Heptateuch (Biblical Epic) 1 part 9/11

Overturning all things with sword and devouring flame. One woman alone was granted to deserved salvation, set apart from the civil slaughter and hidden in the camp, her kindred attending her as company, lest some unknowing soldier should slay her, while he ranges over all the doorposts. There is preserved for the Lord a sumptuous store of provisions, choice out of all things, which could feed the sight. When this was done, the prince compelled the people to swear that no one should strive to rebuild the fallen walls—he being punished as to the foundations with his firstborn pledge, and afterward, at the last, with his youngest, should he attempt to raise the gates. Meanwhile crooked deeds corrupt the favorable outcomes. The people follows idols and prostrate adores stones raised by the hand, while it believes that godhead is in the rocks. The standard-bearer is Achar, son of Carmi of the tribe of Zimri, whom the troop that followed forsook their Lord and law.

Joyful not long in forbidden things: for after three thousand of the accustomed men—a crime!—were sent through the enemy fields, the youth of the Ai-men, easy to be conquered through the believers' faint-hearted dread, fearfully turn their backs through the fields, and in headlong flight seek again their own camp and leader. After that disgrace touched the commander's ears, he rends his garments and beats his foreboding breast; and a crowd of mourning elders, accompanying him at once, makes supplication, while Joshua entreats with innocent voices: "O Lord, what cause was there to lead forth Your people from the seat of Egypt? Why to make the watery billows hang, and all the rest which You know were handed over by Your mighty bestowing hand, than which nothing is richer? Was it for this—that the swelling Amorite might lay low Your afflicted people? Safer then it had been to dwell beyond the great river,

which lay open to us, dried up by the thirsty sand. What shall a wounded people do, or what shall a confounded people say? Why would You wish to thrust the chosen into greater servitude? And yet true salvation and the gifts of certain healing are in Your power, and whatever Your gentle clemency bestows. The nations whom You had given us to conquer will band together; the Jebusite mingled with the Amorite in joint phalanx will stir up fierce wars against You, O highest Author. Therefore do You suffer the proud to mock Your name, and shall the nations unknown to You have greater right?" By these words the Lord is moved, and bade the prophet rise up, recounting little by little the crimes of foul guilt to be expiated by destruction of life, because it had urged such things. Then, when the first day had dispelled the dark night,

he rouses his body from sleep and wearies his companions, and visits the kindred tribes by their several names; detecting the guilty head, he gives the wicked bodies to death, while at the same time the cattle are sent into the fire. Which crime the first to confess having committed was Achar, unhappy, kindled with love of booty and spoils, which, buried at home, he covered with his own soil. Straightway the messengers seek these things; which, quickly found and set before the leader and the thronging people. He, when he saw that the sought-for plunder would not be wanting, speaks thus and terrifies the trembling man: "Come, declare now to all what madness seized you, or what unknowing use of things profited you, so that, forgetful of the law, you should follow the rite of the guilty?

And had not the sublime glory saved the people, the victorious Amorite would have pressed their free necks beneath the yoke. Come now, on behalf of all pay the expiation for the deeds admitted, that God and Lord may run back, with the people saved, into the camp." When he had discoursed thus, a shower of stones is raised and crushes the condemned man and beats out his stock; and the cattle and whatever of goods that same man had kept, the gleaming flame snatches up and dissolves into hoary dust. When this was done, the cares were removed: God, gentle, looks upon all things, and equally restores to all the accustomed strength, whereby they might be able to thrust back all the battle-lines.

Here the commander receives the Lord's signal commands, that he should array whatever allied cohorts in any wars, choosing a thousand young men, outstanding in body and in years, that, while they prepare the stratagems of war, they should take to the thickets, hiding them not far off, silently, from the walls of Gergesi, so that, when, with feigned dread, the enemy should begin to turn their backs and lead the shut-in men out into the open plain, the swift ones might at once leave their leafy lairs and strive to break through the gates stripped of men. Without delay, all things answer to the prophet's proposals. After the squadrons contend with slanting line of battle, the prince bade his men at once turn their backs, upon whom the hostile crowd rushes in a dense column from above and presses with much shouting and flashes the steel. Which the lurking cohort, that lay hidden in the hollow valley, observed.

It flies out and bursts through the walls at the empty gates, casting rapid fires beneath the lofty roofs. When then a confused sound and a mournful murmur compelled Gergeses to turn its head and its gaze, they look back at the black ember flying up to heaven and the globes of flames which the captured rooftops vomited forth, and the opposing band threatening their rear and their front: caught, they shudder and let fall the weapons from their nerveless hands. Pierced before the eyes and faces of their weeping parents, part are thrust into the headlong ditches as the victor rushes on, or batter themselves against the gates of the captured city. Twice six thousand of the young men are laid low by the sword. The king himself too, exulting and daring to burst out into the plain, is taken at the first onset and held bound and fixed to a cross; the stones give the wretch a tomb.

All being consumed, the fire alone did not swallow up that which a hasty hand snatched away; and only the beasts of burden were given over to death, which bear loads on their backs. Meanwhile victory flies back to the kings. All of them. The Amorite, joined to pleasant Jordan, hears it, and those who set their halls on the bushy mountains, or dwell in the joyful plains and the sloping vales, and those who stand at the margin of the blue sea. The Cetaeus likewise and the Canaanite whisper, and the Hivite is afraid and the Perizzite totters, and the Jebusite band alike and the Gergesite grow pale. Yet not utterly broken nor utterly lying low, they lift up their spirits and steady themselves for battle: all have one desire—to thrust Joshua from the realms. And they assemble at Gibeon, in a place, and array their battle-lines. He himself, amid the cares of wars, builds an altar.

After the manner of Moses, to God; which no bonds of iron bind, while the stones, fitted together, cohere with even-coming arrangement. Bringing forth libations pleasing to God, what a delightful odor breathes on high! Nay more, he writes out the ordinances of the teaching law: Deuteronomy is its name, since it unrolls again what has been transacted; which it is lawful for the whole world equally to know. The kindly ark is carried on the necks of the priests, that whosoever might see the gifts of the highest Lord. And also the prophet, accustomed to bless the people, runs through what commands came first, what cautions afterward, with equal reckoning of the deeds done and in fixed order.

But the Gibeonite band, after it sees that the Jews have grown by lofty successes and the tyrants have been slain, the cities overthrown, and that none can resist, hasten cunning conspiracies with crafty deed; and those whom the region had joined in neighboring fields they feign to be present from a land far separated, marveling at the man's trophies and his recent palms, in case they might by entreaties join their right hands to the victor and ally their houses and bind on their whole nation, to live by the terms given, lest, humble, they should despise their discordant hearts and draw back their submitted necks. And that, as men faithful, they might keep the color of certainty, they drove the captured mules with much weight, carrying rotten grain with swift effort, which the old worn-out sack-covering held shut within;

and the sewn skins, with many a gash, scarcely retain the wine, since the wound refuses to bind the liquid. Their clothing in torn rags bared their bodies; the shoe wretchedly gives coverings to their worn-out soles. By these the leader of the people is broken, while he is overcome by suppliant palm and believes their minds to be in accord with their speech. He receives them as they pray for pardon and takes them into the camp. But, as often happens, feigned things are not long concealed, and the witness of truth lays open the contrived deceits. Forthwith the prophet chastises these men in their presence, in friendly wise; and, because he had sworn by the name of the eternal Lord, friendly faith remained; but common right was denied: bidden to the office of camp-servants around the sacred shrines, they were to carry, as outcasts, waters from pure springs. After it was reported that these had revolted to Donibezel,

who then governed the Jebusite realms in his court, he stirs up five kings, faithful, into the undertaken battles, the slanting one fiercer against his allies for the broken covenant than against the people—he who had poured forth immense battle-lines with arms. But Gibeon, terrified by the gathering of many kings, sends envoys and demands the friendly prophet to succor the sorrowful at once with all his soldiery. Without delay, the standards being seized, he sends them off from Gilgal, making for the enemy camp, with the Lord giving vigor by such words: "Fear not that the names of the kings, many together, and that you should think there are mighty cohorts in these; however much the throngs may trust in their immense cloud, the foot-soldier shall accomplish nothing, nor shall the cavalry's weapons avail; and despise the four-horse chariots armed with curved scythes. For I will shake the nations with pale dread;

nowhere shall the foes meet hand to hand with equal front, scattered, with swelling slaughter by your mighty soldiery." When he learned this, he marches toward the numerous foe; for the tyrants held the seat of war at Gibeon, and forthwith take to flight, dismissing their soldiery. The rest of the throng of men sank down in a heap of confused slaughter and filled the open fields, poured out. Nor did the sword of the victors strike down so many lifeless men as did the dense ice-cold shower of hail; and although on this side swords, on that side flash bright lightnings, one day is not long enough for such great triumphs. Therefore the prince, seeing his swords grow blunt and the deaths drag slow, prays for help from the Lord, as he was wont. "However much this light be stretched out in its hours, it is not sufficient, unless You bid the time of night to join itself to the light.

Let now the flame of the wandering sun be poised in balanced weight, nor let the lunar circle move its quivering fires, that the elements, as though unknowing how to run in their own bounds, may prolong the seasons, while the dense foe rushes to ruin." He is heard at once: the sun is stayed and the wandering moon held back its easy courses at either pole. And no less the kings, whom the hollow rocks were covering, he bade openly to stand with bound necks; then from every side Judah, with its weapons laid down, rushes together and with pressed knee tramples the necks of the groaning men. Forthwith the bloodless men are fixed upon high crosses, hanging, until black night gave itself back. Then he takes down the suspended bodies of the men from the wood, over which stones are heaped with piled-up ruins. When this was done, the warrior hastens to subdue Lemna, and slays the aged men.

Nor was the sword wanting to the boys; nothing at all was permitted to live of the whole nation. Thence Lachish, sought out, its walls cast down, burns; the king too of the people is taken and slain by the sword. Debir likewise, covered with equal ruins, perished, its legion extinguished and its tyrant-ally with it. And those who held their citadels on the bushy hills, or dwelt in the winding valleys and the lowlying plains, fell, their maniples extinguished together with their king. And while all things flow joyful with favorable success, Jabin, seeing the brave deeds of the conquering nation, who ruled the rich realms of the Hazorites over the peoples, hastening to extinguish the flame of the neighboring war, gathers excellent kings and fierce peoples. Rehoboam comes to him swiftly from the Macedonian court; and Somorus, and Axinus made his comrade in arms.

And the leader who reigned in the Sidonian citadel, Ceneritus, and the Arab, whose neighboring realms strengthened their spirits with love of the allied scepter; there is joined Ernadurus and the Canaanite who tills the lands adjoining the sea, or those who behold the ruddy beginnings of the sun, when the rosy axis first unfolds. Above these hastens the Amorite, neighbor to Jebus; the Hittite, the Hivite, and the Perizzite follow, who dwell in the desert byways of squalid Thitse. To all there is a mind to charge upon the packed throng. Thence each hurls his javelins after his own fashion: here the legion of footmen advances and, packed in a dense cloud, the war-chariots of the four-horse team rush with iron-clad soldiery, that the very crash might rout the enemy gleaming hand to hand. But on the other side Joshua, in no way terrified, presses on, coming near the waters called by the name of Maron;

and when, with chosen soldiery, he ascended the hill, rushing down from above he tramples the careless foe. All things are wet with slaughter, and the earth is stained with gore. Soon the swift chariots, set on fire from beneath, the fire devours, and the feet of the horn-footed steeds are cut off with the sharp sword. The very prince of kings, Asurus, gives his breast to the steel; the city too falls overthrown with all its walls. Here all the common booty is given to the victors. In this battle one man—he who had taken his standard from the star-bearing court—slew twice ten leaders and nine. Forthwith the prophet assigns and distributes to the people, man by man, the cities taken away from so great nations as they perished. Set by the screen and the hinge of the earth, whence reddens (the saffron flame of the coming day) across the river called Jordan by its ancient name, all the way to the valley reclined under the name of Hebron.

To Mount Hermon, which rises with vast peak, and to the sea of Chinnereth, Amar, and the gray-green marbles, and Phasga set apart, and what was long since called Asedoth. Alone, the battles being settled, there remained as booty Bassam its ruler (whom the ancients called Og), fierce with the strength of giants, whom that ruler led, whose home is Astaroth and his seat in Edrei. His land is given to two tribes to plow, and to the half-tribe, while the joyful and grassy valley pleases—to Reuben and Gad together and their ally Manasseh. The rest the just leader divides among all his allies. There is added the region where Lebanon issues into the breezes, and the sea of Misrephoth and the fruitful fields of Sidon. The Lord deprives the Levites of the name of estates. Balaam falls, wont to foretell things to come.

But Caleb, the comrade and ever joined to the leader, bearing a kindred heart, supported by a placid breast, speaks: "Known to you, leader, is the resolve of our mind from that time already, when, sent alike to view the hostile lands, while all were trembling, I alone, with you as my fellow, declared that nothing could resist us; however much the immense giants might wage new wars, that God would stand against them and assist our side. Surely you hold how the gracious elder promised us all the greatest things, and by a separate lot gave this hill to me and to all of mine. And now, since the war that remains is against the Anakim nation, with my kindred youth I will wage it—not degenerate in age, although the twice-fortieth year now rolls round for me. Be mindful of the order, and assign the seat to me who ask it,

that my sons and the offspring of my sons may hold it as their own." Him, asking such things, he settled on the hill of Hebron. There is added too, not unworthy of great cities, Ardoc. When this was done, he hastens to cut off the nation of Debir, whose accustomed work was that docile children should write out words and the grave masters dictate the elements to the boys. He draws forth a man unto the covenants of his promised daughter, whose valor was ready and his spirit present in his breast. Meanwhile, all the peoples being compelled to serve, the Jebusite band does not cease from its ancestral fields, with the Canaanite persisting at home and in the dwellings of his parents. The rest, measured out, is handed over to thrice-three tribes. To the Levites by merit he sets apart twice three cities and gave them for refuge to one fearing a guilty deed done, lest the penalty should afflict the expiations admitted by chance. Which things the chiefs decree, having weighed them.

to weigh in the balance, that a fitting death might condemn the guilty by a graver deed. He himself devotes forty cities to the Levites, exempt from tribute. Then, with the people's harmonious voice, he receives, for the time to come, the hill of Ephraim, upon the joined city, to which the name Timnath remained. Here he established knives prepared from the hard rock, with which he had cut off the parts unseemly to be named. All things being unfolded, his allies wishing to return across the pools of wandering Jordan, he imbued with these beginnings: "A band pleasing to us and chosen by the holy Thunderer, by brave deeds you have earned equal honors with those whom the Almighty gave to all who built their homes upon these hills. And now return, rejoicing. This one thing, on behalf of all, I will often admonish you, repeating it:

that you may be mindful with how great and unending care the Almighty cherishes you; and that you may know the rewards which He has given you, and the things which He has appointed to be done with holy words must be observed; for life everlasting is sought by these means, if the grace of God's law abides unviolated and ever dwells in the heart. Therefore let God and Lord at once be feared, and be loved with all our inward parts and our whole breast; thus it shall come to pass that the nations are pressed beneath your yoke. When he had spoken these words and asked all by entreaty, they perform the journey begun and draw near to the river, and they set up a conspicuous structure with a turreted summit. When these monuments, made by the nine tribes, came to light, as though forgetful of the Lord they desire to clash together in war; yet first messengers were sent who might learn the truth for certain.

Phineas is named, the shining heir of Aaron, and the ten foremost of the tribes by merit and by rank, who, mindful, unfold together the commandments of the elders and the fathers, though the sorrowful men had committed no crime: "Tell us, what was the purpose of this altar that was raised? Has God passed from your mind? Or the oracles of the holy law? Do you then, having forsaken the Thunderer, seek heathen rites, and you, the living, build altars for the dead? Did not Peor give to all no small warning, when, condemned for the wretched and hideous outrage, it perished? These things both peoples and fathers command in hatred against the nations, while they make ready civil war and take up arms again. Were not the acres of land given to you small? — the land that pleased you? Or, if you wish to extend and enlarge your borders, take from our own fields:

so long only as the synagogue remain ever devoted to the heavenly Thunderer as a parent, and stand not in discord apart from us. Let the deed of mad Achar admonish the senses, when he fashioned dead idols out of unyielding stones. Did not headlong evil work the guilt contracted, an avenger who smote the people for the offence of one man?" They, humble, reply such things with gentle words: "We worship Him who created all by His holy word, and who sees the crimes that cling in the silent inward parts; nor is there need that we summon witnesses to public deeds: God Himself knows what cause raised the altar. Our care was to found at the river a structure that should endure, that there may remain a testimony of the land we have taken: lest at some time the divided oracles of the holy temple of the believers become a reproach to the offspring to come. We know nothing of libations offered to empty gods.

No indeed! May no such madness change the godly, that anything should please which displeases the high Lord! For us alone is it lawful to slay and lay low those things which the synagogue is wont to offer to the eternal God." At these words their faith was made plain, and the peaceful tribunes, leaving them adorned with the praises of their merits, departed rejoicing. Meanwhile the seer, now aged by long years, fills the summoned people with faithful admonitions: "You see, citizens, how long-lived old age already weighs me down, and my limbs are slowed by their final motion; and now I either admonish, or, if it displease not, I entreat, that your life and law be God, ever upon your lips, and that a mindful resolve unfold with remembering speech what He has bestowed on us and on all the fathers of our parents.

For the wild nations, whose realms you now hold, neither did our sword subdue, nor did our bow lay low, but the Lord, who in His mercy went before our standards and our column, going ahead of us whenever the foe drew near; who, having sent forth chilling dread, brought so many peoples low and willed that kings should fall before us; and who, preparing empty fields for our husbandmen, after war and arms bade wild beasts burst forth, that with hired jaws they might consume what remained. Therefore come, and learn how the sea was dried up for you, and the river, stopping its flow in an unwonted manner, frozen solid, if the slender wave above is not yet bound into ice, hardened by the warm summer heat: that God may receive deserved praises for His vast deed through the mighty ages.

while in harmonious applause the tongue sings that nothing is more exalted than the one God. Go on whither the teachable judgment of the law leads, lest your course, driven into varied windings, go astray. Let no idols of any conquered nation survive. Let the Lord be to you the lofty God and the mighty God. But if empty and dead deities please you, and are dear to your heart, say so — I will depart, lest worshippers of vanity bring harm. Choose, O all of you, the things that are fitting for you. The Almighty forsakes the rebels and rejects them afar, He who once, under the monuments of pestilent Balak, promised all things glad rather to His friend the seer. Behold what you hold, what mighty foes you have routed, and how much God adds to all the faithful. Worship Him, and join your strong minds to His law." The harmonious judgment of the people answered the seer: "Receive!

Great one among leaders, what our trust is: Him who deigned to lead us forth from the lands of the Nile we worship, and we all acknowledge that He alone is the God of heaven and earth and of the deep sea, at whose command the waters of the Red Sea lay open, and who gave signs full agreeable to our prayers, who subjected all the nations to our steps." When the people had with faithful speech declared these things, the praiseworthy page is read with sanctifying beginnings. The old man himself sets up a rock of terebinth in the record, that it may be a witness to be known of perpetual faith. Therefore, his life's deeds being fulfilled, the best of leaders, whose life had been stretched through a hundred years and ten, having duly finished, gives his limbs to the tomb on the hill of Ephraim, which had been fitting for his abode: by no friend is he mourned, for the merit of his righteousness:

only knives they laid together upon the tall heaps of ashes, with which the Jewish youth had been circumcised, and the bones of Joseph were laid in Shechem. They rest, in which place the limbs of Jacob too had been entombed. After him Eleazar leaves his earthly affairs. So, when so great men had finished their distinguished deeds, the Gentile people took up worship and idols, fleeing from the Lord of the earth and the Lord of the heavens. They are subjected to Eglon as tyrant on account of their deeds, and lived captive for twice-twenty years. After Jesus (Joshua) had departed with his conspicuous deed, and God had given His servant rest after wars, at once Judaea, swelling, demands a king for itself,

and begins to ask the Lord what His judgment is, that the Canaanite band, not yet subdued by war, that was stirring its rival hearts with warlike tumult, might grow accustomed to come to the commands with the sword shaken off. Judah is appointed for these, who with his brother Simeon, when battle is joined, at once destroys the Canaanites. Together with these the Perizzites are mingled and laid low in slaughter: nearly ten thousand fell in shed blood. He himself, the head of the war, the cause of great evils, was the leader and prince Adoni-bezek: straying, he is seized and pays deserved penalties for his crime. For with hands and feet alike cut off without measure, he mourns with abundant tears the limbs which he no longer has, and those he still bears, while as a wicked man he rages with like deed: seventy royal bodies he had before mutilated.

Therefore he paid the penalties which he himself had inflicted, and, suffering fitting evils, he died at Jerusalem and left his kingdom. Jerusalem itself too is taken, and, scorched by flames, it fell, swiftly overthrown in vast ruin; afterward Hebron fell, and the Canaanite youth that holds the lofty heights of land rising into the air. Debir is afterward taken, fruitful in trembling warfare, foreknowing how to unfold the numbers of the learned-speaking tongue, and the more readily its walls might slip in swift collapse, Caleb the father offered to join his daughter Achsah in marriage to him who, lofty with strong arms, should overturn the slanting citadels from their foundations. Forthwith, inflamed for the use of the promised bride, Othniel, the praised offspring of Kenaz; and when, his vows accomplished, he filled up his joys.

he receives, with a great dowry from her father, the well-earned bride. For she gave lofty lands, the acres steep on the curving hills, and provided the desired use of springs. The dismissed Phoenicians hasten and, leaving the familiar walls, search out the lonely sands of the desert. Swiftly they come where the roused south wind spreads its wings and veils the stars with shadowy clouds. A home is made for both, which they call by the name Arad. And Amalek, admitted, is joined to the pleasing fields. Thence Judah seeks Zephath, with the Canaanite inhabitant, and addresses the subdued land with a grim name, that it might be banished and ever made apart. Gaza alone he could not subject to the sceptre, and Ashkelon and Ekron, nor bring under the borders of Ashdod.

He himself, trusting in God and joined to the eternal Lord, was gaining easy successes in every war. He possessed the mountain, because he was not strong enough to subdue the curving valley, which had been a vow to mighty Caleb. These deeds done, the cohort of Joseph with Judah as avenger hasten to Bethel to destroy it with warlike sword. Thereupon the routed band conceives wrath as it returns, and, kindled by its own wounds, comes forth more warlike. And now it strips the conqueror of his lifted honour, and bids the imposed Amorite pay tribute, and, punished with a great part of his lands, it constrains him. For where Idumaea lies flat with teeming soil, and where the rugged rocks of overhanging Crabina swell, the conqueror holds all; servitude presses the subdued. Amid these things the Lord shakes His pent-up wrath.

And He bids His servant descend from the heavenly realms, who, mindful, should bring forth the eternal sayings of the Lord. He flashes forth flying, visiting Bochim from Gilgal. Coming to Bethel, in which the Jewish youth had taken sweet ease, their wars lulled to sleep, having venerated the Gentile gods, and had now long since given profane incense — harmful — to graven stones. Therefore he approaches them with these words and terrifies the fearful: "Forgetful of My command and oblivious of your own affairs, whither, Judaea, do you rush? Or what deities do you now fashion? Or what superstition is it to set earth before heaven and to stand by gods of clay in mad worship? Where has He gone, the God, profane one, who, while you groaned in hardship among the nations of the Nile under the tyrant Pharaoh,

through the divided sea, through the parched rocks of the desert, displayed His power, and granted that so great nations should yield to you, so that you, victorious and at once finished with all your wars, should melt away and consecrate other rites and rituals than those which the rule of the heavenly law had given you. Behold, you hold the land, sworn to the holy seers, which was, and is given to the chosen people through the ages. The covenants of My word are now no longer acknowledged, by which, mingled with the Gentile peoples and ill-counselled, you entreat mute things, the pledges of craftsmen, as gods. Nay rather, it had befitted your life to crush all things and to turn away the feigned worships. But because no trust was given to My commands, I will give the kingdoms to the conquered;

and you in turn I will send beneath the yoke, that you may become like the gods whom you believe to exist." After Judaea received these commands of God, she turns to groans and, beating her sorrowful breast, with abundant tears asks pardon; nor was there any delay to her vows, and as they sought through the holy temples of God, piety attends them, which gladly unseals glad things to the sorrowful. Therefore the scattered people gladly hastens back to its familiar dwellings, and gave to the place a lamentable name. Again their hearts waver, they return to their accustomed crimes and worship the Baalim; for thus offending the Lord, by their feigned deities they sustain deserved penalties. They are subjected to the lords whom they had conquered — alas, dread grief! — nor does any answering valour respond for the wretched. Soon the wrath of God is softened, and leaders are appointed.