Take This Cup (15 page)

“Run!” I shouted to the hart, but the great buck did not run. He held his ground. Bucking fiercely, he tossed the attackers
off. They crashed into rocks and tree trunks. Stunned and confused, they scrambled to their feet and circled unsteadily.

Then the buck turned on them. He attacked, striking with sharp hooves and powerful legs. Bellowing with rage, he swung his antlers right and left. Impaling the leader, he lifted and tossed its body hard against a boulder. The wolf whined, raised its head once, then collapsed. It did not get up.

Now the pack wove their approach warily. The hart backed his rump against the tree. Using the tree as protection for his hindquarters, he lowered his head and positioned his antlers at a deadly angle. He was directly beneath me.

A brash young wolf darted in, attempting to sink its fangs into the hart’s leg. One hard kick to the head sent the creature sprawling into a heap. It did not rise.

Now the enemy band pulled back and skulked at the edge of the clearing. The hart did not move away. For just an instant he lifted his head as if to signal me that this was our chance to escape.

I climbed down until I was in range of the hart’s broad back. Holding to a branch, I lowered myself until my toe touched the hart’s shoulder. The buck snorted impatiently.

Three of the wolf pack crouched in order to attack.

What if I missed the mark? What if I fell to the ground and was pounced on?

My fingers were slipping. It was now or never.

The bark cut into my palm, reopening the recent wounds.

“Oh, Lord!” I cried. Releasing my grip, I fell heavily, slipping to the right of the hart’s broad back. Lunging, I grasped the antlers and pulled myself onto the deer, finding my balance.

In a flash the hart leapt into the air. Soaring over wolves and fallen timbers, he tore through the woods. I shouted with
exhilaration as we outran the baying pack. The hart jumped the brook easily and bolted up a steep embankment, leaving the pursuers in the dust.

We ran for miles, the hart never tiring. The howling of the pack fell away. After a time we were alone in the wood. The wind rushed in my ears and the voice whispered,
“Take this cup! Nehemiah! Cupbearer to the King . . .”

The enemy was defeated, far behind us, yet still the hart and I galloped on.

The hart’s pace slowed to a measured, steady tread, but the travel continued a very long time. Finally the great buck entered a narrow passage between an overhanging pair of thorn bushes.

We emerged from the tunnel in a meadow enclosed on all sides by a thicket of acacias so closely planted their branches were interwoven to form a spiked fence.

The hart’s herd already rested in the clearing. An outer ring of bucks, hail and strong, protected an inner ring of older animals. In the very center of the two circles were the does and fawns.

The buck carried me into the heart of the herd and stopped. Gratefully, I slid from the beast’s back to the soft grass. As the buck moved away to graze on tender shoots, I recognized I also was extremely hungry.

The herd watched me for a moment, then accepted my presence.

Turning out the contents of my pack produced plenty to eat. I brushed the remaining dirt from a wild carrot and took a bite. Selecting from the other items collected, I cracked, shelled, and enjoyed a handful of nuts, then tried an onion.

An inquisitive fawn approached. Stretching a velvety nose close to my hand, the young deer sniffed the onion, then sneezed and backed up a pace. I coaxed it to return by offering a chunk of carrot, which the fawn accepted, while I ate two apricots and enough berries to stain my hands dark red.

When the feast concluded, I was thirsty. Once again, the hart showed the way. At the far end of the enclosure, beneath the boughs of fragrant myrtle trees, a spring of clear water bubbled up to fill a rock-lined pool. The antlered head bent as the hart drank, then the buck sidestepped out of the way, allowing me to approach with Joseph’s cup.

The sweetness of myrtle blossoms surrounded me as I dipped the cup into the pool. “The scent of Eden,” Rabbi Kagba called the oil of myrtle. “It’s why myrtle is one of the things we wave to celebrate Tabernacles. It takes us back to a time of innocence, a time Messiah will first embody and then restore.”

It had to be Tabernacles by now. The attack on Father’s camp had been between the Day of Atonement and the start of this, the next feast. We shepherds spent much of our lives dwelling in tents like the children of Israel in the wilderness. But here I was, on the Feast of Tabernacles, sheltered in a booth made by the hand of the Almighty from the very outgrowth of Eden. It was on such a night that all devout Jews invited the exalted wanderers—the patriarchs and the prophets who had gone before—to join us for the feast.

I filled the cup to the brim, swallowed a mouthful of cool water, then drained it. Back on the dense matting of springy grass, I was satisfied. Now exhausted, I curled up with the cup under my arm and fell asleep . . .

Almost immediately I heard someone call my name.

“Nehemiah?”

The sound alerted me but caused me no anxiety. “Who’s there?”

“My name is Zaphenath Paneah,” a pleasant, youthful voice announced.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” I returned. “Not a Hebrew name. Sounds Syrian?”

“Farther south.”

“Egyptian?”

“Bravo,” the voic
e applauded. “You guessed it.”

“Where are you? I can’t see you. Is this a dream?”

“Perhaps. I am a Dreamer of Dreams myself.”

“That’s what Rabbi Kagba called Joseph the Patriarch.”

“A brilliant man, your rabbi. A scholar and a good teacher. The two are not always the same. So, I am Zaphenath Paneah, which means Revealer of Secrets . . . but I was born Joseph, son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Abraham,” he repeated. “My great-grandfather.”

“I dreamed about you before, only I couldn’t talk with you. So this
is
a dream!”

“Again, perhaps. Or perhaps I was sent to you, cupbearer to the King, to reveal secrets to you and to answer your questions. You do have questions, don’t you?”

“About the cup? Of course! Many! And why can’t I see you?”

A slender, dark-haired, clean-shaven male form wavered slightly, then snapped into focus. “Better?” Joseph asked. “Now, a few questions for you. First, do you know why I hid my cup in Benjamin’s grain sack?”

“The rabbi says it was a test. You wanted to see if your other brothers would leave Benjamin to save themselves, or if they were truly sorry for having sold you into slavery. Had their hearts been changed?”

“And they passed the test,” Joseph agreed. “Why is my cup now in your possession?”

“Rabbi Kagba says I am to take it to the Messiah. He believes a man named Jesus of Nazareth is the Anointed One, and he wants me to deliver your cup to him.”

“Why?”

I was puzzled by the query. “Because he told me to.”

“You misunderstand me,” Joseph the Dreamer corrected. “Why should Messiah receive it?”

I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. To honor him?”

“Truly, but there is more. Do you remember how I was freed from prison in Egypt?”

“When Pharaoh’s cupbearer remembered how you could explain dreams and brought you to Pharaoh.”

“And the cup came to me in gratitude from both Pharaoh and the cupbearer. But it is more than that. It is the symbol of my redemption. It represents the faithfulness of the Almighty in redeeming my life from the pit . . .”

“Yes.”

“From slavery . . . from false accusations . . . from imprisonment . . .”

“All those,” I acknowledged. “Yes, yes, and yes.”

“And since Pharaoh made me the authority in Egypt, second only to himself, the cup came to represent how I was honored. Now pay attention.”

“I’m ready for you to go on.” Somewhere nearby a deer snorted and moved in the darkness. How much of this was only a dream?

Joseph resumed his tale. “When famine came to all the land, I was able to save my family because I was then in a position to
help them, you see? I was able to redeem them from death, just as I had been redeemed from death myself.”

“So the cup is important?” I offered.

“Exactly. It is first a cup of suffering, because of what I went through in order to receive it. Next, it is the cup of redemption. And it is also the cup of God’s faithfulness.”

“Explain that bit.”

“All the way back when my brothers tossed me into the pit and then sold me, God knew that many years later I would be able to save my family. And I am a shadow.”

I frowned. “I was right. You are a dream.”

Joseph continued as if I had not interrupted. “I was a shadow of things to come. I was betrayed by my brothers because of envy. Sold for pieces of silver. Carried away in chains. Falsely accused. But I rose from there to save my entire family. From before I was thrown into the pit, God already knew what the end result would be. Remember this: The Almighty is never taken by surprise. And his plans always succeed. No matter how desperate a situation may appear, he is working constantly for your welfare.”

I summed up: “This is what Rabbi Kagba said: ‘What man means for evil, God means for good.’ ”
²

“Well done, cupbearer,” Joseph praised. “Your rabbi will be proud. Just remember what I have said. Think on it as you go to meet Messiah, because he is the final revealer of secrets.” Joseph’s form began to shimmer like a reflection in a pond when tiny ripples mar the surface.

“Wait!” I asked. “Don’t go. I have many more questions.”

“Don’t worry, cupbearer,” Joseph the Dreamer replied as he faded from view. “You will see me again. We have many miles to travel and many secrets to unfold before you reach the goal of your journey. Sleep, Nehemiah. Sleep.”

Chapter 14

I
t had been a day since I had last drunk water, and my throat and mouth were parched. I knew the hart was also thirsty, yet he did not slow his pace or stop to rest.

He carried me through a narrow canyon of rich red sandstone. Its course ran north and south. Stone buttresses were worn smooth as glass from the water of an ancient river. Though the path was something men would not follow for fear of becoming lost, the hart seemed familiar with this secret route.

The sun had risen hours ago in the east, but I could not see it, and the wadi floor remained in deep shadow. As the sun climbed higher, daylight dripped slowly down from the top of the wall like a waterfall. Etched into the stone I saw a pattern shaped like a cup, tipped as if to pour out golden liquid onto me.

At high noon the sun appeared briefly as it reached its zenith. For a few minutes it beamed directly down on us. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished over the western rim of the canyon. Among the shadows on the east wall thorn bushes grew, and I saw a shape something like a crown.

There were no other footprints in the fine white sand of the dry bed—only the hart’s. I thought perhaps this course had held Eden’s pure head waters. And when the hand of the Lord had
lifted Paradise into the sky beyond the reach of mortal men, the spring had also been lifted.

I looked up, certain now that the sky was not the sky at all. Heaven’s cobalt blue stream flowed above me. If only I could mount up on wings like an eagle, I would drink from those heavenly waters and never thirst again.

Removing Joseph’s blackened cup from its pouch, I held it up to the sky river and cried, “Please, fill this cup, Lord. Let me drink. I am thirsty!” My voice echoed and the walls resounded with my complaint.

The hart did not pause but continued on as darkness descended and the river above me became dark and sprinkled with stars. I fell asleep as Orion stepped across the gulf . . .

When I opened my eyes, it was nearly dawn. We had emerged from the canyon, and the hart knelt beside a spring of fresh water. I stepped from his back and dipped the cup into the cold, bubbling liquid. I drank deeply and sat beside where he lay. We watched together as dawn pushed back the darkness from a valley far below us.

Again, I slept.