DURING THE TIME LORD NAHSHON WAS AWAY, SALA learned the names and likes and dislikes of everyone in Rahab’s family as well as the specifics of her kidnapping. When Lord Nahshon returned, an older woman with a brown, wrinkled face was with him. Sala thought she looked like a shriveled old date.
Sala’s father said, “Rahab, this is Hura, and she is going to watch over you while we are in Gaza. We are a group of men and you cannot be alone with us. It would not be right. Hura will show you to the room I have taken for you and then she will bring you some fresh clothing. She has a granddaughter who is about your size.”
Lord Nahshon spoke with quiet authority, but Rahab shook her head. “Thank you, my lord, but I don’t want to stay here, I want to go home. Please, can’t you just send me back to my father?”
Lord Nahshon looked a little taken aback and Sala smothered a grin. His father was not accustomed to having his arrangements questioned by anyone, let alone a little girl.
“When I have decided how to accomplish that, I will inform you,” Lord Nahshon replied, looking down his hawk-like nose.
Rahab didn’t seem satisfied by this answer. She glanced at Sala and he shook his head slightly, telling her she shouldn’t ask anything else right now.
Her lips pinched together and an elusive dimple flickered in her cheek. Then she bowed her head and said, “All right, I will go with Hura.” She turned to the door, then stopped, looked back, and added with conscientious politeness, “Thank you, Lord Nahshon, for helping me.”
“You are welcome,” Sala’s father replied.
After the door had closed behind her, Lord Nahshon turned to Sala, shaking his head. “Whatever made you pick that child up, Sala? She is a Canaanite; she has nothing to do with us.”
“It was the look of terror on her face,” Sala said. “You would have done the same thing, Father. It would have been heartless not to help her. She is a little girl. I couldn’t just ignore her.”
Lord Nahshon sighed. “Well, I suppose I am saddled with her now. As you say, it would be heartless to turn her loose on the streets of Gaza. A girl child who looks like that, some unsavory character would be sure to pick her up. I wouldn’t like having her fate on my conscience.”
Sala felt a shiver run up and down his back at the thought of what might have befallen the spunky little girl.
Lord Nahshon said, “Did she tell you anything else about herself?”
“Yes. She comes from one of the villages that are part of Jericho’s territory. Her father owns vineyards. Apparently the harvests were excellent this year and he and some of his neighbors decided to ship their excess wine into Egypt. They were on their way to Joppa when they were attacked. Rahab was the only person in the party the bandits took, but they captured many of the loaded donkeys. She has brothers as well as a father, and perhaps someone went to Joppa to look for her, but I doubt they would have thought to try Gaza.”
“One of those bandits got a look at her face and saw his fortune,” Lord Nahshon said grimly. “We will have to keep her hidden while we remain in Gaza.”
“She’s smart,” Sala said. “She got away. I doubt many girls would have managed that.”
Lord Nahshon pinched his nose. “Do you know how old she is?”
“She’s twelve.”
“Twelve! She looks younger.” He blew out of the nose he had just been pinching. “So, thanks to your gallantry, here I sit with a twelve-year-old Canaanite girl on my hands.”
“You’ll think of something, Father,” Sala said confidently.
Nahshon sighed. “Well, I’m not paying to send her all the way to Jericho. We’ll have to take her home with us and I’ll dispatch a message to her family asking them to send someone to collect her. That’s the best I can do.”
Sala smiled his approval. "I’m sure she’ll be no trouble, Father. She’s only a little girl.”
“A Canaanite girl, my son, and a stunningly beautiful one at that.” Nahshon shook his head. “I don’t know what your mother and sisters will say.”
“They will feel sorry for her, as you and I do,” Sala replied.
Lord Nahshon grunted. “I hope so. Now let us prepare ourselves for dinner.”
After dinner Sala found Rahab in the kitchen with Hura. Her chaperone was helping the other maids clean the dishes, and Rahab was sitting at a scarred wooden table looking gloomy.
Her face brightened when she saw him and she gave him a brilliant, welcoming smile. He joined her at the table.
“You look better,” he said as he sat down.
“Hura was very nice. She helped me to wash and she brought me clean clothes.” She shuddered. “I didn’t want to wear anything those filthy thieves had touched.”
“I don’t blame you. I came to tell you my father’s plan. You are to come back to Ramac with us and then he will send a messenger to Jericho to tell your family where you are. Your father can send someone to bring you home.”
Rahab clapped her hands. “How happy they will be to find out I am safe and coming home!”
Sala looked at her radiant face and thought she was the most confident girl he had ever known. He had four sisters, two older than he and two younger, and none of them would have been comfortable sitting in an inn kitchen chattering away to a strange young man as if they were the best of friends. And after all she had been through!
Canaanite girls must be different from Israelite girls, who were kept sequestered from men who were not of their family. Of course, from what he had heard about the Canaanite religion, the women would have to be brought up differently. They certainly seemed looser with their virtue.
“What kind of a house do you have?” Rahab was asking. “Are you rich? You must be, if your father is a lord. We aren’t rich but we have some good vineyards. Does your father have many ships? Do you think I could ride on one of them?”
Out of this torrent of questions, Sala picked the one he could answer most easily. “Women are not allowed on ships. It’s considered bad luck.”
The smile was replaced by a look of astonishment. “Bad luck? Why?”
Sala had no idea why; it was just something he had always heard. He shrugged. “Everyone says it.”
“I never heard such a thing.”
Sala looked down his nose at this girl who barely came up to his chin. “You know nothing about ships. You told me you had never even seen the sea before you came to Gaza. How should you know anything about a seaman’s rules?”
She raised her chin. “I know rules like that are stupid. Why should women bring bad luck? Can you tell me one reason?”
Sala stared at her in amazement. Who does this little creature think she is?
He said, “They must bring girls up differently among your people. Israelites expect their women to be mild-mannered and courteous.”
Rahab mimicked his shrug. “Canaanite women are supposed to be like that too, but my father lets me do whatever I want.”
What a stupid man he must be.
“How old are your sisters? Will I like them?”
Sala noticed she didn’t ask if they would like her. He shook his head. This Rahab was different from any girl he had ever met. “I have two older sisters who are married and live with their husbands. Then I have two sisters who are younger than I am. There is Rachel, who is fourteen, and Leah, who is twelve.”
“I have never heard names like that. They’re pretty.”
“They are Israelite names. They were named after two of the women who were married to Nahshon, our great forebear.”
“And Nahshon is your father’s name!”
“Yes.”
“Who are you named for, Sala?”
“I am named for my father’s father. I was born two days after he died, so I was named for him.”
“Sala!” One of his father’s men was at the door. “Come. We have heard some news and your father wishes you to hear it.” The man sounded excited.
Sala got up. “I will bid you good night, Rahab. I hope you sleep well.”
“Thanks to you, Sala, I will.”
When Sala walked into the common room, all of the men turned to look at him. Even before he had taken a seat, Nahshon spoke. “I have been telling everyone of something amazing I just heard. A man came to see me, an Israelite who lives in Gaza who knows who I am. He told me the Israelites who escaped from Egypt so long ago have been located! We all thought they must have died in the desert, but it seems that is not the case. They have been living at Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin, for many years. And we never knew! None of us here in Canaan ever knew!”
Amos, Lord Nahshon’s head mariner, was the first to speak. “But there were thousands of them, my lord, or so we have always heard. How can so many have lived for so long in the desert?”
“There is water in Kadesh, and perhaps there are not so many of them as we have always thought,” Nahshon replied.
Sala had been told of the Egyptian Israelites and of the escape that had happened before he was born. But he had always been told they had perished in the desert. It was astonishing to hear they were actually alive.
After the men had departed, Sala went up to his father, questions bubbling up inside him. Lord Nahshon gave him a rueful grin and put a hand on his shoulder. “I am still not used to standing eye-to-eye with you, my son.” His face sobered. “This is wonderful news, Sala. I feel as if the heart of our people has just been resurrected from the dead.”
“ ‘The heart of our people,’ Father? What do you mean by that?”
“Let us sit down, Sala, and talk.”
Sala followed his father to a bench at the side of the room. Once they were seated, Nahshon said, “Do you remember the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, who became a great lord in Egypt? You must remember it; I taught you myself.”
“Of course I remember, Father. Joseph went to Egypt because his brothers tried to kill him. And when there was a famine in Canaan, many of the people went down into Egypt, including Joseph’s brothers, because they knew there was food there. Joseph, who was now a lord, forgave his brothers and fed all of the Israelites who had come into Egypt. And many of them liked it there and decided to remain in the country as honored subjects of the Pharaoh.”
Nahshon looked pleased. “That is correct. Not all of our people went into Egypt during the famine, but well over half of us did and they stayed. However, after Joseph died, the situation of Israelites in Egypt deteriorated, until, finally, they were little more than slaves.”
Lord Nahshon looked off across the room as if he was remembering something. “I can clearly recall my father talking about the situation of our Egyptian brothers. His ships frequently sailed into the Egyptian Delta to deliver merchandise, and so he knew all about what was happening to our people.”
Nahshon stopped talking, his gaze still focused on that faraway something. After a moment Sala prompted him, “They were slaves?”
“They were being used for forced labor in the building of the city of Ramses. But there was little we Israelites in Canaan could do to help them. All of the cities in this country owe allegiance to Egypt, and we Israelites are only a small number of the Canaanite population.”
“I know,” Sala said in a subdued voice. This was something he had often heard, the lament that the land that should belong to his people and his God had been given over to the false gods of the Canaanites.
Nahshon suddenly turned his head and his black eyes glittered as he stared unflinchingly at his son. “Never forget that Canaan is our land, Sala, given to us by Elohim Himself. We are the people of God, not the Canaanite worshippers of Baal. This is why the discovery of the Israelites from the desert is so important to us. If they are planning to enter Canaan to reclaim the land of our fathers, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then we must be ready to join with them!”
Sala felt his blood thrill at his father’s words. He had been taught the history of his people, but it had always seemed so far in the past to him. Life was different today, or so he had always thought. Now it seemed as if their great days might not be over yet.
Nahshon was going on, “Think of it, Sala! Our Promised Land. A Canaan that is Israelite from border to border. The God of Abraham, the God of Israel, will be restored to His rightful place, and Baal and all his filthy rituals will be swept from our sacred soil.”
Sala had never heard his father speak this way. Nahshon had always been a pragmatic businessman, willing to work with anyone if it meant making a profit. And now he was talking about war! About conquest! Sala felt the thrill in his blood turn to fire.
“Do you think the Egyptian Israelites will do that, Father? Do you think they will try to conquer the land of Canaan?”
Nahshon let out a long breath. “I was a young boy when we learned about the escape from Egypt, but I can still remember how excited my father was. It was all anyone could talk about. We kept looking for them and looking for them. It is not that long a journey from Egypt into Canaan, and we expected to see them anytime.
“We knew they could not come by the Way of the Sea—they would have been too visible—they would have to come through the Sinai. But they vanished into the desert and, after a while, we gave up waiting. Everyone believed they had died of disease or starvation. And now—after all these years—to hear of their survival! It is miraculous.”
Sala’s breath caught with awe. “It is a miracle. It must be.”
“We must try to contact them, see how many are left, what their plans are.” The room had grown darker as they talked and Lord Nahshon’s teeth gleamed white as he smiled. “The day of the Lord is coming, Sala. Let us rejoice and be glad.”