The temple had been made for the performance of ritual, not for the convenience of its officiators. Conventional thought held that to terrestrialize the House of the Lord with amenities for man would only drag it down to the dust like every other common thing under the sun. By this thinking, the priestly quarters were built to satisfy the wants of both purity and utility. And for the king and his staff, the priestly presence within the palace gave continual reassurance of God’s favor. But for Samuel, the white robes were a constant reminder of a truth far less exalting. Where others saw holiness, he saw holes.
“Well, it is important to keep in mind that the identities of most of these divinely backed adversaries, and the works they have carried out, were never made known. And never will. The calling of a Satan is one normally assigned and carried out under a cloak of secrecy. But there are a few we know of. For example, there were two raised up against King Solomon when he began to lead Israel down a path of idolatry. There was Hadad the Edomite in the south, and Rezon the Syrian in the north.”
"Do not be troubled about this my lord. Not in the least bit. The children shall not be punished for the sins of the fathers. Any suggestion to the contrary would be a gross perversion of the divinely established doctrines of fairness. Despite any predicaments the previous generation may have left behind, each generation has the ability to choose their own way forward. A clean slate if you will. And this new law you have before you is your clean slate.”
Before beginning, he took a deep breath to clear his mind. He did not need to look up to know that the full attention of the crowd had been placed completely under his sway. Without so much as the chirping of a bird to impede him, he went on to recite the words that would forever alter the course of history.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth …”
Except the guilt wasn’t there. Only the tingle of anticipation as his fingers wrapped themselves around the perfectly contoured bone. Silently it begged for the chance to be utilized in the lethal purpose for which it had been specifically crafted. Somewhere within the fraying fabric of his own humanity, another strand broke loose.
His first footstep landed inside the room without a stir. The king and queen carrying on their snoring song uninterrupted. He reached for his dagger. With the king defenseless under the blade, he would become the most powerful person in all of Judah.
His mother would say that it was a sign. Something ominous, no doubt, finally catching up to him. A bump from the past.
If there was one thing that could be counted on to chase away the ghosts of the past, it was the ghosts of the present.
Despite the ever-pressing need for more buildable space, the homes of Upper Jerusalem stopped well short of the summit. The reason was to ensure the houses of mortals did not ever find themselves looking down upon the House of the Lord across from them. The line of blasphemy as some called it.
The soldier’s shrill cries continued to ring out, only to die at the impenetrable walls of the forgotten valley. But they were scarcely heard by his two bidders, transfixed on only each other. Locked in an unrelenting stare-down. Both probing for a weakness to exploit but finding nothing of the such. The captive was merely incidental to the standoff. On a primal level, both understood this to be the rare showdown where each side was truly implacable. Two characters fashioned by the gods to symbolize the paradox of the unstoppable force coming up against the immovable object.
There was no urgency. No one to save. No one to fight. No arrow aimed at him. If they had wanted him dead, he wouldn’t be waking up to the worst headache he had ever suffered. He supposed he should take relief in that. But he didn’t. The opposite in fact.
Whenever the sun rose to lavish its glory upon the earth, there were some who could find sanctity only in the shadows. The boy was one such creature.
For every Judahite soldier he could see, there were at least two Canaanites to contend with. Fortunately, they did not possess the technique to match their bale-toting strength. Otherwise, they would have all been reduced to fertilizer for the next growing season.
He would have to help himself. Not by controlling the chaos. But by being the chaos. Because in the end, chaos always found a way. Chaos always won.
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The Satan and the Cherubim Overview
