Queen of Sheba (20 page)

In turn he shared with her the news of Jerusalem and, what was more important, the customs and practices of these people that were so foreign to her. Jeroboam’s loyalty had gradually shifted until finally, without even being aware of it, he had made the Egyptian princess his first concern, the object of his whole attention. She for her part rewarded him by announcing that she was adopting him as her son. She also made it clear that as her son he would have equal claim to the throne with Rehoboam.

Jeroboam was an intelligent young man. He understood just what the princess wanted from him and he was immensely flattered. Looking back he could see that from the moment she had arrived in her ebony palanquin, curtained in gold drapery and painted with peacock feathers, she had totally replaced the true queen, Naamah, and all the other wives and concubines in Solomon’s heart.

Naamah’s anger had been terrible to see. It was rumored that she had sworn destruction on the princess and her cat god, and there had been charms and incantations against the Egyptian made regularly at her shrine to Moloch in the Valley of Hinnon.

Despite all this, only the sacred cat had suffered while Tipti had not been visibly hurt or moved unless, as some whispered, she had been cursed
with childlessness. It was obvious that though she ruled Solomon’s heart temporarily, with his death her influence would end and Naamah with her hated son would be in charge.

So, Jeroboam had become Tipti’s solution. Like the Egyptian princess in the past who had drawn Moses out of the water and had adopted him, she, Tipti, had chosen a son, a son she felt was far superior to Naamah’s son Rehoboam.

Passover had come and gone, the Omer had been counted for fifty days and the Feast of Weeks had been celebrated with the wheat harvest. It had been a good harvest. Now it was early summer and the beginning of the dry season and the ripening of fruits. It was the perfect time to build and restore granaries and cisterns, strengthen walls, and repaint or whitewash the mud and dung walls.

Tipti had brought artists from Egypt to restore her frescoes and had appointed Jeroboam as the one person to whom they were all to be responsible. It seemed that she was with him constantly. Before the workers arrived in the morning, she gave him instructions and after they left at night she detained him. “We need to go over the work and see if it meets our approval,” she said.

On this day it was the frescoes they examined. “You see,” she said, “in Egypt there is sunshine all the time and everyone is happy.” The fresco they were examining was of wild geese in a marsh on the delta. Jeroboam thought it was much more appropriate than the picture that had been there before. The central figure had been Bastet, in the form of a lion-headed man holding an ankh, though the jackal-headed Anubis with the scales of fate and the recorder of destiny the ibis-headed Thoth, were quite prominent also.

They moved from the frescoes out into the courtyard, where Jeroboam noticed that the doors of the cat shrine were closed and workmen had been rearranging the whole area to look like an Egyptian garden. Vines had been trained to crawl up over the bare stone surfaces, small trees seemed to spring out of openings in the pavement, but most amazing were the water lilies that now floated on her pond. “See, my brother sent these from his own garden,” she said proudly pointing to them.

Jeroboam was always impressed with the magic she seemed to produce in everything she touched. His eyes glowed with admiration. “You must miss Egypt very much,” he said.

In all the years Tipti had been in Jerusalem no one had ever understood her yearning for home, and she was immediately touched beyond measure. “I wish it were possible for you to go study in Egypt. That’s where someone with your talent belongs. But since that isn’t possible, I have other plans for you.” She smiled and patted the cushion beside her.

“Plans?” Jeroboam said sitting down rather diffidently, as he wasn’t used to the familiarity with which she treated him now.

“Yes, yes,” she said with a smug smile, “I pulled you out of that disgusting work at the Millo so you could be here, where we can more easily make our plans.”

“Yes, of course,” Jeroboam said, “and I’m grateful to you. I’ve worked my men hard building the Millo and they haven’t been too pleased.”

“That’s another reason I’ve wanted you here. People must associate only pleasant things with you if my plans are to succeed.”

Again Jeroboam looked puzzled and Tipti looked around to see if anyone was listening. Then in a very low voice she began to explain.

“As I’ve told you, there are going to be big changes here very shortly. The countries that have been bypassed by Solomon’s fleet are furious.”

Jeroboam’s eyes grew large and bright with excitement. “The queen of Sheba is on her way here. Is that part of the plan?”

“Undoubtedly. My brother and Hadad, Rezon, and the queen of Sheba all plan to come against Israel at one time. They’ll depose Solomon and his foolish son and I’ll have you ready to ascend the throne. It is all so simple.”

“It sounds simple but …” Jeroboam was hesitant. Everything was moving so fast he found it hard to comprehend just what she had in mind.

“It is simple. By the time all of them are ready to march against Solomon, we’ll have our plans completed.” She pushed back the coarse black hair of her wig and looked at him with a long calculating gaze. “Secrecy is important. No one must know.”

“Is it certain that the queen of Sheba is joining with the others?”

“Of course. She has to. Why else would she be making this long trip?” Tipti’s words were sharp and her eyes were hard as emeralds.

“I’ve heard from the traders that she’s coming to prove Solomon with hard questions.”

Tipti toyed with the fringe on one of the cushions. “Don’t believe such foolishness,” she said. “Supposedly she’s coming in peace, but once here, you’ll see, she is one of Solomon’s worst enemies.”

As always in Jerusalem, though the sky was still light, dusk descended on the narrow streets and lanes within the city. The pillared portico that edged Tipti’s pool was shadowed. A slight breeze blew across the lily pond just as the silver trumpets within the great temple area announced the time for evening prayer. Tipti motioned for her small serving girl to light the oil lamps and was about to order a cool drink when Jeroboam rose and knelt beside her.

“My most revered queen, could you spare me for two days?”

Tipti was stunned. “Spare you? Why?”

“I need to go to the holy place at Shiloh. There’s a wise man of God there. I need to ask him if the God of Israel will be with me in this plan of yours.”

Tipti was at first affronted and indignant that Jeroboam would dare to submit her plan to one of Israel’s uncouth, ragged, holy men. She sat up very straight, her delicate face flushed with anger and then just as quickly her whole demeanor changed. “That’s just what you should do,” she said. “I’m sure that if the God of Israel has any wisdom at all, he’ll also see the reasonableness of our plan.”

Jeroboam left Tipti’s small palace glowing with pride and happiness that this austere queen had chosen him to confide in. More than that, she seemed determined to adopt him as her son. He could hardly believe his good fortune. As to her plan to make him the next king, he preferred to consult Ahijah, the holy man of Shiloh, to determine if the plan would succeed.

The next morning Jeroboam rose early and made his way through the narrow village streets of Shiloh until he came to a small shrine. This shrine was all that remained of the tabernacle of Yahweh that once stood here. The shrine was dark and smelled of dry blood and cheap incense. There was something depressing and gloomy about the gray stones and the door
that stood gaping open. It was like a corpse, a dull, dead thing.

Jeroboam turned from its empty interior and made his way through the thistles and thorn bushes around to a gnarled and hoary old tree. This tree had once stood in the outer court of the tabernacle when Samuel and Eli were alive. It was the only thing that even hinted at the glory of what had once stood on this spot.

Jeroboam moved to a better vantage point under a great, spreading fig tree. The sun was just coming up and the birds were beginning to stir somewhere up in the top branches of the tree. From one of the round openings high in the shrine’s wall came the plaintive call of a turtle dove. There was an air of peace that hung heavy over the deserted shrine. “Lonely but peaceful,” Jeroboam decided.

Suddenly, a quavering figure of an old man materialized from the gnarled roots of the tree. His beard was long and smokegray in color, matching his worn and threadbare robe. His hair was white and stuck out in small tufts around his bald head. His bearing and dress were so colorless that it was almost startling to see that his eyes under their heavy eyebrows were piercing and intense.

He reached behind the tree and brought out his long walking stick before he said anything. “Jeroboam,” his voice was cracked and shaky. “You’re Jeroboam ben Nebat. I’ve been expecting you.”

“My mother told you I was coming?”

“I didn’t have to be told. I knew you were coming.” The old man came over to Jeroboam and looked at him intently. His eyes seemed to drill right into Jeroboam’s soul. They penetrated all his defenses, and Jeroboam drew back in sudden aversion.

He was completely unnerved by this ancient priest, who seemed to have become as weathered and tattered as the shrine he guarded. He wondered what answers an old man like this could possibly have.

“I’ve been told,” Jeroboam began, “by persons of influence, that I will become king of Israel after Solomon.” He said the words hurriedly as though they almost burned his tongue.

“And …” the old man said, striking his stick impatiently on the outcropping of rock.

“And I want you to inquire of the Lord to see if it is His will.”

The old man became very agitated, backed off, and began muttering
something Jeroboam couldn’t quite hear.

“What is it, old man? What are you saying?”

“I don’t need to ask the will of Yahweh. It is plain, the prediction must be false. Though you know there is no love for the young prince, still the tribe of Judah and Benjamin will never turn against the house of David. At best you would have only the ten northern tribes.”

Jeroboam reached out to him eagerly and then drew back without touching him. There was something of dust and ashes about him. Something almost unreal. “My father,” he said, “I would be willing to take the ten tribes and rule from Shechem.”

The old man’s laugh was high and cracked. There was no real mirth in it as he said, “You forget Jerusalem. They would have Jerusalem and the temple and that is like having the heart. Without the heart, you would have nothing, my son.”

“Let them worship in Jerusalem if they like. I can rule from Tirzah or Shechem if necessary. We can build shrines and temples of our own.”

Again the old man became very upset. “No, no, my son,” he said, “you don’t understand. If the people go to Jerusalem to worship, they will look to Jerusalem for their king. We can’t compete with Jerusalem.”

“We can build other shrines.”

“Look, my son, at this dead thing,” the old priest said tapping the stone wall of the shrine with his stick. “Never forget this. It is in Jerusalem our God has put his name.”

The old man had become so upset and agitated that Jeroboam backed off. He whispered his thanks, blessed the old man, and kissed the ragged hem of his garment in respect. Then without looking in at the dark, yawning emptiness evident through the open door of the shrine, he hurried away and up the street toward his mother’s small house.

Late the next day he was back in Jerusalem. His fine clothes were limp with perspiration, his short beard and eyebrows were almost white with dust from the road, flies clung tenaciously to his arms and legs. He headed directly to the public bath. He wanted to wash off not only the grime of the road but the terrible disappointment of having the priest of Shiloh negate his ambitious plans.

More than anything he dreaded telling Tipti the old man’s pronouncement. She would, of course, try to find some alternative. She was
not one to give up easily. More than that, she wouldn’t understand that the old man was right. Jerusalem was where the God of Israel had placed His name. Everyone had seen His shekinah glory flood the temple on that first day of dedication. He himself remembered how awestruck they had all been.