Caleb Vigilant (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (15 page)

Caleb led his coalition of
three thousand Israelite and Gibeonite forces to the city of Kiriath-arba. They surrounded the valley side of the walled fortress. The backside was a cliff several hundred feet steep and impossible for any military attack. It was both a blessing and a bane for the Anakim. A blessing because it cut off half of the opportunities of hostile forces, and a bane because it meant a higher concentration of those forces on the open fields before the city gates.

The
Anakim had prepared for the impending conflagration. They had sealed up their threefold gates at the approach of the Israelites. Both sides placed watchmen on lookout as the siege began. Caleb’s army was camped a thousand feet away under the cover of the nearby cedar forest.

Caleb
entered his war tent with Othniel as his new Right Hand and his commanders of thousands and hundreds. Six spies had returned with intelligence and were waiting for him.

“What news do you bring?”

“Commander,” said the captain of the spies, “we have canvassed local villages in the area, and we have a possible number of warriors in the city.”

“How many?”

“Three thousand.”

Caleb swallowed. Three thousand human warriors would be
an equal contest with their three thousand. Three thousand Anakim giants, however was a different matter altogether. Those numbers gave the Anakim a three to one advantage.

Caleb could see the fear in the spies
’ faces.

Othniel spoke up,
“We should consult our two Hittite commanders on siege warfare. We can begin building siege engines and mining under the walls.”

The Hittite commanders were from their new vassal city of Gibeon. Their
expertise with siege warfare might just be a providential blessing that came from Joshua’s otherwise mistaken treaty with the Gibeonite deceivers.

Another commander protested, “But that will take too much time.
”

Caleb knew he had to have faith, and to build that faith in his men with strength and courage.

Caleb said,
“I will wait for Joshua to join us with his three thousand within the week. By then we could have mines dug and siege engines built and ready. We will devote them all to destruction as Yahweh commanded.”

The encouragement did not apparently work well for the spies, or the other commanders
as the darkness never left their somber faces.

The
sound of a trumpet drew their attention to the walls of Kiriath-arba. The commanders left quickly for the city front, barking orders to their captains of fifty to assemble for battle. Unlike Caleb, the Anakim were not going to wait for Joshua to arrive.

The Israelites were arrayed in formation three thousand strong, slingers in front, then the Gibeonite infantry, and behind them Israelite archers.

Caleb strode to the front on his horse, followed by
Othniel and his three commanders of thousands.

Another horn blew from above the city gates and the Israelites grew tense.

Caleb shouted, “Be strong and courageous, Israel! For our god Yahweh is a warrior!”

The soldiers responded with a shout through the ranks.

They were ready for anything.

And then, the front gate creaked open just a little. Caleb could barely see it from his distance of a few hundred feet.

But it was opening.

Just enough for a person to walk through.

Enough for nine persons to walk through.

It slammed shut behind them.

The archers nocked their bows.

Caleb yelled, “Hold your fire!”

They were not Anakim. They were not even warriors. It looked like four cloaked priests were leading five young people away from the gates that now slammed shut and locked.

Caleb said to
Othniel and his commanders, “Follow me!”

They galloped out to meet the nine refugees.

When Caleb got closer, he recognized who the young ones were. They were his daughter Achsah and Rahab’s four siblings!

The
“priests” pulled off their hoods to reveal Mikael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel.

Caleb leapt off his horse and ran to embrace Achsah.

She jumped into his arms and he hugged her with all his might.

She was crying.

“My Achsah! My precious Achsah!”

He released her to hug the others, who had gathered around him.

Achsah looked up at Othniel on his horse. He could not break his military posture. He could not jump off his horse and embrace her and tell her he had been a fool and that he had loved her all these years and that he wanted to marry her.

He had a responsibility as the Right Hand of Caleb to be sharp of senses and ready for war.

But she saw
his broad smile and the pools in his eyes that he briskly wiped away.

Caleb looked at the archangels.

“What did you do? How did you acquire their release?”

They were all solemn-faced. Mikael said with urgency, “Not here. Get us back to the camp behind your lines.”

Caleb and the other commanders quickly helped everyone up on the horses to ride tandem back to the Israelite forces.

Achsah
got up on Caleb’s horse with her father, but her eyes were on Othniel the whole time.

They arrived back at the
front line that separated to allow them through and then closed back up again in formation for battle.

•
• • • •

“I do not understand,” said Caleb, “You came from Joshua’s campaign out west in order to secure the release of the hostages?”

“Yes,” said Mikael.

The archangels were alone with Caleb in his war tent. The family members were being safely guarded in the middle of the army camp.

“But why did they give them to you?”
said Caleb.

“Because Joshua turned himself in to Ahiman in
exchange for their release.”

Caleb’s face went white.

“Joshua exchanged himself for my family?”

“Yes.”

“Did you try to stop him?”

Uriel said, “Of course we did.
We are not a bunch of morons.”

Gabriel
explained, “It is the nature of moral freedom. We cannot make you obey.”

“But he is Yahweh’s chosen one to lead the army of Israel,” said Caleb.

“That is what we told him,” complained Uriel. “But he would not listen.”

Mikael said, “He left the leadership of his forces in the hands of
his generals. And he told us that you would do just fine leading the siege of Kiriath-arba.”

Caleb was still incredulous. “I
cannot believe he would do such a foolish thing.”

Mikael now became more sympathetic, “
To the mortal mind, it may seem a foolish thing for a man to give his life in exchange for another. But in Yahweh’s kingdom, it is the essence of redemption. Substitution.”

“But he could have been double-crossed,” said Caleb.

“That is why he made us the negotiators,” said Mikael.

“Why did you not double-cross those evil Anakim?” said Caleb.

Mikael said, “Joshua told us not to. He feared there would be more terrible consequences if we were not completely successful. He did not want to risk the lives of any of your family.”

Caleb said, “And
now they have Joshua and my wife Rahab.”

Mikael said, “The children were mere collateral. Their goal has always been the Chosen Seed
and the leader of Israel.”

“Will you help me liberate
them?” said Caleb.

“Actually, we cannot,” said Mikael. “We have been commissioned by Yahweh on our own course that will lead us far up north.”

“You are leaving me here without your protection against the mightiest of giants in the land, who have the Chosen Seed as
their hostage.”

“Believe me,” said Uriel. “I wish we could change places.”

The others gave him an annoyed look.

Mikael said, “Caleb ben Jephunneh, be strong and courageous.
Be vigilant. Trust in Yahweh, and you shall have victory.”

“That is e
asy for you to say,” said Caleb. “You are archangels.”

Uriel said, “You do not think
we
have to have faith? What do you think it takes to face a Watcher, my witty sense of humor?”

“Leave him be,” said Mikael. “
Caleb’s responsibility is no less than our own.”

Caleb knew he was right. He knew it was all leading to this. Yahweh would test his faith in the fires of adversity to burn out the dross like purified gold.

That night, Caleb prayed for the salvation of Rahab and Joshua from the hands of their enemies.

That night, the archangels
left but did not tell Caleb that they were hunting down Ba’al.

There
had been a change of plans. The angels had originally doubled as guardians to protect the hostage exchange, in order to find out where Ba’al was hiding in the city so that they might catch him and bind him into the earth. But when they entered the gates, they soon discovered that Ba’al had long gone.

But they knew their adversary better than Ba’al’s own priests. They knew he was not running from cowardice. Ba’al was no coward. He was the mightiest of all the fallen Watcher gods. No, Ba’al was calculating. He was fleeing to draw his pursuers into his own web of
power. He had fled to the far reaches of the north, where he had finished building his palace on Mount Sapan.

The gods were strongest on mountains, and the archangels would face their most deadly battle on Ba’al’s own turf
, at the mercy of his cunning devices. Uriel was not joking when he had said he would prefer to have switched places with Caleb. Fighting the giants of Kiriath-arba would be child’s play compared to the maelstrom of unleashed fury that they were walking into.

But rather than take the long over land route of
two hundred miles to Sapan, they decided to ride twenty five miles west to the shoreline city of Ashkelon and take a ship up the coast. It would be quicker.

They could only wonder what diabolical plans Ba’al had in store for
them.

“You what?!” shouted Talmai.

He was in the war room of the king with Ahiman and Sheshai. He was staring at his brother Sheshai with unbelief.

“Those hostages were valuable bargaining shekels for our scheme!”

Sheshai responded, “Calm down, brother. I exchanged them for a more priceless bargaining
shekel.”

“But they are the Seed line. If we do not destroy them…”

“They are not the Seed line. The harlot is. They were mere collateral. Besides, after we win this battle, we will kill them all anyway. So I simply hit two birds with one slingshot. Now we have both the Seed and the Destroyer of Canaan.”

Ahiman
grinned maliciously, “We have Yahweh by his testicles.”

•
• • • •

The dungeon was
cut into the rock about fifty feet beneath King Hoham’s palace. It was a large holding cell behind bars where the Anakim could hold as many as a hundred prisoners. But the only prisoners who resided in it now were Joshua and Rahab.

Joshua
was laid out on his back with a bloody nose, a black eye, and a body full of bruises from his captors. They were not allowed to kill him, but they swatted him around just to vent some of their contempt upon him.

“
I am going to have to move it back into place,” said Rahab. She was referring to Joshua’s nose, crooked from being broken.

He nodded silently.

His head was resting in her lap. He had just come back to consciousness.

She swallowed and placed a hand on each side of his nose, like a potter sculpting clay. She could feel where it was off, and she made one quick movement to
jerk it back into place.

Joshua groaned in pain.

But it was not quite in place.

“I am so sorry, Joshua. One more time.”

She made another quick jerk and she heard the cartilage crunch and felt it finally snap into place.

Joshua
blacked out for a moment.

Rahab cringed.

He became conscious again and sat up. He felt disoriented, but his vision quickly came back into focus as he looked at her. At her dirty, but angelic face. Even in this moment of grave danger it struck him how bewitching and stunning her features were to him.

He shook his head to clear it from
the intrusive thoughts.

“Why did you do it, Joshua?” she said. “Why did you enda
nger the Wars of Yahweh by exchanging yourself for mere hostages?”

Joshua sighed and looked away.
He could not look into her eyes. He was disgusted with himself. He had experienced a personal moment of revelation and repentance from his lustful desire. He had realized he was a failure at living up to Yahweh’s holiness, and had felt a renewed lease on his life. And yet, here he was again, finding himself irresistibly enticed by her alluring beauty like some kind of teenage juvenile. What was wrong with him?

He sighed. “Rahab,
God will not be thwarted if I am dead. He will raise up another to take my place. I am not the indispensable one. You are.”

She covered her pregnant belly and looked away with anger. “Do not say that, my lord
Commander.”

He looked down at her belly. “The child you carry in you is the promised seedline of our
deliverance. Do you despise the word of Yahweh through his prophets?”

Rahab would not answer him.
She was disgusted with herself. After all she had learned about atonement, and after experiencing such grace through the freeing love of Caleb, she still could not believe that Yahweh would choose her for such a royal honor.

Joshua
said, “We were both there, Rahab. There comes a point where you have to trust what Yahweh says of you, and not what you feel or what you see all about you.”

“Even still,” sh
e said, “They did not return me to Israel, they returned my family.”

“
I owed that to Caleb as well,” he said. “And so I am here to protect you.”

She smiled. “You
look like you need protection more than I.”

He shared her smile. “
Now, there you speak the truth.”

He paused a moment to decide how he would say what he would say next.

“Rahab, I was a fool to reject you at first.”

“You have already
apologized and more than made up for such mistakes, my lord.”

“But there is more to it than that,” he said. “I have sought to b
e a holy and righteous man. I have followed the law of Yahweh with rigorous devotion. I thought that my obedience was my assurance and security. Until I met you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yahweh has shown me through you that he accepts
goyim
from any nation who repent and turn to him.”

Her eyes began to tear up.
“Goyim” was the word used of those who were not Israelites and were under the judgment of Yahweh; such as she had been.

N
ow he was looking at her, looking right into her penetrating eyes.

“He has also shown me
through you that I am not the holy man I thought I was.” He hesitated. It was very difficult for him to get it out. “I am as much a man of flesh and weak desire as I am of spirit and faith.”

Suddenly, in her heart, Rahab knew what he was saying
—what he was trying not to say. She wanted to hold him. To share the forgiveness that she had felt. But she dare not.

For she knew that she too felt the flesh and weak desire he was speaking of.

For that moment, Joshua felt the urge to reach out and grab her, draw her to himself and embrace her as a lover. But he turned instead and moved to the iron bars of the cell. “I am as much deserving of judgment as any other alien to the covenant.”

She said
, “Do we not all labor under the conflict of flesh and spirit? Is this not what makes us human?”

Was she offering him an excuse? Was she trying to tell him something?

“It is what makes us human,” he said. “But what makes us holy and separated unto Yahweh, when we have such blackened hearts?”

“Faith,” she said. “It is all I have.”

They were interrupted by the arrival of a contingent of Anakim guards.

One of them said, “The king wants to see you two.”

Joshua and Rahab were taken into the king’s throne room by the giant guards.

Ahiman was seated on his throne of bones, Sheshai stood to his right as usual, and Talmai to his left.

Joshua saw Sheshai whispering to Ahiman when they stepped near the throne.

Sheshai then spoke to them, “Joshua ben Nun, you stand before the mighty King Ahiman of Kiriath-arba. I am his Right Hand, Sheshai of Arba, and this is the general of his forces, Talmai of Arba.”

Joshua
did not want to let Sheshai know that he had met him and Talmai forty years ago when they had been captured spying out the land. Any secret he could keep may become an advantage later—if there was a later.

Instead Joshua stood firm and announced, “King Ahiman, I beg of you t
o release this simple pregnant woman.”

Rahab gave Joshua a dirty look. Simple?

“She is of no value to you. I am the Commander of the forces of Israel. With me, you hold the advantage in this battle.”

Ahiman spoke in his booming voice, “
If she is of no value, then why did you seek to trade yourself, the “strong and courageous commander of Israel” in exchange for this “simple harlot.”

Joshua said, “She is not a harlot.”

Though they were facing certain death in the hands of the enemy, Rahab’s soul rose with hope at the words of Joshua. To hear that pronouncement from the very leader of Israel’s lips made her believe her identity had been transformed. She was a daughter of Israel, an adopted child of Yahweh, the living god. Her past was dead and gone.

But now her future did not look much different.

Sheshai butted in. He was overly eager to be the spokesman and it was obvious. “Many generations ago, your ancestor Abraham and his family infested this land like a plague. He invaded this very city of King Arba, and slaughtered every one of our ancestors with impunity—save one. Abraham did not know that our queen Naqiya would give birth in her death to the child within her womb. That child was Anak, the father of my people. For over four hundred years we have waited for the opportunity to exact revenge upon our enemies, the Seed of Abraham.”

Joshua responded with equal confidence, “The War of the Seed
goes back farther in time. In the Garden of Eden Yahweh pronounced a curse upon the Seed of the Serpent at war with the Seed of Eve. He prophesied that Eve would crush the head of the Serpent. King Ahiman, the creator Yahweh has claimed your land and he will possess it for his people.”

Sheshai and Talmai
laughed. Ahiman did not. He remained rock faced. He stood and walked down to Joshua and Rahab, still staring at Joshua with hardened eyes.

Joshua looked up at his
fifteen-foot tall frame. Massive. Twelve hundred pounds of muscle. Joshua stood in front of Rahab, as if he could protect her from this titan of maleficence.

Ahiman reached down and grabbed Joshua by the neck, lifting him up in the air to be eye level with Ahiman.

Joshua choked and sputtered. He held onto Ahiman’s six-fingered hands so he would not break his neck as if dangling from a noose.

Sheshai spoke behind
Ahiman, “There is only one problem with your zealous bravado, Joshua. We have the Seed of Eve in our hands at this moment. We will crush it, and we will eat it in the face of Yahweh.”

Rahab trembled with horror at her fate.

“King,” said Sheshai, “I have a question for the Commander.”

Ahiman dropped Joshua to the floor and returned to his throne. Joshua and Rahab could see who was the real ruler here in this kingdom.

Joshua rubbed his throat as Rahab helped him back up.

Sheshai said, “
This Caleb, who leads in your absence, does he have your full authority over your forces?”

Joshua said, “Yes. And
he does not need me to grind your army into dust. He is my mightiest gibbor and Yahweh is with him.”

Rahab
spit out, “He will destroy all of you! He is a Karabu warrior!”

The moment after she said it, she regretted it.
She had let her emotions get the better of her. She had stupidly given away a secret that she knew would endanger her beloved. She felt sick to her stomach.

Sheshai grinned and
said, “Thank you for the intelligence, wench. It will help secure our advantage.”

“I have an idea,” said Ahiman. The brothers looked at him. He rarely had ideas of his own. This should be interesting.

“I will propose a face off of singular champions. I am the mightiest of the Anakim, Caleb, of the Israelites. I will challenge this Caleb to a duel.”

Joshua gulped. Rahab went white.

“If Caleb wins, we will return you two worms. If I win, we will flay and gut you both, and eat you on the walls before your armies.”

Ahiman looked at Rahab, “And yo
ur child shall be my dessert.”

Rahab’s entire body trembled
at the thought. She wanted to vomit. But she would not give them the satisfaction.

Sheshai and Talmai were pleasantly surprised at the political
wisdom of their otherwise nonpolitical sibling. There could be nothing more demoralizing than losing their two leaders and their seed of hope.

Caleb
would not stand a chance.