The oil in the lamp was running low, casting long, nervous shadows that leapt along the rough-hewn stones of the wall. Jotham shifted his weight, the familiar ache in his legs a companion as constant as the stars scattered above the sleeping city. From his perch on the northern section of Jerusalem’s walls, the world was a tapestry of silence and deep blue darkness. But the silence, he knew, was a lie.

The words of the petition, brought to the priests just that evening, churned in his gut like bad meat. It wasn’t a formal scroll, just a collection of reports, whispers traded in low voices at the city gates, confirmed by dust-covered runners from the north. A gathering. A conspiracy. The names were a litany of old hatreds: Edom, slithering up from the south; the Ishmaelites, Moab, and the Hagrites from the eastern wastes; Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the men of Tyre. Even distant Assyria was named, a shadow looming behind the rest. They had forged a covenant, the reports said. A single, chilling purpose: “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

Jotham’s knuckles were white where he gripped the stone parapet. It wasn’t just the threat of swords and fire. It was the intent behind it—a will to obliterate memory itself, to make their story end, to erase the footprint of the God of Jacob from the earth. The night air, cool and smelling of damp earth and thyme, felt suddenly suffocating.

He found his mind tracing the contours of the hills he could no longer see in the dark. Over that ridge lay the plain where Midian had fallen, crushed not by Israel’s army but by panic and the sword of the Lord. He thought of Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon, their polished chariots sinking into the mire, overcome by a torrent and a woman’s steady hand. Oreb and Zeeb, the wolfish princes of Midian, their names now just metaphors for God’s judgment. Zebah and Zalmunna, kings who thought their power secure, until a lone avenger answered their taunts.

The prayer rising in him was not a neat, priestly formula. It was ragged, clotted with the grit of fear. *Do to them what you did to them. Make them like whirling dust, like chaff before a gale from the desert. Fire in the forest, flame on the mountain.* The images were not gentle. They were the raw plea of a man who sees the wolf-pack circling his home. Let their own schemes ensnare them. Let their proud names become curses. Let them seek Your name, not in treaty, but in terror.

A soft scuff of sandals on stone. Old Eliakim, the captain of the watch, stood beside him, his face a web of wrinkles in the lamplight. He followed Jotham’s gaze out into the threatening dark. No words were spoken for a time. The shared knowledge hung between them.

“They consult together,” Eliakim finally said, his voice a dry rustle. “With one mind.”

“To wipe us out,” Jotham finished, the phrase tasting of ash.

Eliakim nodded slowly. “The prayer of Asaph… it is a mirror. It holds up their hatred and asks the Holy One to let them see it for what it is. It asks for the storm, not for our sake alone.” He paused, his eyes old and deep. “*So that they may know that you alone, whose name is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth.*”

The correction was gentle, but it landed heavily. Jotham felt a shift within, a settling. The fear was still there, cold and real. But it was no longer a blind terror. It was framed now by a harder, older truth. This was not merely about survival. It was about testimony. The gathering storm was a challenge to a Name.

He looked east, where the first faint smudge of grey hinted at the coming dawn. The conspiring nations were out there, plotting in their tents and strongholds. But the God of the whirling storm, of the sinking chariot, of the drying torrent, He was here. And He was not silent. He was being pleaded with, reminded of His own character, His past deeds, His holy reputation.

Jotham took a long, slow breath. The night was still dark, the threat still imminent. But the prayer had done its work in him, at least. It had turned his eyes from the size of the alliance to the supremacy of his God. The shadows on the wall seemed just shadows again. He adjusted his grip on his spear, a mundane, human gesture in the face of the vast dark. The watch would continue. The city slept. And a plea hung in the air before the throne of the One who was, and is, and is to come. The Most High over all the earth. They would wait, and see what morning would bring.