“You all know that two equal loaves of bread, the first fruits of our labors, are always presented to God at the Feast of Pentecost. I believe that it was God’s design to show us that the first fruits of His Kingdom would be shared equally by Jews and Gentiles. Now we must leave Jerusalem, but we know that wherever God sends us we will be taking the Gospel with us—until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled.”
“Have the armies surrounded the city as Yeshua said they would?” Ehud asked.
“Not yet, but they’re coming,” Nathaniel replied. “Three Roman legions sent by Emperor Nero have landed at Acco. General Vespasian commands more than thirty thousand troops and support personnel. If he marches through Galilee, the village of Degania will be directly in his path. It’s time for us to pray for our Lord’s guidance.”
The meeting went late into the night as the people prayed for one another and sought the Lord’s leading for each family. Leah’s entire household decided to flee the country with the main body of believers who would seek refuge in Antioch until it was safe to return. They would pack their belongings and leave together at dawn on the first day of the week. But in spite of Leah’s fervent prayers, she found no peace in that decision.
When the prayer meeting ended, the fellowship in Degania broke bread together for the last time, remembering Yeshua’s words:
“This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
Leah was taking down her hair in preparation for bed when she heard someone pounding on the front door. Had one of the brethren forgotten something? She decided to let the servants answer it and had just climbed into bed when Miriam came to her room, lamp in hand.
“Who was at the door?” Leah asked.
Tears filled the servant’s eyes. “Get dressed. You need to come. They’re Zealots.”
A lump of dread plummeted to the bottom of Leah’s stomach as she quickly put her clothes back on and followed Miriam through the darkened house to the front door. She heard the clamor of men’s voices, dozens of them, before she even reached the central courtyard and saw the flickering shadows of torches on the walls. At least fifty strangers were swarming into her house, peering into her reception hall and the other rooms, piling their bedrolls and weapons in her courtyard. She could tell by their filthy clothes and rugged appearance that they were one of the roving gangs of Zealots. They held old Ehud captive, roughly pinning his arms behind his back.
“What are you doing? Let him go!” she cried. At the sound of Leah’s voice, one of the Zealots whirled to face her. “Gideon!” she breathed when she saw his face. He was barely recognizable beneath layers of dirt, a thatch of unkempt hair, and a scruffy beard.
“Leah?” he said in amazement. “Your servitude should have ended years ago! Why are you still here?” He roughly brushed her hair aside to see if she wore the earring of a bond servant in her ear. He seemed relieved to see that she didn’t.
“Please, Gideon, tell them to let Ehud go,” she begged. Gideon signaled with a wave of his hand, and the man holding Ehud released him. The latent power she glimpsed in that simple gesture unnerved her. “Are you in command of these men?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Leah studied his face, searching for a sign of the brother she once knew, then shrank back from the glint of savagery she now saw in Gideon’s eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I happen to know that the tax collector is dead,” he said. “Since he no longer needs this house, I’ve decided to appropriate it for my headquarters.”
There was a note of triumph in his voice that sent ice down Leah’s spine. She grabbed Gideon’s hands and searched them for Reuben’s ring. When she saw that they were bare, she dropped them again as if his touch would poison her.
“Did you kill him?”
He gave a lazy shrug. “What difference does it make to you who killed him? He was our enemy, Leah, a filthy Roman collaborator, and a—”
“He was my husband!”
Her words and the cold fury with which she spoke them silenced him. He stared at her for a long moment, then said, “That pig made you his concubine?”
“No, Gideon. He made me his wife.”
“You’re lying! Why would he marry you when he could have had you whenever he wanted?”
“Because he loved me . . . and I loved him.”
Gideon shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Ask Abba! Ask him about the dowry Reuben paid—twice the price Abba named! Abba told me it was my choice. He said he wouldn’t sell me to Reuben ben Johanan a second time, and I chose to marry him! Do you want to see the legal certificate the scribes wrote?”
Leah could see that her words had shaken Gideon. But his stunned disbelief lasted only a moment before swiftly turning to rage. He drew back his hand and slapped Leah across the face.
“How could you! How could you prostitute yourself with that man? Wasn’t it enough that he bought you the first time? Did you have to sell yourself to him a second time?”
“I loved him,” she said as tears rolled down her stinging cheek. “Haven’t you ever loved someone?”
He didn’t answer.
The other Zealots had been searching the entire villa, rounding up all the servants. Now they herded them into the courtyard, most of them dressed in their nightclothes. One of the men had Nathaniel. Another held Elizabeth. Leah prayed that no one would tell Gideon that she was Reuben’s daughter.
“The villa is mine,” Leah said, drawing a deep breath for courage. “You and your men can have it, along with everything in it. I’ll even give you the deed. But please, let the servants go.”
“No,” Gideon said coldly. “I’ll need the women to run the household. The men will fight with us. Everyone stays.”
He turned his back on her without another word and began issuing orders. He divided the servants into two groups—Leah and the women in one, the men in another—and assigned two of his men to guard them while they slept.
“We must pretend that Elizabeth and Nathaniel are servants,” Leah whispered to the others in the darkened room. “They will do the same work as the others. We can’t let Gideon know who you are, Elizabeth.” Leah stayed awake for most of the night praying, trying to decide what to do. As the sun began to rise, she finally had a plan.
“We’re going to prepare a huge feast for Gideon and his men,” she told the servants the next day. “We will serve them Reuben’s best wine, a year’s supply if we have to. When the men are drunk, we’ll quietly leave for Antioch with the other believers.”
At first Gideon was reluctant to allow so much food to be wasted on a feast, but when he saw how the idea appealed to his men, he relented. He relaxed around the banquet table with the other Zealots, just as Leah hoped he would.
“Don’t let the soldiers drain their wine goblets dry,” Leah instructed her servants. “Refill them as soon as they’re half empty.” She made the rounds outside herself, making sure the sentries standing watch at the doors had plenty of wine, too. The guard at the back gate hesitated.
“I shouldn’t drink, my lady. I’m on watch.”
“What are you watching for in Degania?” she said, laughing. “Stray dogs? Why should the men inside have all the fun? Here.” She gave him an entire wineskin filled with Reuben’s aged wine. Close to midnight, the drunken sentry fell asleep, leaning against the gatepost. Most of the men in the banquet hall had passed out as well.
“It’s time to go,” Leah told Nathaniel and the servants. One by one they quietly filed past the sleeping guard with their belongings.
“Where are your things, Mama?” Elizabeth asked when she reached the gate with Miriam and Ehud.
“I need to distract Gideon a while longer so he doesn’t notice that everyone is gone. I’ll catch up with you later.” But old Ehud saw through her words.
“You’re not coming at all, are you,” he said quietly.
Leah glanced at Elizabeth, dismayed to see that she’d heard, then shook her head. “I believe that the Lord wants me to stay here with Gideon.”
“I can’t leave you, Mama!” Elizabeth cried. “You have to come!”
“You belong with Judah now. The two of you must marry when you get to Antioch and begin a new life there together.”
“Not without you!”
“Yes, with each other. You can read and write, Elizabeth, and you have your father’s Torah scrolls. You and Judah and the others can help spread the Good News. We are to be Yeshua’s witnesses to the ends of the earth, just as He said. People need to see God’s Kingdom in us, the living stones of His temple. Your work is there, but mine is here. This is the spiritual sacrifice I need to make.”
“These might be the men who killed Abba! How can you stay with them?”
“I don’t know . . . but I do know that we’re commanded to love our enemies. Gideon is my brother. It was my fault that he was once beaten by the Romans. And Reuben added to his bitterness by refusing to forgive my father’s debt and making Gideon his servant. My brother has never seen what God is really like. The Pharisees showed him a God who is a nit-picker, waiting to reject him whenever he failed and broke His laws. The Sadducees showed him a God who favored the rich and despised the poor. The Zealots showed him a God who demands vengeance and wrath against unbelievers. How can I expect Gideon to see what God is really like, to see Christ’s forgiveness and love, if I don’t show him?”
“Oh, Mama!” Elizabeth cried, clinging to her. “How can I leave you?”
“You must. Take care of her for me, Ehud—for Reuben’s sake. See that she marries Judah. Be happy, Elizabeth—”
“Where do you think you’re going, Leah?”
The voice that suddenly came out of the darkness behind her was angry and harsh. She turned, startled, and saw Gideon standing just a few feet away from her, swaying slightly. His eyes were reddened with anger and wine, his voice slurred.
“I’m not going anywhere, Gideon. I’m staying here to see that the household is run for you . . . but please, let these others go.”
“Why should I?” He pulled a knife from the sheath on his belt and took a staggering step toward them.
“Because Reuben let you go free. I begged him to have mercy on you after you ran away, and he did. He could have sent the Roman troops after you.”
Gideon gave a drunken laugh. “The joke was on him, then.” He tipped his knife sheath upside down and caught something as it fell out of the bottom. He held it out to her.
Reuben’s ring lay in the palm of Gideon’s hand.
In that moment, Leah hated him more than she ever thought it was possible to hate someone. Rage and grief boiled up inside her until she was angry enough to kill him. He had brutally murdered the man she loved, had mutilated his body. She nearly rushed at Gideon, but the sound of Elizabeth’s sobbing stopped her. It was more important that her daughter and the others go free.
“If you killed my husband, Gideon, then you owe me.” She slowly dropped to her knees at his feet. “I once begged Reuben for mercy like this—for you—and he let you live. Now I’m begging you. Are you as much of a man as Reuben ben Johanan was?”
“Shut up!” The words exploded from him in a burst of rage.
Leah could see it churning inside him as Gideon’s chest heaved, his face contorted. She feared she had gone too far. He grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet, twisting it painfully.
“Go on! Get out of here, all of you!” he yelled, then turned to stagger back into the house.
Elizabeth reached for her hand. “Come on, Mama.”
Leah longed to go with her, to turn her back on her brother and never see him again. She hated him for the murderer that he was. But the words of Christ pierced her heart, convicting her.
“I can’t go, Elizabeth. I have to stay here.”
“Mama, no!”
She took Elizabeth in her arms and held her daughter close for the last time. “Yeshua taught us to pray, ‘Forgive our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.’ That’s what I must do. God be with you, Elizabeth.”
Then Leah released her and hurried into the house behind her brother.
THE VILLAGE OF DEGANIA—
A.D
. 66
D
egania is impossible to defend,” Gideon’s dinner guest said flatly. “The village has no walls, no fortresses, and no buildings that are suitable to convert into a fortress in the short time that remains.” Leah lifted the flask to pour him more wine, but he covered his goblet with his hand and shook his head. “You’ll need to evacuate all of the townspeople.”
“What about this villa?” Gideon said. “We could—”
“No. Impossible. This place is too . . .” He circled his hand in the air, searching for the right word. “Too rambling. There are too many approaches to defend.”
Leah could see that her brother was unhappy with that decision, but his guest was Joseph ben Mattathias, the commander of the Jewish forces in Galilee. Gideon knew better than to argue with his commander in chief, even if the man was a few years younger than himself and inexperienced in combat.
“Very well,” Gideon said stiffly. “Where would you like my men and me to serve?”
“I’ve decided to send you to Gamla,” Joseph said, reclining against the cushions. He absently plucked a date off the platter Leah held out to him. “It’s the main Zealot stronghold east of the Sea of Galilee.”
“I know where Gamla is,” Gideon said. He remained seated upright at the table, even though the meal was finished.
Leah thought that his dislike of the commander was ill-concealed. The only reason Joseph had been given the position, Gideon said, was because he was a relative of Jonathan the Hasmonean high priest. Joseph had even argued against the Zealot rebellion initially, before finally joining it earlier this year.
“Then you know how important that fortress is to our cause,” Joseph said. “The support we hope to receive from our Jewish brethren in Babylon will arrive by way of the main road that passes near Gamla.”
“How many troops will be posted there besides mine?”
“Oh, not many at all,” Joseph said, reaching for another date. “It isn’t necessary. I supervised the reinforcement of its defenses myself. Gamla is quite impregnable.”
Gideon raised his wineglass in salute. “Let’s hope you’re right,” he said before draining it.
“I am right. In fact, my dear,” he said, reaching for Leah’s hand, “you would be wise to take refuge there as well.”