Spies in the Promised Land by Jonah Kain

Author:Jonah Kain [Kain, Jonah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jonah Kain
Published: 2012-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

DAY 8

After the last night of their encampment on the mountain range which had guided the spies since Arad, which continued onward, further north, running up the course of Canaan like a spine—but which they would now be leaving—the spies awoke on its Western slope to the warmth and presence of the sun but not its brilliance, it being hidden somewhere on the other side of the range, blocked, for the time being, by the precipitous cliffs. They all rose together, silently, camped as they were under a protruding sheaf of rock, exposed to the wind if not the elements (which were seemingly absent for this location, this time of year), but hardly finding better in the dark of the evening before; they would, in other circumstances, not have gone searching for shelter in a Canaan night, but it was as if they needed to leave the physical sight of conflict. There seemed, too, to be a reluctance to look back, as if the Eastern side, charged as it was with the first tangible spark of their conflict, was now something to be eschewed.

As Kalev glanced at the others, he felt them look back at him with equal chariness, but could not be sure if this was genuine or just a fabrication of his over-alert mind. One thing was certain: there was a palpable tension in the air. Each man went for his mann, his morning prostrations, and Kalev could not help thinking they looked like some odd rainbow, each decked in the color of his tribe. Indeed, as he watched, the colors seemed to pulsate, take on a presence of their own, and Kalev realized for the first time that they—he—were much more than individuals—they were each representatives, of thousands and thousands of tribe members. Whereas before they journeyed as one, on behalf of the nation, now they seemed to journey as twelve, each on behalf of his own tribe. For Kalev, as representative of the royal tribe of Yehuda—one of the biggest and strongest, most holy and most puissant, donning the color of the sea and sky, of the covering of the Holy Ark—this meant he was a highly charged figure; if not for this, he suddenly realized, the others may have killed him long before.

He wondered, when they finally made it back to the nation, when they all delivered what would surely be conflicting reports, if there would be inner turmoil; if perhaps the other tribes would pair off against his and Yehoshua’s; if there would be civil war, divergency, half the nation turning away and half advancing on Canaan. This had never occurred to him. Could half the nation take Canaan?

They began their descent in silence, each falling in tandem behind the other, Yehoshua and Kalev last, all caked with grime, eyes heavy from prolonged tension and lack of sleep. It had been an incessant ascent since the valley of the Sea of Salt, culminating, these last few days, in one of the highest mountain ranges

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