I am in the process of writing this book of historical fiction based on
1st Samuel. This is a teaser
chapter.
Click here to see some questions answered
about this book. Click here
to give me helpful feedback as I write.
Selah and the Sword
~
Benaiah of the Mighty Men
“This
sword is a thing of beauty. I think it’s
more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever seen,” Ben said.
“No sword
is more beautiful than a woman,” Jonathan the Prince of
“Lord,
none of us are used to seeing iron swords, much less folded iron like
this.” Ben looked down at the grey blue
shaft lying across the towel in his hand.
His large nose looked even larger in the bevel—as when trimming his hair
looking in the bottom of a Phoenician glass bowl.
Jonathan
sat crosslegged on his mat next to the fire in the
center of his tent. His mother and
sister had woven the wool for this tent when he was just a boy. They and others like them were far more valuable
than this sword. He was getting a little
irritated with his armor-bearer and wanted to make a point with him now. “A pig-tending Philistine maid is more
beautiful than any sword.”
“His
guards said the King killed 5 Philistines soldiers in that town with a club and
a dagger, and then camped there for a week while their smith made him two
swords of unequal balance and beauty.
One for his son and one for himself: the Sword of the Lord.” Does he really forget that this sword
strikes fear into his army and gains respect among the Philistines—those
uncircumcised pigs who have ensured we do not have the
ironskill?
This is the renowned Sword of the King to Come,
the heir of our people, the hope of our future.
How can he despise it?
The
Israelites were continually oppressed by the Philistines. They had been at war for only a few
months. Before the war, they were
knocked about like flies on the hind end of a cow. For decades, the Hebrew people were not so
much threats to the Philistine people as they were a nuisance. For this reason, they were periodically
enslaved or raided with impunity.
The Judges
had risen up to beat the Philistines off their Israelite backs. However, as the people slipped back into
their old ways and copied the lives of others in their Canaanite lands, they
slipped into a willing bondage to the Philistines, who were more cunning in
battle, more adept in the arts of war, and more equipped in weaponry than the
Israelites could hope to be.
“Do you
think I don’t know the legend, Ben? My
father has slain his thousands.” At this
Jonathan looked up from his scroll and moved a shock of his straight black hair
from his eyes—the hair that marked him, as much as his sword, as the son of
Saul the King. “But mark my words, my
armor-bearer. A barren old woman with
more warts than hairs is more beautiful than that sword.”
Ben put
the sword into its leather scabbard. It
made a noise that made him smile. Now
that’s a sword. He rolled back on
his mat in the Prince’s tent and let loose a longing distant breath.
Jonathan
interrupted his armor-bearer’s evening dream by grabbing his favorite shortbow and quiver off his mat: “You must come to know the
meaning of my words, Ben. A sword is a
tool. No different than a plow or a
saw. One tool cuts trees, another turns
soil. This one just happens to cut limbs
and turn Philistines into corpses.” He
grabbed the sword from Ben’s side by its belt straps.
“Now
that’s my kind of talk, Lord,” Ben said to the Prince. All the talk of warty women and pig-maids
was no help to my battle dreams.
The
Philistines knew the Hebrews saw this as their hour of rebellion. A slave receives the harshest beating after
attempting to escape. So the Philistines
were beating the Israelites with every club and whip at their disposal. Blood-lusty soldiers had gone forth toward Ophrah, Beth Horon and the
borderlands toward the desert with one purpose: to remind their humble Hebrew
neighbors that they were still flies on their rumps, easily swatted.
King Saul
had some victories against the Philistines however. When the Hebrews caught wind of these
battles, Saul seemed even taller than they remembered, at least head and
shoulders taller than their smallish race.
Saul had surprised a band of raiders, leaving behind many dead Hebrews
in Zorah, a Danite tribal
village. As the Philistines came through
a narrow pass in the
Quickly
the Prince told him, “Get up, Ben.
Haven’t you learned that when we sleep the enemy sleeps?”
“Scouting
again?” Ben said out of the corner of his mouth with a sigh.
“We’ve
scouted more than I care to recall.” The
Prince followed the smoke up as it breathed out through the darkened wool
weavings at the peak of the tent. He
squinted at the smoke and said, “We hide in caves and scatter into villages
like rats before buzzards. Father said
he wanted to know the exact number of our enemy encampment. We’ve scouted so long from the brambles I
know how many freckles are on the hind end of their commanders.”
“What are
you saying? A raid on their scouts
instead?”
“We shall
see what the Lord will do, Ben. But
remember my teaching tonight. No sword
is more beautiful than a woman. It is
only a tool.”
Ben bowed,
“When you are king your wisdom will serve you as well as your military mind,
Lord.”
“When I am
king I’d be wise to concern myself with beautiful women more than swords. When this war began we had many beaten bronze
swords and beautiful bronze women. But
with Goliath and his brothers raiding our towns we have less of both than
ever—and no iron swords but two. Tonight
God may grant that we pay them back for their defiance of his Law. Perhaps I should slay one of them for every
bastard Philistine that is now growing in the raped wombs of our women. Grab the rest of my armor and I’ll tell you
on the way. We’ll sneak out the back
flap and through the goatherds to the East.
Stay low and keep that nose to the ground. We don’t want Father’s guards seeing the
mountain on your face glimmer in the moonlight.”
~
So Prince
Jonathan and his armor-bearer Ben shuffled through the moonlight goatherds of
the village. They crossed two dry
streams, three dewy hills and came to the cliff of Bozez. Stopping in a grove of olive trees, the
armor-bearer pulled out a skin of water for them both.
Jonathan
breathed heavy as he said, “Three scouts from the tribe of Issachar
reported to me this morning that the bulk of the Philistine encampment is now
next to the cliff of Seneh across from this
gorge. Two armies have joined the three
that were already there.”
“Shiloh is
not too far from here,” Ben said as he thought through the horror of
“Whatever
the case, I’m guessing they are amassing their troops for some reason beyond
that of a party. I believe that God may
be delivering the Philistines into our hands this day.”
A smile
broadened across Ben’s face. He will
not let it happen. The Prince has a plan
in mind.
Ben always
knew when Jonathan had a plan. Instead
of his wistful and brooding self, the King’s son became focused like an eagle
on prey when he had a plan. His mind
would circle about the target and all other distractions would be merely wind
on wings. He had seen Jonathan kill men
like hopeless rodents running toward their holes. He had not killed many men himself. By carrying around Jonathan’s heavy armor and
weaponry he had grown into a mountain of a man to match his mountain of a
nose. He could never figure out what
Jonathan was thinking—only that he was thinking in the first place. Benaiah was the cart and Jonathan the horse. The body to his head. Wherever the horse-head thought to go the
cart-body followed.
“Stow all
our gear here by this rock,” Jonathan said.
“All but the armor and weapons. We will show ourselves to the Philistine
lookouts over on the Senah side. These uncircumcised brutes will no doubt
threaten our lives with all the poetry their pig-minds can muster, but God will
give us a sign. If they tell us to stay
put and that rangers will come to kill us, then we will know the time is not
right and we will go and report to the King.
But if they say that we should come up to them so they can kill us, then
we will know that the Almighty One, whose name we cannot utter, has given us
this day, and we will go to them and slay them until either we are dead or they
are.”
Benaiah
sat on the rock with stunned silence.
He is insane to take on the entire army of our enemy in the middle of
the night.
“Cheer up,
Son of Jehoiada.
This we know: the LORD is on our side.
Shema O Israel, the LORD your God…” Jonathan paused the daily prayer of their people as he rocked back
and forth on the rock.
This man, my Prince, is either insane or the
greatest Hebrew that has drawn air since Moses… Ben thought. He joined
Jonathan at that point of sacred creed, “…the LORD is one…”
Two
Israelites chanted and rocked under the olive trees that night; two brave
Hebrews devoted themselves to their Lord and to each other. They were dreaming of their noble deaths and
the glory it would give their God and their people.
~
© 2006 by David Drury
I am in the process of writing this book of
historical fiction based on 1st Samuel. This is a teaser chapter.
Click here to see some
questions answered about this book.
Click here
to give me helpful feedback as I write.
Publishing information:
To inquire about publishing this or other copyrighted pieces
simply contact David Drury at [email protected]
All rights reserved.
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