This is a submission for my Isaiah class. It is four and a quarter pages long. It was written in one sitting and was reviewed only once. I'm interested in hearing impressions about voice and how to develop character by situation, what they notice and think, as well as dialog. Tschuess!
God with us.
I was on the city wall when Rabshakeh the traitor spoke to the servants of the king. “What makes you think you can rebell against the king of Assyria? Do you think Egypt will save you? The pharaoh is a broken reed, and if you lean upon him you'll only cut yourselves on him. Or do you think you can depend on Jehovah, whose altars Hezekiah has torn down in favor of his temple in Jerusalem?” Rabshakeh turned up toward the wall and away from the king's servants and pointed right toward me and my fellows on the wall. “If there were even two thousand men in this city, we'd give you horses for them to ride just to make things more interesting! So how can you stand here and tell me that you intend to stand ten minutes against my master, mighty Sennacherib?” Then he and his entourage began laughing.
I shifted my spear back and forth uncomfortably. Everything he had said was true. I looked down the wall, noting that about one in every three spots lay empty. We wouldn't last even five minutes if the army which took Lachish marched on Jerusalem. Too many people had left the city for the countryside, hoping to escape the brunt of Assyrian anger. Why had the king thought to anger the Assyrians? Now we were doomed to their wrath. I spat angrily. The soldier to my left looked at me in surprise but all eyes were quickly back on Rabshakeh as he shouted again at the city walls.
“Besides, do you really think that Jehovah would have let us take every walled city in the country if we weren't sent by him? No, no, Jehovah sent a message by his prophets to Sennacherib, saying, 'Go up against Judah, and destroy it,' and we have faithfully fulfilled his command!”
The master of the king's house stepped closer to Rabshakeh and hissed something, but Rabshakeh interrupted him by shouting, “The better question is, why shouldn't I speak in Hebrew? My master has sent me to tell those men on the walls that they have a choice, either to eat and drink their own wastes with you while you rot inside your fortress, or to surrender and inherit a fertile land where every man can eat from his own vine.” He turned directly to us again and shouted, “It's entirely up to you to believe whether or not Hezekiah, who has taken away all the altars of Jehovah, can really suggest that now he has your god's approval against an army that so clearly has been successful. But if I were you, I wouldn't stick around to see what we do to this city.” And with that, he and his servants turned and left. The master of the king's house rent his robe and stalked off through the gate.
I took off my helmet and tossed it against the parapet and sat down with my knees holding up my chin. The soldier who noticed me before picked my helmet up, dusted it off, and set it on the wall above my head. He and I remained in silence for some time while murmuring went up and down the line of soldiers. Then all was quiet, deadeningly so. Finally, the soldier turned to me and said, “You don't have to worry, you know.”
I scrunched up my face and looked at him from under my eyebrows. “You must be an idiot,” I said. “The Assyrians destroyed Lachish and now they'll come up out of their camp and they will flay us alive on a moment's notice. It's all because that fool king of ours decided to play games with the enemies of the greatest kingdom on earth, and expected someone in Egypt to care about us. We've already given those beasts down there everything valuable in the whole city, and now you're telling me I've got nothing to worry about.” I spat again. “That's what I think about Hezekiah and his blasted temple.”
The soldier raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything else for some time. I let him keep watch for the both of us. He nudged me with his foot when he saw the captain of the guard walking up. I jumped to my feet, spear in hand, but the captain was so preoccupied he looked as if he were going to be sick all over the wall that I doubt he would have noticed me if I had been sleeping all across the walkway. Now that I was up, though, I looked out at the huge army that waited a little less than a mile away, down the hill, for our only option: surrender.
My neighbor noticed where I was staring and the sour look on my face and stroked his silvering beard. I caught him looking at me from the corner of my eye and turned sharply to face him. “What do you want?” I snapped. He stopped pulling his beard and shook his head.
“Do you pray much?” he asked, seemingly not having heard me at all.
“I used to at home until some soldiers came and tore down our altar and cut down our grove. Oh yeah, I have the king to thank for that, too,” I snarled, and turned away, intending to ignore him.
“I just thought in absence of anything else constructive to do, we might try it,” he said calmly.
“Do whatever you want, just don't do it aloud or I'll break your jaw,” I mumbled through my arm as I rested my head on the parapet.
My neighbor said nothing. The only thing I could hear was the sound of insects basking in the heat of the valley below before the light faded completely. A boy, whom I also ignored, walked along the parapet distributing torches. My neighbor took one and jammed it into a crack in the wall and lit it with some flint. Then we both looked out at the Assyrians in the distance. Finally, just as the sun disappeared from view, he said, “You know, this isn't the first time Jerusalem's been besieged. We'll be all right, just like we always are when we're trusting in the Lord.”
I could tell this was one of Hezekiah's men, and a religious fanatic no less, so I just spat and tried to ignore him since he wasn't going to talk to me like a rational person. He went on as if he hadn't noticed. “You know, I once saw the prophet Isaiah ben Amoz deliver a message to King Ahaz about the Israelite and Syrian war years before it began.” Since I was ignoring him, I didn't try to stop him. He unfortunately took my silence for permission to continue, which he did at some length as he leaned on the parapet.
“Ahaz had been playing politics himself and had got the nation stuck in a position where he was depending on Assyria to come to his aid. It looked like the only option was going to be a war like this one against both Syria and the Israelites. But what Ahaz didn't remember was that Jehovah had for generations warned Israel that if it didn't shape up, it would be captured and taken away.”
“Thanks for that cheery thought,” I mumbled under my breath. My neighbor didn't seem to mind.
“Isaiah risked his life to go up to the palace and talk to Ahaz, but Ahaz listened to what he had to say. When Isaiah told him that Jehovah would destroy Israel and Syria and told Ahaz not to fear, Ahaz's eyebrows raised almost off of his face. He stroked his beard and said it was good, figuring it would be easier to unite the kingdom if he had the option of calling on a holy man of Jehovah to rally the people. But then Isaiah told him that Jehovah invited Ahaz to ask a sign to prove what he had said was true. Ahaz laughed and said, 'I'll do no such thing!' Isaiah told him that he was wasting both his and God's time, and then went on to prophesy that Israel and Syria would be utterly humbled before a newborn child named Immanuel would know good from evil. As it turns out, that was true, and before the child could grow up, Israel and Syria were gone.”
My impatience bubbled to the surface. “Again, buddy, thanks for the pleasant reminder about destroying countries. It warms me all over inside to think that Jehovah went ahead and explained to Ahaz how well Assyria was going to smash Syria and Israel, since that's what's going to happen to us in the morning. The best thing we could do now is give up before they grind us into bits under their feet.” The words were bitter in my mouth, and I regretted saying them. God had given my family's land to my us almost a dozen generations ago. My forefathers as far back as I could count were buried there, and here we were, probably going to be killed, at best sent to who knows where while someone else tills my land and walks all over the graves of my fathers. I moved a bit further down the wall from him.
My neighbor seemed unperturbed, which was perhaps more evidence of his mental instability. “Well,” he said, “as it turns out Jehovah has said that Judah will not be destroyed at this time. In fact, that same Isaiah prophesied about what's going on now at least fifteen years ago, but the Assyrians won't take Jerusalem. Here on top of these walls, we're pretty safe.”
“Listen, I don't have time for rumors about soothsayers. I've only got a few hours till morning when I've got to figure out how to say, 'I'll do whatever you want, just don't kill me,' in Assyrian. So if you don't mind, I'm going to enjoy my last twilight before I die a slow, agonizing death.”
I looked down the wall in the last rays of the day at the ground a few dozen feet below. Just a headlong jump was all it would take and then the Assyrians couldn't take me alive. If they came up to the walls, would I jump? I didn't hear my neighbor sneak up next to me, so when he spoke I was startled a bit and lost my balance. He grabbed the back of my robe so I wouldn't fall as he continued. “When Isaiah prophesied about that child, he wasn't just guessing. Israel and Syria are gone, just like he said, and Assyria will be to. Just watch.”
A whisper was moving down the wall in the dark. The soldier on my right, who was a full space away and somehow ignored everything the soldier on my left had been spouting, now turned to us and said, “The word of Isaiah ben Amoz, prophet of Jehovah, is this: 'Thus saith Jehovah: Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.' Pass it down.” I ignored him, but my neighbor clapped his hands passed it on down, word for word.
The night began to drag on. The fires at the temple were still burning, and the word along the line was that the king himself was joining the people in sacrifices, singing psalms and announcing that the Ethiopian king was approaching from the south, and that Sennacherib's army would not stay to fight him. The implication was that they would also leave Jerusalem alone.
I didn't want to, but I began to hope a little that the prophet was right. My old grandfather used to worship only Jehovah and would tell stories about how once a year Israelites and Jews would go together to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices to Jehovah in peace. Of course then there was Moses and Joshua, and if the stories were true, Jehovah had protected them and given them all sorts of miracles. Then there were the judges, and David. And though my father and mother had never believed those stories, preferring the gods that Ahaz worshiped, I couldn't help but wonder if there was a God who could do all that, why shouldn't we always worship him?
We all sat in silence under the night sky. Over in the camp of the Assyrians, hundreds of fires were burning. There were probably more campfires than there were Jewish soldiers on the wall. I started shaking, more from cold than horror. The fear was what was keeping me awake, however. My neighbor came up beside me, looking up at the night sky. “It's funny,” he began, “one set of lights in front of us threatens destruction, but there are so many more above us that are singing in harmony about the power of Jehovah, who made them. You know, that prophecy about Immanuel didn't just refer to saving us from Syria and Samaria. Immanuel means, 'God with us,' and it refers to other anointed ones who will save us in our times of need. Jehovah will spare us because he loves us, each of us, and we are his covenant people. The king is in the temple praying right now. Isaiah has been right before, and I know he's right now. Jehovah will send Sennacherib back to Assyria, just as he's promised.” I nodded and leaning on the wall I rested my head on my hands. My neighbor left me alone with my thoughts.
After considering my family outside the city, hopefully still safe and hidden, I decided a little prayer to Jehovah might be worth it. What could it hurt, anyway? “I don't know thy name well,” I began, mumbling so that only I could hear, “and I don't really know what thou desirest of me. I'm about to die, though, and I thought that since I—I don't have any real reasons not to ask for thy help. So here it goes. We can't defeat this army, not now, not ever. But if thou art the one who parted the sea for Moses and knocked down the walls of Jericho for Joshua, hey, this is a piece of cake. So I'm begging thee, send the Assyrians home so that my family can live! I'll find out what thou desirest from me if thou wilt do this thing, and I promise that I will do whatever thou askest, and will worship no other. Just watch over my family, please!”
It was anything but an eloquent prayer, but I felt like it was at least accurate, and I was sincere. I immediately felt a kind of calm wash over me, and I smiled. I looked out at the Assyrian camp and thought of Isaiah's words. God would send a blast and a rumor. I didn't really know what that was supposed to mean, but maybe Sennacherib would just change his mind and take off. I tried to imagine that view of twinkling campfires gone, with just the night to replace it. Whispering on the wind, I heard a psalm that my grandfather used to sing when he was working, or when the insects had eaten the corn:
“Save me, O God; for the waters are come into my soul. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head! But God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession. The seed also of his servants shall inherit it: and they that love his name shall dwell therein...”
I think I fell asleep there on the wall, because I don't remember much else that night. My neighbor watched out for me and made sure I didn't get in trouble with the captain. The next thing I remember was the sound of shouting in the valley. I woke up in the pre-dawn light to the song of birds. My neighbor, grim-faced, stood still, looking out at the Assyrian camp. The morning was calm and peaceful, as opposite to the oppressive and dark feeling of the night before. I marveled at the change. Suddenly, a whole lot of noise started coming from the Assyrian camp. Everyone on the wall got nervous, restrung their bows and adjusted their armor, until it became clear that the Assyrians weren't coming toward us. They were going north, back up the valley. Most of us couldn't believe our eyes, but my neighbor didn't seem to be surprised a bit. He just smiled and said nothing.
We later found out that more than one hundred thousand Assyrian soldiers had died during the night due to an unknown disease, and had retreated. We were dispatched from the city out to the south and had the unpleasant duty of burning the bodies. I did find a good few pieces of gold, though, and a pair of Assyrian steel swords, so I'd say it was definitely worth the awful smell. Within a few days, we were released to go back to our families. I finally asked him his name when I ran into him on the way back to Jerusalem. “Shear-jashub,” he said. “I know it's unusual, but my father insisted.”
I shrugged. “It could be worse. It could be even longer.” He nodded and smiled lopsidedly. “Listen, how did you know all those things about Immanuel?” I asked.
“Well, like I said, I was there. I saw the whole thing. It left a deep impression on me, and I wondered why it was that the Lord had wanted me to be there, so I've pondered it and I've prayed about it for years. I don't know if I've come to a very conclusive answer, but I do know that I've learned more about the Lord thinking about it that I would have just reading someone else's writings, though that's nice too.”
“You can read?” I asked.
He smiled. “Sure. And if you bring your family to visit some time, maybe I can teach you. Just ask for me, I'm the only Shear-jashub in the city.” I chuckled and embraced my new friend before heading out on the road home. My wife and our two young sons would be there, but we would have a lot of work to do. If by the will of God our crops were still alive, we might make it through this harvest. Then, during the winter, I would go to Jerusalem and offer up a lamb at the temple. Maybe I would send my youngest son to Shear-jashub to learn how to read and come back and tell me more about prophecies and Jehovah. There were prophets out where I lived, too. I would invite one to come and eat with us and teach us the law. But first things first: I would remember to thank Jehovah for saving my family and me each morning and each evening. And I would remember how it felt, up there on the wall in the dark night, when he comforted me.
