Faith of My Fathers (8 page)

3

K
ING
M
ANASSEH HAD SLEPT POORLY
, his sleep disturbed by restless dreams of intrigue and conspiracy. He didn’t know who to trust in his nightmares, as one by one his faithful servants and friends turned against him, plotting to stab him or strangle him while he slept.

As soon as it was light, Manasseh dressed and began to sort through the scrolls and documents his soldiers had confiscated from Isaiah’s house. He separated them into piles on the table in front of him, laboring to make sense of them. On one pile he placed the prophecies that had already been fulfilled: words of warning to King Ahaz; Eliakim’s rise to power; the destruction of the northern nation of Israel; the promise of deliverance from Sennacherib’s forces. The size of the pile and the startling accuracy of Isaiah’s predictions stunned him. He had never realized how truly powerful Isaiah was.

A second pile held oracles against other nations: Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Cush, Edom. Some of these predictions had already been fulfilled. Others, like the final destruction of the dreaded Assyrian Empire, had not.

On a third pile he placed prophecies that peered ahead into the distant future. These described the cataclysmic devastation of the earth itself and talked of a future kingdom in which the wolf would live with the lamb, and the lion would eat straw like the ox.

Ox
—the soldiers hadn’t found Ox. Manasseh still called Joshua by his boyhood nickname, even though he had finally outgrown his adolescent clumsiness. The fact that Ox had gone into hiding, successfully eluding the king’s soldiers, proved that he was indeed part of Isaiah and Eliakim’s conspiracy. Manasseh didn’t want to believe that his trusted friend would betray him, too, but now that Ox had vanished, Manasseh had no choice.

He found only one prophecy that might foretell his own future. In it Isaiah warned King Hezekiah that some of his descendants would be carried off to Babylon at a future time. But it seemed unlikely that one of those descendants would be Manasseh. Babylon was no longer a major world power. The Assyrians had conquered the city several years ago and demolished it. Manasseh placed the scroll on a pile with a host of other confusing predictions that foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of his nation, not by the brutal Assyrians, but by the Babylonians.

Next Manasseh picked up a small scroll made of much finer parchment than all the others. As soon as he unrolled it, he recognized his father’s distinctive handwriting. Across the top Isaiah had written,
A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery
. The parchment contained a psalm, written by his father in the style of their famous ancestor, David.

Manasseh had never seen the poem before or even known such a psalm existed. Stunned, he began to read. He heard Hezekiah’s voice in the words, saw his expressions and gestures between each line. When Manasseh finished reading, his eyes were wet with tears. This priceless legacy from his father belonged to him, not to Isaiah. Why did the rabbi have it among his scrolls? How had he managed to steal it from the palace?

Manasseh laid it aside, determined to unravel Isaiah’s complicated conspiracy, and he began to reread all of the prophecies that might hint of intrigue. In some passages the rabbi spoke of deliberately causing confusion:
“Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but
never perceiving”
and
“Bind up the testimony and seal up the law among my
disciples
.” But what worried Manasseh the most were references to a mysterious servant—
“my chosen one in whom I delight;”
a child who would
“reign on David’s throne”
and be worshiped as
“Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God.”

Who was this servant? When had they planned for this coup to take place? Manasseh remembered the day the blind woman had looked into Joshua’s palm.
“The authority belongs to you, but he will be
much more powerful.”
Could their intended usurper be Joshua?

Manasseh still planned to offer Isaiah and Eliakim a fair trial, of course, allowing them the opportunity to present evidence in their defense. But before that took place, he needed to question the strange man he had found murmuring in the cemetery last night. Perhaps Zerah had additional proof to back up his accusations.

The guards brought Zerah to the king’s chambers with his wrists and ankles in shackles. He tried to bow, but the ankle chain was too short, making it difficult for him to rise again without a guard’s help.

His forehead was damp with perspiration, his lips white with pain.

“Are you ill?” Manasseh asked.

“It’s my wrist. I think the bone is broken. I’ve been suffering all night.”

“Send for one of my physicians,” Manasseh told his servants. “Tell him to bring bandages and a splint.” The guards hauled over a bench for Zerah to sit on while he waited for the royal physician.

“I’ve begun to investigate your accusations of conspiracy, Zerah. You were correct when you predicted that Isaiah would refuse to reveal my future. Also, that my palace administrator would support him.”

“I’m not surprised, Your Majesty.”

“But the soldiers who searched both houses found only vague references to a conspiracy.” He gestured to the piles of scrolls on the table in front of him.

“They are supremely clever, Your Majesty. Any evidence that might condemn them would be cleverly hidden among the words of innocent-looking documents.”

“A code?”

“Exactly.”

“Then let me read one of them to you: ‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders . . . Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne. . . .”’

“Vague words, but their intent is clear, King Manasseh. They planned to replace you with their own man.”

Manasseh stood and walked a few steps to his window, turning his back on Zerah, unwilling to reveal how upset he was by Zerah’s interpretation. “You should also know,” he said, striving to keep his voice steady, “that the soldiers found no mysterious books of incantations or magic spells, nothing to prove that Isaiah put a curse on my father.”

“Did you find anything that belonged to your father among Isaiah’s things?”

Manasseh felt as if all the blood had drained from his body as he remembered the psalm his father had written. He whirled to face Zerah. “Yes. Why?”

“In order to invoke a curse, Isaiah would have needed something that belonged to his victim. Something very personal.”

“I found a psalm my father wrote after he nearly died. It was in his own handwriting.”

Zerah nodded. “It would have given Isaiah power over him.”

Manasseh was grateful for the interruption when the royal physician arrived. He needed time to absorb this news.

“Where would you like me to treat him, Your Majesty?” the physician asked.

“Do it here. Unshackle him.” Manasseh sank into his seat again, watching in silence as the doctor carefully examined the prisoner’s wrist. Zerah uttered only a faint moan as the doctor realigned the bones, but he appeared pale as the doctor affixed the thin wooden splint to his wrist with bandages.

“How did you break your wrist?” the doctor asked as he worked.

Zerah glanced up at the king. “It happened during my arrest.”

When the physician finished, he took a square of linen and tied Zerah’s arm in a sling. “It won’t be possible to shackle his wrist for a while, Your Majesty.”

“The shackles are no longer necessary,” Manasseh said. “You may remove the ones on his ankles, as well.”

After the doctor left, Zerah bowed low to Manasseh once again. “I am very grateful, Your Majesty.”

“Can you decipher this code for me? I need proof of their conspiracy.”

“You won’t need to decipher it in order to convict your enemies. The rabbi’s own words will witness against him. I’ve heard his so-called prophecies. He preaches things that contradict the Laws of Moses. May I show you?” Zerah gestured to the scrolls piled in front of the king.

Before Manasseh could reply, the shofar trumpeted from the Temple Mount, announcing the morning sacrifice. “I’ll have my servants carry these to Eliakim’s office,” Manasseh said. “You may take all the time you need to read through them.”

“How many blasphemies do you require in order to convict him, Your Majesty?”

“The Torah requires two witnesses for the death penalty. But find three, an extra one for good measure.”

“Very well, Your Majesty.”

“ ‘I cry to you, O Lord . . . Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need.’ ” Joshua paused to shift positions. His back and neck ached from standing bent in the cramped cistern, but if he stood straight, he would hit his head on the stone lid that sealed him in. He needed to rest his legs for a while. He lowered himself into the water, careful not to slip on the slimy stone floor as he had done earlier that night. When first lowered into the cistern, Joshua had panicked and, with his hands tied behind his back, had nearly drowned before righting himself in the water.

Joshua knelt, the icy water reaching to his chin. But if he sat down, it would cover his head. He shivered in the darkness. “ ‘Set me free from my prison that I may praise your name.’ ” He finished reciting the psalm of David for the forty-second time. Or was it the fortythird? He had lost count.

Would this long night never end? He tried to doze to help pass the time, but his shivering always awakened him, along with the continual struggle to breathe. His air passages had swollen shut, allowing only a thin stream of air in and out. Each breath whistled like the night wind through tree branches. He recited to stay calm, aware that panicking would only make the breathing attack worse.

“ ‘I cry aloud to the Lord,’ ” he prayed, starting at the beginning again. “ ‘I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.’ ” He twisted his hands, trying in vain to untie himself so he could push the stone lid off. His wrists chafed from rope burns. Maki had tied his hands too tightly. Joshua had tried repeatedly to push the lid off with his back and shoulders but, although he had to bend his neck when he stood, he couldn’t quite get his back under the stone, even standing on his toes.

Was he imagining it, or was the cistern growing a little brighter? Perhaps the new day had finally dawned and the light was filtering through the channel that brought rainwater into the cistern. He thought about calling for help but couldn’t draw a deep enough breath to yell.

Joshua could no longer kneel in the chilly water. He stood again and wiggled his toes, which were growing numb. What had gotten into Maki? And why didn’t Yahweh help him?

As if in answer to his prayer, Joshua heard the scrape of stone as the cistern lid slid to one side. The light of early dawn blinded him. He looked up, squinting, and saw Maki’s dark face and his silver hair and beard.

“Master Joshua, I will feed you some food now. Then you must hide again.”

“No, Maki, please! I’ll die if you don’t get me out of here!” The effort to talk made Joshua cough—deep, wracking coughs that came from low in his chest. His lungs had started to fill with fluid. He hadn’t had an attack this serious since Manasseh had stranded him in the almond grove in the pouring rain when they were boys. The fever that followed had nearly killed Joshua. “Please, Maki, don’t leave me in here.”

“But it’s not safe to come out yet.”

“Abba, look at him—he’s shivering. He’s sick.” The young woman they had awakened last night appeared in the semidarkness behind Maki’s shoulder. “We have to get him out of that cold water.”

“Yes! God of Abraham . . . please!” Joshua begged.

Maki stared at him for a moment as if deciding. “All right. Help me lift him, Miriam.” They grabbed Joshua beneath his armpits and strained to pull him out. His chest and stomach scraped along the rough plaster walls.

“I’m too heavy . . . untie me . . . let me climb out.”

“I can’t untie you, Master Joshua, until I’m certain you won’t try to run away. Nathan, Mattan, come help us.” Two small boys, about six and eight years old, appeared behind Maki. They couldn’t possibly lift him out, but they bent over the cistern to help, tugging on Joshua’s soaked clothes. Joshua used his legs to push, and after several minutes of heaving they finally succeeded in pulling him from the cistern. He lay on his side on the dirt floor. His drenched robes turned the dirt to mud in a puddle beneath him. He wanted to thank them for saving him, but a spasm of coughing overwhelmed him and he couldn’t talk. The pain in his chest was agonizing.

“He’s shivering, Abba,” the girl said. “We have to get him out of his wet clothes.”

“But there’s nothing else for him to wear.”

“Wrap my blanket around him until his clothes dry. Let him sit by the fire.”

Joshua lay on the floor, helpless, while they talked about him as if he couldn’t understand. “Untie me,” he begged, but he could say no more because every time he tried to talk he started coughing again.

“Turn around while I undress him, Miriam. It’s not decent for you to help.” Maki tied Joshua’s ankles together with another piece of rope as the girl turned her back. He briefly untied Joshua’s hands and stripped off his wet clothes, then quickly tied him again. Joshua was too weak to take advantage of his moment of freedom. Maki wrapped a filthy, tattered blanket around him and dragged him over to the hearth.

Gradually, Joshua began to feel the fire’s warmth. His every breath was audible, like a prolonged gasp. “Maki . . . why?”

“I told you why, Master Joshua. The king’s soldiers are searching for you. It isn’t safe. You must hide.”

“How long . . . are you going . . . to keep me here?”

“I don’t know. I need to find a way to smuggle you out of Jerusalem.”

Despair engulfed Joshua like the cold waters of the cistern. No one knew where he was. How would they ever rescue him? Maybe he would die here in the hands of this madman before Abba could find him. He shivered with cold and the beginnings of illness while the two ragged boys stared down at him as if he were a captured animal in a cage. He felt like an animal, too, lying naked beneath the blanket, bound hand and foot, stripped of his dignity as well as his clothes. He was an important court official, the future palace administrator. He wanted to weep at the injustice and at his own helplessness.