1 HATHACH AND MELZAR
Could there have been spiritual men in Babylon, many, many years ago…. Well, the land itself was completely pagan. The people didn’t talk about religion, except during holidays, of course. And there were so-called temples and halls where people went to keep up with traditions and rules which let up tension and created unity for all mankind…at least, they said that’s what they were there for.
But one clear, starry night, there was a man in Babylon who sat up in bed staring out into the royal gardens. He thought he noticed something in the sky.
Hathach came from a family of astronomy scholars. His first memories of taking night walks with his father, were when he would be shown the stars and told what they meant and the bearing they had on his life. As he got older, he would be shown how to line them up and find other stars according to the season.
Hathach, the Chamberlain called the eunuch standing out in the hall: “I can’t sleep, Melzar. Please bring me some reading material.”
The real reason the chamberlain called his servant was for their usual meeting. The two had a common passion—looking out at the night sky. Melzar loved star-gazing too. Because of the way his mother raised him, he was drawn to astrological signs. He and Hathach often spent hours together, looking up at the blinking lights others didn’t care about.
“You were saying you wanted what, sir?”
twenty-year-old Melzar backed into the room, his eyes fixed on the sky.
“Melzar! Look this way when your master
talks to you!”
“B-but that Star up there! Surely Hathach,
you saw it! It is still there!
Hathach looked quickly out the window. Yes,
his study of astronomy and Melzar’s nightly star gazing had told them a King
was to be born in the region of Judea. The “King Star” had not gone away.
Hathach shook his head, trying to keep his
mind on things at hand—star-gazing was fine, but he needed to deal with things
right here in Babylon.
Hathach’s ancestor had served the king of
Shushan. One night, when the king could not sleep, he had ordered past records
read to him, and a Jew’s heroism was remembered and rewarded. Most people had
not believed in this Jew’s God, whom they called Yahweh, but it was after this,
they began noticing how this God seemed to care for His own. He had supposedly
protected them from being slaughtered. Surely, that couldn’t happen here in
Babylon!
Melzar resumed his
“official” eunuch-to-master posture.
“I…yes; Melzar, can you go to the hall
where all the records are kept and get me...’The Jews at Shushan’? I’ve been
told about a God, called “Yahweh” and His people at Shushan; but it sounds
far-fetched.
“Yahweh?” Melzar opened his mouth to say
something, but shut it with, “I’ll go get it right away, sir,” and left.
“Right away” took much longer than
expected, but Melzar returned with a scroll. Apologizing for being late, he
handed it to Hathach.
“Melzar, you are interested in this too, I
think?” Hathach had a smile on his lips. “interested enough to maybe do a
little reading on the slow walk back to give the scroll to old Hathach?” Excitedly, he took the scroll from Melzar
and began reading.
Melzar seemed to let down his guard a
little. “Can’t hide anything from you sir. These Jews…I am interested in this
because…Hathach, would you believe my ancestor was once the eunuch responsible for
four Jewish captives? Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego (Dan.1:11).
They, like these Jews at Shushan, believed their God would take care of them.
“Did you pick up the name of the queen’s
chamberlain at Shushan?”
Melzar responded with a broad grin, “Yes,
of course I did! It was the same as yours: ‘Hathach’!” (Esther4:5)
Hathach’s eyes twinkled. “That was my
ancestor.” He paused to let it sink in.
Our family moved here to Babylon since, but we’ve heard the story of
‘Esther and the Jews’ for generations. I wanted to read the record for myself.”
“Well, now you have it in hand—is this not
a happy day.” Something about the way Melzar said it wasn’t right.
“Melzar? What is it?” Hathach caught it
too.
“Oh, I guess I’m happy for you. It’s just that Shushan was recorded and you can read about it. Me and the stories I’ve heard from my ancestors about this Yahweh God is about ‘fiery furnaces’ and ‘lions’ dens’, and there’s no way of confirming it…ever.”
Something in Hathach’s mind told him the
“King’s Star” appearing in the sky was somehow tied in with this Yahweh God.
Without thinking it through, Hathach found
himself saying, “Don’t worry, my young friend, before all this is done, I think
we will have seen with our own eyes more of this Yahweh God than we could
possibly imagine.”
They had to follow that “King Star” and
find out more about this Yahweh God.
Hathach had been a dependable chamberlain
for years. Surely, the prince would give him a pilgrimage now if he asked and
let him take along his favorite eunuch.
But he had heard that Prince Beorn was a
black man of the desert, a mysterious man, only in his forties. Would he be a
cold, hard man? How would he be received? Hathach began to wish he had asked
for his rest when the former prince had been on the throne.
(“Melzar” is
actually the title Head Eunuch, but since he is the only eunuch appearing in
the story, it began to sound like a first name to the trio.)
2 PRINCE BEORN
Prince Beorn is
actually a former slave, brought east during the Revived Babylonian captivity.
(Because of his mixed blood, he looks black but is actually half Jew.) He
cleaned washrooms until one day, a fluke accident caused a high-ranking
Babylonian officer’s cart to overturn near the cesspool where Beorn worked (he
was on duty indoors). The officer’s daughter, thrown from the cart, ended up
clean and unharmed on a boulder in the center of the pool. The only way out was
for someone to wade through the muck and carry her on his shoulders, which
Beorn did.
Of course, those
clothes and shoes could never be used again—but he was given a new tunic,
pants, shoes...
And after that
Babylonian officer’s wife had Beorn showered, shampooed, manicured, given the
fanciest clothes and cologne…that little girl went and gave Beorn the biggest
hug. For people who knew the whole story, well, they couldn’t not cry.
There will always
be the group of people who will not be able to get past skin-deep taboos. They
saw the favors shown Beorn and could only whisper about the “Black Magic he
must have to be able to make people treat him kindly”.
The Babylonian
officer wanted to do something more for Beorn. He couldn’t send him back to his
former menial duties…he had been cleaning toilets before! But there were
prejudiced people in high-ranking offices to deal with, Beorn couldn’t be
placed there, either. So, what ended up happening, was:
Beorn was given
the title: “Minister of Wilderness Development and Preservation”, and given
dominion rights extending over The Wilderness of Sarafi. “After all, Beorn grew
up in the Arabian desert so knew about where to find water, how the wind blew,
how to treat desert animals, adapt to heat changes, etc….; of course, Beorn was
the best man for the post.” his friends said. Altho’ he was “prince”, he had
authority in that land only.
Prince Beorn
had heard from his mother how the God Yahweh is also the God Who sees. Even
when other human beings do not see or understand, a God in Heaven, he had been
taught, does. To the believing, trusting, searching…even to the sinner, this
merciful Yahweh opened eyes to the water of life, she taught him, the way out
even when there seemed no hope.
The older he got,
the more Prince Beorn thought about this God.
One night when he
couldn’t sleep (is this beginning to sound familiar?), he decided to read from
something his mother used to read: the sacred writings. He had clumsily dropped
the scroll on the floor, and when he bent over to pick it up, his eyes fell
onto the words: “There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise
out of Israel” (Num. 24:17). He could hear his mother’s voice. She had talked
about these words. The people here in far away Babylon did not know the One
True God, but Yahweh had His eye on His own, she had said, and would one day
send His own special chosen One to help them. That Star would be a sign in the
sky that He was coming. There would be hope then.
Beorn
straightened himself and looked out the window. Could it be? There was a star,
a magnificent star…and it seemed to be moving!
Someone behind
Beorn seemed to be clearing his throat.
“Your Highness,
there is someone here to see you.”
At a time like
this? The star!
Hathach stepped
into the room, and almost at the same time was on his hands and knees. “Prince
Beorn – Your Highness – your most humble servant has no right to ask this…”
“Yes, yes; get
up; please get up;” Beorn, once a wilderness nomad himself, never really had
use for royal formalities and disliked hierarchy. He waved it away and helped
Hathach to his feet. “What is it?”
Actually, Hathach
had a similar distaste for formality. He liked this new prince better right
away.
“My name is
Hathach. My young eunuch and I, we were wondering if we…we might be given leave
for a pilgrimage to the west…for an undetermined period of time.” This was
harder to say than he had imagined, Hathach thought. But what he had started,
he might as well finish.
“I know it
sounds preposterous. It is just that there have been things we have been
hearing about a Yahweh God…” but Hathach could see Beorn had not the slightest
interest in what he had to say; his gaze had not left the window the entire
time he had been speaking!
The prince muttered a short word softly, then pushed himself away from the window. Then he said it loudly, strongly: “Hope.
Hathach, you and
Mel…zar, I think you said his name was, have full permission to go, only on one
condition.” Hathach held his breath.
“You
take me with you!
Do you see the
star behind me?
“The regal
star?” Hathach thought. Could the prince know about the King being born in
Judea? Impossible! But he was undoubtedly pointing to it!
“It will lead us on our journey;” the Prince was saying. “Tell Melzar to get
packed; get dressed; get his good-byes said; we head west in the morning. Meet
me at the back gate of the city in eight hours—I will bring camels, supplies,
and an explanation. Well, don’t just stand there Hathach; there’s much work to
do, yes?”
“Mysterious” was not strong enough
a word to describe this man, Hathach thought, as he made his way down the hall.
3 STARTLING START
Hathach tapped at
the city’s back gate. Had he been dreaming? Made a big mistake, maybe? The
small door creaked open.
Outside were
three camels, saddled, all loaded with small boxes and bags as well as being
loosely strung together with slip knots. On one of the camels sat a servant,
but the Prince hadn’t come. Well, it wasn’t quite eight hours yet.
Hathach and
Melzar stepped through the door and closed it behind them.
“Is this Melzar?”
the servant sitting on the camel asked. But it was the voice of the Prince!
“Y-yes,” Hathach
replied. “Is that you behind the veil, Prince?”
“Ah. I wanted to
be able to ride easy so dressed like this—but you know these nomad veils are
musts for sand storms. Here, I brought two extras—maybe you can put them in
with your things to use when you need them. And if you’re not expecting anyone
else, let’s go as far as we can while it’s dark and cool. As we go, I’ll
explain why we’re making this trip.”
Hathach had
almost forgotten. Last night, after his visit to see the Prince, he had rushed
home and got out the news to Melzar that the three of them would be heading
west this morning. What had seemed like a reckless quest until yesterday was
actually taking shape right before their eyes today. It seemed this Yahweh God
would show Himself to them after all—He was helping them make this trip, not
just having a prince give his permission for them to do it, it but he was
riding along with them!
“Prince, before
you tell us about your reason for making this trip, we must tell you what
happened before it,” Hathach said, and told him about their star-gazing
findings. “We can’t get away from the notion that a King is going to be born in
Judea, and we must be there to witness it.”
“Yahweh sent that Star I saw in the
window,” Prince Beorn told Melzar. “Just then, Hathach said he wanted to know
about Yahweh God. It was as if Yahweh Himself looked down at me and said, ‘You
dare not deny his request to seek Me!’ So I had no choice but to grant you
permission, you see?”
“So…you saw a
big, bright star that Yahweh sent…” and Melzar closed his lips. Hathach saw
Melzar’s face and finished the sentence for him.
“Just exactly
what does the star mean?”
“Messiah. The
Messiah will be born. I will explain more later.
The wind has
picked up, I’m afraid. Can you get those veils, Hathach? I think a sandstorm’s
coming.”
Not a moment too
soon. No sooner had they dug the hoods out of their things and clapped them on
their heads, the trio was lost in a cloud of gravely darkness. Eerie, swirling,
“bottomless” darkness. Hathach wondered how people survived sandstorms without
veiled hoods. He was glad Prince Beorn had come along on this trip. It would
not be the only time on this trip Hathach would have this thought.
That is, Hathach
thought it was his trip that he had chosen Melzar for and Prince Beorn had come
along; he had no idea this could be a trip planned by Yahweh God for which
Beorn, Melzar, and Hathach, had been chosen.
As soon as the
winds died down, Hathach and Melzar let out a hugh sigh of relief. Sky! They
could see the…what? The prince was telling them to get back on their camels and
move to higher ground. Hurry, he said; he would explain later.
“He always
‘explains later.’” Melzar thought, as they went up the side of a slope and
reached a clump of palms at the top. They had just come out of a sandstorm, and
the sky was beeooti…wait…a cloud was racing across the sky, and it was getting
dark fast. The blowing sand of a few moments ago was replaced with roaring
downpour of water.
“Take cover!
Flash flood!” Prince Beorn’s deep voice sounded small.
The three men and
their camels huddled as compact as they could under the trees, watching the
water shooting past them. It came crashing through the channel where they had
been standing just moments earlier, twisting, lifting boulders, uprooting trees
in the way. But after the storm raged awhile, almost as suddenly as it had
started, everything stopped. There were swirls of sand everywhere, and the
gulley they had been in…well, it was no longer a “channel,” being pretty much
filled up with mud and sand.
“I hope everybody
likes rabbit stew; that seems to be what Yahweh has provided for dinner
tonight.” Prince Beorn’s smiling voice said.
Rabbit stew?
Yahweh provided?
The Prince came walking down from the top of the hill where they had taken refuge during the storm, pulling something out from behind his back. He was holding two rabbits by their feet!
“My father taught
me that after sandstorms, flash floods are very likely. Animals also know this,
so the ones in the desert—who happen to be on lower ground when sandstorms
hit—usually head for higher ground right afterwards. I never thought I could catch
a “cape hare”, but Yahweh has blessed. ‘In the Mount of the LORD it shall be
seen,’ (Gen.22:14) I was gathering herbs when I saw a hare, injured in the
sandstorm, dying at the foot of a bush. Its mate would not run away, so I
caught him too. We can have rabbit stew for dinner tonight, yes? Neither of you
are allergic to rabbit, are you?” They shook their heads.
Prince Beorn was full of surprises.
