The Garden of Eden 9
Now Balak had gone out to meet Balaam that he might take him to the top
of a high hill whence he should curse the Children of Israel. And they
two went together. And Balaam said, “I am come in vain. The Lord God is
against you. Even as I came, the ass on which I rode refused to go and
crushed my foot against the vineyard wall, and the ass said, ‘Behold,
there is an angel in the way,’ and lo, there was an angel with a drawn
sword to keep me back! I cannot do you any good. I cannot curse the
Children of Israel.”
But Balak urged him, and on they went. And as they climbed the hill, at
last the army of Israel came in sight, all in their goodly tents along
the valley, as gardens by the river’s side, and as cedar trees beside
the waters. And Balak built seven altars and offered on every altar a
bullock and a ram; and Balaam prayed amidst the altars, and God told him
what to say, and Balaam cried aloud and blessed the Children of Israel.
Then Balak took Balaam
[Illustration: THE ASS AND THE ANGEL]
to another mountain, to the top of Pisgah, and there built seven altars
and offered on every altar a bullock and a ram; and Balaam prayed in the
midst of the altars, and again he cried aloud and blessed the Children
of Israel. And so a third time, on a third mountain, from the top of
Peor.
Then Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands
together. And Balak said, “I called thee to curse my enemies, and thou
hast blessed them these three times!” And Balaam answered, “That is what
I told you before I came, what the Lord saith that will I speak.” And he
blessed them a fourth time. And Balaam rose up and went and returned to
his place: and Balak also went his way.
XIV
THE WALLS OF JERICHO
The Promised Land, toward which the Children of Israel were marching
through King Balak’s country, was bordered on that side by the river
Jordan. The Jordan flows through a very deep valley from a large lake in
the north to a large lake in the south: the northern lake is called the
Sea of Galilee, and the southern is called the Dead Sea. King Balak’s
land was beside the Dead Sea; so when they had passed through that
country they came to the river, and thus to the first place where they
could cross over into the Promised Land. And on the other side of the
river was a city, called Jericho. The first thing to do was to attack
Jericho.
Moses was now dead, and in his place Joshua was the leader and general
of Israel. Moses had climbed one day to the top of Mount Pisgah, to the
high place where Balaam had stood with Balak, and there had looked over
into the Promised Land. It lay before him, full of hills and valleys, a
good land and a large, with vineyards and olive trees, and streams of
water, and walled cities. There Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had fed
their flocks. Moses had done his great work; he had brought his people
out of Egypt, and had given them the laws of God, and had made them a
nation and an army, and had led them to the very entrance of the
Promised Land. Below were the people waiting and waiting; as they had
waited at the foot of Mount Sinai for Moses to come down. But this time
he did not come. On the mountain top, in sight of the Promised Land, he
died. And Joshua took his place.
So General Joshua sent two men to go as spies to Jericho. They were to
enter very quietly into the city, without letting anybody know who they
were, and, having found out all they could, they were to come back and
report. So they went to Jericho and found a lodging place, and began to
look about. They saw that the town had a wall around it, and that the
gate was shut every evening as the sun went down. And they could see at
a glance that the people were rich. But the men of Jericho discovered
the spies and told the king, and the king sent to their lodging place to
take them.
But the woman of the house, whose name was Rahab, was very good to the
spies. Her house was by the city wall, and on the flat roof there were
stalks of flax drying in the sun. So when the pursuers came knocking at
the door, Rahab hid the spies under the flax, and sent off the pursuers
on a vain search. And when they were gone she took a stout rope and let
down the spies out of her window down the wall, and while the pursuers
ran one way toward the river, the spies ran another way toward the
hills, and so escaped.
And Rahab said, “We have all heard about you here. We know how you came
over the Red Sea, and how the Lord is with you; and we are all afraid.
When you take the town, have pity on me and on my father and mother and
on my brothers and sisters, and save us alive.”
And the spies said, “Bind a scarlet line in this window by which we
escape, and when we come back with the army of Israel we will spare all
who are in this house.”
Then they climbed down the rope, and away they went to the hills, where
they stayed three days till the pursuit was over. And they returned to
Joshua, and said, “The Lord has delivered the city into our hands. They
are all afraid of us.”
Then Joshua sent his captains among the people to tell them what to do.
“The priests,” he said, “shall go down first into the river, and the
people shall follow.” So the priests went, carrying the Ark of the
Covenant; that is, the great chest in which were the Ten Commandments
cut in stone, as Moses brought them down from Sinai. And as they went,
it was like the Red Sea over again. They marched across as if the river
had been a sandy road. And in the middle of the river stood the priests
with the Ark till all the people were gone over. And they took twelve
stones out of the river where the priests had stood, and built an altar
with them on the other side, and thanked God that He had brought them at
last into the good land which He had promised to their fathers.
The next thing to do was to take Jericho. At first, the men of Jericho
came out to fight, but they soon ran back and hid behind their walls and
locked their gate. And the Children of Israel made a camp around the
city so that nobody went out or came in.
And Joshua said, “Form a procession: first the armed men, then seven
priests with trumpets, then the Ark, and then the people. And march
around the city. Let the priests blow their trumpets, but let all the
rest of you keep silence. Let nobody speak a word, until I tell you to
shout. Then shall ye shout!” So they marched around the city, and the
people of Jericho looked on from the walls in great amazement. And the
next day, they did it a second time; and the third day a third time, and
so on for six days.
At last, on the seventh day, the Children of Israel rose up very early,
just as the sun came up over Mount Pisgah. And that day they went around
and around the city seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh
time, when the priests blew with the trumpets a longer and louder blast
than ever, Joshua cried to the people, “Shout! for the Lord hath given
you the city.” And all the people shouted with a great shout. And the
walls fell flat, and the armed men marched straight in and took the
city.
Indeed, the walls were already falling that day when the spies climbed
down over them hand under hand on Rahab’s rope. For the true walls of a
city are the stout hearts of its citizens, and these had failed for
fear. Thus the Children of Israel began the conquest of the Promised
Land. But they spared the people who were in the house which had a line
of scarlet bound in the window on the broken wall.
XV
THE WEDGE OF GOLD
There was a soldier in the army of Joshua whose name was Achan. He had
taken part in the siege of Jericho. He had marched before the Ark around
the city; he had joined in with all his might when the army shouted with
a great shout; and he had rushed with the others into the streets when
the walls fell flat.
Now Joshua had given strict orders that no man should take anything for
himself. All the gold and silver and whatever else was of value was to
be saved for the Lord: it was to be put into the common treasury. But
Achan had stolen something.
The citizens of Jericho were neither strong nor brave to fight, but they
were rich. The sun beat down upon the town, and the mist came drifting
in from the river, and it was very hot there, and the heat made the
people weak; but they lived in handsome houses, and wore fine clothes
every day, and had money to spend. To Achan, who had been born in the
wilderness, and had never known any other roof than the top of a tent,
and had never seen a city in all his life, the houses of Jericho seemed
like the magic treasure houses of the fairy stories.
So when Achan came with the other soldiers, running though the Jericho
streets, and breaking into the houses, he looked about him with great
surprise. And when, at last, in one house he found a wedge of gold, it
blazed in his eyes like the sun shining in the clear sky at noon. Beside
the gold was a glittering pile of two hundred pieces of silver, and a
splendid cloak made in Babylon, stiff with embroidery and colored like a
jewel. And Achan was so dazzled by these riches that he did not see the
difference between right and wrong. He took them for his own. Under his
gown he hid them, and back he hurried to his tent, and then he dug a
hole in the earth in the middle of the tent and buried them.
The next day, Joshua sent two spies to visit the next city, which was
called Ai. And they came back and reported that Ai was only a small
town, and that there was no need to send the whole army to take it.
Three thousand men, they said, would be enough. Now Ai was built upon a
hill. So up the soldiers climbed, expecting a quick and easy victory,
but the men of Ai came out to meet them like a pack of bears and tigers,
and the men of Israel turned their backs like scared sheep, and ran away
down the hill as fast as they could go, and the men of Ai after them.
So it was a great defeat.
And Joshua was troubled exceedingly, and he and all his captains tore
their clothes and threw dust upon their heads, and lay down on the
ground before the Ark all day; for that was the custom when men were in
great distress of mind.
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