The Strength Of His Hand Part 37

and lifted your eyes in pride?

Against the Holy One of Israel! ...

But I know where you stay

and when you come and go

and how you rage against me.

Because you rage against me

and because your insolence has

reached my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth,

and I will make you return

by the way you came.

This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows by itself,

and the second year what springs from that.

But in the third year sow and reap,

plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

Once more a remnant of the house of Judah

will take root below and bear fruit above.

Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of a.s.syria: He will not enter this city

or shoot an arrow here.

He will not come before it with s.h.i.+eld

or build a siege ramp against it... .

I will defend this city and save it,

for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!

When he finished, Hezekiah handed the scroll to Eliakim. Then Hezekiah bowed his head to the ground once again as the tears came, and he praised his holy G.o.d.

__________.

Iddina headed for his tent after he had delivered Sennacherib's message to Eliakim. He had planned to shout to the people lined up on the wall as he had the last time, instilling fear in their hearts, inciting them to rebel against their foolish king. But he felt strangely weak and dizzy, and he lacked the strength to shout. He would wait to see if Hezekiah surrendered voluntarily first. He had plenty of time for frightening speeches.

As he walked to his tent, Iddina noticed that an eerie stillness had spread throughout the camp. He had trained his men to set up their siege in silence in order to instill terror, but this silence seemed different. Usually he could feel the tension in the men as they stayed alert with expectation. But today the soldiers seemed lethargic and dazed. They stood at their posts or sat in front of their tents listlessly. Maybe they were battle-weary. Perhaps he should have allowed them to rest for a day after their victory over the Egyptians.

Iddina felt lethargic, as well. His head swam, and sweat poured off him as if he stood under a blazing sun, but the weather was cloudy and cool, just as it had been for weeks. A jolt of alarm shot through him when he remembered the dying priests' strange tumors.

Iddina detoured to his officers' tents. He would order his men out of this stupor and put a spark back into his troops. But Iddina found the officers' camp deserted. It looked as if it had been hastily thrown together.

"Captain? Where are you?" he called. He opened the flap to the first tent and ducked inside. The smell of vomit overpowered him. The captain lay sprawled on the floor a few feet from his sleeping mat, moaning.

"What's the matter with you?" Iddina asked. He turned him over and saw the same symptoms he had seen in the three priests-swollen face, bloodshot eyes, s.h.i.+very with fever. "Answer me! What's the matter with you?"

The officer replied in a jumble of feverish words that made no sense. Iddina squatted beside him and raised the man's arm, searching for tumors like those he had seen on the priests. He found none.

"Food poisoning," Iddina said aloud. "You must have eaten spoiled meat. It's happened to troops in the past and no doubt it will happen again. In twenty-four hours you'll be well again, in time to accept King Hezekiah's surrender and march into the city." The captain groaned and rolled away from him to vomit.

Iddina found his other officers sick inside their tents, as well. None of them had tumors in their armpits. Relieved, Iddina returned to his tent. His own aide looked droopy and listless.

"Call me if there's any answer from King Hezekiah," he told him. Then Iddina sank down on his sleeping mat. The sensation of sweating and s.h.i.+vering at the same time felt very odd. Suddenly the food poisoning struck him, too, but he fought the urge to vomit. He probed his armpits. They were tender, but he found no tumors.

"I'm not afraid of you, G.o.d of Judah," he mumbled as he drifted to sleep against his will. "The G.o.ds who have brought me victory over all the nations will soon bring me victory over you, as well."

Iddina slept restlessly, his sleep filled with feverish nightmares. When he awoke and saw the sun lying low in the west, he felt a surge of fear. How had he slept so long? He wondered what had awakened him, then heard a trumpet sounding in the distance. He crawled to the door of his tent. It came from the highest point in the city, from Yahweh's Temple.

"You won't defeat me," he said aloud. "I'm not afraid of you." But as he s.h.i.+vered in the late afternoon shadows, he felt an intense anxiety he couldn't explain. His heart hammered rapidly in his chest for no reason at all.

He pulled himself to his feet and staggered to the nearest tent, the ground whirling and spinning beneath his feet. The movement made him nauseous. He found the commander-in-chief of the a.s.syrian army s.h.i.+vering on his pallet.

"Who's there? Is that you, Shams.h.i.+?" the commander asked.

"No. It's Iddina."

"Where's Shams.h.i.+? I need him."

"Probably sick like the rest of us."

"Am I going to die?" the commander asked, and Iddina saw the terror in his eyes. He had never seen it there before, in spite of all the battles they had fought together. "What ... what are you doing?" the commander cried as Iddina probed his armpits.

No tumors. Iddina sank to the floor, weak with relief.

"You're not going to die," Iddina said, trying to convince himself. "It's food poisoning. It'll pa.s.s in a day or two."

As he groped his way back to his own tent, Iddina looked out over the camp. It was so quiet he could hear the moans of the impaled men, halfway across the valley. He saw no movement anywhere. He couldn't stop trembling, and he wondered if it was from his fever or his terrible fear. Something wasn't right. How could the entire camp be so still? He wanted to shout and awaken everyone, to scare away the demons that lurked behind all the tents, waiting for him, but he lacked the strength.

He felt another wave of nausea, even though he had eaten nothing all day. His stomach should be empty. But Iddina couldn't stop himself from being sick. When he saw the huge quant.i.ty of blood he had spewed up, he crawled into his tent and fainted.