Josiah and Abram were both young, strong men. Neither seemed to be married, or at least Uzziel did not think they were. But at one point in their breakfast conversation, Abram mentioned that his wife Esther had recently given birth to his first child, a boy. He commented on the wonderful blessings that had come into his life, expressing his desire never to lose them.
Uzziel was genuinely happy for Abram, but the conversation died as his eyes knowingly met Miriam’s. The charade Uzziel and Miriam had been playing was too difficult to keep up any longer, and a palpable despair settled over the couple. Josiah tried to comfort them.
“Your daughter will be fine. Surely the Great Creator will keep her safe.”
Uzziel sighed. “Yes, I pray that He will.” He reached for Miriam’s hands. They were cold, and she shivered as he pulled her closer. Dread clouded her eyes.
“My dear little Uzzah… I cannot lose another…” Miriam whispered.
“Miriam,” Uzziel said with a tremor in his voice. “Rachel will come back to us.”
Their eyes held each other’s for a long time, then Miriam stood, sniffling.
“Your food is going to get cold,” she chided as she returned to serving.
Josiah and Abram proved to have the ravenous appetites of youth. They cleared every serving bowl or platter of bread, fruit, eggs, and other items placed before them. Uzziel ate slowly, privately worrying about his daughter.
Abram wiped his mouth on his napkin and sincerely thanked the lady of the house for the wonderful meal and for inviting them to partake without any prior notice. Uzziel apologized again to his wife and kissed her hand as he rose from his seat, making her blush. Josiah and Abram stood as Uzziel hugged Miriam close to him.
“Rachel will be fine… she will be fine!” he whispered in her ear, trying to be optimistic.
Miriam sniffed.
“My prayers are with you,” Josiah said.
“And mine,” Abram added.
“I am most grateful for those prayers,” Miriam said as she escorted them to the door. “I’m praying too.”
The soldiers followed the temple priest out as Miriam shut the door, and Uzziel led the way back down the street. At the first intersection, they turned to the right onto Marketway, a cobblestone road higher on the sides than in the middle, a natural drainage ditch in the center. Waste water trickled downstream, carrying an occasional food scrap or piece of straw with it. Although the street was a permanent marketplace, most of the small tents and stands were not yet open on account of the early hour. Even though they were just passing through, Uzziel either waved or briefly chatted with almost every person they met, but Josiah and Abram were patient.
Leaving the marketplace, they crossed a large court, fenced in by buildings on two sides and a massive wall on the north end. Walls of brick and stone provided an immovable complement to the animal pens bordering the wide courtyard, all of which were filled to capacity with sheep destined for the temple just beyond the archway in the high wall. The sheep here were not tended by street vendors, but rather by priests who had the rotating assignment to care for them. All the temple herds had been gathered into the city when news of the approaching armies arrived, and once the courtyard pens had been stocked, the remaining animals were driven into the Karmel-Ramathaim Canyon to graze. There, they would be guarded until the hillsides around the city were again safe.
Arriving at the archway, the high priest and his bodyguards passed underneath and into view of the glorious white granite temple that loomed before them. Each stone used to build the magnificent structure was much lighter, even almost white, compared to the gray granite blocks used in every other wall or building of the city. The walls of the temple were smooth and somewhat reflective, but not so shiny that Aqua and Azure could be discerned in their surfaces. The blue orbs were just high enough in the sky to illuminate most of the temple grounds, which were no less striking than the building itself. Trees with ornately braided trunks, well-groomed shrubs, a stunning fountain on the west end of the plaza, and immense flower beds framed the building on all sides, except for the eastern porch. This area, an expanse larger than the temple itself, had been paved with gray granite flagstones so finely cut, so expertly coupled together, that a person would find it difficult to insert a knife blade between the stones.
The raised porch stood three steps above the rest of the grounds. At its center stood the Rock of Sacrifice-an altar that had been cut from a single massive block of white granite. At the time of the temple’s construction, it took a thousand men and several teams of horses to move the block down from the special quarry in the Karmel-Ramathaim Canyon. Stonemasons worked for several weeks on the rock to shape it, the craftsmanship unparalleled.
The altar featured recessed stairs to reach the top from the west, a large central depression for the fires that burned there every day, wide slots on the other three sides to allow for stoking the flames with additional cedar planks, and an iron grate seated into hewn notches in the top, providing the level surface where the sacrifices would be offered. Each corner of the symmetrical platform also had been carved into the shape of an ox horn-a symbol of both the sacrifices offered there and the Tribe of Uzzah.
Directly east of the Rock of Sacrifice was an octagon-shaped laver, or font, fed and drained by unseen aqueducts beneath the flagstones. Built into the platform, the recessed font enabled those who came for the ritual washing by immersion, or baptism, to descend into it. It was large enough for the priest and the initiate both to stand in the waist-deep water, where they could perform the ordinance without fear of striking the sides of the font.
From the vantage point of the Rock or the font, an observer could gaze up at the single temple spire. It towered far above the hand-carved oak entrance, reaching for the suns. The stepped, cylindrical spire was the most impressive feature of the structure, and the top-most cylinder had been crafted from small, white granite blocks, intermingled with large, exceptionally wide glow-stones from the Hasor mines. The natural prism-like surfaces of the glow-stones spilled rainbow colors and bright shafts of light all around the complex. The capstone of the spire held both stone and crystal together-a semi-globe of pure gold that dazzled the eyes of anyone looking thereon.
Uzziel would never tire of the temple. Gazing upon it brought such deep and poignant feelings to him, he always felt inclined to smile and say a prayer of thanks in his heart for the beauty of it.
Now at the second hour of the day, a group of temple priests arrived to begin their duties. One of the more senior members of the group broke off from the others and approached Uzziel with obvious excitement to see him.
“Boaz!” the high priest greeted as the man approached.
“Peace be to you, Uzziel! What word have you had from the Captain of the Host?”
Uzziel put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and said with some consternation, “I have not spoken to Jeremy this morning, but I fear the outlook will not be good. I went upon the outer wall just as the suns were rising, but could not see the progress being made on the trenches. I would guess, from what I saw yesterday, that there may be only one more day before Gideon is close enough to use the machines.”
Boaz scratched his beard as Uzziel released him. “I’ll join you at the wall with my own bow, if you wish.”
“I know you would. But for now, we’ll leave the battle to the younger warriors,” Uzziel said with a wink.
Boaz gave a low chuckle and patted Uzziel’s arm. “You’re right. My eyes are not as sharp as they were yesterday.”