnawed at him in the pit of his very being. Shouldn’t he be past these feelings by now? But coming home always brought them back.

“You’re up early.” Keshet climbed the hill and met Barak at the ridge, his face too cheery for such a morn.

“Couldn’t sleep. At least not well.”

Keshet nodded. “I expected as much. Perhaps it is time to bid your parents and the town farewell again and be off to Hazor.”

Barak stared into the distance. Hazor was north of Lake Kinneret, about two days’ walk if they took their time getting there. They had already delivered what little ore they could come by to Heber, and except to keep trying to anticipate Sisera’s next move, they needed to spy out the capital of Canaan, where the king lived.

“I’m not sure how we think our small band will slip past the guards at the gates of such a fortified city. Hazor is nearly as defensible as Jericho was.” Keshet blew on his hands in the cool dawn air.

“And look what God did to Jericho.” Barak glanced at his friend. “What’s the point of your question?”

“Only that we don’t have a directive from Adonai to fight Hazor as Joshua had with Jericho.” Keshet’s tanned face carried the lines of a frown along his brow.

Barak dug his toe into the packed earth. “We won’t be attacking. We are simply going to circle the city, and perhaps one or two of us will slip in and mingle with the people. If the time ever comes to destroy King Jabin, I want to at least know how to access the palace and where the prominent buildings are located.” Surely it was a wise strategy, though Barak wondered if in their current state the people of Israel would ever follow him into such a battle.

“Then let’s get going,” Keshet said, his normal smile suddenly replacing the frown. “If our God is for us, who can be against us?”

Barak nodded, his thoughts distant. Was God for them? Or had they gone too far this time? Would God forsake His own people?

Hazor sat in the hills of Upper Galilee near Lake Huleh. A mountain range bordered its west and south sides, making it hard to reach without notice. But Barak and his men managed to keep to the caves and skirted the edges of the mountains, sometimes walking single file or crouching low to keep from being seen by the guards that kept watch along the city walls.

On the morning of the third day, Barak called his one hundred men together. “Two of you must join a merchant caravan and scout out the city.” He looked into each face, choosing two of them quickly. “Go and bring me word. I want a full report by nightfall.” He itched to go with them, but his face would be recognized.

“Shall we try to enter the palace itself, my lord?” asked one of the men.

Barak glanced at Keshet. “If you can pull it off without getting caught. Yes.”

He watched as the men scurried down the hill into the valley out of sight. How he longed to go with them, to get a look at Jabin’s overfed face and do as the judge Ehud had done that long-ago day when his two-edged sword had killed King Eglon of Moab, freeing Israel of their oppressors. But Ehud’s eighty years of peace had long since passed. Barak faced a different threat. A mightier, terrifying foe in Sisera.

A man who not only had every advantage but also had no conscience.

“The city is well fortified,” Keshet said as they circled Hazor and rounded the bend from the front gates to the back. “At least this part is.”

“There has to be a weakness somewhere.” Barak motioned for Keshet to follow him north toward the spring that came from Lake Huleh. “Cities need water, and this one must be fed by the lake’s runoff.”

They moved in silence, weaving their way behind outcroppings of rocks and heavy brush. Barak glanced at the wall. “There are fewer guards at this end.” He raised a brow at Keshet. “Curious.”

Keshet nodded, then slid down the embankment toward the edge of the spring where it entered the city. “The way is blocked.” He indicated the large boulders ahead. “But water can easily run beneath.” He looked up, pointing. A lone guard stood halfway down the wall toward the main city gates. “They put too much faith in these rocks,” Keshet said. He leaned close to Barak’s ear. “It will take more than rocks to keep our God and some strong men from entering this city.”

“Surely the guards would hear our grunts and the scraping of stone on stone, even if we do manage to lift them with ease.” He cast a wary look at the wall. The guard turned, heading their way. “We should go.” He scrambled up the bank, Keshet on his heels, and landed with a soft thud behind a copse of trees.

“We could distract them,” Keshet prodded. “Perhaps start a skirmish from the opposite way. It is worth considering.” He gave Barak his most convincing grin. “If God is in it, we cannot fail.”

“Is God in it?” He met Keshet’s gaze.

“The prophetess would know.” But Keshet’s look now held a hint of uncertainty.

“If she knows, she has not said so.” Months had passed since he had heard from Deborah, nor had he returned to visit her. He had not been able to bring himself to look into her eyes, knowing what he knew about her daughter’s wishes, which seemed to match her own. He could not give Talya or Deborah what they wanted. So he stayed away.

“I am sure she will summon us when she does,” Keshet said, moving away from him to continue the trek around the city.

“I’m sure she will.” But the fact that there had been no word troubled him more than he cared to ponder.

“Tell me what you learned,” Barak said hours later when his men joined him in a cave outside the city. The two men who had infiltrated Hazor sat nearest the fire.

“The palace is in the center of the city, surrounded by temples, city buildings, and rows of small rooms that house servants and prisoners. The areas are well guarded,” the first man said.

“The king rotates prisoners that he puts on display at the four corners of the city square.” The second man drew a likeness of the prisoners in the dirt of the cave floor. Two men and two women, each indiscreetly exposed for all to see.

“Israelites?” Barak already knew the answer, but when both men nodded, his heartbeat quickened and the blood rushed thicker through his veins. “How are they displayed? Is there no way to secretly release them and take them away?” The question held an imploring tone, and he knew it was pointless to ask or they would have done just that.

The first man shook his head. “No, my lord. They are lifted onto a round platform, their hands tied behind them. They remain there, pleading to be released.” He paused. “It was hard to watch, my lord.”

Barak stood abruptly, anger fueling his footsteps. He paced to the back of the cave and returned. “How often do they change the prisoners?”

“One of the guards said every few hours a new batch takes their place. But they are there at Jabin’s pleasure, and he often delights in making a spectacle of them, even worse than we were able to see. Some are sent to the ring, where they lose their life.” The man averted his eyes as he spoke. These men were not squeamish or easily rattled, but whatever they had heard and seen had shaken them.

“When we destroy Hazor, we will save the prisoners. That will be our first obligation.” Barak spoke with conviction, though his heart felt hollow even with his strong words. How could any man of the earth treat his fellow man or woman so atrociously?

He strode off again, clenching and unclenching his fists, digging his nails deeply into his palms. What he wouldn’t give to face Jabin and Sisera right now, blade in hand, and put an end to them both. His breath came faster, matching the pace of his feet. Adonai, why do You allow this? Surely these men and women had not done such evil as to deserve this punishment.

The prayer made him pause to listen, but if he expected an answer, he did not receive one.

Deborah strode back and forth over the length of her sitting room while the man from a neighboring town visibly shook in the seat they had offered him. “Tell me again,” she said, though he had already recounted the unbelievable tale.

Talya offered the man a cup of cool water, and he drank greedily. He sat straighter, but his hands, held tightly between his knees, belied his attempt to keep his composure. “Prophetess, it is like I told you. Sisera came to Endor. I wouldn’t be here to tell you if I hadn’t been away trying to sell my wares to a passing caravan.” He cleared his throat. “While I was gone, Sisera charged through the gates in the short amount of time they are open, rounded up all the men and all the virgin maids. He killed the elders and took the virgins into his custody. The men he left are barely men, not yet twenty years old. Some might be strong enough to fight, but with their fathers dead and their sisters taken, they’ve no strength within them.”

“Young men should be hot-blooded and angry, ready to fight Sisera.” Deborah could not believe such a horrific story could end with men losing heart. Unless . . . “Did Sisera harm the young men in any way?”

The man started shaking again. This part he had obviously left out in the first telling, and Deborah only now thought to ask the question. “Some of them, yes.”

Deborah did not need to know how. “That explains it then.” If Sisera had maimed some of the lads, the others would fear he would come back and do the same to them if they ever crossed him, even to rescue their sisters. They would be of no use to Barak in his army, strengthening Sisera’s hold on Israel.

Deborah sank onto a cushion and leaned against the limestone wall. Lappidoth spoke to the man for more details, but she had heard enough. She blinked back tears, as a mother would for her children. Oh Adonai, Adonai, how long? Will You forget us forever?

Sisera was using every tactic he could to destroy them from the inside. He was cutting to the heart of their morale. He was making them weak.

She stood and left the house, walking in the cool night air toward her palm tree, grateful for the breeze that tugged at her headscarf. How long until Sisera found their little village and came to pillage them? Would he kill Lappidoth and their sons, take Talya and the other virgins? Who would stop him? They had so little defense.

She looked up at the night sky now dotted with stars, a fresh reminder of her Creator. Had not God promised Abraham, “Your descendants will be as the stars in the sky”? And yet they were being systematically decimated by a tyrannical murderer and his ruthless king.

Even if Barak went to war against them, who was left among the clans of Israel to join him? She lifted her gaze to take in the whole of the sky. Are there any left who have not worshiped Anat or Baal or Asherah or Molech or others I can’t even name? Am I and my family the only few who would tear down such altars and idols and banish or destroy those who worship them?

Memories of Shet’s wife surfaced. Talya had destroyed the idol, but not everyone in their village truly obeyed Yahweh. Deborah sensed it in her heart. At least for Shet’s sake his wife had not enticed others to worship the idol she sought in secret. She had acted alone. But her husband had still sent her away for a time until she could return fully repentant. Deborah wondered if the woman would ever come home—or would she maintain her defiant attitude against Yahweh and run off to Canaan?

The skin prickled along Deborah’s arms as the dusk deepened. The very thought of Yiskah in Canaan chilled her. What happened to the women Sisera kidnapped and used for pleasure? Did they die giving birth to illegitimate children? Did he toss them aside and enslave them after he stole the one precious thing they owned? Did God not care for the souls of Israel’s daughters?

If God were a Canaanite goddess, Deborah would have her answer. Anat the warrior goddess stood behind Sisera’s success. Asherah stood behind Canaan’s fertility. Baal stood behind Canaan’s king.

You are greater, Adonai Elohim. You can defeat them with a word. She paused and tilted her head, listening for some sound, some word from him. If You but ask, I will obey.

A stirring grew within her, a certainty that had not been there during the nightmares of late. Sisera may have conquered Endor, but he had not conquered all. God would answer soon. There was still hope.