Retribution, page 16
part #3 of City of God Series
Rivka shook her head. “No.” She looked Berenike in the eye. “HaShem showed me nothing. I know certain facts and from these I can make guesses. But these are far away in Rome. I know nothing of what is to happen here.”
“But you can guess?” Agrippa said.
Rivka staggered toward the window, her knees feeling like Jell-O. She leaned her hands on the sill and peered out. “Yes, I can guess. The same things you guess.”
“When word reaches the streets, there will be a riot,” Berenike said.
“Yes.” Rivka’s heart beat madly in her chest.
And you don’t need a seer woman to tell you that.
* * *
Ari
The following morning, at the close of the morning prayers, the synagogue of The Way prayed the Sh’ma together. Ari thought it was a fine way to begin the day, as dawn broke over the city of HaShem, to say the Sh’ma.
The voice of Shimon ben Klopas began the prayer and all the others joined in. “Sh’ma, Yisrael! Adonai, Eloheinu! Adonai echad!” Hear, Israel. The Lord our God. The Lord is One!
Ari loved this prayer, which was already ancient and would live on without change into the far future. Jews for two thousand years would chant the Sh’ma as they died at the hands of Christians who insisted that God was not One but Three. But such evil was yet future. In this year and in this city, men who followed Rabban Yeshua found no contradiction to pray the Sh’ma, to affirm that HaShem was One. So long as they affirmed this, Ari would have no problem praying here with Baruch and his many friends, even though—
Shouts.
Shouts of joy out in the street.
Ari fought the urge to open his eyes, to run outside and see what was going on.
The brothers of The Way continued the Sh’ma without hesitating. “Baruch, Shem K’vod, Malchuto, le’olam va’ed.” Blessed be his Name of glory whose kingdom shall be forever—
The door of the synagogue flew open with a crash. A small wiry man ran in. “Rejoice!” he shouted. “Rejoice that the Great Zonah is burned with fire! The Dragon is destroyed under the wrath of HaShem! The Queen of Heaven is no more!”
That ended the prayers. A hundred men clustered around the small man, hammering him with questions.
Ari removed his tallit and tefillin and folded them inside his belt, next to his dagger made of Damascus steel. Then he pressed close to listen.
“—destroyed all the city of the Dragon! Our people were spared—the fire did not touch their neighborhoods, but the districts of the goyim are crushed!” The man’s eyes burned with joy. “Be glad and dance! The Great Zonah is destroyed!”
The room shook with cheers.
Ari felt his jaw sagging. He would have expected the Sons of Righteous Priests to act this way, but followers of Yeshua? He pushed his way outside, needing air.
All up and down the street, doors were springing open and men were rushing out into the street, shouting, leaping, dancing, singing. A man held aloft a torch, swinging it around wildly, bellowing foolish words.
Ari wanted to vomit. These people were fools. Rome had burned, but she still ruled the earth. Her legions had not burned, and a city could be rebuilt. Would be rebuilt, according to Rivka.
Rome would come back stronger than ever, and would burn this very city of HaShem. Ari sagged against the side of the synagogue.
Far up the street, he saw a line of women, holding each other’s shoulders and dancing like one of those ill-mannered celebratory snake dances at an American political convention. The women were screaming with joy, ululating in a frenzy that chilled Ari’s blood.
He closed his eyes. Rivka was right. They must leave this city. Soon.
A dozen men burst out of the synagogue of The Way, singing a war song. Baruch followed them, his arms raised above them. “My brothers!” he bellowed.
Nobody paid him the least amount of attention. More men poured out and formed into a circle and began dancing something that looked almost exactly like the hora that Ari had learned when he was growing up in Haifa.
Baruch’s face was red with shouting. With anger. “My brothers, you must stop this foolishness!”
Again, no response from the joyful men. “Mashiach!” one of the newer men shouted. “Come, Yeshua!”
“The birthpangs are on us!” shouted another.
Shimon ben Klopas came out of the synagogue, and anguish covered his face. “My sons!” he shouted.
A few men stopped dancing.
“Stop this evil!” Shimon shouted.
A roar came from beyond the corner.
Ari pressed himself against the wall.
A hundred men came dancing around the corner. “Burned! The Dragon is burned! The Queen of Heaven is fallen!”
A hand clutched Ari’s. Shimon ben Klopas pulled himself close to Ari. “Ari the Kazan, does your woman have a clear word from HaShem on the matter we spoke of?”
“Not yet,” Ari said. “But it will not be long, I think.”
“Please tell her to ask HaShem again about the matter.”
“Yes, my father.” Ari felt a line of sweat running down his side.
Rome had burned. Now Jerusalem was burning too.
Burning with rage.
* * *
Ari
At home, after a quiet breakfast, Ari told Rivka about the celebration while Rachel played with her doll in the other room. Rivka sat in her rocking chair, her face drawn with anxiety. Ari saw wrinkle lines in her skin that he had never noticed before. He patted her arm. “I am sorry, Rivkaleh.”
“About ...?” Her face betrayed that she knew what about.
“The men of The Way. I am sorry that they behaved with such hate.”
Tears stood out in Rivka’s eyes. “I had hoped Brandon was wrong.”
“Brandon?”
“S. G. F. Brandon. A British scholar.” Rivka brushed the sleeve of her tunic across her face. “He wrote several books about how the early church was not so lily-white innocent as a lot of Christians believe. That maybe most of them were mixed up with the right-wing zealots.”
“And you find this surprising?” Ari said “In America, many Christians are, as you say, mixed up with the right-wing zealots.”
“That’s different.” Rivka put on a defensive look. “This is the early church. It’s supposed to be ... I don’t know. Different.” She sighed deeply. “I just expected better.”
Ari had learned not ever to expect better of anyone. “Shimon ben Klopas asks if you know yet when we are to leave the city.”
Rivka gave a helpless shrug. “I’ll know when I hear from HaShem. Until then, I’m not doing anything.”
“Please listen quickly, Rivkaleh.”
Which was foolishness, but Ari did not know what else to say.
Chapter 20
Ari
THREE DAYS LATER, ARI SAT sweating on a bench in the workshop of Levi the bronzeworker. Ari had designed an improved bellows system that could create a hotter fire. Levi was excited about the prospects of making even better quality steel.
A shadow darkened the open doorway of the workshop. Ari looked up in time to see Brother Eleazar’s massive frame enter. His face was wound up tight and his whole body seemed charged with electricity.
“Shalom, Brother Eleazar!” Levi said. “Ari the Kazan and I—”
“Ari the Kazan, I wish to have words with you.” Eleazar’s black eyes glowed almost red, like the coals in Levi’s fire.
Levi’s mouth dropped open, but then he muttered something to himself and went back to his forge.
Eleazar turned and walked outside.
Ari followed him.
Eleazar stood a few steps down from the shop door, his face dark as a thunderhead. It was the early afternoon lull, and the street was deserted.
Ari came up beside him. “Yes?”
“There has been another massacre in Caesarea.” Brother Eleazar’s voice was thick with emotion. “Our brothers there were rejoicing in the marketplace because of the burning of the Great Dragon. Governor Florus sent out soldiers and seized many of the men. He ...” Tears streamed down Eleazar’s face.
Ari swallowed hard, but a great stone had settled in the back of his throat. “Yes?”
“He crucified fifty men in the public square.” Anguish shrouded Eleazar’s eyes. “Fifty men. Men with wives and children. Men who were merely dancing in the streets.”
Dancing over the misfortune of Rome. Ari did not know what to say. It was wrong of the men to rejoice over the fire in Rome. But was it not far more wrong to crucify such men?
“There is word also from Brother Yoseph,” Eleazar said. His eyes turned hard now, black gems of obsidian. “He is delayed and will not return before next spring. There is a matter he must deal with, but his main business is accomplished.”
Ari did not ask if Yoseph’s main business was to free the priests who were in captivity or something more sinister. If Yoseph had been sent to set the fire, Eleazar would lie about it anyway, and Ari did not wish him to know of Rivka’s suspicions. In any event, it was a relief to know that Brother Eleazar’s deadline would not fall until next spring. That would give Ari more time. By next spring, perhaps he and Rivka and the brothers of The Way would be gone from this wretched city.
Eleazar grasped Ari’s hand in a powerful handclasp. “Ari the Kazan, I must have an answer by Sukkot. You will delay me no more. Wheels are turning now. You will aid my cause or else you will be my enemy. How will you choose?”
Ari’s heart shifted into overdrive. Sukkot? Could he be gone by Sukkot? Already, it was nearly Rosh HaShanah. He could not leave before then, nor could he persuade The Way to leave during the three weeks before the end of Sukkot. The next month was the most exciting of the year, like the month of December in America. He could not escape before Eleazar’s deadline.
“Have you made up your mind on the matter?” Eleazar’s words were intense, electric.
“I will discuss it with my woman.”
Eleazar’s eyes showed astonishment, then disdain, then ...
Then something else, but before Ari could identify it, the shutters of Eleazar’s eyes slammed shut.
“Ari the Kazan, we need you. Mashiach needs you.” Eleazar’s grip tightened like a vise. “You are sent to us from HaShem for such a time as this. Do not be found fighting HaShem.”
* * *
Rivka
Do not be found fighting HaShem. Rivka paced the long avenue of the New City, praying her hopes, her fears. She had stayed up late last night, talking with Ari about Eleazar’s words of yesterday. Ari was worried. He had lain in her arms, tense, talking much. Could they leave Jerusalem before Sukkot? Brother Eleazar insisted on an answer by Sukkot.
Rivka was beginning to hate Brother Eleazar. What right did he have to demand that Ari help him? He couldn’t do that. Ari wasn’t going to help him with his stupid war and that was that. No, they could not leave Jerusalem before Eleazar’s deadline expired. Ari was just going to have to stand up to him.
Thank you, HaShem, for sending Brother Eleazar into our lives to test Ari and help him grow. Please give Ari the backbone to say no to the men of violence. And when it’s time for us to leave, please show me clearly. Thank you for giving us this year in Jerusalem. It’s been a hard year, but I’m glad I met Baby Eleazar.
Far up ahead, Rivka saw a crowd forming. They were bunched up around the gate leading out of the northwest corner of the city. This looked like trouble. She quickened her pace.
When she reached the gate, she saw that somebody was going to be crucified. Three somebodies—a squad of Roman soldiers was lowering the last of three vertical stakes into a hole in the ground, tamping in loose stones to wedge it firmly in place.
Rivka wanted to leave, but she could not. At any execution, there was always the grim fear that she might know the victim. She had never yet known anyone who got crucified, but she knew plenty who would probably deserve it—at least in Roman eyes. Rivka stayed to watch, stuffing her knuckles into her mouth.
Several hundred people had gathered to watch the crucifixion. Rivka stood on her toes, trying to see over their heads, but it was useless. She would just have to wait.
Finally, an audible gasp came rippling back through the crowd, and Rivka knew that the first man was going up. Then she saw him and realized immediately that he was nobody she knew. Thanks be to HaShem. Two soldiers raised each end of the crossbar. The man’s wrists had been tied to the bar, not nailed like in all the paintings. The Romans did it both ways, but today they were using ropes.
The victim was a short man, about Rivka’s own height, brown as a bean, and writhing in anticipation of the agony to come. He was completely naked. Medieval artists always put loincloths on their crucifixions, but the Romans had no such scruples. Part of the punishment was the humiliation of hanging up there, totally exposed. Rivka stared in stark horror. The man’s legs kicked wildly, seeking purchase to take some of the weight off of his arms. His face was already blue. Rivka had read somewhere that a man would asphyxiate quickly if you hung him by the arms at that angle.
But the soldiers had no intention of letting him die quickly. Two of them grabbed his ankles and slammed them roughly against the vertical beam. He immediately pushed up with his legs, sucking in a lungful of air, then sagging down again.
The soldiers twisted each foot outward and pushed them upward until his knees were spread obscenely wide.
Rivka wanted to scream, to turn away, to run. But her legs were lead and she could not breathe. Yeshua went through this for me.
A third soldier lashed the man’s calves to the upright stake. A collective hiss went up from the crowd. They knew what was coming next, just as Rivka did.
One of the soldiers ducked out of sight. When he reappeared a moment later, he had a rusted iron spike in one hand and a heavy mallet in the other. He put the spike up against the victim’s foot, just below the ankle bone.
Raised the mallet.
Smashed it against the head of the nail.
The man’s head jerked back and he screamed like a baby.
Rage sank its talons into Rivka’s skull. She tasted bile in the back of her throat.
The soldier swung the mallet again. Again. Again. The man’s head was jerking back and forth now in a paroxysm of agony. He pushed up with his legs, took a breath, and screamed again.
The soldiers repeated the process on the other ankle.
Tears swam in Rivka’s eyes now, and she wanted to scream, to run somewhere, to beat her fists on the soldiers’ backs, to do something. But there was nothing she could do, and her feet were encased in ice. She still hadn’t seen the other two men. If she found that she knew one of them, she was going to vomit.
The first man was now doing a horrible dance. That was the only way Rivka could describe it—a death dance. His body weight hanging on his arms prevented his lungs from inhaling. When he could stand it no longer, he pushed himself up a few inches with his cramped legs, applying maximum pain to his shattered ankles. He drew a quick breath, then dropped down again to end the torture in his ankles. And there he hung until he needed another breath.
Over and over again. Rivka had heard of men lasting two or three days on a cross. It was evil unspeakable and she felt blind fury welling up in her heart. There was no reason to kill a man this way. None at all. The Romans were evil and she hated them with an everlasting hate.
Movement.
Rivka held her breath in an agony of suspense. Would she know the next man?
The team lifted the crossbar. This man was bigger. Half his beard was ripped off, and ... he too was a stranger. The soldiers repeated the process of fixing his bar to the stake, tying off his legs, and nailing his ankles.
Rivka wanted to faint. She had heard of mass crucifixions, of hundreds of crosses littering a hillside, the air ripped by the screams of the tortured.
The soldiers disappeared again and now Rivka felt a terrible tingling in her skull. A wave of shocked hisses came rippling back through the crowd. Something truly evil was about to happen. Rivka did not know how it could be worse than what she had seen, but ...
The soldiers stood up again.
Heaved the bar upward, displaying a naked ...
Woman.
She was young, no older than Rivka, with long black hair that hung to her waist in a sweaty tangle. Blood gushed from her mouth, and her eyes were swollen shut. Rivka felt like fainting. She never forgot a face, and she recognized this woman. Her name was Yohana, and Rivka had delivered her first child a few years ago.
The soldiers hoisted the bar up and fixed it to the stake, facing Yohana’s body away from the crowd in the token gesture of modesty that the Romans accorded women.
Rivka whirled and staggered away, feeling sure she would throw up.
A scream shredded the afternoon sky.
Rivka felt her insides tingling with electric rage. The soldiers had nailed one of Yohana’s ankles.
Another scream.
Rivka ran.
* * *
Rivka
Rivka walked the streets for two hours, weeping uncontrollably, stopping often to rest, praying her guts out. Yeshua did that for me. Voluntarily. And he forgave the men who did it.
She could not imagine how he could forgive them. The Romans were evil. The governor must have ordered those crucifixions himself. Governor Florus was Satan incarnate. Rivka knew that there would come a day when he would order many hundreds of those in a single day.
She and Ari would be gone from this city long before then, but many would not. Her people would be tortured, slaughtered, crucified.
An image formed in Rivka’s mind, clear and cold. Years ago, in Berkeley, at an InterVarsity Bible study, she had been studying Matthew in a small group. And some guy had been rambling on about how “the Jews” rejected Jesus, and that’s why God sent the Romans to burn Jerusalem forty years later. Rivka had been ticked off then at the jerk’s insensitivity.
