The Sons of Isaac(117)

For a moment his eyes were bright with all that they were seeing. Bathsheba felt his hand close on hers ever so gently and then relax. His eyes closed, and he was gone from them. Bathsheba bent over the dead form and sobbed. The women of the harem began the terrible wailing for the dead, and David’s mighty men and counselors, tribesmen, officers and servants let their tears flow openly and unashamedly.

Then Nathan the prophet and Beniah the captain of the house guards picked up the royal robe that lay across the foot of David’s bed and the crown that once belonged to the king of Rabboth Ammon whom David had vanquished, and they placed them on Solomon and led him out into the common room where all the leaders of the tribes and men of state were gathered.

All the people came to file before Solomon to pledge their allegiance and acknowledge him as their king. Then the young Solomon turned to Nathan and asked him to bring his mother to stand beside him that all Israel might know that she was indeed a handmaiden of low degree whom the Lord had seen fit to exalt to be the mother of the king.





Book One





AHITHOPHEL





Ahithophel, Chief Elder of the village of Giloh, paced back and forth across the courtyard of his home, kicking the well-curb as he passed. He was not used to waiting. He reached over the stone well-curb and looked down into the depths of his limestone cistern to check the water level. The village could do without grain and fuel, but without water they would be at the mercy of the enemy.

He sat down on the worn stones of the well and stroked his gray beard reflectively. It was hot in his courtyard, and he jerked the long striped headcloth from around his neck and wiped the sweat from his face. “This silence is ominous,” he murmured aloud. “If the battle had gone well we would have heard by now.”

He stood up, flung the headcloth around his neck, and walked to the steps that led from the courtyard to the roof of his house. As he mounted the uneven steps, his thoughts churned: The Philistines could not have picked a better time to strike. If there had only been a little more time, a month or two, perhaps Saul would have seen his mistake and made friends again with David, his captain, and the men who had followed him into exile.

He paused to catch his breath at the top of the stairs and looked out over the cluster of houses and the city wall to the road, which the young men of Giloh had traveled toward their meeting with the Philistines in the north. The road was now ominously empty; no donkeys with wares to trade, no women carrying jars to and from the well. He leaned over the parapet and looked south where the road led down to the desert around Beersheba and the caves of Adullam. “Thank God,” he muttered, “my son is with David and not fighting the Philistines at Gilboa.”

The roof was beginning to cool at this time of day, and Ahithophel usually left it to the women who spent their time there weaving at the loom, which sat under the grapevine that climbed from the lower garden and fanned out over the western portion of the roof. Usually there was the steady sound of the worn, wooden shuttle, whispering through the cords, but today there was no sound from the loom. As his eyes became accustomed to the late afternoon sunlight, Ahithophel noticed that both Reba, his wife, and Noha, the wife of his son Emmiel, were at the loom as usual but were sitting motionless. This added to Ahithophel’s impatience. He liked to feel things moving and throbbing around him.

“There’s no reason to stop the loom,” he said to them. “If there were bad news we would have heard it.” Noha obviously had been crying, and now she covered her face with her mantle and wept louder. Impatiently he turned to his plump, efficient little wife. “Reba,” he ordered, “see if you can stop this foolishness. There’s no need for her to cry. Emmiel is with David and his men. Whether Saul wins or loses today, my son is safe.”

Noha rose from the loom sobbing uncontrollably. “Emmiel is not with David’s men,” she exclaimed as she hurried past him. “He went with the army of Saul to fight at Gilboa.”

Ahithophel looked as though he had been slapped. He seized Noha by the arm. “It is not true. My son is with David and his men in the south.”

“Emmiel has gone to fight the Philistines at Gilboa,” she insisted through her tears.

Ahithophel dropped her arm and glared at her. “How do you know this?”

Noha checked her tears and met his gaze with red, swollen eyes. “Emmiel told me he was going,” she sobbed as she fled down the steps to her room.

Ahithophel was astounded. His only son, Emmiel, the apple of his eye, the delight of his ear, had neglected his wife and left his own fields and flocks to share the life of an outlaw with David and his men. Ahithophel had counted on Emmiel’s bitterness toward Saul to keep him from the battle.