The Prodigals’ Return
The air in Jerusalem that morning held the peculiar weight of washed stone and old dust. It was cool, the kind of chill that clings to shadowed places just before the sun asserts itself. The people had been gathering since…
The Arrow of Half-Hearted Victory
The air in Samaria tasted of dust and defeat. It was a taste King Jehoahaz had known for most of his seventeen-year reign, a fine powder that settled on the tongue and hinted at barren fields and empty storehouses. He…
Solomon’s Prayer for Wisdom
The air in the chamber was still and heavy, thick with the scent of cedar and myrrh. Solomon, son of David, felt the weight of the crown not as gold upon his brow, but as a stone upon his chest….
The Outrage at Gibeah
The heat had settled into the stones of Bethlehem, a heavy, woolen blanket by late afternoon. Levite. The title meant little here in Judah, away from the hill country of Ephraim that was his home. He shifted on the small…
Joshua’s Northern Campaign
The rain had not stopped for three days. It was a cold, persistent rain, the kind that seeped into leather and wool, that turned the ground of the camp at Merom into a churning bog of mud and trampled grass….
The Cost of Covenant
The sun hung low and angry over the valley, baking the stones until they shimmered. It was the third year of the drought, and the thirst had moved from the land into the souls of the people. We’d crossed the…
The Covenant at Sinai
The air in the desert held a memory of heat, even now, three months to the day since they had stumbled out of Egypt. It was a dry, granular heat that settled in the folds of their robes and made…
Judah’s Road
The road down to Adullam was dust and thirst and the taste of getting away. Judah, son of Jacob, walked it with a slackness in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before. The business with Joseph—that coat, those dreams, the…
The Ark and the Coming Rain
The earth had grown old under a heavy sky. It was not the age of stone or riverbed that weighed upon it, but the accretion of a deeper rot, a settling of spiritual silt in the hearts of men. Generations…
Tested Faith in the Storm
The sea was a hammered sheet of lead under a sky the colour of ashes. Elian wiped salt spray from his beard with a raw-knuckled hand, his eyes on the distant, churning line where water met cloud. The storm wasn’t…